Sitting of 11 January 1994

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

    Tanks
    Mr. Riddick: To ask the secretary of state for Defence what plans he has to procure more tanks for the Army; and if he will make a statement.
    The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Malcolm Rifkind): I announced on 1 December that, subject to the negotiation of satisfactory contractual terms, we intend to place a further order with Vickers Defence Systems for up to 259 Challenger 2 main battle tanks.
    Mr. Riddick: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the announcement that the Government intended to buy 259 further challenger tanks was warmly welcomed by David brown Gears in my constituency, because the company makes the challenger gearboxes? When exactly will the order be placed? Can my right hon. and learned friend confirm that such an order would not have been possible if the Government had had a defence policy of cutting defence spending by £7 billion, as Labour has, or a policy of cutting it by 50 per cent., as the Liberal democrats have?
    Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend is certainly correct in saying that our announcement should have important employment implications in Leeds, in Newcastle, in his constituency and elsewhere because of the implications for many subcontractors. The actual date for placing the order will depend on the successful negotiations that we hope to have with Vickers. My hon. Friend is, of course, entirely correct in believing that such a proposal could not even have been entertained with the defence budgets to which the Labour party and the liberal Democrat party appear to be committed by their party conferences.
    Mr. Mudie: Will the Secretary of State accept the thanks of the Vickers workers in my constituency for defeating the Treasury and placing the order? Will he confirm that he is determined to resist further approaches from the Treasury and that the order will become a reality as soon as possible?
    Mr. Rifkind: We were able to place the proposals before Vickers because we defeated the Labour party at the general election. If we had failed to defeat the Labour party, the hon. Gentleman's constituents would not be as satisfied as they clearly are today.

    Helicopters
    Mr. Barry field: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what time scale he envisages for the tender of helicopters for the armed forces.
    The minister of state for Defence procurement (Mr. Jonathan Aitken): For our attack helicopter requirement, tenders have already been received and are being assessed. For our support helicopter requirement, we are currently entering negotiations with Westland and with Boeing.
    Mr. Field: Does my hon. Friend agree that the negotiations for the Royal Air Force support helicopter can be completed by the end of May this year and that the negotiations for the attack helicopter can be completed by April next year? Can he confirm those dates? Does he agree that the 50 per cent. defence cut proposed in the Liberal Democrat defence policy and a reduction in nuclear arms

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    do not fit easily with the strong words of the leader of the Liberal Democrats? Is it any surprise that the music at the Liberal Democrats' parliamentary ball was provided by the zig-zags?
    Mr. Aitken: My hon. Friend is broadly correct in his estimate of the time scale for attack helicopter procurement. The support helicopter negotiations are likely to take several months longer than he anticipated. All I can say on the zig-zags in Liberal Democrat policy is that if any Government implemented the defence cuts for which the Liberal Democrat conference called, the only helicopters that they would be likely to buy for our armed forces would be those on sale in toyshops.
    Mr. Hardy: As the Wessex is in its 30th year of service with the Royal Air Force, when does the Minister expect it to be replaced? Does he believe that the Air Mobile Brigade will be able to maintain adequate heavy lift capacity?
    Mr. Aitken: The Wessex remains an extremely effective and good helicopter despite its age because it has been consistently well maintained and its parts have been replaced. We are now studying proposals for replacements for the Wessex. In response to the hon. Gentleman's second question, yes, we are confident that the Air Mobile Brigade can be adequately supported by helicopters.
    Sir Jerry Wiggin: Will my hon. Friend get back to the basics of warfare by reminding the generals that, at the end of the day, the important thing is to get men on the ground? Instead of spending money on tanks, which are rapidly becoming redundant, he might seek to modernise the British Army by spending the same on helicopters.
    Mr. Aitken: One of the many virtues of the EH101 helicopter that my hon. Friend has championed in Adjournment debates and elsewhere is its survivability. That quality is appropriate to the future of support helicopters in addition to lift capability, which is also an important consideration.
    Mr. Martlew: In April 1987, the then Secretary of State for Defence assured the House that the Ministry of Defence would place an order for 25 EH101 s for the RAF. In December last year, the present Secretary of State told the Select Committee on Defence that the negotiations would start immediately for the purchase of the EH101 and Chinook. Why has the Minister told us today that those negotiations will be subject to even further delay?
    A decision in June will be too late and the fact that the hon. Gentleman has said that the negotiations will last for many months beyond that will cause great dismay at Westland. Seven years' delay is long enough. Does he not realise that the EH101 creates good jobs in Britain for British industry, and that it is much needed? Why a further delay?
    Mr. Aitken: The last time the hon. Gentleman intervened in a debate on this subject, he accused me of deliberately rushing through decisions on helicopters for party political purposes. Now he has accused me of going too slow. The reason that there has been a delay since 1987 is that, unlike the Labour party, the world has changed since then and there have been important security alterations in the balance of power. We have, quite appropriately, had to consider carefully what helicopters are necessary for that changed security environment. We
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    are now moving forward at a pace which we believe pleases most objective observers, including those at the helicopter companies.

    Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Greenwich
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he is having discussions at ministerial level with the Department of Health concerning the future use of the Queen Elizabeth hospital in the borough of Greenwich.
    The Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Mr. Jeremy Hanley): Discussions are continuing and, subject to the resolution of outstanding issues, both Departments would hope that agreement on the question of the possible sale of the hospital to the Greenwich Healthcare Trust will be achieved in the near future.
    Mr. Bottomley: I welcome that information. May I say that the services provided by the hospital are held in great regard and affection in Eltham, Woolwich and the rest of the borough of Greenwich. It would be a fine thing if the Queen Elizabeth military hospital could become the replacement for the Brooke on the other side of Shooters Hill and absorb some of the services from Greenwich district hospital as well.
    Mr. Hanley: Satisfactory levels of medical and clinical activity will be sustained during the period, and we envisage that there will be shared use at the hospital. I am pleased that the resolution of matters is now rapidly concluding. Some financial and other details need to be dealt with in the next few weeks, but I hope that the matter can be put out for consultation in late spring or early summer, resulting, possibly, in a sale by the end of the year.
    Mr. Raynsford: Can the Minister be a little bit more precise about the implications of shared use? How many beds are likely still to be required by the MOD at the hospital in the years ahead? How long will the MOD require millitary use of that hospital, thereby determining the date on which it will finally become available to the national health service?
    Mr. Hanley: Two hundred and three beds, by 1998.

    Bosnia
    Ms Hoey: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the latest developments in Bosnia.
    Mr. Hanley: The Government will continue to provide support to United Nations humanitarian relief operations in Bosnia through the winter.
    Ms Hoey: I am sure that the whole House will want to pay tribute to the work that our British troops are doing in Bosnia. Is the Minister aware, however, of the credibility gap that is undermining both NATO's role and that of the UN because of their failure to take sufficiently severe action against Serbian aggression? Will the Government now support immediate selective air strikes to get the airport at Tuzla reopened and, most of all, to lift the siege of Sarajevo?
    Mr. Hanley: The hon. Lady is absolutely right to pay tribute to what is being achieved by the British contingent in Bosnia. I know that the whole House would want me to

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    congratulate it, especially as we approach the most difficult months of the winter. So far, 1,675 convoys have been escorted by British troops—more than 80,000 tonnes of aid. In addition, more than 1,000 flights have been carrying aid to Sarajevo and more than 14,500 tonnes of aid have been delivered in that way.
    The hon. Lady is not right, or fair, to say that there is a credibility gap. We are helping to save countless thousands of lives in Bosnia, and countless thousands of people are being kept alive by our efforts. We believe that there is a balance to be achieved in carrying out that United Nations resolution. I repeat the NATO summit declaration that we restate our commitment to air power. The NATO summit also called for further action by UNPROFOR to draw up plans to deal with the blockage of the rotation of troops at Srebrenica and we are considering ways in which to make efforts to examine whether Tuzla airport can be reopened. We are doing a great job of which I am proud.
    Mr. Wilkinson: May I express my appreciation for the appointment of Commander, United Kingdom Land Forces, Lieutenant-General Sir Michael Rose as general officer commanding-designate of United Nations forces in the former Yugoslavia? Will my hon. Friend tell the House whether the general officer will go out to the theatre with any new political instructions from Her Majesty's Government or other United Nations countries with troops assigned to the theatre?
    Mr. Hanley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his tribute to Lieutenant-General Sir Michael Rose. He will assume command of the United Nations protection force in Bosnia-Herzegovina soon, and shall be out there by the end of month; and I know that he will carry out his task superbly. He is a magnificent soldier, and no change in role is foreseen.
    Mr. Menzies Campbell: Does the Minister agree that the language of declarations threatening air strikes is much less significant than the political will that lies behind such declarations? The Government have shown little enthusiasm for air strikes over the past 12 months. What has changed that we should now believe that the Government have the political will to carry them out?
    Mr. Hanley: If the hon. and learned Gentleman is questioning the political will of the nations that came together at the NATO summit and reconfirmed the commitment to air strikes, as they had done in August, he will see that it is the strongest commitment that could have possibly been given towards air strikes. If he watches in the days ahead, he may realise that our commitment is a darn sight more than his party's commitment to defence. Instead of mouthing generalities, NATO is getting on with the job.
    Mr. Cormack: Does my hon. Friend accept that any ultimatum given to Serbia or the Serbs following today's declaration must be clear and unequivocal, and that if it is not accepted, it must be followed by action?
    Mr. Hanley: I accept that threats are credible only if it is believed that they are likely to be carried out. However, we hope that the action that they are threatening will not take place. If the actions by others not to carry out the sort of acts that have occurred recently—happily, it seems that there have been fewer shelling attacks on Sarajevo
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    yesterday and today—perhaps the threats will have worked. There certainly remains the political will and the military capability to carry out those threats if necessary.
    Dr. David Clark: The Prime Minister's much-touted claim this morning to have persuaded NATO to strengthen its stance on bombing of the Serbs in Bosnia stands ill with the long official communiqué from NATO which merely dismissed the matter in two short sentences beginning with the words, "We reaffirm". In view of that, can I ask the Minister whether there has been any change in NATO and Government policy, or whether this is merely another example of PR hype?
    Mr. Hanley: Of course it is not a matter of pure PR hype.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Is there any change?
    Mr. Hanley: The hon. Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark) degrades the efforts of the NATO countries in coming to their conclusions and in bringing clearly to the attention of the world their intentions with regard to Bosnia.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Is there any change?
    Mr. Hanley: It is easy to be dismissive of help in—
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Is there any change?
    Mr. Hanley: The hon. Gentleman at the back is chattering away and saying, "Is there any change?"
    Madam Speaker: Order.
    Mr. Hanley: There is change daily in Bosnia. We react daily to the situation in Bosnia. We are helping to save lives in Bosnia, and we are making sure that we have the wherewithal to act if the situation gets worse in Bosnia. We will continue to do that. There is no media hype. The Prime Minister will report to the House in due course on the summit.
    Mr. Viggers: Does my hon. Friend agree that air strikes, however selective, increase the risk that the British forces, as part of the United Nations, could be perceived as the fourth side in the civil war? Will he ensure that Her Majesty's Government do not enter into any commitment that they cannot fulfil?
    Mr. Hanley: I can assure my hon. Friend that if there were air strikes, they would not be taken unilaterally by the United Kingdom forces but would be part of the international effort. Therefore, I do not believe that the United Kingdom should be seen to be a fourth party. However, my hon. Friend is right to say that air strikes change the situation and make it more difficult to deliver aid on the ground. That has to be borne in mind with each passing day.

    Home Defence
    Mr. Flynn: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what new proposals he has to improve the defence of the British Isles.
    Mr. Rifkind: The Government's plans for the defence of the United Kingdom and for our wider security interests are detailed in the White Paper "Defending Our Future", and in my evidence to the House of Commons Defence Committee on 1 December.
    Mr. Flynn: Is not the greatest danger to Britain and the rest of the world the proliferation of nuclear weapons, especially to the new tyrannies that are growing up from the right and the left? Is it not an act of insanity for Britain to commission THORP, which will create enough plutonium to make 50,000 nuclear weapons in the next 10 years, and to export the plutonium to the four corners of the world? Was the Secretary of State consulted on the defence implications of the commissioning of THORP?
    Mr. Rifkind: Naturally, I was involved in the discussions that took place on the matter. I am entirely satisfied that the hon. Gentleman's assertions are plain nonsense. First, we have not the slightest intention of exporting any of the material to countries that do not conform absolutely to their international commitments. Secondly, the material in question could not, without the most extreme difficulty, be converted for any military purpose. The hon. Gentleman appears to be unaware of that.
    Mr. Mans: In relation to the defence of the United Kingdom, will my right hon. and learned Friend look closely at the potential threat that is likely to develop towards the end of the decade of a surface-to-surface missile attack on this country from various emergent nations in the middle east?
    Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend is correct to draw attention to such a problem. We already have reason to believe that countries such as Libya have a missile capability that could threaten Italy or parts of southern France. As the years go by, it is possible that a range of such missiles could penetrate much further north. It is one of the new emerging threats of which NATO as a whole and Britain must take increasing account in our future defence plans.
    Mr. Maginnis: Is the Secretary of State aware that, in terms of the defence of the United Kingdom, and despite the wishes of the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland, the IRA has already decided to reject any opportunity of peace, and is simply trying to find a way of rejecting the Downing street declaration? Is he satisfied, in the light of that information, that regiments such as the Parachute Regiment are adequately manned for the role that they have to carry out in Northern Ireland? There are reports that such regiments are having to depend on the territorials to make up numbers. Can the Secretary of State tell us what the knock-on effect on our special forces will ultimately be?
    Mr. Rifkind: First, I am sure that the whole House will unite in condemning the vicious attack in the past 24 hours in Crossmaglen, which resulted in serious injury to two soldiers serving in Northern Ireland. It is not unusual for individual territorials to serve in Northern Ireland, but I am conscious of the fact that it is important that any unit, whether serving in Northern Ireland or elsewhere, should be as fully manned as possible. One reason why I announced last December an increase of some 3,000 in the field Army was precisely to help ease the difficulties that occasionally occur.
    Mr. Devlin: On maximising resources for the defence of the United Kingdom, why is my right hon. and learned Friend allowing the Navy to empty a large office building in my constituency at the Royal Navy spare parts
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    department and then to construct a new building—to all intents and purposes exactly the same—in the Bath area, as part of the new Naval Support Command?
    Mr. Rifkind: I understand my hon. Friend's natural concern on behalf of his constituents. I assure him that the proposal to which he refers was strenuously examined. We concluded that it was right to go ahead with that proposal only because we were satisfied that there would be substantial cost benefits for the armed forces.
    Mr. Donald Anderson: The Secretary of State must have been made aware over the past months of the anxiety among senior Territorial Army officers that, although the forces at their command are adequate now, if the proposed cuts are implemented, they will not be adequate for the task of regenerating British forces. What reassurances can he give our TA that it will have the capability to carry out the assigned task of regenerating our forces?
    Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman refers to proposed cuts in the TA. I am aware of no such proposed cuts. A review is going on into the future size and structure of the TA, but it has yet to make recommendations to Ministers. The hon. Gentleman's comments are premature, to say the least. He should be joining in the welcome that the TA has given to the Government's proposal to make much wider and more flexible use of the reserves. We published that proposal recently and, as the hon. Gentleman should be well aware, it has been widely welcomed throughout the Territorial Army.

    Tracker Radar
    Mr. Burns: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he hopes to place a contract for the conversion of type 911 tracker radars to meet the requirement for vertical launched Sea Wolf on type 23 frigates.
    Mr. Aitken: An order for the conversion of the type 911 tracker radars is currently planned for the spring.
    Mr. Burns: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer, which will be warmly welcomed in my constituency. If the contract is placed with Marconi Radar, it will help to safeguard jobs there. However, will my hon. Friend seek to clarify exactly what "the spring" means? Is there a chance that the contract will be determined before 31 March? Will the contract be similar to the original contract bid put out in August 1992?
    Mr. Aitken: All that I can say in response to my hon. Friend, remembering his assiduous representations in Adjournment debates and at other times on that subject, is that we will do our best to try to ensure that spring comes a little early to Chelmsford this year.
    Mr. Nicholas Brown: Will the Minister take this opportunity to congratulate the shipyard workers of Tyneside on the quality of the type 23 frigates that they have already delivered to the Royal Navy? Will he also confirm that the Ministry of Defence regards Swan Hunter as an important supplier of equipment to the Royal Navy, and that it envisages a future for Swan Hunter, in spite of its present difficulties? Will he now list the work that could be immediately available to Swan Hunter were it purchased by a private sector shipbuilder?
    Mr. Aitken: I am certainly glad to pay a warm tribute to the high skills of Tyneside shipbuilders in general and Swan Hunter in particular. I confirm that we should like to do everything possible to ensure that Swan Hunter has a future. For that reason, we have not only let the existing type 23s continue to be finished there but have provided some extra work in the shape of the rectification contract on Fort George. In terms of future work that Swan Hunter might be able to win, I believe that a tender is now out for a ship life extension programme of landing ship logistics for which I think Swan Hunter may be bidding. Of course in future we should like to see a new owner for Swan Hunter to guarantee its viability, but in terms of technical quality there is no reason whatever why Swan Hunter should not submit a first-class bid for that or other MOD work.

    Defence Budget
    Mr. Alan W.Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the defence budget for 1992–93 as a percentage of gross domestic product; and what are the planned figures for 1993–94 and 1994–95.
    Mr. Rifkind: The defence budget was equivalent to 4·1 per cent. of gross domestic product in 1992–93. It is expected to be 3·7 per cent. of gross domestic product in 1993–94 and 3·5 per cent. in 1994–95.
    Mr. Williams: Against that background of contraction in the defence budget, the Minister will know of my concern about the proof and experimental establishment at Pendine in my constituency. I understand that the final recommendation on rationalisation of the direct labour test and evaluation is on the Minister's desk. Can he give some idea when decisions will be made and say whether they will be announced in the form of a statement to the House?
    Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman is correct in assuming that we are at a fairly advanced stage in considering the matter to which he has referred. We hope to come to a conclusion in the next few weeks.
    Mr. Allason: Will my right hon. and learned Friend confirm that the figures include alleged savings made by the closure of HMS Malabar? Will he explain why that closure was announced on the day before Christmas recess when very few hon. Members were present, although he had given an undertaking that important closures of that kind, of strategic Royal Navy bases, would be made in the House and not leaked to the press the day before an announcement was made?
    Mr. Rifkind: I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is being most uncharitable, and that is in increasingly characteristic form. He ought to be aware that the naval significance of the base that he mentions is not of the same order as in the past. At present, it is largely used merely for rest and recreation. Modern frigates do not require refuelling in the way that was required in the past. We have had full consultations with the Government of Bermuda, and it is right and proper that we should not incur unnecessary expenditure. I pay great tribute to the important part that HMS Malabar played in past years. However, modern technology and requirements mean that it is no longer necessary.
    Ms Rachel Squire: Does the Secretary of State agree that a sensible approach to public expenditure on defence is to seek value for money? If he does, will he explain why he is planning to waste taxpayers' money and lose control of vital strategic interests by going ahead with the privatisation of the two dockyards?
    Mr. Rifkind: I do not think that there is any question of losing control in the way that the hon. Lady suggests. As she is aware, both yards were contractorised and have been run by the private sector for several years. That has led to substantial improvements in both yards. It is in the long-term interests of the yards for them to be transferred to the private sector.
    Mr. Streeter: Can my right hon. and learned Friend confirm that any reduction in the budget for 1994–95 will affect support services and not our front-line capability? In particular, will he confirm that every aspect of our support services, including fleet maintenance, will be subject to impartial and rigorous scrutiny so that we can ensure value for money for the Navy and the taxpayer?
    Mr. Rifkind: Yes, I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. It is right and proper to have rigorous scrutiny of ways of reducing the cost of providing the defence services that are needed. I am happy to confirm that, in doing that, we are determined not to reduce the fighting capability of our armed forces.

    Russia and European Security
    Mr. Gapes: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he next plans to meet the Russian Defence Minister to discuss European security.
    Mr. Rifkind: I expect to meet General Grachev at a meeting of NATO Defence Ministers and their counterparts from the member states of the North Atlantic Co-operation Council, to be held later this year.
    Mr. Gapes: Does the Secretary of State share my concern at the rising support in Russia for the fascist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a man who has threatened a third world war? Is he aware that even the Yeltsin Government have so far failed to recognise the borders of Ukraine, which is contrary to the requirements of international law under the CSCE agreement, to the Paris charter, and to yesterday's NATO communiqué? When he next meets hisRussian counterpart, will he impress on him the fact that if we are to get the Ukraine to carry out its policy of getting rid of nuclear weapons, it will be vital to obtain firm assurances from Russia that there will be no intervention in neighbouring states, either in the so-called near abroad or in any of the former republics of the Soviet Union?
    Mr. Rifkind: Naturally it is important that Russia recognises the independence and integrity of all the former republics of the former Soviet Union, and it is also crucial that neither Mr. Zhirinovsky nor others in Russia harbour any illusion that somehow the old Russian empire could be recreated. There is every sign that in the near future there will be an announcement of an agreement between Ukraine and Russia, in which President Clinton seems to have played a major part, and which will help to resolve the long-standing problem of nuclear weapons in Ukraine and help to bring further stability to that important region.
    Mr. Duncan Smith: Has my right hon. and learned Friend noticed that recently, in rejecting calls for cuts in defence expenditure, the Swedish Defence Minister went on to say that Sweden should increase its spending by about 30 per cent. because the Russians had failed to cut the number of their troops near Sweden? Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that that has a huge bearing on us? In his future discussions with the Treasury will he draw that fact to its attention and point out that there is still a strong potential threat from Russia?
    Mr. Rifkind: It is undoubtedly true that Russia remains a nuclear super-power, and also a formidable conventional power. The reductions in the defence forces of the NATO states have taken into account the massive reductions made by Russia, but I entirely accept that it is necessary to monitor the situation carefully and to ensure that throughout Europe, including Russia, the various countries concerned are not in any way rearming or imposing new threats.
    Dr. David Clark: When the Secretary of State next meets the Russian Defence Minister, will he stress the desire of the people of the west to live in peace and harmony with those of Russia, but will he also stress that it is not a hostile act to wish to determine our own security arrangements and that Russia should not expect to veto the expansion of NATO, which in due course will increase the stability of the whole continent?
    Mr. Rifkind: NATO has made it clear, most recently in the summit that has just finished, that its future expansion is indeed a possibility, and that the "Partnership for Peace" proposals do not preclude the possibility that a number of states that have shown an interest in joining NATO may one day be members. The present priority is for NATO to develop links with all the countries of central and eastern Europe, including Russia itself, but the possibility of additional membership cannot be excluded.

    Global Conflict
    Mr. Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what are his priorities in relation to reducing the risk of global conflict in 1994.
    Mr. Hanley: The Government's plans for the defence of the wider security interests of the United Kingdom are set out in "Defending our Future", the 1993 statement on the defence estimates, a copy of which is in the Library.
    Mr. Simon Hughes: Given that events in places such as Korea cannot give any encouragement to the belief that we are succeeding in nuclear non-proliferation around the world, and given the decision announced in the House before Christmas to go ahead with THORP, unless the court case that begins on Thursday overturns the position —whatever else that decision may be, it cannot make nuclear non-proliferation less likely—will the Government state what they intend to do this year to implement their obligations under article 6 of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty to
    "pursue negotiations in good faith"
    for non-proliferation? What action will be taken on negotiations this year?
    Mr. Hanley: The United Kingdom Government's policy on the non-proliferation treaty is to work towards its unconditional indefinite extension in 1995. The proof of
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    the pudding is in the eating, and we have shown our readiness to reduce our nuclear arsenal wherever we can. In addition to the recent announcement on warhead numbers by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State, we have reduced our RAF nuclear strike squadrons from 11 to eight, we have given up our nuclear artillery and Lance missile roles, we have reduced our WE177 stockpile by more than half, and we have eliminated our maritime sub-strategic nuclear capability.
    The hon. Gentleman asked about priorities and global conflict. I assure him that one priority of the Government is not to follow the Liberal Democrats' policy of cutting defence expenditure by half by the year 2000, which is grossly irresponsible.
    Mr. Robert Banks: Does my hon. Friend agree that we can enhance our contribution to the task of reducing the risk of global conflict by reducing our support services costs in favour of front-line forces? In the context of privatisation and the front-line force review, will my hon. Friend consider freezing the decision to move the RAF's support management group in my constituency to RAF Wyton in Cambridgeshire so that a market test can be undertaken, without the cost of the move, into the possibility of retaining that group in Harrogate?
    Mr. Hanley: I think that my hon. Friend has the support of the House when he says that the most effective British forces are those with the greatest capability in the front line. We do, however, need effective and efficient support. That has to be looked at and we should certainly not cut back on the front line at the cost of allowing ineffective and inefficient support.
    I am afraid that the particular case that my hon. Friend has raised has already been proven and will not be reopened.
    Mrs. Anne Campbell: Does the Minister agree that one of the greatest threats to global security today is the rise of nationalism and facism? Does he not consider that one of the best ways to fight that rise is to indicate strongly to the Serbian fascists that their aggression will not be tolerated?
    Mr. Hanley: I think that the whole House will agree with the hon. Lady. I should add, however, that the Serbs are not the only people who can be guilty of those charges.

    "Front Line First"
    Mr. Mans: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the purpose of the "front line first" review.
    Lady Olga Maitland: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on provisions within the "front line first" report.
    Mr. Rifkind: The purpose of the "front line first" study is to identify areas where we can reduce the costs of support to our front-line forces so as to ensure that defence provision is properly concentrated on front-line operational effectiveness. That comprehensive and radical study is now well under way.
    Mr. Mans: Will my right hon. and learned Friend indicate early in the process the elements and units in the front line that are unlikely to be affected by the review and those that are more likely to be affected? [Interruption.]
    Madam Speaker: Order. I should be obliged if the House would settle down. It is very difficult to hear hon. Members.
    Mr. Rifkind: The instruction that has been given to those carrying out the study is that it would not be appropriate for them to consider any proposals that, if implemented, would reduce the fighting capability of our armed forces. I believe that that is the right criterion to apply to such a study.
    Lady Olga Maitland: While assessing operational effectiveness under "front line first", will my right hon. and learned Friend bear in mind that putting extra tanks, helicopters and men into the field is worthless unless those forces are properly sustained by training, fuel and spare parts?
    Mr. Rifkind: I do, indeed, accept that. It is important to ensure that our armed forces are not only well manned but well trained and well equipped. Only the combination of those three factors will enable them to be certain of winning any conflict in which they might be involved and of maintaining the high reputation that they deservedly have.
    Dr. Reid: First, I sincerely wish the Secretary of State a much happier year in his job than he has had in the past few miserable years and I congratulate him on his low press profile over the recent recess. However, by what curious twist of logic does the Secretary of State feel it appropriate to conduct a formal review of the efficiency and administration of our armed forces when he has pointedly refused for the past three years to carry out a proper and thorough review of their commitments and strategic objectives? How can we possibly review our structures without knowing the strategy and commitments? Is it not clear that the Secretary of State's main priority during the review will be to identify Treasury-dictated budgetary savings rather than to provide for the defence of the realm?
    Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman, as usual, fails to understand the purpose of the review. We are seeking to reduce unnecessary costs and to be able to use at least some of the savings to enhance the fighting capability of our armed forces. It is precisely for that reason that I was recently able to announce an increase in the field Army and the go-ahead for new tanks, support helicopters and mine hunters as indicated a few weeks ago.

    Yugoslavia
    Mr. Winnick: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the latest position in respect of British troops operating in former Yugoslavia.
    Mr. Hanley: An Army battalion group, currently 1 Coldstream Guards, is deployed on humanitarian aid and refugee escort duties. Royal Air Force and Royal Navy aircraft are engaged in the humanitarian airlift and other operations and Royal Navy assets are deployed in the Adriatic.
    Mr. Winnick: Is it not absolutely essential during these winter months that adequate supplies get through to the civilians in Bosnia? Is it not intolerable that anyone, including the Serb commanders, should hold up supplies which ought to be going to the men, women and childen
    14
    who so desperately need aid? What are the international community and the British Government going to do to ensure that all the humanitarian aid supplies get through to the people who need them?
    Mr. Hanley: Without the efforts of the United Kingdom forces and others in the United Nations protection force, no aid would be getting through. We are doing our best, and saving hundreds of thousands of lives as a result. The hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) is right—we must continue all our efforts to get that aid where it should go.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Ql. Mr. Denham: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 11 January.
    The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Tony Newton): I have been asked to reply.
    My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is attending the NATO summit in Brussels.
    Mr. Denham: Is the Leader of the House aware that there is a certain amount of confusion about the precise nature of the "back to basics" policy? Will he confirm that honesty is one of the "back to basics" values? If it is, why did the Conservatives promise at the last general election not to put up tax and then impose £10 per family per week?
    Mr. Newton: Our concern as a Government is with good standards in education, strengthening the fight against crime and, not least, ensuring a sound economic foundation on which all other objectives must rest. Our policy on taxation and in all economic matters is directed towards that end and it is manifestly bringing about the growth that people want to see.
    Dr. Michael Clark: Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the barometers of the British economy is the housing industry? Does he therefore share my satisfaction —[Interruption.]
    Madam Speaker: Order. It is good to start the new year in good humour, but I should like to hear the hon. Member for Rochford (Dr. Clark).
    Dr. Michael Clarke: Does my right hon. Friend therefore share my satisfaction with the figures revealed yesterday, which show that private sector housing starts are on the increase?
    Mr. Newton: I do indeed share my hon. Friend's pleasure in those figures. Private sector housing starts increased significantly in November, as in the previous month. Indeed, in November they were the highest since October 1989, and 42 per cent. higher than a year earlier. That is very good news and it shows the benefits of the policies to which I referred a few moments ago.
    Mr. John Smith: Is it not now abundantly clear that "back to basics", a slogan which was devised to get the Prime Minister through the Tory party conference, has spectacularly backfired on a Government who are now in hopeless confusion and disarray about what it means, particularly when applied to themselves?
    Mr. Newton: I have already made it clear, in answer to the first question asked of me this afternoon, that our concern is with raising standards in education, strengthen-ing the fight against crime and, above all, strengthening the British economy. Those are objectives which the British people support and want to see achieved, and they know that they would not get them from the right hon. and learned Gentleman.
    Mr. John Smith: Does the right hon. Gentleman not understand that the problem is that the current definitions are so markedly different from the moralistic speeches of Minister after Minister at the Tory party conference? Does he recollect the Home Secretary saying to the conference that the distinction between right and wrong had to be sharpened instead of blurred? Why is it all so different now?
    Mr. Newton: My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary was absolutely right to make that point in the context of the fight against crime, which the House will debate later today. The objectives of what the Government are seeking to bring about remain and will remain as I have stated them and as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister set them out at that conference.
    Mr. John Smith: Does the right hon. Gentleman not yet appreciate that what the British people dislike intensely is the hypocrisy of double standards which "back to basics" has now become? Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us and the public why there should be one set of rules for the the people and another set of rules for Ministers and Tory Members of Parliament?
    Mr. Newton: What I think that the British people most dislike is the hypocrisy of a party which talks like that and then opposes every move to raise educational standards and every move to fight crime, and which pursues policies which could only damage Britain's economy.
    Mr. Matthew Banks: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that Britain continues to maintain a flexible and responsive approach to military action in Bosnia? Does he agree that, until recently, Britain has been entirely right to resist premature calls for air strikes in the region, which would have led to extreme danger for our troops on the ground who were sent there to police a United Nations ceasefire, not to take part in guerrilla warfare?
    Mr. Newton: I can say that, after some very fruitful meetings in Brussels this morning, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, in speaking there, has made it clear that we will be drawing up plans to help UNPROFOR to bring in a Netherlands contingent to replace the Canadians in Srebrenica and has also agreed to examine how Tuzla airport can be opened, with the intention that it should serve as a conduit for humanitarian relief. My right hon. Friend has also made it clear that if it is necessary to use air power to achieve those objectives, we would be willing to do so.
    Mr. Connarty: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 11 January.
    Mr. Newton: I have been asked to reply.
    I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Connarty: Does the Leader of the House now think that morality is very important also in public life? Is
    16
    he aware that, in the Forth valley enterprise area, thanks to the diligent investigation by the local paper, The Falkirk Herald, it has been revealed that £2 million in grants from the enterprise board has gone to people who sit on the board? In fact, just recently, the secretary of the board resigned after an investigation by Scottish Television. There are allegations of training grants to companies that had no trainees and allegations of the register of companies' interests being falsified, and there is still £50,000 missing. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that appointees who have a self interest to pursue will not look after the public interest and that running the country by quangos, as the Government have tried to do, will lead to corruption inevitably?
    Mr. Newton: In view of some of the things that have emerged about, for example, Labour local authorities, I think that that is a curious charge for the hon. Gentleman to make, but I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland will examine anything that needs to be examined in the light of that or any other event of that kind.
    Mr. Waterson: Has my right hon. Friend had an opportunity to read the Dun and Bradstreet report, which shows increased business confidence in trading conditions at the moment? Does he agree that that augurs well for the future of the British economy in the next 12 months?
    Mr. Newton: I very much agree with my hon. Friend. The survey published today shows that United Kingdom businesses are more confident about trading conditions in the current quarter, with well over half forecasting higher profits and nearly a third expecting to take on more staff. That shows the benefits of the policy of low interest rates and low inflation which the Government have successfully been pursuing.
    Mr. Eric Clarke: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 11 January.
    Mr. Newton: I have been asked to reply.
    I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Clarke: I wish you, Madam Speaker, and the rest of the House, a happy new year. Will the Leader of the House make it a happy new year for the disabled miners who are at home and worried because of the lack of guarantees for the future of the Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation, a worthwhile organisation which looks after them and their families? If the Leader of the House wants a moral crusade, I would name that one.
    Mr. Newton: First, I thank the hon. Gentleman for his good wishes for the new year, which I much appreciate. With regard to the substantive thrust of his question, he will of course have an opportunity before long to raise that and any other point during discussions on the Coal Industry Bill. I will of course draw them to the attention of my right hon. Friend.
    Mr. Nicholls: Will my right hon. Friend find time today to consider the remarks of Tom Donnett, a Liberal county councillor in Somerset, who has described villagers whose views he disapproves of as being no better than yids, nignogs, eyeties and Pakis? Does not my right hon. Friend find a curious distinction that the Liberal Democrat party, leader in his appearances in the House adopts a tone of

    17
    self-righteous pomposity while harbouring people within his party whose views would not be tolerated in the National Front?
    Mr. Newton: In line with the good wishes for the new year, I had better say that my hon. Friend might say that, but I cannot possibly comment. I understand that the remarks have been referred to the Commission for Racial Equality. Perhaps we shall see not only what the commission has to say, but in due course what the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) and his party have to say.
    Ms Hoey: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 11 January.
    Mr. Newton: I have been asked to reply.
    I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave some moments ago.
    Ms Hoey: Will the Leader of the House urge the Prime Minister, in what will obviously be a review of his "back to basics" policy, to consider a "back to basics" in foreign policy? Does he agree that part of that should be a basic understanding that aggression should not be rewarded? Does he further agree that it is crucial that the siege of Sarajevo be lifted and that the Government call for immediate air strikes to take out the artillery surrounding that city?
    Mr. Newton: Without for one moment accepting the suggestion in the first half of the hon. Lady's question, I think that the need with these policies is to get on and ensure that they are effective, which is what we seek to do. On the second part, with reference to Bosnia—the hon. Lady mentioned particularly Sarajevo—I referred earlier to another couple of issues: the position at Srebrenica and the position at the airport at Tuzla. I think that the hon. Lady would be well advised to read full reports of the understandings that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has reached with our allies in Brussels today about further action in those areas.
    Mr. Dickens: Concentrating still on important matters, does my right hon. Friend welcome the improvement in the balance of trade figures announced yesterday?
    Mr. Newton rose—[HON. MEMBERS: "Come on."] I was caught out by my hon. Friend's unaccustomed brevity, but I am grateful both for his brevity and for the good point that he raised. I am delighted to see the improvement in the balance of trade of something like £500 million in October, with exports outside the European Community up by some 12 per cent. on a year ago. It is further convincing evidence of the success of our policies. I look forward, although without much expectation, to the Opposition congratulating not only British industry and British workers but the Government on the conditions that have helped to bring that about.
    Mr. Skinner: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 11 January.
    Mr. Newton: I have been asked to reply.
    I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Skinner: Will the Government be demanding of the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) that he repay the £50,000 that he got out of his housing fiddle on the second council house in Westminster? How can the Government justify bailing out the firm owned by the hon. Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth) at £200,000 when thousands of firms in Britain have gone to the wall and millions of people have been made redundant? Why does not the right hon. Gentleman demand that the hon. Member for City of Chester foots the bill himself?
    Mr. Newton: I have nothing to add to what my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) has said in recent days. I imagine that the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) appreciates that the position of my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth) is exactly the same as that which would arise with any other company which does not succeed. Neither the company nor my hon. Friend has been treated differently from any other company or any other individual in similar circumstances.

Points of Order
3.30 pm
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Has the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) told you whether he intends to make a statement, particularly as the overwhelming view of hon. Members is that he should repay the £50,000 that he has conned out of ratepayers in Westminster? I am a ratepayer in Westminster—
Madam Speaker: So am I.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: —as are you, Madam Speaker, and many others, and the ratepayers want their money back.
Madam Speaker: I think that the matter has been aired sufficiently. That is not a point of order for the Chair.
Mr. George Mudie: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. On 14 December, I was fortunate enough to initiate a debate on the problems arising from the Child Support Agency. The Minister who replied to the debate said that the Department had the matter in mind but that he would not tell the House that day of its conclusions.
Just over a week later, while the House was in recess, the Minister publicly announced changes to the Child Support Agency. If that was not disrespectful enough to the House, in today's post hon. Members were sent a pamphlet, presumably published at public expense, saying that those changes would take effect in February 1994. As the changes have yet to come before the House in whatever form, is that not at the best unwise and at the least another example of gross disrespect for hon. Members?
Madam Speaker: When the resolutions are brought forward, as the hon. Gentleman will know, they will be in debatable form. I hope that it will not be too long before the House has an opportunity to debate them.

BILLS PRESENTED
  HUMAN RIGHTS
  Mr. Graham Allen presented a Bill to provide protection to individuals and in the courts of the United Kingdom for the rights and freedoms specified in the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms; to entrench those rights and freedoms; to establish a Human Rights Commission; to make further provision with regard to the protection of civil, political, economic and social rights; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Tuesday 25 January, and to be printed. [Bill 30.]
  HEDGEROWS
  Mr. Peter Hardy, supported by Mr. Peter L. Pike, Mr. Andrew F. Bennett, Mr. Martin Redmond, Mr. Patrick Cormack, Mr. Hugh Bayley, Mr. Gary Waller, Mr. Paul Tyler, Sir Dudley Smith, Mr. Alan Meale and Sir David Madel, presented a Bill for the protection and maintenance of boundary hedges, hedges bordering footpaths, bridleways and highways and other hedgerows and thorn fences: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 14 January, and to be printed. [Bill 31.]
Orders of the Day

  Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Madam Speaker: Before we begin the debate, I must inform the House that an enormous number of hon. Members want to take part. Therefore, I must limit speeches between 6 and 8 o'clock to 10 minutes. I make a special plea to those hon. Members who are called outside that time to show respect for their colleagues and to restrict their speeches, if they would be good enough to do so.
  I have selected the amendment standing in the name of the Leader of the Opposition.
  Mr. Robert Maclennan: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. For the avoidance of doubt in the future, can you say whether as a matter of course you intend to consider reasoned amendments on Second Reading of Bills which do not indicate in the customary form that the House declines to give a Bill a Second Reading? I made some inquiries about whether an amendment such as that which has been tabled would be in order, and I was advised that it would not. I am therefore somewhat surprised by your ruling.
  Madam Speaker: There is no set form, but I have looked carefully at the amendment. It contains such a long list of excluded provisions that it falls within the description of a reasoned amendment. Of course, I look carefully at all amendments and I will continue to do so.
  3.36 pm
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Michael Howard): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  Both law and order Bills which have been introduced during this Session—the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill and the Police and Magistrates' Courts Bill—have a very clear purpose: to assist in the fight against crime and to protect the public.
  The Government have a consistent record of taking action to deal with crime. We have massively increased the number of police officers and their resources. We have strengthened the power of the courts to pass proper sentences on criminals. We have pioneered crime prevention measures of all kinds and in all areas of the country.
  As all hon. Members know, crime has risen across the developed world. It has risen in this country, and it continues to blight our communities. As Home Secretary, I am determined to respond to the challenge with action —action that will make a difference.
  In October, I announced the most comprehensive package of measures to tackle crime ever announced by a Home Secretary. The measures rest on some basic, common-sense principles: that protecting the public is the first job of Government, that criminals should he held responsible for their actions and that the police, who are in the forefront of the fight against crime, should be given the powers which they need to catch criminals. Those are principles in which the Government believe, and they lie at the heart of the Bill.

  21
  The response of the Opposition has been a truly feeble reasoned amendment. It believes that the Bill, which marks a fundamental shift in the criminal justice system against the criminal and in favour of protecting the public, is—I quote from the words of the Opposition amendment—"not an acceptable … measure" without its various additions. If the amendment fails, the Opposition will presumably vote against the Bill.
  Mr. Tony Blair: Of course not. If the Home Secretary accepts our reasoned amendment, we will support the Bill. The right hon. and learned Gentleman may want to support the amendment which he thinks is so feeble. If he does not accept it, the Opposition will abstain on Second Reading and table our amendments in due course.
  The Home Secretary has announced what he claims to be the most comprehensive measure to fight crime ever to be announced by a Home Secretary. Upon what measure will the right hon. and learned Gentleman judge the success of the Bill? Will it cut crime, or will it not? If it does not cut crime, will he accept that it has failed?
  Mr. Howard: It will provide the country with the most effective system of criminal justice which it is possible for a Government to provide. That is the task of Government, and it is the task which we set ourselves.
  I must tell the hon. Gentleman that it is not the habit of the Government to accept feeble amendments such as that which has been tabled by the Opposition; and I rightly used the word "feeble" to describe the amendment.
  Let us consider the implications of the answer that the hon. Gentleman has just given. If the feeble amendment is rejected, he and his party will abstain. They will abstain on a Bill that includes a massive expansion of DNA testing. They will abstain on a Bill that will allow juries to take into account a defendant's silence. They will abstain on a Bill that will establish secure centres to get juvenile criminals off the streets. The police want all those things, the public want all those things, but the Labour party cannot even make up its mind what to do about them.
  Mr. Blair: On the contrary. I wish that Conservative Back Benchers could have seen the right hon. and learned Gentleman's face drop about six inches when we told him that we did not intend to oppose the Second Reading.
  Surely, if the Bill is the most comprehensive measure to fight crime, a judgment must be made about whether it succeeds or fails. The right hon. and learned Gentleman sets performance indicators for everyone else: what is his? Will the Bill cut crime or will it not—yes or no?
  Mr. Howard: We are taking a range of measures—some are contained in this Bill and some in the Police and Magistrates' Courts Bill. The police will be set performance indicators for the work that they do. We are determined to make this attempt to put in place the most effective measures that it is possible to devise. That is what the Bill is all about.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Howard: I have given way to the hon. Member for Sedgefield twice, so I shall give way to the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) and then I must get on with the Bill.
  Mr. Maclennan: I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way. He has said that the Bill will provide the
  22
  most effective criminal justice system. What criteria for judging its effectiveness does he have in mind if not the numbers of crimes committed?
  Mr. Howard: I have said that this Bill and the other measures that we are putting in place will achieve the most comprehensive and effective framework that it is possible to devise to prevent crime, to enable the police more effectively to catch criminals and to enable the courts more effectively to convict them and to deal with them when they have been convicted. That is the responsibility of Government and it is a responsibility that we are determined to discharge.
  I now propose to explain exactly how we shall set about achieving those objectives and tackling the concerns which have been so widely expressed and which the Bill will address.
  The feeble amendment tabled in the name of the Leader of the Opposition does not deal with, or indeed even mention, the key proposals in the Bill. The amendment shows the usual strategy of the Opposition whenever such matters are dealt with: whatever new and tough proposals the Government propose, they want to talk about something else. They never want to say whether they agree or disagree with what we are suggesting. No doubt that is why they will abstain tonight.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Howard: Today should have been decision time for the hon. Member for Sedgefield. This is the Bill. He should make up his mind whether to vote for or against it.
  Madam Speaker: Order. Do I understand that the Secretary of State does not wish to give way at the moment?
  Mr. Howard: Yes.
  Madam Speaker: In that case hon. Members must not persist.
  Mr. Howard: The Bill carries into effect many of the pledges that I made in October. Of the 27 points that I announced in October, 22 require legislation. Of those, 18 will be dealt with in the Bill and four will be taken forward later. The remaining five announcements do not require legislation but are being pursued equally vigorously. More help for victims, reducing cautions, establishing parish constables and cutting police paperwork—all of those policies are well under way.
  The establishment of a new independent body to consider allegations of miscarriages of justice is one measure that requires legislation. I have accepted the royal commission's recommendation on that matter and I am determined to ensure that effective machinery is set up for that purpose. However, before that can be done we must settle some important issues that were not resolved by the royal commission's report, such as the relationship between the new authority and the Court of Appeal on the one hand and Ministers on the other and the way in which the authority will investigate representations, including the role of the police. Those matters have all been taken forward urgently and I intend shortly to issue a consultation paper which will deal with them in detail.
  I plan soon to set out in more detail the Government's approach to the royal commission's report.
  Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: Will the Home Secretary answer clearly so that the public can hear the answer on television the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair)? Will the Bill and the other legislation proposed by the Government cut crime—yes or no? We want no waffle; yes or no?
  Mr. Howard: It is typical of the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours)—and of the Labour party—that he first asks a question on the 27 points and then puts a question that does not even mention the 27 points. I answered the question put by the hon. Member for Sedgefield. The people of this country will understand the answer even if the hon. Member for Workington does not. The Bill will enact—
  Mr. Bruce Grocott rose—
  Mr. Howard: Judging by the standard of the interventions by Labour Members, it would be utterly useless for me to give way to the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Grocott) or to other Labour Members. I plan to go on to explain what the Bill contains.
  The Bill will enact a major reform of the criminal justice system, which needs reform. It is not providing adequate protection for the law abiding. It has not been able to cope with the small hard core of persistent juvenile offenders. Bail is too often granted to criminals who offend again and again. Too many obstacles are still in the way of the police. They must have the powers that they need to combat crime and to bring criminals to justice. The powers of the courts are inadequate. They are not able to deal as they or we would wish with the cases that come before them. The balance in the criminal justice system is tilted too far in favour of the criminal and against protecting the public. The Bill will help to put that right.
  The Bill deals with a wide range of issues, with which I shall deal briefly in turn. Part I contains measures to tackle juvenile crime. The message from police, from magistrates and from local communities throughout the country is clear. There is a small hard core of young tearaways who commit crime after crime, and who cock a snook at our entire criminal justice system. At present the courts are unable to deal adequately with persistent juvenile offenders, especially those aged between 12 and 14. The public must be protected from them.
  The Bill provides for a new secure training order. The order will be available to the courts for dealing with persistent young offenders aged between 12 and 14 who have committed three or more imprisonable offences and who have failed to respond to punishment in the community. The maximum sentence will be two years: one year in custody, followed by an equal term of close supervision in the community to help prevent those young offenders from reoffending. That is one of the measures about which the Labour party cannot make up its mind. Labour will abstain on that measure tonight; it cannot decide whether to vote for or against it.
  Mr. Tony Marlow: Is not one of the problems with the young thug and gang leader that there is no proper deterrent? Should not we be a little more radical than is my right hon. and learned Friend, with whose ideas I agree? I hope that we can put some positive element of training into the new institutions about which he speaks. In addition, should not we have the stick as well
  24
  as the carrot? Should not we consider corporal punishment as a deterrent for people who have not otherwise been deterred?
  Mr. Howard: I am not persuaded that corporal punishment would have the effect that my hon. Friend seeks to achieve. He is right to say that the secure training centres should not be mere detention centres. They should and will provide high-quality education and training designed to encourage those who benefit to lead law-abiding lives. These young criminals are people in respect of whom other attempts to stop them committing crimes have been tried but have failed. All of them will have been previously convicted and will have offended again. All of them will have received a supervision order and will either have offended during it or will have been in breach of it. All of them will have committed at least one offence that is serious enough to warrant custody.
  For 15, 16 and 17-year-olds, the sentence of detention in a young offender institution is currently limited to 12 months. As I announced in October, the Government believe that that places an unnecessary restriction on the courts. The Bill therefore doubles the maximum sentence from 12 months to two years to give the courts the flexibility that they need to deal with serious offending by that age group. The Labour party cannot make up its mind on that proposal; it will vote neither for nor against it.
  There is also a gap at present in the courts' power to deal with juveniles who commit very serious crimes. Currently, 10 to 13-year-olds can be sentenced to detention if they are found guilty of murder or manslaughter. The Sexual Offences Act 1993 allowed boys in that age group to be charged with rape, but it did not provide powers to detain them after conviction for that offence. The Bill therefore extends the scope of section 53 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 so that 10 to 13-year-olds may be detained if convicted of any offence for which an adult could be sentenced to imprisonment for 14 years or more. That will cover not only rape but robbery, arson and domestic burglary.
  The Bill also provides for 10 to 15-year-olds to be detained if convicted of indecent assault on a woman, the same penalty as is already available in the case of 16 and 17-year-olds.
  As I announced in June last year, I propose one further change in the way in which the law treats young people before the courts. At present, the media cannot identify juveniles who are alleged to have committed or have been convicted of serious crimes and who are on the run. Those media restrictions make the task of the police in recapturing those young people much harder and the threat to the public much greater. Those restrictions should not be allowed to continue and the necessary changes to allow those youngsters to be named and their photographs to be published are contained in part III of the Bill.
  Ms Jean Corston: On 5 October, in Blackpool, the Home Secretary said that children who are born to people who are not married, where the father is not living with the mother at the time of birth, are more likely to spend their childhood concentrating on not getting caught. Does he still think that that is true?
  Mr. Howard: Of course I still think it is true. I think that these are matters that must be addressed. We do not subscribe to the attitude of the thought police on the Labour Benches, who say that such matters should never

  25
  be mentioned. It was only the other day that President Clinton of the United States, not normally regarded as a right-wing Conservative, said that two-parent families are generally better. Of course that is right, and of course I stand by what I said on 5 October.
  Mr. Nick Hawkins: My right hon. and learned Friend will be aware that I spent a number of years prosecuting in juvenile courts, particularly in the west midlands, prior to entering the House. Does he agree that the measures he has announced in the Bill will be greatly welcomed by magistrates, the police and the British people, because, at long last, juveniles who commit very serious crimes between the ages of 12 and 14 will be able to be sentenced to custodial sentences when other measures have been tried and have failed?
  Does my right hon. and learned Friend also agree that the British people will not be at all impressed by the weasel words of the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) and his party, who will not say that they support the measures contained in the Bill? The British people recognise that the only party that truly believes in law and order is the Conservative party, while the Labour party continues to be soft on crime.
  Mr. Howard: I agree, perhaps not entirely surprisingly, with every word that my hon. Friend has said. I do not think that the British people either will be impressed by the kind of frivolous attitudes demonstrated by the Opposition during the last quarter of an hour in which I have sought to address serious issues.
  It is estimated that 50,000 offences are committed every year by people on bail. Part II sets out five new measures which will restrict the grant of bail and help to ensure that it is only given when that will not put the public at risk. First, the Bill will ensure that bail cannot be granted to someone charged with murder, manslaughter or rape who has a previous conviction for one of those offences. Secondly, the Bill removes the presumption in favour of bail for those charged with serious offences that appear to have been committed while the defendant was on bail. Thirdly, in line with a recommendation of the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice, the police will be given the power to attach conditions to the granting of police bail after charge. The fourth measure gives the police the power to arrest, without a warrant, an individual who breaches police bail. That will mean that, if the police bail people to appear at a police station and they fail to do so, the police can immediately arrest them. The police have long asked for the power and the Government promised to meet that request in our election manifesto.
  Fifthly, the public will be given further protection by a new power for courts to revoke bail if new information comes to light which makes that appropriate.
  Together, those five measures put the granting of bail on a more sensible footing, ensuring that it is given in appropriate cases, but not where its granting is likely to lead to abuse. The Labour party cannot make up its mind on those proposals. It cannot decide whether to vote for or against them. Its attitude is to abstain.
  I have made my view clear that the balance of justice is tipped too far in favour of the guilty and against protecting society in general and especially the victims of crime. Part III of the Bill takes important steps to redress that balance. For example, at the moment, it is compulsory for the judge to give a warning in court about uncorroborated evidence
  26
  from the victim of a sex attack. That is offensive to the victim and unnecessary. That is why the Bill removes the mandatory requirement for judges to give such warnings in sexual offence and accomplice cases.
  Part III also contains our proposals on the so-called right to silence. The provisions will allow a court to draw proper inferences from a suspect's refusal to answer police questions in circumstances which cry out for an innocent explanation, if there is one, or from a defendant's refusal to give evidence in court. That does not mean that a suspect or defendant will be compelled to speak under threat of a criminal penalty. Defendants can still remain silent if they choose. In future, the judge and jury will be able to weigh up why the defendant decided to stay silent and the jury will be able to draw reasonable inferences from that silence. In short, it is not about the right to silence; it is about the right to comment on silence.
  The present system is abused by hardened criminals. As a professional burglar, interviewed on Radio 4, explained:
  "Amongst professional criminals it … is … a code. Name, rank and number only, as it were … There were times when I was acquitted and I stayed silent—I'm not going to answer the question as to whether I was innocent or guilty".
  Mr. Andrew Rowe (Mid-Kent): Will my right hon. and learned Friend confirm that the chief constable of Kent has done considerable research into the matter which has shown a clear relationship between the number of times someone has been arrested, accused and convicted and that person's exercise of the right to silence?
  Mr. Howard: I can confirm the point made by my hon. Friend; it is entirely right. The police have long asked for the change, which is why I am especially interested that the new adviser to the police in the House should want to intervene at this point. I shall be glad to accept his intervention.
  Mr. Mike O'Brien: Is not it the case that, even under the Home Secretary's proposed legislation, a professional criminal who has a solicitor present may take that solicitor's advice to remain silent? That remains a privileged communication under the legislation and the only inference that can be drawn from it in a court proceeding is that the person was wise enough to accept legal advice at the time. If a person does not have a solicitor present, he loses his right to silence. The professional criminal who has a solicitor present is protected in that sense from losing his right to silence, but the ordinary citizen who does not know the circumstances he faces in a police station and who does not have a solicitor present will lose his right to silence. Is not that a two-tier system?
  Mr. Howard: The hon. Gentleman is entirely wrong. If he maintained closer contact with the Police Federation than he appears to have done since his appointment, he would know how strongly it favours the change that I propose to make. As the research cited by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) shows, conspicuously, it is professional criminals, hardened criminals and terrorists who disproportionately take advantage of and abuse the present system. That is why it has to be changed.
  On the point about legal advice raised by the hon. Gentleman, the judge will be able to draw such inferences as he thinks proper from the fact that any solicitor will know that if an innocent explanation is available for the matters on which someone is charged, put or questioned, it

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  in his interest to provide that innocent explanation at the earliest possible moment. The legislation that we propose to introduce follows that already in force in Northern Ireland. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said in 1988 when he was Home Secretary that he would seek the earliest opportunity to introduce legislation on the subject for England and Wales. We are now honouring that commitment.
  I do not believe that the innocent have anything to fear from the changes. If there is a good reason for the suspect to remain silent, the jury will be able to consider it. But it is only right that, in a suitable case, the jury should know whether a person has remained silent or whether his story has changed. The current procedures can be and are abused by experienced criminals. It is more than 20 years since the Criminal Law Revision Committee recommended changes. It is time for Parliament to act.
  Mr. Blair: Of course, the committee was dealing with "ambush" offences, as I think that the Home Secretary knows. The Home Secretary says that the legislation is based on the Northern Ireland experience. As he says, the right to silence has been abolished for five years in Northern Ireland. Has the percentage of convictions or prosecutions gone up or down in that period?
  Mr. Howard: A number of other things have changed in that period. How can one possibly seek to test the influence of one isolated change? I understand the hon. Gentleman and his friends to be worried about the possibility of miscarriages of justice. I am worried about the possibility of miscarriages of justice. Can the hon. Gentleman point to any examples of miscarriages of justice in Northern Ireland during the past five years as a result of the abolition of the right to silence? I hope that the hon. Gentleman will answer that question.
  Mr. Blair: As a matter of fact, several articles have been written recently specifically on that point, expressing concern about the possibility of miscarriages of justice. The Home Secretary's case is that abolition of the right to silence is the centrepiece of how he will make for a more effective criminal justice system. Let us leave aside the question whether it is right or wrong; let us focus on whether it is effective. The Home Secretary must have the figures. Presumably he has looked at them. Has crime gone up or down in Northern Ireland in the period since the right to silence was abolished? Has the number of prosecutions gone up or down? Has the number of convictions gone up or down—yes or no?
  Mr. Howard: The hon. Gentleman betrays his total lack of real concern about such issues. If he goes to the police either in Great Britain or in Northern Ireland, they will be able to show him examples of cases in Northern Ireland in which the fact that the defendant remained silent was referred to and taken into account and conviction followed. That has been happening in Northern Ireland.
  The hon. Gentleman, who claims to be worried about miscarriages of justice, did not have the scintilla of an answer to the specific question that I put to him. On this central point, again the Labour party cannot make up its mind. It will not vote for or against the measure. It will retreat into indecision at the end of the debate tonight. It will abstain.
  Mr. Patrick Nicholls: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that, if one had to prove in advance that a measure would reduce the crime rate, it would be impossible to introduce any measure? Is not the point about abolition of the right to silence that in any given situation it makes a conviction more likely? Is not that in itself justification for the policy?
  Mr. Howard: I agree with my hon. Friend. Those who wish to put off action constantly ask for more information when they know that the information cannot be supplied in the form in which they seek it. It is another element in the total and chronic indecision from which the Labour party suffers.
  Mr. Blair rose—
  Mr. Howard: I have given way to the hon. Gentleman about four times. He will have an opportunity to make his speech. I must get on.
  Part III of the Bill contains one other provision which provides protection for victims and witnesses. I am very concerned about the ordeal which some witnesses in criminal cases have to face outside the court. Witness intimidation can be difficult to detect and quantify, but it certainly goes on.
  We need to make it clear that intimidating those who assist the criminal justice process will not be tolerated. The law already takes a serious view of such behaviour, but there is scope to do more, particularly in relation to activity before and after the period when a trial is in progress. That is why the Bill creates new offences that will make it easier to bring to justice those who intimidate or take revenge on people for assisting the police or acting as witnesses or jurors in a criminal trial.
  Part IV of the Bill is aimed at the complex area of body samples, in particular those taken for the purpose of DNA analysis. As techniques have improved, DNA has become a powerful tool in the investigation of crime, but the law has lagged behind. The Bill will end the current arbitrary restrictions on the police use of body samples and of DNA analysis.
  At the moment, samples can be taken only for the investigation of serious arrestable offences. The royal commission recommended that the power to take non-intimate samples without consent should be extended to include offences of assault and burglary. We agree with the thrust of the royal commission's recommendation, but we want to go further. It would be simpler and more logical to treat DNA sampling on precisely the same basis as fingerprinting. As a result, the Bill allows the police to take samples from anyone who is to be charged with a "recordable" offence, and to use the samples to search against existing records of convicted offenders or unsolved crimes. In time, a national database will be built up.
  Those powers will be of real practical help in the investigation of crime. For example, in a sample of people convicted of rape, eight out of 10 had previous convictions for other offences. They will be easier to catch and convict when their DNA profile is in the database.
  The Opposition cannot make up their minds about whether that is a good thing. They cannot decide whether to vote for or against it but will abstain in the vote tonight.
  Mr. Richard Shepherd: May I return to the right of silence? My right hon. and learned Friend accepted the arguments, presumably adduced, in the

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  Kentish police study. However, the royal commission commissioned a study into the right of silence and it does not seem to bear out the argument that is being advanced. Will my right hon. and learned Friend say a little more about his weighing process in terms of the royal commission? This is the third royal commission that has endorsed the continuance of the so-called right of silence. Why has he come to a contrary decision?
  Mr. Howard: If my hon. Friend will read the royal commission's minority report, which is extremely clearly set out and records the fact that most judges who gave evidence to the royal commission were in favour of a change, he will see exactly why I have come to my conclusion.
  Part V of the Bill contains important measures designed to tackle the destruction and distress caused mainly to rural communities by trespassers. Local communities should not have to put up with, or even fear the prospect of, mass invasions by those who selfishly gather, regardless of the rights of others. The Bill gives the police improved powers to remove trespassers from land and new powers both to stop raves that are in progress and to prevent the mass raves that have caused such a menace in recent years. It will also empower the police to remove vehicles if trespassers refuse to comply with directions to leave and to seize amplification and other equipment being used for raves.
  There will also be new powers against those who trespass and seek to disrupt the lawful activities of others. In recent months, we have seen many examples of disruptive and threatening behaviour—at the Grand National, during country sports and even fishing. Those who dislike such activities have a perfect right to campaign to change the law, but they do not have the right to trespass, threaten or intimidate. The Bill will give the police powers to direct trespassers to leave land if they have reason to believe that they will seek to disrupt or prevent a lawful activity. Furthermore, such disruption itself will be made a criminal offence.
  Dame Jill Knight: Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?
  Mr. Howard: I have a lot of ground to cover. I shall give way to my hon. Friend, but then I must press on.
  Dame Jill Knight: My question on part V is extremely relevant. We all understand why aggravated trespass is included in the legislation in the way it is, but will two particular misdemeanours also be covered? One is far worse than a misdemeanour and involves attacks by animal activists on those who conduct research for which they need to use animals. The other involves those who put various substances into things such as hair spray and baby talc in chemists' shops. Will the Bill cover that?
  Mr. Howard: The new powers that we propose to introduce apply to all those who trespass and seek to disrupt the lawful activities of others. They are not confined to any particular set of circumstances, but I am sure that my hon. Friend will understand that I cannot go into a detailed analysis of every conceivable set of hypothetical circumstances that might be raised.
  Part V also deals with changes to the law to deal with squatters. We made a commitment in our election manifesto to improve the law in that respect. The Bill provides the teeth behind the new procedures introduced by the Lord Chancellor to give lawful owners and
  30
  occupiers of property access to a quick and effective remedy against squatting. It will mean that the owner or occupier of a property can go to court immediately and apply for an interim possession order ex parte. If the interim order is granted, the squatters will have 24 hours in which to leave the premises. Failure to do so will be an offence, and the police will have powers to enter property to enforce the order.
  Part VI of the Bill gives the police new stop and search powers aimed against terrorism and creates two new offences against public security. There will be a power to stop and search vehicles and their occupants, and to stop pedestrians to search anything that they may be carrying. Those new powers will help to safeguard the public against the dual threats of vehicle bombs and small devices carried by individual terrorists. Since they are powers that already exist in Northern Ireland, I am happy to give way to the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble).
  Mr. David Trimble: Concern has been expressed over the past month about possible amnesties for terrorists, in connection with which I think that the Prime Minister has said that the law will take its course. Will the Home Secretary assure us that, in his view, the law taking its normal course will exclude any programme for rapid early release of people who have been convicted of terrorist offences?
  Mr. Howard: There will be no amnesty for terrorists. We do not recognise terrorism as a specific crime—a political crime—under our law. Those who are in prison for such offences are not in prison for offences of a political nature. They are in prison for offences against the ordinary law of the land, which will take its course without any amnesties.
  The Bill provides for very strict controls over how and when the new powers on terrorism can be used. Those new powers could help to save lives, and when lives can be saved Parliament has a duty to act.
  Part VII seeks to strengthen the controls against pornography. First, the Bill provides a power of immediate arrest of those who trade in obscene material and child pornography. The police will also be given additional powers of search and seizure in those cases. The trade in child pornography is particularly abhorrent. The Bill will, for the first time, make it possible to send to prison those found guilty of possessing such material.
  Changes in the law are also needed to keep up with new technology. Computer pornography poses a particular threat. The Bill will put it beyond doubt that, for the purposes of the law relating to child pornography, a photograph includes images of children stored on computer disks. It will also ensure that there is no legal loophole for paedophiles who create indecent images of children through the use of computers. Those are important steps that make the law against pornography more effective. The Labour party cannot decide what its attitude should be on them. It cannot decide whether to vote for or against them. The Labour party's attitude to them tonight will be one of chronic indecision.
  Mr. Blair rose—
  Mr. Howard: Sit down.

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  Part VIII of the Bill takes forward the Government's commitment to involve the private sector in the provision of prisons, prisoner escorts and some prison services. It widens and improves my current powers—[Interruption.]
  Madam Speaker: Order.
  Mr. Andrew Faulds: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. When a Minister says, "Sit down", he is talking to you, Madam Speaker. Will you ask him to withdraw that command?
  Madam Speaker: If that is the case, I must ask the Minister to withdraw the remark, and I am sure that he will do so.
  Mr. Howard: I am sure that you appreciate, Madam Speaker, that the remark was not aimed at you. However, if anyone took it in that sense—I am sure that you did not, Madam Speaker—I would be happy to withdraw it. I had already made it perfectly plain to the hon. Member for Sedgefield, to whom I have given way four or five times, that he will have an opportunity to make his own speech. That is why I addressed the remark to the hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Phil Gallie: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Is it in line with the procedures of the House that hon. Members should not make sedentary speeches?
  Madam Speaker: That is certainly the case. It is my desire that all 650 Members over whom I preside should follow that example.
  Mr. Howard: I am not at all surprised at the sedentary muttering of the Opposition. They would not dare nor do they have the courage to get up and say what they have been muttering.
  The part of the Bill relating to prisons widens and improves my current powers to contract out prisons and prison services in England and Wales. In particular, it will enable me to award contracts for the design, building, management and financing of the six new prisons that I announced last year.
  The Bill increases my powers to provide additional accommodation to cope with increases in the prison population, and it takes forward our initiative to contract out prison escort services. Skilled prison officers should be free to do the job that they are trained to do instead of spending large parts of the day travelling to and from court with prisoners. Contracting out will make sure that that happens, and it is an excellent example of how market testing and contracting out can provide value for money and a much better service for those who are involved.
  The Bill also allows contracting out of prisons and prisoner escorting in Scotland for the first time, and will enable the prisoner escort service in Northern Ireland to be contracted out.
  Part VIII also puts industrial relations in the prison service on a sounder footing. The recent threat by the Prison Officers Association to lock out prisoners was a totally unacceptable threat to the criminal justice system. In response, I sought and obtained an injunction from the courts restraining the POA from taking such action, but clarification of its position under employment protection law is required.
  The Bill's provisions will extend to prison officers and governors in England, Wales and Northern Ireland the
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  employment rights that are currently enjoyed by their counterparts in Scotland and by other Crown employees. It will give their associations the status in law of trade unions. New pay determination procedures will be established for the staff that are involved. Consultations are about to begin with the relevant unions about the precise details of the new arrangements, but the Bill will put beyond doubt the fact that it is unlawful to incite prison officers to withhold their services or to commit a breach of discipline. That will be backed up by making explicit in the prison rules the implied contractual duty of prison officers to co-operate in the effective running of prisons.
  Ms Diane Abbott: Before the Secretary of State leaves the topic of new offences that the Bill seeks to introduce, will he explain why this comprehensive Bill contains nothing specific to deal with the rising tide of anti-semitic and racist violence? How can he explain his silence on that issue, which concerns people of all colours and creeds in this country?
  Mr. Howard: I have made it plain that I am prepared to look at any sensible proposal to improve the law in relation to those matters. However, I am not yet satisfied that such proposals have been advanced. We are still examining some, and I am convinced that others would not add one jot or tittle to the effectiveness of the present law. I am prepared to consider all such suggestions strictly on their merits.
  The Bill, taken together with the Police and Magistrates' Courts Bill, forms an important part of our strategy to beat crime. But even as those Bills are being discussed and debated in Parliament, we are taking every step that we can to ensure punishment for the guilty, justice for the victim and protection for the public.
  We have taken action to cut police paperwork, which could over time release more than 2,000 officers for front-line duties. We are streamlining police middle management, which will allow chief officers to recruit up to 3,000 more constables. We are taking action to end the inappropriate use of cautions, and we are curtailing cautions for repeat offenders and serious offences. We have boosted funding for Victim Support to more than £10 million, which will enable witness support schemes to be provided in all Crown court centres in England and Wales by the end of 1995, and local schemes and branches to be developed.
  We are taking wide-ranging measures to help to prevent crime. We have acted on the advice given by rural communities about ways in which their relationships with the police can be improved. Almost 40 parish constable schemes have now been agreed, and we shall continue to encourage local communities and police forces to develop a partnership against crime. Our safer cities projects further demonstrate the Government's support for local crime prevention partnerships. We intend to launch up to 40 new projects to replace the 20 that are coming to an end; 10 of those new project areas have already been announced.
  Mr. Dafydd Wigley: I acknowledge that many of the developments in the Bill are important, but does the Home Secretary not realise that police forces need more resources if they are to carry out their work? Has there not been abundant evidence in recent weeks from

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  police forces in Wales that they need real additional resources to avoid having to cut the manpower that enables them to do their work and to keep policemen on the beat?
  Mr. Howard: I should be more impressed with the hon. Gentleman's intervention if every time the Government had increased the resources available to the police over the past 14 years he had congratulated us. There has been an increase of more than 80 per cent. in real terms in the resources available to the police. In this country we have 17,000 more police officers than we had in 1979, and 16,000 more civilians helping them. Now we must make the most effective use that we can of the hugely increased resources available. That is what the Government's measures are designed to achieve.
  Sir Anthony Grant: My right hon. and learned Friend will know that, although the recent revenue support grant for Cambridgeshire allocated £1·5 million specifically to the police, the Lib-Lab coalition on the county council has applied only £105,000 of that money to that purpose. Does that not show the importance that the Lib-Lab coalition gives to the police?
  Mr. Howard: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because that is eloquent testimony to the derision with which the Opposition treat the police.
  The measures in the Bills are our response to rising crime. What response have we had from the Opposition? When I announced my proposals in Blackpool last October, the hon. Member for Sedgefield denounced them. They were, he said,
  "a series of gimmicks to get a headline".
  But since then my proposals have won support from the police and the public, so the hon. Gentleman, weathervane politician that he is, has changed his tune. On television before Christmas he protested:
  "I did not say that all the measures the Home Secretary announced were gimmicks. I said that some of them were gimmicks".
  I challenge the hon. Gentleman to name the gimmicks. I will happily give way to him here and now if he wishes to make good his preposterous claim.
  Mr. Blair: Let me name one gimmick. The Home Secretary said that he would bring about a dramatic difference in the treatment of people who have already been convicted of murder or rape and who come up for bail on another charge of murder or rape. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that there was a great problem in the criminal justice system because people in those circumstances are given bail. Can he give us an example of such a person having been given bail?
  Mr. Howard: There have certainly been instances of people being given bail in those circumstances. Nor did I ever say—and the hon. Gentleman is renowned for the extent to which he distorts, misrepresents and misquotes my remarks—that that measure in isolation would make a dramatic impact. It will make a useful impact; it is a useful measure; it will protect the public; and it is not a gimmick.
  Mr. Michael Stephen: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware of the McGurk murder case, and that the man who killed Anna McGurk had been arrested for rape and let out on bail?
  Mr. Howard: I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend. I hope that the Opposition will take due note of that example.
  It will not be too long before the hon. Member for Sedgefield starts to pretend that our proposals are his own —indeed, he has already started. Not long ago, I made a speech about the victims of crime in which I said that victims should be kept informed about the progress and outcome of their cases and that the Crown Prosecution Service should seek victims' views before decisions are taken. Three months later, the hon. Member for Sedgefield wrote an article in The Sun repeating what I had said almost word for word and claiming it as an initiative of his own. The fate that awaits the hon. Gentleman is the fate that awaits all weathervane politicians: he will end up spinning round and round in ever decreasing circles until neither he nor anyone else has the faintest idea of the direction in which he is facing.
  I have made my aims and objectives clear. I want every aspect of our criminal justice system to work at its best —to do all that it can to make life safer for the law abiding and more difficult for the criminal. The Bill represents an important stepping stone on the path to that objective.
  We have had months of rhetoric about being tough on crime from the hon. Member for Sedgefield. The moment of truth will come tonight after his feeble amendment has been defeated. Our Bill is indisputably tough on crime: it increases sentences; it protects the public from juvenile criminals; it cracks down on bail; and it has been praised by the police, who believe that it will
  "help tremendously in the fight against crime."
  When the hon. Member for Sedgefield sits on his hands tonight, the British people will see that his rhetoric is just hot air: he will have funked the first opportunity that he will have had to turn his words into action.
  As I made clear at Blackpool, this is just the first instalment. I am looking hard at the national standards for community sentences to ensure that they are properly demanding punishments in which the courts and public can have confidence. I am reviewing many of the rules in our prisons, especially those governing testing for drugs and home leave.
  I am determined to do all that I can to encourage a real partnership between the police and the public. On Sunday night I went out on patrol with town watch in Sandwich. [Interruption.] Listen, Madam Speaker, to the Opposition's response to active and concerned citizens who are playing their part in the fight for law and order. I accompanied a group of citizens who were acting as the eyes and ears of the police, helping to escort elderly people who are afraid to go out at night, and making a real contribution to the reduction of crime in their community. We must encourage our citizens to play their part in the war against crime and, if we are to do that, we must ensure that our criminal justice system gives their efforts full and effective support. The Bill will help to achieve that objective, and I commend it to the House.
  4.27 pm
  Mr. Tony Blair: I beg to move, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
  "this House believes that the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill is not an acceptable and effective measure to tackle crime unless it includes the following: a proper statutory framework for crime prevention and other measures to prevent crime; the provision of a full and comprehensive range of treatment and

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  punishment for young offenders including local authority secure accommodation; measures to introduce cautioning and bail support and enforcement programmes in all areas of the country; programme for drug education for young people available in all local authorities with funding ring-fenced; measures to tackled the link between truancy and crime; measures to strengthen the law on racial harassment and violence; a legal right on the part of victims of crime to be consulted when the Crown Prosecution Service decides to change or drop the charges for the offence in respect of which they are the victims, together with a written statement of the reasons for the decision; measures to tackle the provision of dangerous weapons particularly by mail-order supply; the establishment of a proper independent Judicial Appointments Commission for the appointment of judges; and the setting up of an Independent Review Authority for miscarriages of justice as recommended by the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice."
  The purpose of the amendment is to bring balance and strategy to a Government approach that at present lacks both. We do not oppose the strengthening of the criminal justice system—on the contrary, we support measures that actively strengthen that system. Although we can agree with some of the measures in the Bill, we fundamentally disagree with others, and we shall show that there are better and different ways of making the criminal justice system more effective. Above all—as the Home Secretary's total refusal to answer the question whether the Bill would cut crime shows—the Bill is based on the old Tory deceit. The Tories tell us that they are tough on law and order and they have introduced this Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill. However, the measure is fundamentally flawed because it is one-track. It does not deal with prevention as well as punishment or causes as well as crime.
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Dr. Robert Spink: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Blair: I will give way in a moment. I am delighted by the enthusiasm and eagerness which are being displayed on the Conservative Benches.
  There is no doubt about the importance of crime. Nothing is a greater source of fear and anger in our communities. It is a scandal that Asian women and children cannot walk down the street in broad daylight. It is outrageous that elderly people are mugged and robbed in their own homes and that entirely law-abiding young people should be set upon and beaten up for sport.
  Householders and car owners feel despair when their property is stolen and they know that there is little that will be done about that. Although the Home Secretary did not mention this in his speech, it is surely true that when drugs are commonly offered, even in school playgrounds, and as an everyday occurrence, society has a serious sickness at its heart.
  We know all that and the Government accept and admit all that. However, after 14 years, people do not want another dose of Tory rhetoric. They want effective action that works.
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: The hon. Gentleman asks whether the proposals will reduce crime. Is he aware that the stop-and-search procedures which the City of London police introduced over the past year have reduced crime in the City by 18 per cent.?
  Mr. Blair: If that were the case, one would expect the Home Secretary to tell us that the measure will cut crime. The hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) has provided a basis upon which the Home Secretary should leap to his feet to say that that is the judgment that we should make of the measure. However, the Home Secretary must agree that one cannot tell the British people at a party conference that the Bill comprises the most comprehensive and effective series of crime measures that have ever been put before the British people and then be unable to pledge that the judgment that will be made about its effectiveness is that it will cut crime.
  Dr. Spink: Does the hon. Gentleman honestly believe that taking young thugs and habitual criminals off the streets and tackling bail bandits will not reduce crime? What measures would the hon. Gentleman propose to reduce such crime?
  Mr. Blair: I am astonished that the hon. Gentleman should ask that question, because it was the Opposition who first raised the problem of persistent juvenile offending and who proposed measures to deal with that problem. When I deal with that part of the Bill, I will say exactly where we agree and disagree. At that point, perhaps the hon. Member for Castle Point (Dr. Spink) will judge which are the more effective measures.
  It was the Opposition who helped to secure the passage of the Bail (Amendment) Act 1993.
  Mr. Michael Shersby: The hon. Gentleman said that it was the Opposition who first raised the question of persistent juvenile offenders. I assure him that during the five years that I have been parliamentary adviser to the Police Federation I have raised that issue constantly in the House. Indeed, I did so long before the hon. Gentleman came to his present post. My predecessors also raised that matter.
  Mr. Blair: I do not doubt that. However, it is patently obvious that the Government Front Bench did not listen to the hon. Gentleman. I remember that when we first raised the issue in the House we were told that juvenile offending was on the decline and that the problem was therefore not as great as people had said.
  As I have said, people want a strategy to fight crime that works. They want one that will cut crime. They want a strategy that, above all, is geared not to catching headlines so that Ministers can give the illusion of activity but to stopping crime so that communities become safer.
  The Government must start with a straightforward explanation. They now admit the scale of the problem. They must explain why, after 14 years of Tory government, things are as bad as they are. The Tories have been in power for 14 years. There have been 14 years of rising crime. For 14 years, the Tories have had the chance in government to put things right, but there have been 14 years of Tory failure. That is the record on which the Government stand. The significance of the Bill is that the Government now admit that there is no confidence in the system.
  What is the Government's explanation? It is not as though the issue of crime has just surfaced. Crime has risen by more than 120 per cent. since 1979. It rose in the Government's first and second terms of office and it has carried on rising. The only time that it fell was between 1988 and 1990. The Government have had 14 years in

  37
  which to deal with it, but they have not done so. One might think that, after 14 years, the great Conservative purveyors of collective responsibility would take responsibility for the situation. After all, they are the Government. Do they say that they are responsible? Not a bit of it. The one thing that we must never underestimate about the Tories is their brazen nerve and their brass neck.
  I shall give the House the explanation that the Home Secretary now gives—he gave it on the "Today" programme just a morning ago. He says that the real problem is that the Government have been hamstrung in their fight against crime because their civil servants forced them to accept the nostrums of the liberal establishment.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Blair: I shall give way from right to left this time.
  Mrs. Cheryl Gillan: The hon. Gentleman keeps referring to 14 years in which to tackle crime. Fourteen years ago, two of the Bill's provisions were not possible—those on DNA sampling and on the crime of computer pornography. Will the hon. Gentleman dismiss the modernisation of our criminal justice system by saying that we have had 14 years in which to do everything? We are doing it now.
  Mr. Blair: As an explanation of why crime has risen over the past 14 years, that intervention is somewhat less than credible. It would have been a good deal more convincing had the Tories not taken office promising to cut crime and promising to do so at all subsequent elections.
  Mr. John Sykes: Many elements of the criminal justice system are well known, independent of government, for their softness on crime. For example, the probation service is known to refer to thugs and criminals in its charge as clients. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with such a description?
  Mr. Blair: It is truly unbelievable. I shall tell the hon. Gentleman what he should try to do, and that is not attack the probation service, which does its best in extremely difficult circumstances. The hon. Gentleman should try to join us in putting into place measures that will cut crime.
  Mr. Rod Richards: So far, all that we have heard from the hon. Gentleman is a lot of hot Blair. If his party is serious about tackling crime, why did his party's manifesto at the previous general election say more about sport and leisure than about tackling crime?
  Mr. Blair: Actually, the hon. Gentleman is completely wrong. We put crime at the very centre of our concerns, and we have always done that. The standard of Tory insults has declined in recent years.
  Dame Jill Knight: The hon. Gentleman has been very concerned to blame the Government for rising crime. If his point is valid, who does he blame for rising crime in every comparable civilised country?
  Mr. Blair: That is another explanation—I shall not deal with it in detail today—that the Prime Minister once gave, and it is not correct. Crime has risen to a much greater extent here than in many other countries. I do not say that everything is the fault of the Conservative Government, but, after 14 years, they should take responsibility for the situation that has arisen. That is what we wish them to do.
  Mr. Stephen: The hon. Gentleman focuses very conveniently on the past 14 years, but, if he is honest, he will accept that today we are reaping the consequences of the breakdown of respect which occurred in the 1960s. Is it not the problem that successive Governments have listened far too much to the left-wing social reformers?
  Mr. Blair: I have to say that the hon. Gentleman is right about one point. I should not focus on 14 years because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) has pointed out, the Conservatives have been in power for 15 years. I shall tell the hon. Gentleman what it is that people object to in the present-day Tory party and what makes them angry. It is that he stands there after almost 15 years of Government, with crime rising in the way that it has, and will not take any blame or responsibility but puts it on the 1960s or the trendy liberal establishment—anywhere but on the Government who have been in power and have had a chance to do something about it. That is what people dislike about the Government. What people dislike about the Government more than anything else is that they will preach to everybody about taking personal responsibility, but they do not have the guts to take any responsibility themselves for the situation that they created.
  Let me tell the hon. Gentleman another thing. We are told after 15 years that it was all the problem of the 1960s. Have the Government just woken up? What was happening in the 1980s? When that great fan of the liberal establishment, the noble Baroness Thatcher, was presiding over the Government, why did they not try to take things on and deal with them? Of course, it is all just another piece of Tory deceit. The truth is that history cannot be rewritten in that way.
  The Home Secretary's prison works policy is not new. It is not the case that, for 15 years, the Government pursued exactly the same policy. In fact, throughout the 1980s, the very strategy that he pursues today was the strategy of the Tory party. Let me quote him the figures on the prison population. In the 1980s, the number rose to its highest level ever—almost 50,000 in 1988. The idea that, all through the 1980s, the Home Office was caught by the liberal establishment is rubbish. The truth is that the policy was changed because it did not work.
  What we need to do now, therefore, is not repeat the mistakes of the past but learn from them. We face a choice. We can either go in the direction of the United States, where there are 1·25 million people in gaol—
  Lady Olga Maitland rose—
  Mr. Blair: No, I cannot give way at the moment.
  There has been a trebling in 10 years of the prison population in the United States and violent crime has continued to rise. Alternatively, we can understand that it is important to combine programmes of reform and prevention with the strengthening of the criminal justice system. The Home Secretary's policy of prison works will not succeed.
  I must say that there is one exception, which the Home Secretary has introduced to the prison works programme. The headline in the Daily Express today is "Howard Joins Battle to Free Ambridge One". The article says:
  "Such is the national outrage at the jailing of the Archer, Susan Carter, that Home Secretary, Michael Howard, has joined the campaign to free her. Mr. Howard is upset, like many others, because Susan received six months jail for helping her robber brother to elude the law."

  39
  It continues:
  "Home Office officials seemed stunned at Mr. Howard's sudden involvement. After all, the Archers is fiction, isn't it, asked a spokesman? Speculation there now is that he might follow Princess Margaret, Terry Wogan, Dame Edna Everidge and Britt Ekland in a guest appearance on the show."
  The Home Secretary would certainly do less damage in Ambridge than he does in Whitehall.
  The prison works slogan—a return to the short sharp shock, and we have been there before—is to be put to work in relation to juvenile offenders. As I have been asked about it before, let me make quite clear the difference between the two sides. We do not disagree that those who are out of control and making life hell—there are juvenile offenders who are doing that—must be in secure accommodation. [Interruption.] It is said that that is very surprising. Let me state the Government's record on the issue.
  Three years ago, the Government promised 65 extra secure accommodation places. To this day, the so-called party of law has not built a single one. The Government's explanation is given time and again. It was given by the Secretary of State for Education in the debate on the Queen's Speech—it is that Labour-controlled local authorities refuse to give planning permission or co-operate in their building. We have done some research into that. The local authorities' directors of social services have not refused to countenance more secure accommodation; instead, they have been asking for it.
  Lady Olga Maitland rose—
  Mr. Blair: I shall give way in a moment.
  Many local authorities, Labour and Tory, have been urgently requesting the promised resources. According to the national bed bureau, there have been hundreds more inquiries from those local authorities for secure accommodation. Leeds city council has been applying for 10 extra places of secure accommodation for two years and the promise has still not been honoured. The only example that has ever been given is Leicestershire. It has changed its decision and now wishes for secure accommodation places as well.
  The truth is that this whole excuse has been got away about local authorities because the Government have not wanted to honour the sensible course and the promise that they gave three years ago.
  Mr. Jonathan Evans: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Blair: In a moment.
  Mr. Howard: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Blair: I shall certainly give way to the Home Secretary—unlike, if I may say, his decision in relation to me. But I shall give way first to the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam, as she has been waiting.
  Lady Olga Maitland: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. On the subject of secure units, does he accept that the real problem is not the lack of beds available, because, according to the bed bureau, space can almost always be found for a child? The real problem is that the juvenile magistrates are deeply frustrated at the
  40
  fact that they have to hand a child back to social services, which persistently refuse on ideological grounds to make use of secure units.
  Mr. Blair: That is absolute nonsense. We have made inquiries of the national bed bureau within the past few weeks. It says that there is a huge surplus of demand for secure accommodation by local authorities over supply. The hon. Lady's statement is quite incorrect.
  Mr. Howard: The hon. Gentleman said with a great flourish a moment ago that the Lib-Lab council in Leicestershire was now—and he used the words—prepared to co-operate with the Government in providing the accommodation. Perhaps he will tell us what the Labour party did over the past 10 years, when it refused to proceed with a proposal for secure accommodation, which had been approved by a previous Conservative Administration. For the whole decade the Labour party consistently refused to provide secure accommodation. The fact that it is now prepared to co-operate hardly alters the record for that decade.
  Mr. Blair: With respect, that is only one example. I have made quite clear what has now happened and what our view of it is. The notion that that can invalidate the entirety of the policy is plainly absurd. Let me tell the Home Secretary the advantages of dealing with the matter in that way. First, the places could be achieved without delay. This country does not want to wait years before the problem is dealt with. It wants it dealt with now. Secondly, it allows the provision to be both local and integrated, as everybody, including the Select Committee on Home Affairs and the Association of Chief Police Officers, have asked for.
  Mr. Jonathan Evans: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Blair: No, I must press on.
  Mr. Evans: The hon. Gentleman said earlier that he would give way.
  Mr. Blair: I am sorry. I really must press on.
  We have also discovered an internal Government document which specifically compares young offenders institutions with secure local authority units and finds that for local authority units there is not only a better record on education and training but a better rate of reconviction—[Interruption.] I shall give way if the hon. Gentleman is going to heckle me all the way through.
  Mr. Jonathan Evans: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I do not wish to heckle him, but he may recall that he promised some time ago that he would give way to me.
  The hon. Gentleman is receiving a briefing now from his hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael), who knows that, as soon as I was elected to the House, he and I went to see Welsh Office Ministers to make sure that secure accommodation was available in south Wales, particularly in the Cardiff area, which is experiencing the highest rise in crime anywhere in the country. Perhaps the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) will explain to the House why, after all that time, secure accommodation is now to be made available in Neath—another local authority area altogether?
  Mr. Blair: That is an outrageous claim, which has been dealt with on several occasions. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth and other hon. Members were pressing for that secure accommodation, but the Government refused to co-operate, and lessons can be learnt from that.
  The advantage of that provision is that it can be integrated into proper programmes of diversion, prevention and punishment within local communities. A short time ago, a report was published, showing the gaps in provision in all sorts of good programmes for young people. To make way for some of the new secure training centres, not only are we failing to build on the provisions already there but other programmes of assistance to deal with habitual young offenders are being systematically dismantled. Residential places for disturbed young children and motor projects dealing with car thieves are closing and two thirds of local authorities have been forced to make cuts in youth services. To weaken the provisions in local communities and then to claim that building the new secure training centres will help to prevent juvenile crime is a sham. We know that and I believe that the Government know that as well.
  Mr. Howard: The hon. Gentleman knows that this is an elaborate smokescreen. He has to answer a simple question: does he think that the courts should be given the power, which they do not now have, to sentence those young people to periods in secure accommodation, or does he not? If he does, is he prepared to vote for that provision in the Bill?
  Mr. Blair: As the Minister well knows, because that point is put to me every time, our dispute with him is not about the powers—we agree that the courts require them —but over our belief that it is better to deal with the problems by integrating the powers with proper local provision. That is what has been suggested by virtually everyone who has looked into the problems.
  Mr. John Gunnell: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Home Secretary is selective in the points to which he replies? He responded on the Leicestershire point, but ignored the Leeds point. More than two years ago, discussions were under way with the Leeds authority on the provision of 10 extra places at a cost then of £500,000. I also know, as does my hon. Friend, that the bed bureau is run by the Leeds authority, so it has unique knowledge of the numbers of spaces needed and of the impossibility of getting a secure place. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) is wrong. Places cannot be achieved. Why does not the Home Secretary answer the question as to why the offer from Leeds, the plans made and discussed with Departments, were not followed up? Why do we still not have those places? Why—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Hon. Members should ask one question at a time, not six.
  Mr. Blair: I apologise for missing that inconsistency in what the Home Secretary said, but there are so many inconsistencies that occasionally one slips through the net. This issue shows the difference between what the Tories say and what they do on law and order. Such action could be taken now and combined in the way I set out, but the exaggerations go all the way through.
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  Let us be clear about the purpose of a criminal justice system. It should be not on the side of the accused or of the prosecution but on the side of truth. The Royal Commission on Criminal Justice was set up to establish the framework for improving our system. I disagreed with some of its points and others disagreed with other points but, on the whole, it was welcomed. However, the Government will now depart from two key aspects of it.
  First, the Government have refused to include in the Bill provision for the establishment of a proper independent review body for miscarriages of justice. That omission cannot be justified. The recommendation was widely trailed and examination of it was the principal reason for establishing the commission. There is justifiable dismay that it has not been included in the Bill. We shall be tabling amendments to include it.
  Mr. Chris Mullin: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Home Secretary's explanation of why it has not been included does not make much sense? The suggestion has been around since 1982, when the Home Affairs Select Committee first made it—its then Chairman is now a Minister in the Northern Ireland Office—and it was so uncontroversial that it had the support of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight). The suggestion was again made by the royal commission, but the Government have still ignored it.
  Mr. Blair: My hon. Friend is right. Recently, I saw comments made three years ago by the present Foreign Secretary showing why he supported such a body. Omission of that provision cannot be justified.
  The second issue is the right to silence. The royal commission decided that, although abuses could be remedied, it was wrong to abolish that right, particularly in the police station. The royal commission took that view after the most careful research which showed, among other things, that it was relied upon in a small number of cases and, in the majority of them, there was a conviction or a guilty plea. Even those in the minority who dissented took the view that there had to be fundamental additional safeguards before that right could be interfered with.
  What people find most worrying is the tone and attitude of the Home Secretary when he discusses the issue. Even those who have advocated curtailing the right to silence have done so with some regard to the sensitivity of the issue and with some sense of the fact that we are dealing with fundamental legal questions. When the former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland moved the Irish provision, he did so in that way, not with a one-liner delivered to the Tory party conference. That was not the action of a responsible Home Secretary.
  The right to silence covers two entirely different situations. The first is, where a prosecution case is disclosed, the accused knows exactly what is being alleged and its significance and is acting with qualified legal advice. There is justifiable concern that entirely new facts or defences could be raised at trial and, as it is described, the prosecution ambushed. There is huge dispute about the prevalence of that, but let us assume that it happens.
  I do not believe that it is inconsistent with civil liberties to allow that lack of disclosure to be properly commented on, but that is a million miles away from the other type of case. That is, before charges are brought, when the person is being questioned—he may not understand the significance of what he is asked and may not be legally

  43
  represented—he fails to mention a fact that is later relevant. Under the Government proposals, even if that fact were subsequently disclosed before the trial so that there was no question of ambush, the failure could be used to draw inferences of guilt.
  Any reasonable person could see that that approach is open to potential injustice. The Bill makes no provision for extra safeguards. The chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, Richard Ferguson QC, himself a former Member of Parliament—
  Mr. Trimble: No, of the Stormont Parliament.
  Mr. Blair: I apologise. He was a member of the Stormont Parliament. He has said that it is not the professional criminal who is at risk but the vulnerable innocent.
  I asked the Home Secretary a specific question about Northern Ireland and he told me that he was unable to give figures. However, we have the figures, so let me tell him that, since the right to silence has been abolished in Northern Ireland, the number of prosecutions has dropped, although crime has been rising, and the number of convictions as a percentage of prosecutions has dropped. I appreciate that that is not proof absolute that the right to silence has not had the impact suggested by the Home Secretary, but when he tells us that the change is fundamental to getting more criminals prosecuted or convicted, it is more than passing strange that he has not even analysed what happened when the change was introduced in Northern Ireland.
  Mr. Rupert Allason: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of what was said by the head of the anti-terrorist branch, when asked whether there was any single measure that he believed could save lives? He said that the most frustrating experience for him and his officers was when they had before them a terrorist suspect who would not even confirm or deny his identity, and that to have the ability to draw that to the attention of the jury was important. What would the hon. Gentleman say to that?
  Mr. Blair: I shall tell the hon. Gentleman exactly what I would say. It is that that has to be done following an examination of whether that is the problem that we face. At the very least, before we have the fullest possible evidence of its impact in Northern Ireland, it is wrong to legislate here. When the matter was debated in relation to Northern Ireland five years ago, considerable hesitation was expressed, even by those on the Government Benches. As I say, it is the tone and the attitude as much as anything else which concerns people. That same dogma and lack of balance turn up again in the proposals for more prison privatisation.
  Mr. Graham Riddick: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Blair: No, I must move on. The proposals for prison privatisation have been made when we have not evaluated the existing private prisons.
  The dogma and lack of balance come up again in the curbing of those who protest against fox hunting, whereas no reciprocal duties are put on anything else. I disagree totally with anyone who starts disrupting the ability of people to go fishing, and so forth. However, I do not see
  44
  why police officers should try to prevent people from lawfully protesting against fox hunting. That does not seem to be the proper role of the police.
  There is rank hypocrisy in some of the provisions. The Prime Minister said a few days ago that he wanted to "put the victim first". He should tell that to the tens of thousands of victims who will lose proper compensation under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board provisions. If we are to deal with the criminal justice system, let us deal with the real scandal of the system. At a time when crime is rising and when there is more violent and serious crime, the number of prosecutions is falling and the number of cases which are discontinued or in which charges are dropped is rising. Courts are lying idle while crime is rising around them. A Government who are concerned about law and order should address those issues. However, during the past few months, there has been a 17 per cent. drop in the number of cases that have been dealt with by Crown courts.
  Those are practical measures, but the fundamental criticism of the Government is of their lack of balance. I return, as I have often done, to the fact that only one in 50 crimes leads to a conviction. The figures are one in 200 for crimes of vandalism and one in 10 for violent assaults.
  Mr. Riddick: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Blair: I will not give way.
  Only one in three crimes in Britain is even recorded. The prison population may top 50,000. How would that compare with the 20 million crimes a year which are committed in our country'? That is the case for tackling causes as well as crime, and for prevention as well as punishment.
  The deceit of the claims as to whether that would work is then combined with the dogma of the refusal to accept crime prevention measures that would give us a realistic chance of cutting crime. Three years ago, the Government published a report on crime prevention which suggested that an urgent statutory framework of crime prevention was needed. That proposal was rejected because of dogma and because it would give a role to local authorities. Worse, the Government are now to undermine community policing by centralising policing in the hands of the Government and by having Ministers appoint people to the boards.
  We need, of course, a proper national programme of drugs education. A Home Office report last week said that drugs and crime were intimately connected and that there was widespread concern about that linkage. The report also said that work urgently needed to be undertaken to develop education for 12 to 18-year-olds. What is the Government's response? They have withdrawn funding from drugs education co-ordinators in our schools and youth services.
  Time and time again, action that is required is not taken. New laws to tackle racial harassment and abuse are absent from the Bill. Safer cities projects and the urban programme are being cut and are having their funding reduced. In south Wales, police stations are at risk as a result of the problems. That is because the Government are more interested in a few grabbed headlines than in a proper strategy for fighting crime.
  Let us be clear. No one but a fool would excuse the commission of crime on the basis of social conditions, but no one but a Tory would deny the influence that those social conditions can have on the way in whch our young people develop. That is why we need to remedy not just the

  45
  faults of the criminal justice system but the culture of despair, hopelessness, drugs, violence, instability, poor education and poor job prospects that characterise elements of our young people today.
  To achieve that, we do not need or want lectures from Ministers on the responsibilities of everyone else but themselves. We want them to play their part in building a better and safer country of responsible citizens. We want them to open up new educational opportunities and to give our young people the chance of a decent job and training. We want them to rebuild the crumbling public services in many of our cities and towns. We want them to stop the rot of the social disintegration which is all around us. That is the "back to basics" that the country wants to see implemented today by the Government.
  Mr. Riddick: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Riddick) knows full well that the hon. Gentleman who is at the Dispatch Box is not giving way to him. I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman would stay in his seat and remain quiet.
  Mr. Blair: It is significant that when we talk about "back to basics" Conservative Members want to heckle and to interrupt to make sure that no one listens.
  Mr. Riddick: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman has just accused me of wanting to heckle and interrupt, when what I wanted was to make an intervention and to put a question to him. Will you now ask him to withdraw that accusation?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I certainly will not ask the hon. Member to withdraw it. The hon. Member for Colne Valley knew full well that the hon. Gentleman who was at the Dispatch Box was not giving way. The rules of the House are clear and hon. Members should know them. The hon. Member who has the floor has the right to give way or not to give way. Hon. Members who choose not to give way should be respected.
  Mr. Blair: I have given way a great deal during the debate, and there are other hon. Members who want to speak.
  I was talking about the programmes which we want to see for our country, programmes which would tackle both the criminal justice system and the causes of crime. Government Members should know that one cannot build a strong and cohesive society that encourages responsible citizens unless one believes in a strong and cohesive society. We must acknowledge that people are not just individuals but that they are members of a society and a community and that they owe obligations to one another as well as to themselves.
  To achieve that balance between individual responsibility and social responsibility, we must believe in our country as a society of responsible citizens. It is because the Opposition believe in that concept, and the Government do not, that our programme for fighting crime is better.
  5.8 pm
  Sir Cranley Onslow: Many hon. Members want to speak in the debate, and I have no wish to make a long speech. I welcome the Bill because of its contents, and I deplore the fact that the Opposition cannot bring themselves to do the same.
  There is great deal which might, and no doubt will, be said about changes in the law and about strengthening the law in relation to young offenders, bail provisions and the other matters which my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary mentioned. Those measures will be generally welcomed both outside and inside the House.
  My immediate concern is fastened on one part of the Bill—part V, and in particular clause 61, which repeals the obligation that the Caravan Sites Act 1968 imposes upon local authorities to provide sites for gipsies and other travellers.
  There is no doubt that the Act has long passed its use-by date. That was conceded by the Government and was welcomed by the House in a debate a year or so ago on the private Member's Bill which I sought leave to introduce to deal with the subject. I look forward to hearing more from Ministers in Committee about how the new system will work and how it will be applied. For example, will a target be set for the number of new sites to be opened around the country when the planning system takes over, and who will have the responsibility of making sure that sites are available?
  I am a little surprised that there is no mention in the explanatory memorandum of the savings which will result from the repeal of those parts of the 1968 Act. Another point which will be of interest is the future ownership and management of existing council sites. Are those likely to be privatised? Will there be a licensing system? How will those matters be dealt with?
  I have no doubt that that can be dealt with in Committee. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary will not be disappointed to hear that I do not aspire to membership of the Committee, because I know that many other hon. Members who are much better qualified than myself will volunteer to deal with all the points of law involved.
  Part V and its provisions to strengthen the position of those people who want law and order to prevail in the countryside are an important departure from precedent. The creation of a new offence of aggravated trespass is a significant step forward that will be widely welcomed in all parts of the country where people have become all too used to disorder, intimidation and violence prevailing and interrupting the lawful pursuits of those who live in the country, value it and want to continue with their countryside sports.
  Frankly, I was astonished that the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) —if I could have his attention for a second—felt obliged to throw a sop to his left-wing colleagues by saying that he did not see why police officers should be employed to prevent violent disorder from surrounding hunt activities and meetings.
  Hon. Members: He did not say that.
  Mr. Blair: I did not say that at all. Of course, whenever there is violence or the law is broken, the police should be involved, whether at a fox hunt or anything else. What I did say, however, was that it was not the function of the police

  47
  to be employed to prevent people from engaging in otherwise lawful activities merely because they are opposed to fox hunting.
  Sir Cranley Onslow: I am glad to hear that rather reluctant confession. Nothing in the Bill is likely to prevent lawful protests, and if the hon. Gentleman reads it with care he will see that.
  The Bill seeks to prevent people from invading the property of others and making free with it, in spite of the owner's wishes and the fact that he or she has given consent for certain activities there.
  Mr. Tony Banks rose—
  Sir Cranley Onslow: I find it extremely difficult to follow the rationale of the hon. Member for Sedgefield, except in so far as he wants to curry favour with his anti-fox-hunting friends, one of whom I shall not give way to.
  Mr. Banks: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Sir Cranley Onslow: No. The hon. Gentleman must make his lawful protest in a speech rather than an intervention.
  Mr. Banks: I am at the bottom of the list.
  Sir Cranley Onslow: I am delighted to hear it. That encourages me to speak at even greater length, but I want to be fair to other hon. Members.
  It is a disgrace that organised violence, deliberate provocation and physical assaults on people and animals have become an accepted way of life for a militant section of urban society. The saboteur movement has its roots not in the countryside but in the towns. Anyone who has seen busloads of Millwall supporters brought in to disrupt a hunt knows exactly what I am talking about.
  Mr. Banks: As a Chelsea supporter, may I intervene?
  Sir Cranley Onslow: I am afraid that on no account will I allow the hon. Gentleman to intervene.
  It is important to add that provision on aggravated trespass to the statute book. However—this arises from some remarks by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight)—I must comment on the response that the offence of aggravated trespass has caused in another quarter. I dare say that most hon. Members will have seen a letter from the Research Defence Society on
  "Animal extremism and medical research".
  The letter expresses
  "concern that the government's proposed legislation … is not offering any protection to the medical researchers who have been the main targets for animal rights extremists over the last two decades."
  The letter continues:
  "Animal rights groups have been intimidating, obstructing and attacking medical researchers who work with animals for much longer than they have been disrupting field sports. Indeed, the scale and intensity of these attacks, which have included IRA-type car bombs utilising high explosives and mercury-tilt switches, goes far beyond anything used against huntsmen and anglers. After over twenty car bombs, all against medical researchers, the police have been able to arrest not one person in connection with these terrorist attacks."
  I believe that provisions exist on the statute book which make such activities unlawful and capable of prosecution
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  in the most serious way. However, it worries me that the law and law enforcement agencies seem to have been unable to do anything to prevent the prevalence of animal rights terrorists. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will take this as a serious plea, and that he will respond to the Research Defence Society.
  Mr. Howard: That will be dealt with in the reply to the debate.
  Sir Cranley Onslow: I am glad to hear that, because there can be no justification for terrorism of that sort. The House should be satisfied that all appropriate action is being taken to deal with it.
  I promised to be brief, so I shall move from the content of the Bill to another subject on which I hope that the House will find itself in agreement with me. Public confidence in the law does not depend merely on what we put on the statute book. Many of our constituents have long been at a loss to understand how the judicial process works, and their conception of it is drawn from press reports.
  Many hon. Members will have received letters similar to one sent to me recently by a constituent, who said:
  "I wish to protest in the strongest possible terms at the ludicrous practice of sending young offenders on these expensive trips … Surely some form of real punishment can be found for all these tearaways? There are thousands of honest hard-working families who can barely afford a week's holiday in a caravan —and to hear about the cost of those so-called therapeutic journeys leaves one speechless."
  I think that that reaction is common to all of us who have been watching recent extraordinary events. The Prime Minister's reaction, which was reported in the press the other day, strikes an echo in everyone's heart. I hope that we shall hear from the Home Office that such safari penalties will be brought to an end.
  For years, many people have been puzzled why, when the House sets maximum penalties for certain crimes, the maximum penalty is not applied in a case when it is difficult to conceive that a more serious offence could have been committed under the same heading. There was an example in the newspapers last week. A drink-driving taxi driver was convicted of killing three women in a head-on collision. The judge commented that his sentencing was restricted because the offence happened before a change in the law doubling the maximum penalty from five to 10 years, which in his mind made it impossible for him to impose a sentence of more than three years.
  I would find it hard to explain to any constituents who asked me why such an offence—drink-driving, a head-on collision and killing three innocent women—should not warrant the maximum penalty in any case. What were the mitigating factors that enabled the sentence to be three years instead of five?
  Mr. Gerald Kaufman indicated assent.
  Mrs. Llin Golding indicated assent.
  Sir Cranley Onslow: I see that other hon. Members agree, and are equally baffled.
  Hon. Members must understand that the system has to be seen to work effectively—not merely by Members of Parliament—if the public are to have confidence.
  Several other cases in which court proceedings had a curious outcome come to mind. For the life of me, I cannot understand how a gentleman—if I can call him that—who

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  was involved in separating a large number of people from an enormous sum of money could come away with a sentence of 180 hours of community service. That is inexplicable. There is no rational explanation for it—or if there is, I have never heard it.
  I have heard suggestions about what might have gone wrong in the court. I have heard criticisms of the counsel's approach, and of the way in which the trial was conducted. I do not know the facts of the matter, but the case was of enormous interest to the public, and my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary must realise that a public explanation for the sentence should be given. Such an explanation should be given in the House. It should be possible for a report-back process to develop, whereby incredible miscarriages of justice, as perceived by the public, can at least be made comprehensible, even if not defensible.
  There is a case that is still in the public's mind and for which a report back might be appropriate. I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend remembers the case of Joseph Elliot. I had correspondence, on behalf of concerned constituents, with the Home Office at the time. My hon. Friend the Minister wrote me a letter in which he said that the Home Secretary had said that he intended to take a fresh look at the details of the case to see whether there were lessons to be learnt.
  The jury accepted a plea of self-defence in circumstances that most people found extremely difficult to understand. It would be helpful if my hon. Friend the Minister, when winding up tonight, finds it possible to say what, if any, results the Home Secretary's review of the case has produced.
  We must have not merely the best possible statutes drafted by the most competent parliamentary draftsmen, which are clear in every detail and impossible to misinterpret or to misunderstand. That is the ideal of legislation and is, of course, sometimes achieved. We must also ensure that the system works. I was especially glad to hear the Home Secretary emphasise that.
  We should be concerned not only with the Bill, but with the application, the enforcement and the interpretation of its provisions. The matter concerns not just the Government and not just Parliament. The whole system must work and be seen to work. The Bill is a great step forward, and I hope that it will be seen, interpreted and taken up by the other parts of the system in a way that will make us all glad that we passed it.
  5.21 pm
  Mr. Gerald Kaufman: The House listened to the Home Secretary reciting a long litany of defects in the criminal justice system. One would have thought that the criminal justice system was something that, with all its defects, had just been inherited from a previous Government, and that that was why it required such root-and-branch rectification.
  The fact is that this criminal justice system has existed for almost 15 years under this Government, and has been the subject of repeated amendments through Criminal Justice Bills. I was involved in the debates on the previous Criminal Justice Bill, which a previous Home Secretary said would solve all the defects of which anyone could think.
  The Government talk about dealing with the crime wave and, to use the Home Secretary's phraseology, about the
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  fight against crime. Yet the wave of crime against which the Government say that they will wage a campaign has been escalating for almost 15 years—since the Government came to office. The Home Secretary told the House what he intended to do to deal with criminals in the 12-to-14 age bracket. Every one of those criminals was born and brought up under this Government, and every one is a child of the society that this Government have created.
  The Home Secretary talked about what he would do with criminals aged between 15 and 17. Those criminals, some of whom commit serious crimes, have spent every sentient moment in the society created by this Government. They have been imbued with the values created by this Government; they are the creatures of this Government. Every criminal in his 20s—I say "his", not to be sexist but because most criminals are men—has spent his entire adulthood in a society created by a Government whose Prime Minister for many years said that there was no such thing as society. Crime is higher under this Government than it has ever been before.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) repeatedly asked the Home Secretary what the Bill would do to reduce crime. The answer is nothing. There is nothing in the Bill that will cause a single crime fewer to be committed after the Bill has been enacted than before it was introduced. The Bill certainly contains one or two useful provisions, such as the one, cited earlier, that deals with child pornography. It contains many damaging provisions, some of which my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield has listed. He has also explained why, rightly, we shall oppose them.
  What the Bill mainly contains in its enormous length is futile provisions which will do nothing one way or the other, but which will impose burdens on the police, who are severely burdened already, and burdens on the courts and on juries when they are called on to deal with criminals —provided that those criminals are caught. The Bill was proclaimed by the Home Secretary in his speech at the Conservative party conference, and he praised it again today. Yet it is not about reducing crime; it is about what the Government will do with people who are accused of crime when they are arrested, charged, tried and, possibly, convicted.
  The problem is, of course, that most criminals are not caught. Most offenders who have committed reported crimes—we know that a large proportion of crime is not even reported—are not caught. Almost three quarters of those responsible for crime that the police know about are never caught. Many crimes are not reported, because the victims see no point in reporting them.
  The Royal Automobile Club has published, just in time for today's debate, figures about car crime. They show that car crime in Greater Manchester, part of which I represent, is No. 2 in the national table for car crimes. Yet we are only talking here about the 118 per 1,000 who report such crimes. Every member of the public knows that many people whose cars are broken into and who have the contents of those cars stolen never report those crimes. They do not think it worth while because they know that the police, despite their best endeavours, are extremely unlikely to apprehend the perpetrators. They do not report the crime even for insurance purposes: they will not claim on insurance, because that will affect their insurance benefits.
  The national crime total is dreadful, but the rate for my constituency is far worse than the national rate. In the C

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  division of Greater Manchester police, which broadly covers my constituency, the reported crime rate is 250 per cent. of what it was when the Government came to office. That increase is far higher than the increase in the country as a whole.
  The clear-up rate in C division in 1980, when the Government had just come to office, was a creditable 45 per cent. Today, it is only 28 per cent. I do not criticise the police for that in any way. They do their very best in circumstances that, in large areas of crime, have gone beyond their control. Dealing with car crime, with burglary and with certain kinds of violent crime is beyond the best efforts of the police. They do not receive sufficient resources, and they have far too many burdens. The Bill will increase the burdens without increasing the resources.
  Mrs. Bridget Prentice: Given the statistics for his constituency which my right hon. Friend has outlined, he will not be at all surprised to know that the figures in London are just as bad, if not worse. The clear-up rate in London is a mere 16 per cent. The Metropolitan police feel unable to deal with rising crime in London because of the lack of resources and the lack of commitment from the Government to help them to do so.
  Mr. Kaufman: I recognise not only the problems of crime in London, but the grievances of the Metropolitan police about the way in which they are unable to give of their best, as they would like to do, in dealing with that situation.
  The burdens on the police are not only more onerous, but more obvious. A dozen years ago, drug dealing was almost unknown in my constituency; now it goes on blatantly in the streets for all to see. There is a public house in the Longsight area of my constituency to which, at a Sunday lunchtime, parents would bring their babies, sit in the garden and have a drink. Today, overt drug dealing takes place outside that pub, in such a way that respectable citizens will not patronise it any more. That is the kind of thing that is happening today.
  Even the most innocent developments affect crime. On one estate in the Gorton area of my constituency, the council has introduced an experimental system—which it is seeking to introduce in other parts of my constituency —for the use of wheelie bins for domestic refuse. People are now unwilling to use them, however, because, if they wheel them out and then go off to work, the bins are on the pavement to tell burglars that houses are vacant and someone can break in.
  Crime today is operating in a climate in which it is made to seem routine. Therefore, it is not surprising that more and more young people are succumbing to its temptations. In Greater Manchester, the rate of known crime committed by those aged between 10 and 16—the children of this Conservative Government's society—is 42 per cent. above the national average for boys and 49 per cent. above the national average for girls.
  Those figures relate to Greater Manchester, but the figures for C division, which covers my constituency, are inevitably worse. That is not surprising, because, apart from the pestilential amusement arcades, which the Secretary of State for the Environment has forced the
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  planning committee of my city to accept against its wish, there is too little available to occupy the time of young people in my constituency.
  We have campaigned for youth facilities on the Anson estate, on which my constituents claim there is too much crime, but the Government offer no assistance. The Victoria swimming baths have closed down, but, despite an excellent campaign by local residents on behalf of themselves and their children, the Government do nothing to help. The Abbey Hey amateur football club, which is run in an area of great deprivation and unemployment, needs new changing rooms, but the Government do nothing. The Trinity Baptist church tries to provide facilities for youth in an area of high unemployment, but the Government do nothing to help.
  It is no good the Government saying that Manchester city council should provide the necessary funds, because the Government have made it impossible for that council to do so. They have cut their grant to the council, and they have stopped it raising money not only by borrowing, but through local taxes, which are too high in any case.
  The Government have slaughtered the urban aid programme, which could help some of the projects I have mentioned. They have killed off section 11 funding in a multi-ethnic area, where we have case after case after case of racial harassment. Although the Secretary of State has introduced a Bill that contains all kinds of trivial minutiae, he says that he cannot find space in it to create an offence of racial harassment, which many of my constituents ardently demand.
  Mr. Howard: The right hon. Gentleman has, possibly inadvertently, entirely misrepresented what I said about racial offences. I said not that there was no room in the Bill for any matter of that kind, but that I had not yet seen any measure put forward which I thought would reinforce the effectiveness of our present laws. The real problem we face with our present laws relating to racial harassment is not that those laws are inadequate but that it is extremely difficult to apprehend and convict those responsible for offences which I deplore as much as the right hon. Gentleman or anyone else.
  Mr. Kaufman: The problem with that intervention is that, several years ago, when the present Foreign Secretary was Home Secretary, I tabled an amendment to the then Criminal Justice Bill to create an offence of racial harassment. That right hon. Gentleman opposed it, not because it would not work but because it was only declaratory and was therefore not worth introducing.
  In the several years since that Bill went through the House, the Home Secretary and his predecessors have had the opportunity to think about this matter. They have not done so, because if they had, it would be contained in the Bill together with so many trivia, let alone the damaging elements which are contained in it.
  Mr. Alan Simpson: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Kaufman: If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I will not give way, because 40 other hon. Members wish to speak, and I do not want to take up the time of other Back Benchers.
  Next week, we shall welcome the Secretary of State for National Heritage to my constituency, to open new facilities at the Bangladesh community centre. He will hear

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  a positive story about self-help by that community, but what he may not hear, because my Bangladeshi constituents, in common with all my constituents, are extremely courteous, is that we are having to send out begging letters to continue the funding of that centre. I have sent one out myself, just as I now spend a great deal of my time sending begging letters for many worthwhile causes in a constituency of acute deprivation and poverty, which is afflicted with a high crime rate.
  That poverty is demonstrated by the fact that Manchester, taking the index of poverty as the receipt of housing benefit, is the most poverty-stricken city in the country, with 52 per cent. of households receiving housing benefit. Last year, during the Olympic bid, the Prime Minister spent a great deal of time proclaiming to the world that Manchester was ahead in so many worthy aspects of activity—as indeed it is. He did not say that Manchester was a national leader in poverty, yet one of the reasons for that is the reign of office of the Government. The poor are the Government's target. The man on £30 income support goes hungry and is pursued, as has happened in my constituency, for alleged misuse of giros, while Mr Roger Levitt gets community service for swindling the country and the people of millions.
  It is not only the physical infrastructure of my constituency which is being undermined. My constituency is No. 32 out of 634 in terms of high unemployment, with a rate of 18·2 per cent. compared with the national average of 9·7 per cent. The unemployment rate for males is 25·4 per cent., compared with the national average of 12·8 per cent.
  In my constituency, 37 per cent. of those unemployed are aged under 25–31 per cent. above the national average. Being unemployed does not mean that someone is a criminal. The overwhelming majority of the unemployed would never dream of committing a crime, but unemployment creates a society in which crime is more acceptable. The unemployment rate in my constituency is double the national average, and the Government are responsible, but instead of helping, they have inflicted damage on my constituency every day of the year.
  Lady Olga Maitland: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Kaufman: I will not give way, because I am about to finish, and other hon. Members should have the right to make speeches.
  What we have before us is a ponderous piece of legislation, accompanied by slick slogans. Neither the legislation nor the slogans will help my constituency. The only hope for my constituency is the kind of approach to values that my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield outlined in his speech—a new dedication to an orderly and caring society. We will not get that from this Government or this Bill. We shall have to wait for a new Government.
  5.38 pm
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: The concern expressed by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) about rising crime would be more convincing if he had not voted against every measure of crime prevention that the Government have introduced from the series of Criminal Justice Acts to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and the Public Order Act 1986 down to the prevention of terrorism Acts. Some people may listen
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  to what he had to say, but if one starts off on the assumption that he is saying something good while consistently voting against practical measures which have been shown to be successful, I am afraid that that is not impressive stuff.
  Every law-abiding adult in Britain is concerned about the level of crime. He wants and expects the Government to do something about it and we are doing just that in the Bill, which should be welcomed by everyone. The Labour party is going to abstain. It is all over the place on the subject. It opposes for opposition's sake. If the Opposition want to give the nation the impression that they are not serious about law and order, it is their business but it will not do them much good when they stand at the next general election.
  The argument of the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) that, after 14 years, the need for such legislation shows what a failure the Government have been is arrant nonsense to anyone who thinks about it for a moment. Apart from the trendy liberalisation in the 1960s, which I agree ought to have been reversed sooner, we have spent more taxpayers' money on crime prevention, policing, the courts, lawyers and prisons than would have been possible under Labour and we have given the police more powers and better equipment, training and leaders. All those measures have undoubtedly reduced crime from the level that it would have reached if those measures had not been taken. [Interruption.] A moment's common sense and examination of all the statistics will prove that.
  The hon. Member for Sedgefield thinks that he is clever to ask my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary for a commitment that the new measures that we propose will reduce crime. Of course, that is what the measures are likely to do. If we stop some of the 50,000 people on bail from going free to commit more offences, it will reduce crime. It is clear that the stop-and-search measures that the City of London police have introduced has reduced crime, because statistics show a reduction of 18 per cent. over the past year alone.
  If the world crime wave continues to grow, we may achieve a cut in the growth of crime, but not a cut in the present figure. We shall simply have to wait and see. A sensible Opposition would realise that there can be no guarantee of bringing the figure down but that action would still be required to do what was likely to reduce crime. In a worldwide crime wave, the measures that we have proposed—[Laughter.] It is no use guffawing. The fact is that Britain is still one of the safest countries in the western world in which to walk the streets. Unlikely countries such as Australia, Norway and France have a much higher record of crimes of violence and murder than we have in Britain and the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) ought to recognise that.
  It is also true—
  Mr. Tony Banks rose—
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: If the hon. Gentleman would forgive me, I shall try to get my speech over as quickly as possible.
  As was conceded by the hon. Gentleman, it is true that the apparent increase in crime is due to the increased reporting of crime. That is the consequence of more telephones, neighbourhood watch schemes, more police officers, more detection devices and more consumer-friendly police and courts which encourage more women to

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  come forward with complaints about offences. That is a substantial improvement for which the Government receive sparse thanks from the Opposition.
  But the system is not perfect and it needs constant improvement. The Government have rightly targeted areas where legislation may be expected to improve matters. For example, there are too many persistent, hard core, juvenile offenders who go on and on offending and whom the courts are powerless to stop with existing legislation. In Birmingham, a 13-year-old appeared in court four months ago charged with no fewer than 225 offences of burglary and car crime. A senior Birmingham police officer said that if he could lock up six such offenders, he could reduce crime in the city centre of Birmingham by 18 per cent. and reduce car crime by between 30 and 40 per cent. We are giving the courts the power to do just that.
  It is no use saying that giving the same money to local authorities would have the same effect. We have seen in the past few weeks what local authorities do if given money. Too often, they spend it on rewarding juvenile offenders with extravagant holidays overseas. That certainly does nothing to reduce the incidence of crime. In the two years that may be served under the secure training orders on which the Government are legislating, young offenders will be removed from bad influences of family and peer groups and from temptations. They will be educated, trained and disciplined so that they can be reprogrammed away from a life of crime. That seems to be a sensible aim, which looks likely to succeed because it is wrong that we are unable to do that at present. The Opposition cannot make up their mind about it.
  In the past year, 50,000 people who were arrested committed offences while on bail. We can stop some of that happening by giving the courts power to refuse bail in more circumstances. We have taken two new steps to reduce bail offences and now we have proposed another five steps. Cannot the Opposition make up their minds on that, either?
  There has been a growth of computer pornography, which corrupts children and demeans women, and we are giving the police more powers to deal with it.
  Terrorists sometimes slip through the net because of inadequate police powers to stop them. We are strengthening the state's defences by creating two more offences, which already exist in Northern Ireland and are thought to be useful, and we are extending police power to stop and search, as the City of London police have proved is useful. Is the Opposition neutral on that one, too?
  People in rural communities are fed up with mass trespassing by ravers, new-age travellers, squatters and hunt saboteurs, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Sir C. Onslow) so eloquently said, so the Government are doing something about that in part V of the Bill, which is widely welcomed—but not by the Opposition.
  Mr. Tony Banks: I recognise the hon. and learned Gentleman's senior position as Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, but does not he see that there is some inconsistency in the Bill if protesting against fox hunting on private land is to be made a matter of criminal activity? Why should not it be the case that those hunt
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  protesters have to be told by the owners of the private land that they should not trespass on that land and that if they still do that it will be a civil rather than a criminal offence?
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: The intention to disrupt must be there, which the hon. Gentleman will see is written into the Bill. That takes the offence out of the civil area into the criminal area, where most people think that it ought to be.
  It is all very well to introduce laws that cover every likely offence, to give the courts better authority to deal with crimes and to remove persistent offenders from circulation, but there is also something wrong with a legal system that fails to convict those who have been caught. It would be for other debates to consider what can be the reason for releasing so many offenders with a mere warning or caution that they must not do it again and for failing to prosecute 250,000 offenders a year against whom the police consider they have adequate evidence to proceed. For the moment, the Government are addressing the question of how we can ensure that more people who are guilty of crime are convicted of crime. The greater the likelihood of offenders being convicted and punished, the more that potential offenders are likely to be deterred from committing crimes. Weak responses encourage crime. Tough responses tend to deter it.
  It is truly astonishing that 60 per cent. of all those who plead not guilty in Crown courts and magistrates courts are acquitted. Are so many innocent people being arrested, charged and brought to trial? With 30 years of experience in the criminal courts, I do not think that is what is happening. The Government propose to do something positive about convicting more of the guilty, and that is welcomed by everyone except the Labour party.
  DNA samples provide almost incontrovertible evidence, if samples can be taken. The Government are extending the right to take samples in some cases and those who are caught will have substantial evidence against them. That includes many rapists. Those who are innocent will be proved to be so by that sensible measure, which I again understand that the Opposition oppose.
  Mrs. Golding: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman accept that if, as he says, there is a need for people to be encouraged to go to the courts to give evidence and for people to be able to give evidence freely in cases, children ought to be given greater protection? The report by Judge Picot recommended that greater protection be given to children. Some progress was made in the Criminal Justice Act 1988, but it is certainly not working.
  Children are still shouted at in courts and frightened. They have to meet their accusers. Their addresses are given to the people whom they accuse in court. That is not the way for children to give evidence in court. The Bill ought to include something about that. Does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that children need further protection in court?
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: I agree that children need protection. The Government have introduced proposals which give children that greater protection. If it is not available in every case, that may well be the fault of the judge who is presiding, not the fault of the Government. There is a problem with witnesses in cases involving children. If people are not given a fair trial, they may be convicted even though they are innocent. That is why such matters cannot be dealt with in the black and white manner that the hon. Lady suggests. However, I agree that we must

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  constantly look to make sure that children are properly treated in our courts and adequately protected when they make complaints.
  The next matter on which I wish to speak is the right to silence. Now that we have tape-recorded interviews to protect the innocent against miscarriages of justice—particularly those which stemmed from false confessions alleged in the past by the police—the time has come to remove the absurdity of the right to silence, which we retained only because there was no other way of guaranteeing the truth of the confession.
  I was pleased and a little surprised to hear the hon. Member for Sedgefield say that he would support the amendment of the right to silence in cases in which the accused refused to give evidence in court. However, the absurdity that someone caught almost red-handed or with marks or substances on him which require some explanation has nothing to say and, at the express direction of the judge, is protected from any adverse conclusion that may be drawn from his silence ought to be removed precisely because it is so absurd. Jeremy Bentham, the 19th century civil libertarian par excellence, thought so. The police think so. Most judges think so. The House should think so if it is serious about stopping the acquittal of the guilty.
  After all, there is no great deal about making an adverse comment about a defendant's silence. If there is a legitimate reason for that silence, the defendant can explain it when he gives evidence. The defence counsel can explain it. The judge will have to remind the jury of that explanation when he sums up. The jury may well accept that explanation.
  Mr. Geoffrey Hoon: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: I cannot give way any more. I have given way enough. Please forgive me.
  Opposition to abolition of the right to silence is out of date. Its passing should not be mourned any more than it has been in Northern Ireland. In answer to a point made by the hon. Member for Warwickshire, North (Mr. O'Brien), I would say that of course there may well have to be a change in the ethical rules which bind solicitors. Solicitors should no longer be able to give blanket "make no comment" advice. It would be wrong and misleading to say that to a client in the new circumstances envisaged by the Bill. It would be iniquitous if a solicitor stopped an innocent client from giving an explanation in the first instance that would exonerate him.
  In deference to others who wish to speak, I shall not refer to the several other sensible proposals in the Bill. The Bill is not the only piece of legislation that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary intends to introduce to reduce crime. There is now a Bill in the House of Lords aimed at improving the efficiency of the police and the courts. Other Bills will be forthcoming. The Government have been criticised for not including provision for the independent review tribunal in the Bill. However, the longer that we have to think it through in detail, the less likely it is to go wrong. Opposition Members might accept that there is a commitment to introduce it and that we shall perfect it. Other action which does not require legislation on cautioning, victims and other matters has been and will be taken.
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  It may be that the Bill can be improved in Committee. Several measures will be candidates for inclusion. For example, I believe that the Bill would benefit from the reintroduction of capital punishment. I believe that innocent lives would be saved by that measure. I also believe that action should be taken against television violence, which corrupts our young people. It may well be that some action should be taken against racial attacks and harassment. I hope that before my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary makes a final decision against any such action he will consider the report of the Home Affairs Select Committee, which is even now considering the matter and may have some positive proposals that will satisfy him.
  I do not believe that the Bill would benefit from a reduction in the age of consent for homosexuals. That would encourage the incidence of homosexuality by allowing the proselytism of the young by older homosexuals. I shall not support a reduction if it is suggested in an amendment.
  In so far as the Bill goes, there seems to be no earthly reason why it should not be given a Second Reading or why the Opposition should abstain on it. They only make themselves foolish by doing so. I cannot really complain about that. I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on taking this firm step against lawlessness and crime so soon after he has taken office. He will have the support of not only Conservative Members but most of Britain.
  5.55 pm
  Mr. Robert Maclennan: The Bill is lengthy and not all of it is uncontroversial. Some of its provisions are sensible and should command the support of the whole House. But, in other respects, it constitutes a seriously retrogressive break with recent reforming penal legislation. Although the Bill is large, I believe that, reviewed in the round, it has missed the mark.
  Although the Bill tackles serious problems, they involve small numbers of offenders. It tackles the problem of hard-core juvenile offenders who number perhaps several hundred, of rave parties and of murderers who reoffend, of whom there was only one last year. All those matters are writ large in the Bill. Yet some of the most major and pressing problems such as the thousands of other juvenile offenders who roam our streets committing crime for kicks, the men who burgle hundreds of homes while on bail and the drug pushers will remain largely untouched and uncontrolled.
  There are two tests by which the legislation will be judged, although the Home Secretary was loth to admit it. They are its effect in reducing the level of crime and its effect on public confidence in the criminal justice system. The need to restore public confidence was the reason for setting up the royal commission. Our system of criminal justice cannot function effectively until that confidence is restored. The loss of faith in institutions lies at the heart of our general anxiety about the levels of crime that we now suffer.
  We face a great problem of increasing crime and disorder and yet declining faith in the ability of the state to combat it and provide our future security. Public confidence in the system of criminal justice has been eroded by past miscarriages of justice and spectacular reversals of convictions based on false confessions and unsound evidence. It has been brought further into

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  disrepute by the seeming impotence of the system in the face of rising crime. An ever smaller proportion of crimes are cleared up by the police. An ever larger number of cases are dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service before they reach the doors of the court. In 1992–93, 193,774 Crown cases were discontinued.
  Judges, Home Secretaries and the police have been moved to argue in public over aspects of penal and sentencing policy. Most recently, Lord Woolf attacked the present Home Secretary's attitude to prisons. The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Taylor, has called the backlog in our courts a national disgrace. Some spokesmen for the police have called for the resignation of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Barbara Mills. It is clear that the different parts of the criminal justice system are not at ease with each other. That is the Home Secretary's problem. It is his responsibility to listen to the concerns and to act to strengthen the system.
  The core concern of the royal commission was the prevention of miscarriages of justice. Therefore, it is surprising that the Bill has altogether avoided the issue. I would not have expected the Government to adopt the proposals of the commission without further thought, particularly on matters on which the commission was undecided. However, I expected the Bill to provide new procedures for reviewing serious miscarriages of justice. I am glad that the Bill reflects the conclusion of the royal commission on corroboration of confessions and in particular the need for strong judicial warnings that great care is needed before convicting on the basis of confessional evidence alone.
  People sometimes confess to crimes that they did not commit. Often they do so of their own volition to protect others or to achieve notoriety. But others do so against their better judgment because they are too weak in the face of questioning or because they seek an escape from the interview room. Others, unfortunately, have had their confessions written for them.
  The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 provides comprehensive but not infallible safeguards against false confessions. We need a new body to scrutinise claims by convicted men and women who are innocent of crimes. My party recognises that fact and gave evidence to that effect to the royal commission, and I hope that that will happen quickly.
  The better management of trials is also required, but, disappointingly, the Bill fails to make the requisite procedural change—the disclosure of the prosecution case in full to the defence—which can so often result in a guilty plea.
  There are many omissions from the Bill and a stack of proposals from the Law Commission is awaiting enactment. I draw attention in particular to its most recent report calling for the reform of the law on personal violence, on which the Bill is largely silent. Perhaps the Government will repair some of those omissions later in the Bill's proceedings.
  In its practical effects in reducing crime, there could be some modest gains. The Bill criminalises holding and distributing computer child pornography, a measure that has been made necessary by advances in technology that have outpaced the law. But why does the Home Secretary stop at child pornography? A whole industry is sprouting
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  up, publishing on computer material that would be illegal if it were on paper or video tape. Anyone with a computer and telephone can receive it in their home and the law cannot touch them or those who peddle it.
  The proposed creation of a DNA database, a recommendation of the royal commission, could provide a significant new resource for police detectives. It is fingerprinting for the 21st century at a time when one third of all men has a criminal record by the age of 35 and one in four by the age of 21. I am concerned about over-reliance on such evidence, given the large margin for error which forensic scientists have identified in profiling DNA samples. Nevertheless, it is an important step forward.
  The changes to the bail system to prevent persons who have offended while on bail from being bailed again and to allow for the reconsideration of bail if new information comes to light will help to reign in some of the bail bandits, so long as they are caught. Bail is a privilege that is too often abused. In one week last November, of 537 suspects arrested as part of Operation Bumblebee in London, 40 per cent. were currently on bail. Some of them had been bailed for other offences 10 or 15 times already in the year.
  Improvements in the system of granting bail have been made through bail information schemes, which seem to hold out the best chance of a more rational system in the future. But the Bill will restrict bail automatically only for those accused of serious crimes of violence who have a record for the same offence. They are the least likely to offend while on bail. Those most likely to do so have a recent history of burglary and car theft, and the Bill will not prevent their crimes.
  The two most controversial parts of the Bill are the centrepiece proposals on the treatment of younger juvenile offenders and the abolition of the so-called right to silence. I oppose both those sections absolutely. I see no benefit to be gained in either and the danger of much damage arising from both.
  The Home Secretary has presented the secure training unit as a tough answer to a tough problem. It will cost the nation some £30 million a year to bring to heel an estimated 200 or so 12, 13 and 14-year-olds. That is £150,000 each per annum—more than it costs to live in the Savoy. Never have a Government cowered so abjectly or lavished such wealth in the face of so few children, while the Bill passes over the juvenile offenders who cause most damage.
  This new penal edifice will be no more successful than its predecessors—the borstal and approved school. It may be intended to convince the nation that something is being done—ministerial visits, photocalls and contract signings. I doubt that that will persuade many members of the public. We must be aware that those who, at a young age, are already behaving in that manner are not only young people with a criminal record but children in need of behavioural correction. The public need protection from them not only for the period when the juveniles are held in custody but in the future. Recidivism is the measure of the success of any corrective regime to which offenders are sentenced. That was the failure of the approved schools and it will be the failure of the secure training centres. Such treatment can be provided for the handful of juveniles who will fall into the category defined by the Bill without the creation of a whole new penal edifice.
  We already have facilities for treating persistent juvenile offenders and straightforward changes to the law

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  would enable those under 15 to be dealt with by existing institutions and some measures that are being sought by local authorities, to which reference has already been made. Secure units at local authority care homes have a relatively high success rate in preventing reoffending among their charges. Admittedly, with 60 per cent. not reconvicted within two years of their release, it is far from perfect, but it compares to a reconviction rate of 53 per cent. among former inmates of young offender institutions. The existing system needs to be underpinned, not undermined.
  May I call in aid the words of the then Home Office Minister in 1991, now the Secretary of State for Education, who said:
  "I think that there is considerable agreement between the political parties that one of the best forms of crime prevention is, if possible, to stop young people going into detention in the first place".—[Official Report, 29 January 1991; Vol. 184, c. 920.]
  It could be argued that the Secretary of State for Education is in a better position to tackle juvenile crime than the Home Secretary appears to be.
  If juvenile crime is to be tackled, we must start at the cradle, not at the third conviction as the Bill proposes. It falls to us all—parents, teachers, youth leaders and everyone who comes into contact with the young—to help young people to face up to the responsibilities that they must shoulder as members of society. But the Bill provides no new initiative to strike at even the immediate causes of juvenile offending.
  Drugs and alcohol abuse are among the biggest contributors to crime. A report by the British Psychological Society in 1990 found that the average age at which known young offenders start drinking regularly is 14. They drank up to seven pints of beer a night. The more that they drank, the more they used drugs. Typically, they started by sniffing glue at 13, smoking cannabis at 14, and taking cocaine and LSD by 16. It found that 42 per cent. of those convicted of robbery and 23 per cent. of those convicted of car theft were drunk or on drugs when they committed the crimes.
  Where is the war on drugs? Where is the programme of research into patterns of drug use and their relationship to crime? Where are the reviews of policy on the treatment of heroin addicts? Where is the programme on drugs education? Nothing in the Bill even strengthens the powers of the police and licensees to prevent the sale of alcohol to young people. I see no sign that the Government are prepared to give as high a priority to tackling drugs and alcohol abuse as they are to cracking down on ticket touts and building prison ships.
  My other bone of contention with the Bill is the abolition of the right to silence, which is better termed "the freedom from self incrimination". Some countries protect that right under their constitution. In an earlier incarnation in 1986, speaking in a debate on the Financial Services Act, the Home Secretary described the right to silence as the fundamental principle of the criminal law. It still is, but he made a bombastic pronouncement at the Conservative party conference last year about that ancient principle, which he called "a charade". However, it enshrines the presumption of innocence until proof of guilt.
  The principle can be abused but jurors are usually aware of that and it is the best mechanism that we have for putting the onus of proof on the prosecution. If we abolish that requirement, we risk the greatest charade of guilt by innuendo. A criminal conviction relies on positive proof of
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  guilt, not on a lack of proof of innocence. That requires positive facts, such as would be provided by DNA profiling or the evidence of witnesses. An inference drawn from silence is not a fact but an opinion. Mere opinion should have little weight in deciding guilt or innocence.
  The slogan that has been used to justify that provision of the Bill is
  "the innocent have nothing to hide."
  Although that is true, the innocent might have nothing to say to prove their innocence. A man suspected of a crime might have no witness to confirm that he was at home alone when the offence of which he is suspected was committed. Are we to expect him to prove the unprovable? Or are we to continue to leave it to the prosecution to prove that he was not at home but out thieving?
  The Bill also contains a number of curious innovations intended to deal with hunt saboteurs and rave parties. Conservative Home Secretaries are generally drawn from the school of thought that holds that most social evils can be purged by creating a new offence. The Bill is a testament to that grand tradition, which visited upon us the legislation on joyriders and on dangerous dogs, neither of which has rid society of those menaces. I shall not oppose a new offence of aggravated trespass but that new offence would not stop hunt saboteurs, whose real concern is with the hunter and not his land. The blood sport issue will go away only if the House chooses to resolve it directly. Until then, the conflict will continue.
  A substantial part of the Bill is also taken up with the extension of the prison and courts escort privatisation programme. That saw the light of day in the 1991 Act, even before the Woolf report into the disturbances at Strangeways had been published. I doubt that anyone was surprised that in the 600 or so pages of that report the word "privatisation" did not appear. The main problem facing the country is that privatisation has denied us accountability and openness. We are not even allowed to know the salary of the chaplain at the Wolds prison. The record of Group 4's management speaks for itself.
  Prison does not work: for too many it is a temporary halt, an occupational hazard in a career of crime. For others it is the start. Our prisons are not equipped to do the job of correcting offenders, and the support provided for released offenders is nowhere near adequate. The Home Secretary's belief in prisons in inappropriate, and it is not shared by his predecessors or by Lady Thatcher who, when she was Prime Minister, said that the Criminal Justice Bill was designed to ensure that the severity of the sentence matched the seriousness of the crime and the need to protect the public. I entirely agree with that, and it has been the policy of my party since its foundation. In building upon the hasty and stupid abolition of unit fines, the Bill is extremely retrogressive.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Madam Speaker has ruled that until 8 o'clock speeches will be confined to 10 minutes.
  6.10 pm
  Mr. John Greenway: I listened with interest to the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) and I waited for some constructive suggestions by the Liberal Democrat party on how to solve the problems that the Bill tries to tackle. Sadly, I listened in vain and was disappointed. As my speech will be limited to 10 minutes, I shall not comment on the speeches of other hon. Members.

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  I welcome the Bill and wish to speak mainly about juvenile offenders, but at the outset I shall comment on one or two other matters, the first of which is public order. The British Horseracing Board and the Jockey Club warmly welcome the proposals in clauses 52 to 55 which, they believe, will help the police and the racing industry to deal with the sort of incident that occurred at the Grand National in April last year. The fact that those proposals will also deal with the wilful disruption of other sporting activities should not detract in any way from the importance of that.
  During the speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence), there was an intervention about trespass. The Bill makes it plain that disruption must be intentional and not accidental. It would be rather strange for those who wish to argue in favour of people who want to walk in the countryside or ramble or make a peaceful protest to say that it should be the other way round. If trespass and disruption were accidental, a person walking a dog which strayed into a field and chased ewes that were about to lamb could be committing a crime. The Bill has got the matter just right, and I hope that there will be no substantial change on that in Committee.
  I should now like to deal with the stop-and-search powers relating to terrorism. There was a moment of great poignancy during my time on the Select Committee on Home Affairs when during an evidence session we asked the former Commissioner of the Metropolitan police, Sir Peter Imbert, whether he felt that he had sufficient powers to deal with terrorism. A note arrived to say that two more bombs had gone off in Oxford street. Sir Peter said, tellingly, that if over the next week or so he set up a number of stop-and-search barriers around the west end of London, people would fully understand why that was being done but that two or three months later public sympathy would begin to wear thin. For a long time there has been a need to clarify police powers to stop and search vehicles in relation to potential terrorist activity. In that context the measures in the Bill are important and welcome.
  The third issue with which I should like to deal is ticket touting. I have campaigned for a long time to make the sale of tickets outside football grounds an offence. Lord Justice Taylor, now the Lord Chief Justice, recommended that in his report on the Hillsborough tragedy, and it is essential to do it because of the problems that arise from all our soccer grounds becoming all-seater stadiums. Without such a measure it would become ever more difficult for football clubs to operate crowd segregation which, sadly, remains an important element of reducing or eliminating disorderly and violent conduct in soccer grounds.
  The criminal justice reforms are the centrepiece of the Bill, and I have no great difficulty in accepting them. The decision to extend DNA and to treat it, in effect, in the same way as fingerprinting is welcome and is roughly in line with what previous Home Affairs Select Committee reports recommended in the previous Parliament.
  The measures to deal with people who commit offences while on bail are important. People will ask whether the measures will reduce crime, and the proposed changes to deal with offending while on bail are the clearest example of how crime can be reduced. Whether they will reduce the overall growth of crime in recent years makes it difficult for Ministers to say categorically that crime figures will go
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  down. However, if the number of offences committed by people who have already been charged with an offence is reduced, the overall level of crime will be lower.
  I have no difficulty in accepting the proposals on the right to silence. My view, which I think is shared by most people, was adequately outlined in today's editorial in The Daily Telegraph, which states:
  "It is not intended that defendants should be forced to answer."
  That is the case. The editorial goes on:
  "But when they refuse to help the police when interrogated or to give evidence in their own defence, a counsel or judge would be allowed to draw the jury's attention to that fact. It is difficult to see how this might increase the chances of the innocent being convicted. Juries are already at liberty to notice an accused's silence and to attach whatever weight to it they like."
  If I am disappointed in any way by the Bill, it is that it does not go far enough in implementing some of the royal commission's recommendations. I remain concerned, as do the police, about the number of trials that have collapsed because of the defence requirement for prosecution disclosure, the so-called fishing expeditions. More needs to be done to deal with that, and it lies behind some of the statistics that have been bandied about in the debate as to why so many trials have collapsed.
  The Select Committee on Home Affairs has not yet completed its inquiry into computer pornography, but it is clear to us that there is a gap in the law. The Bill's provisions seem to conform to what the police have recommended to strengthen the law.
  My substantive comments are on juvenile offending. Last year the Select Committee on Home Affairs published an in-depth report on the issue after looking at the problem from every possible angle. Nothing in the Bill conflicts with what we said in our report. I stand by everything in our report, and nothing in the Government's proposals is at odds with it. On the contrary, the strengthening of custodial sentences available to the courts for teenage offenders was one of our central recommendations, and will be welcomed by the courts and the country.
  Secure training orders can be made to work, but it would be wrong and foolish for anyone to claim that they are a panacea for the problem of juvenile delinquency. The problem has plagued generations over many centuries, but only a blind fool would not accept that there is a clear gap in the current provisions for dealing with the hard core of persistent juvenile offenders at whom most of our inquiries to try to find a solution are directed.
  During our inquiries we visited Northern Ireland where institutions similar to those that the Government have in mind already exist. The training school at Lisnevin has provision for about 40 youngsters. It provides security, not just for the public against whom youngsters might offend, but gives those youngsters the security of a stable environment that many of them have lacked.
  I believe that we can get it right. There is a clear place for challenging activity for youngsters, but it must be set in the right context. Equally, there is a need to avoid turning the secure training units into oppressive borstals or approved schools. What some of those youngsters need is love, care and concern, and that is what has to be provided.
  My time is up, so I shall finish by saying that to me it is a tragedy that the issue has become so partisan, with arguments about whether the idea is good or bad. The best people to make the young offenders secure training units work are those in voluntary sector organisations such as the Children's Society and the National Society for the

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  Prevention of Cruelty to Children. There is still time and opportunity for the Government and those organisations to reach a consensus on how we should deal with those youngsters in the framework of the new secure units.
  6.20 pm
  Mr. Doug Hoyle: I intend to deal mainly with clauses 102, 103 and 104, which take away the rights of the Prison Officers Association to take industrial action and give the Home Secretary the power to dictate pay, terms and conditions. Before I do that, I shall deal with the main thrust of the Bill, which, like many Opposition Members, I believe to be misguided. Bill spends little time on measures for crime prevention, because those would cost money. It also does little about crime detection, because spending more money and strengthening the police force are not within the remit of the Home Secretary—at least, not in connection with the Bill.
  The Bill will send more people to prison, which will result in more of the overcrowding and riots that we have seen over the past three years. What the people want to see is more crime prevention and detection. Only after that will they turn to the consequences of sentencing. However, the Bill is less to do with the prevention or detection of crime than with the political future of the Home Secretary. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is more concerned about where he will go next than about whether the measures in the Bill are effective. He hopes that he will be able to deceive many people in the short term and that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) suggested, by the time it is seen that the measures are not working in the long term, he will have departed from the Home Office and taken up some other post.
  What will be the consequences of what the Home Secretary is doing—the consequences of the overcrowding and the insanitary conditions? All those trends lead towards riots. Yet the Prison Officers Association has been singled out. In order to prevent it from protesting against the overmanning and overcrowding that will occur, the Government are taking away its rights. All this time the POA has been pleading for better conditions and facilities for prisoners and saying that they should be treated as human beings. It has been pleading for a penal system fit for the 1990s rather than for the 1890s.
  I speak as a Member in whose constituency there has been a prison riot—in Risley remand centre. Despite the fact that the local POA and I had said that conditions there would lead sooner or later to increased tension and to a riot, and despite the fact that there had been numerous suicides in the establishment, nothing was done. Yet once the riot had happened there was better provision and Risley was no longer the disastrous remand centre about which many of us had warned.
  Despite the improvement in conditions at Risley, the lesson was not learnt elsewhere. To the east of my constituency, in Manchester, there were the Strangeways riots, which occurred precisely because of overcrowding, despite the proposals of Lord Justice Woolf in his report following the riots, who had drawn attention to the difficulties that it caused. He had said what ought to be done and had praised the prison officers for attempting to make intolerable conditions tolerable.
  Even then the lessons were not learnt, and this year, to the north of my constituency at Wymott, near Preston,
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  there were similar riots, and much damage was done, because no notice was taken of Judge Tumim's report which said that tension was being caused at the prison and conditions were getting worse, so the situation was becoming confrontational. That message did not get home, despite the warnings given by Her Majesty's inspectorate. Despite all that, there was another, albeit smaller, riot at Whitemoor on 21 December. Again, the POA had warned that alcohol abuse had occurred there and that restrictive measures would probably be needed to deal with the situation, yet nothing happened, and a disturbance turned into a minor riot. Only then were the views that the POA had expressed taken into account. Such events cost the taxpayer an awful lot of money.
  We already have prison overcrowding. Local prisons are 122 per cent. overcrowded and the prison population is now increasing by 250 a week. The long-term building of new prisons will not solve the short-term problem of overcrowding. There is no safety valve. We are trying to screw the situation down, but it will probably all go up in the air. If that happens, it will cost an awful lot of money.
  Over the past five years in the prison service of the United Kingdom, including Scotland and Northern Ireland, there have been more than 100 riots and concerted acts of indiscipline, which have cost £1 billion. There have been 200 suicides, 12,000 drug incidents and 67 hostage incidents. There have been 1,000 escapees, many of whom are still at large. Yet this is the time when the Home Secretary chooses to take away the prison officers' right to take industrial action. The POA has not been noted for taking industrial action on salaries; it has taken industrial action to draw attention to understaffing and overcrowding. Yet that right is being taken away by a reactionary anti-union Government. Furthermore, the Home Secretary is taking away many of the rights of the POA to free collective bargaining. As clause 104 says, he will determine pay and conditions. Surely that should be the right of any free trade union.
  In case Conservative Members say, "Oh, but this is all about the Prison Officers Association", I remind them that, according to the registrar of trade unions, the Prison Governors Association, which could not be termed militant and has not taken action, is also to be covered.
  Mr. Neil Gerrard: Will my hon. Friend comment on the fact that the new prisons being built will be private? No doubt there will be a deliberate attempt to prevent the Prison Officers Association from organising in them.
  Mr. Hoyle: Yes. I am glad that my hon. Friend has drawn my attention to that fact. The restrictions on industrial action and the Home Secretary's taking it upon himself to dictate pay and conditions will not apply to private sector prisons. That is not only absurd but unfair.
  Since 1980 we have had a succession of anti-trade union Governments who have usually introduced such measures in employment legislation. Now those measures are to be introduced under criminal justice legislation. I say to other workers in the public sector that what is happening to the prison officers today could happen tommorow to civil servants, fire fighters, ambulance and health service workers and teachers. If the Government are allowed to get away with placing shackles on the Prison Officers

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  Association on the 10th anniversary of their removal of the rights of trade unionists at GCHQ, it will augur ill for trade unionists in the public sector everywhere.
  6.30
  Mrs. Edwina Currie: I am glad to give my support to the Bill, which will improve many aspects of our criminal justice system and is to be welcomed. However, there is a glaring omission, which I—and various other hon. Members—hope to remedy by tabling an amendment with sponsors from all sides of the House. I hope that, if such an amendment were accepted for debate, we could have a full-day debate with a free vote at the end of it. I refer to something that is clearly a matter not for party dogma but for the individual consciences of hon. Members—the issue of the age of consent for homosexual acts.
  In a free society in which individual liberty and freedom of action and thought count for a great deal, the burden of proof and argument is not on those of us who seek equality before the law. The onus is on those who would argue in favour of discrimination to explain how that is in the public interest and how it is in the interests of any of our fellow citizens that the law should intervene to make their activities illegal.
  According to the Library, the House has changed the age below which sex with a girl is unlawful only three times in its history. That age was 12 in 1275; it was raised to 13 in 1875 and to 16 in 1885. It has not changed since. The age of consent for homosexual women has, of course, long been 16.
  The Sexual Offences Act 1967 made homosexuality legal in England and Wales. Scotland did not follow until 1980, and homosexuality was still banned in Ulster until 1982. That is why we shall seek to cover as much of the United Kingdom as we can in our amendment and, if necessary, ask the Government later to amend other legislation to reflect the will of the House.
  The House has not voted since 1967 on the gap that still exists between the heterosexual and homosexual ages of consent. Here is an outmoded law, which touches, at the most conservative estimate, 1 million of our fellow citizens who are gay. Such men pay their taxes and hold down jobs. Their ranks have included distinguished actors, composers, writers and artists—men whom we have been proud to call British—soldiers and politicians. They serve as senior civil servants and police officers. They run banks and businesses at the highest level. Yet in relation to this one topic, their personal judgment is regarded as irrelevant and dangerous and the state decides whom they can and cannot love. Surely that is and always has been absolute nonsense.
  Most countries have an equal age of consent, often lower than ours. The United Kingdom age of consent for gay men is the highest among the 28 Council of Europe countries. In Austria and Italy, it is 14. Holland, Greece, France, Poland and Sweden prefer 15, and Norway, Belgium, Portugal and Switzerland 16. The German Government have announced that they will introduce equal age legislation and the Irish Government did so successfully last spring, choosing 17. In none of those sober, intelligent countries did the dire consequences
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  predicted for Britain result. In 1967, when Britain changed its law, it led the rest of the world. Now we are well behind, and that should give us pause for thought.
  Some hon. Members hold strong moral views. I do not expect those with religious objections to like or approve of the amendment that we hope to put forward. But, although they—or any of us—may have deep reservations about all sorts of personal behaviour in others, that does not mean that we should try to ban such behaviour by law and thus make the individuals concerned common criminals. It is open to the Churches or anyone else to seek change through persuasion, but I do not believe that any of us has the right to use the courts, the police, the judges and the prisons to harass those who wish to indulge in sexual practices that we do not like. The House should take a common-sense stand on this.
  As Oscar Wilde observed a century ago, coercion does not work. We cannot make men moral by law. They will not take any notice. If one asks young people today, one finds that they make their sexual choices absolutely without reference to what the current law says. They think that their personal private behaviour is entirely their own business, and so do I.
  There is, however, an important practical argument, which we expect to hear in due course in the debate on the amendment. We must be concerned to protect young men from unwanted approaches, from predatory older people, from being seduced and misled. As an older person, I feel very strongly about that. We are all in favour of such protection. I am in favour of protecting young women, too. Most of the youngsters tell me—whatever I may think of the rightness or wrongness of it—that they feel old enough at 16 to make up their own minds. That aspect of the matter —the general age of consent—was settled in Britain back in Victorian times and it is not on the agenda for change today.
  It is perhaps helpful to read into the record comments contained in the Wolfenden report:
  "We have made it clear throughout our report that we recognise the need for protecting the young and immature. But this argument can be carried too far: there comes a time when a young man can properly be expected to 'stand on his own feet' in this as in other matters, and we find it hard to believe that he needs to be protected from would-be seducers more carefully than a girl does."
  The law as it stands is not helpful to vulnerable young men, however. In fact, it works in exactly the opposite way. If a boy wished to make a complaint about an unwanted homosexual approach today, he would think twice about going to the police. He would immediately be the one who was questioned—the one who was the criminal. He might well face charges, public humiliation or even a prison sentence. He would not receive the consideration or anonymity that a woman would receive if she complained about an alleged rape. I do not feel that that can be right. The prospect of being treated as a criminal himself would be a huge deterrent to a boy seeking to make such a complaint—indeed, it would render it almost impossible for him to do so. The law as it stands is not a shield for the young, but an enforcer of their silence.
  Nor do we offer good health education in such circumstances. I am as worried as anyone about AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases. I can now share with the House the fact that the Department of Health faced a dilemma when we started the campaign against AIDS in 1986–87. We needed, and we knew that we needed, to warn young gay men of the mortal dangers of promiscuity and

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  of what some of them were up to. Talking to them about safe sex meant that we had to ask health workers to seek out boys in circumstances where the law was being seriously broken. We had long discussions about that in the Department. We decided to go ahead anyway, for safety's sake. If our AIDS death figures are now better than everyone predicted, and far better than those in many comparable countries, that wise decision must take the credit. How much easier and more effective such health education would be if criminality were not at issue.
  For me this is not simply a practical matter but a matter of principle. We should use the criminal law sparingly and only when necessary. Large parts of private behaviour should be nothing to do with the state. We should not permit the continued persecution of large numbers of people. That is not a recipe for a nation "at ease with itself".
  We are talking about our voters. We trust their judgment in sending us to this august House. We are talking about our fellow citizens. Gay men are people who we know, work with and like. What they do is not a disease and whether they do it or not is, and should be, entirely a private matter. I believe that the time has come to give those men the equality under the law which the rest of us take for granted. I believe that the choices that they freely make are entitled to be treated with respect. It is now time for change.
  6.39 pm
  Mr. Peter Snape: I hope that the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) will forgive me if, because of time constraints, I do not follow her down that road. Although I understand that the hon. Lady has not yet tabled her amendment, I hope that her speech will not attract any adverse publicity, or any publicity at all, because I know how she eschews such publicity, whatever the topic.
  My colleagues who listened to the Home Secretary will be disappointed by what he had to say. His speech was predictable and rumbustious although largely irrelevant to the enormous increase in crime in this country. Listening to the Home Secretary, one would have thought that the Government had nothing to do with the massive increase in crimes such as burglary, drugs related offences, joy riding, rape and violence. It seemed that all that had appeared suddenly in this country as though inflicted on us by an alien and outside body.
  As my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) rightly reminded us, the young people about whom we have largely been concerned in this debate were born, brought up and imbued with the philosophies of Thatcherism. Perhaps we should not be surprised by the massive increase in crime that has occurred under the Conservative Administration.
  In addition to the massive increase in crime, we have seen a great deal of publicity about miscarriages of justice. There is a feeling of disappointment on the Opposition Benches—and, I suspect, among some Conservative Members—about the Home Secretary's comments on the abolition of the right of silence.
  Injustice and miscarriages of justice are phrases that were rarely heard in this country until comparatively recently. A great deal of concern has rightly been
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  expressed about those well publicised cases. The Home Secretary abuses his office by responding to those expressions of concern in the way he has.
  For the sake of obtaining a standing ovation from a previously hostile Tory party conference, the Home Secretary seeks to deprive the accused of one of the traditional safeguards of liberty—the right not to incriminate himself or herself. That is too fundamental a right to be tampered with, particularly by a discredited Administration like the present one.
  The Home Secretary knows full well that Lord Runciman's royal commission concluded that there was no evidence that silence in the police station leads to more acquittals or that the right of silence is exceptionally used by professional criminals. We all know that professional criminals know how the law works. They are very good at exploiting loopholes. They do not need to worry too much about the right of silence and they will not do so under the proposals in the Bill. It is the weak, the disadvantaged and the not too bright—innocent as well as guilty—who will be caught under the proposals. For the Government to embark on that course just to achieve a standing ovation at the Tory party conference brings no credit to the Home Secretary or his Ministers.
  Over the past few weeks, there has been much publicity about the activities of Ministers. I will not go down that road. However, in passing, I believe that the fibre of this once great nation of ours is in greater danger from fully and elegantly dressed Ministers in their offices than from the activities over the past few weeks of a well publicised few —and nowhere more so than with regard to law and order.
  Up to 1979, and for two or three years thereafter, this Government and their supporters blamed the last Labour Administration, and what they termed "socialist policies", for increases in crime in the United Kingdom. Indeed, as recently as a few months ago, the Prime Minister referred to crime in urban areas as though it was something that could be blamed exclusively on the election of Labour councillors. The self-styled party of law and order is responsible for the greatest explosion in crime that this country has ever seen. I do not know what the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) is grinning about. The explosion of crime in my constituency—and, I suggest, in that of the hon. Member for Gravesham—threatens the very fabric of our society.
  Over the past few months I have attended three public meetings in my constituency at which hundreds of people have expressed concern about crimes such as burglary, the stealing of and from cars and particularly crimes of violence. Those people and the police officers present at those meetings expressed despair at the Government's failure to tackle crime and its causes adequately.
  As a result, like hon. Members on both sides of the House, I am now told continually that people intend to take the law into their own hands if, as they perceive it, the law does not protect them properly. While organisations such as neighbourhood watch have had a positive impact, people are increasingly concerned about the activities of a comparatively small number of young people who are responsible for the great bulk of crimes of the type that I have mentioned which have such an adverse effect on the quality of life of millions of people.
  As recently as last Saturday, I was told of the activities of a 14-year-old, whom I shall not name as that would add to his notoriety, on the Yew Tree estate in Walsall in my constituency. That was not by any means the first time that

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  the youth's name and activities had been brought to my attention. He and a few of his more easily led cronies swagger around the estate and threaten those vulnerable enough not to be in a position to fight back. A member of staff at a local shop on the estate told me that he and his family have faced threats of physical violence. That person's wife and children had been threatened in their flat via the intercom. The youth recently appeared in court for physically attacking an old age pensioner. However, as he is 14, he was swaggering around the estate once more within days. Only last Saturday, a local shopkeeper on the estate told me of a woman sufferer of Downs syndrome who wept in her shop as she was frightened to go home as a result of the activities of that young person and similarly led people. That is the reality of life on so many estates in this country at the moment and we ignore that reality at our peril.
  I have referred to the danger of people taking the law into their own hands. The person who came to see me last Saturday warned me that patience with the group of youths to whom I have referred is at an end. He said that people are now looking for that youth and some of his friends to administer retribution. In spite of all that, the Opposition's proposals for tackling juvenile crime have been ignored year after year by the Conservative party.
  Reported crime in the borough of Sandwell in my constituency has risen by more than 150 per cent. since the Conservative party took office. House burglary, the biggest fear of my constituents at the moment, is up by more than 250 per cent. in the borough. Theft of and from motor vehicles is up more than 300 per cent. as is robbery. That is a frightening scenario, but the Conservative party continually boasts that it is the party of law and order. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) said, only one crime in 50 is now being detected. That is a shame and a scandal, the blame for which should rightly and justly be attached to the Conservative party.
  Police officers of all ranks whom I meet regularly frankly despair of ever having the resources, let alone the time, to combat crime in my own and other constituencies. I frequently hear the public say that, although the police do their best, they are losing the battle. It is not just the obvious incompetence of the Prime Minister, the irrelevance of the pronouncements of many of his Ministers or the state of the economy on which the Government will be judged at the next election—it is their palpable failure in respect of law and order which alone should guarantee their defeat.
  6.48 pm
  Mr. Warren Hawksley: This is probably the most important debate that we shall have in this Parliament. We fought the last election with the view that our electorate wanted us to act. For too long they had heard people talk about law and order without responding to, or dealing with, the problems.
  When I was a member of Shropshire county council in 1972, we set up our social services department which took over the responsibility for young offenders. We got rid of the approved schools and called them community homes. Although I criticised and opposed that at the time, I recall that all parties, in unison, talked of that being an enlightened policy and a good liberal approach to handling
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  young offenders. For 20 years, social services have had their chance, but they have failed to tackle the problems which matter and to reduce the number of young offenders.
  In the Adjournment debate on 1 December, I was pleased to discuss the question of young offenders. On that occasion, I quoted the words of my local chief superintendent, John Jasper. He said that, if he could lock up the six most persistent offenders in the Birmingham city centre, he would be able to reduce car offences by up to 40 per cent. and many people would feel very much better for the fact that their cars were not being broken into. In that Adjournment debate, I also referred to the 13-year-old who committed 225 offences, of which 175 were committed while he was awaiting trial in so-called social services secure accommodation.
  Those two cases justify part I of the Bill. The public demand action. Police and magistrates demand the power to respond to what the public are asking for. Secure accommodation for 12 to 14-year-olds is essential. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Home Office will tell us when he hopes to have in place some secure accommodation units that could be used by the courts. The public are asking for that to be done very quickly indeed.
  I suggest that part I does not go far enough. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary and my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Home Office, in reply to my Adjournment debate, have rightly expressed shock at holidays on the rates—cruises up the Nile and safaris for young offenders—but nothing in part I actually stops them. Only yesterday, the Bryn Melyn home at Bala was relicensed by the local authority for yet another year. We must assume that it thinks that it will be able to continue such holidays for at least that period. It is not the answer, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health said, to issue new guidelines. The public expect the Government to stop that practice.
  The Government believe that such practices should be stopped, according to my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, so why do we not have something in this legislation which would take from social services the right to deal with such cases and would make sure that courts rather than social workers decide what happens to young offenders? For example, an amendment along the lines that the decision of a court should be essential before a child is sent abroad might help.
  I support the toughening up of bail conditions. Too many people commit offences while on bail.
  As a non-lawyer, I believe that the right to silence should go. The Government's proposals are right. People who have nothing to hide will tell a policeman where they have been and what they have been up to. The only people who will keep silent are those who have something to hide. The legislation is adequate to tilt the balance so that those who commit crimes are found guilty.
  I was a member of the Committee that considered the Police and Criminal Evidence Bill. Under pressure from the police, the Committee agreed to allow intimate body searches. I welcome the modern scientific aids that are available to the police being given legal recognition.
  Clause 45 tackles the problem of trespass by new-age travellers. We have seen them cause damage and problems. In Malvern, there was an invasion of 10,000 and in Kerry in Powys they arrive nearly every year. We are withdrawing section 39 of the Public Order Act 1986 and

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  replacing it by clause 45. I am nervous, because section 39 says that if 12 caravans are together the law can be enforced. My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary is reducing that number to six. That is fine—I do not object to that at all—but I object that section 39 is not being used. I gather that the Association of Chief Police Officers is opposed to it. I gather also that chief constables have instructed officers not to use it. Police constables in Powys and the west midlands have told me that they are instructed to avoid using section 39 if at all possible. I worry that if section 39 is replaced by clause 45, it will still be ignored by the police. I hope that we shall have an assurance that something will be done to make sure that the new legislation is enforced. The police should protect people's property from criminal trespass.
  Police powers should be increased. We have seen the harassment of individuals by hunt saboteurs and such people.
  I support the Bill, but I would go further. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) talked about capital punishment. I assume that the Bill will provide an opportunity to debate that subject and possibly also corporal punishment. I would support both measures if and when they came before the House.
  It is interesting that Labour Members are undecided how to vote on the Government's proposals. Their party will be shown up. It loudly claims to be the party of law and order. Labour Members make a lot of noise, but they are not prepared to do anything. Whenever we have put forward tough legislation, we have been opposed by all the Opposition parties. If Opposition Members want to be taken seriously on the issue, they should vote for the Bill. I look forward to supporting the Bill tonight and opposing the feeble Labour amendment.
  6.56 pm
  Ms Jean Corston: At the Labour party conference last year, the deputy leader of the Labour party, my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett), predicted that, at the Tory party conference, the sky would be black with Tory chickens coming home to roost. The Bill demonstrates the rightness of what she said. It encapsulates an attempt to deal with the consequences of nearly 15 years of Conservative rule, when we were told that there was no such thing as society: there were only individuals pursuing their own interests. We were told, "There is no person other than me; there is no time other than now."
  There is a policy of high unemployment. Twenty-three per cent. of 16 to 19-year-olds are jobless. In Barton Hill in my constituency, there is male unemployment of 45 per cent. There is a chronic housing shortage. Bristol city council has the longest waiting lists since the second world war. We have had rocketing homelessness. Bristol has the highest number of homeless people, apart from London. We have inadequate welfare benefits, repossessions and utter disdain by the Government for collective values.
  Those factors are bound to cause a breakdown in our social fabric and threaten the family. However, we are suddenly told by the Prime Minister that people should treat each other with respect, except that that this is tempered by the Government exhortation, "Don't do as I do: do as I say."
  The Bill gives the Government a unique opportunity to restore confidence in our criminal justice system in the
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  wake of the report of the royal commission chaired by Lord Runciman. That opportunity has been wasted in a host of ways, but I shall focus on only three.
  First, there is a need for an independent body to review miscarriages of justice, as recommended by the Runciman commission. That was supported by Lord Justice May in his report on the Maguire Seven, and even by former Conservative Home Secretaries, the right hon. Member for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker) and the present Foreign Secretary. The Home Secretary alone is to continue to be the court of last resort. That procedure is secretive and undemocratic.
  Furthermore, the present Home Secretary's propensity to play to the gallery at Tory party conferences gives little hope to those who have been wrongly convicted. We have only to remember Stefan Kiszko, who died last month after giving up 14 years of his life after being wrongly convicted. He gave the money donated to him by well wishers to Justice, to fight for other people who are victims of miscarriages of justice. Why are people not concerned that the person who murdered that little girl is still scot free?
  I now wish to draw the attention of the House to a matter referred to by hon. Members from both sides—the abolition of the right to silence. The right to remain silent in the face of questioning, accusations and interrogation is a fundamental principle that has been in existence for 350 years. It is tragic that police training and procedures have at long last focused attention on investigation methods rather than forcing admissions from those who are presumed guilty. At the same time, the Bill is moving in the opposite direction. Convictions should be based more on evidence, because false confessions are not just the preserve of the vulnerable and inarticulate.
  In May 1991, Dr. Dames MacKeith, a psychiatrist, warned:
  "Anyone, including you or I—put under pressure for long enough could confess to a crime, even one as serious as murder. In fact, it would be the odd, unusual, abnormal person who didn't make a false confession under such an extreme degree of pressure."
  The abolition of the right to silence would be no threat to hardened criminals, who know the ropes. Abolition is opposed by the Bar Council, so I am astonished that distinguished lawyers such as the right hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) and the Home Secretary should consider abolishing it. It is also opposed by the Law Society, Liberty, Justice, the National Association of Probation Officers, the Children's Legal Centre and many more.
  I shall now deal with the proposals for secure training centres, or "child gaols" as they were described to me by a probation professional. There are already 300 secure unit places in this country run by local authorities. Many are underfunded. The Avon probation service has told me that Avon social services was denied funding just over two years ago for the secure unit in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Dr. Berry). That has left a shortage of places in a unit that is on the doorstep for people in Avon, and has developed the expertise to deal with young people.
  Offending behaviour is frequently associated with family breakdown, and sentencing to closed institutions a long way from home will serve only to exacerbate that problem. The policy also reverses 50 years of progressive

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  policy with young people. Over the past 12 years, there has been a fall in the number of juveniles involved in crime, and in the total amount of juvenile crime.
  Borstals failed. They became schools for crime. The short sharp shock, which was trailed by Lord Whitelaw, was quietly dropped. Other hon. Members referred to the fact that the Lisnevin training centre in Northern Ireland seems to be the model that the Government are using for the new centres. But Lisnevin has reconviction rates of up to 80 per cent. Offenders who enter it are said to do so with low self-esteem, but they emerge confident and with high self-esteem about their criminal behaviour.
  I understand that secure units are to be privately financed. Are we seriously entrusting the care of our young people to organisations such as Group 4? The Bill is a shameful use of parliamentary time and a waste of a unique opportunity in the wake of the royal commission report.
  Last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Ms Primarolo) and I held a meeting for people living in the south of Bristol. It involved school heads, governors, representatives of tenants' associations, community groups and the police. They expressed their concerns as: crime prevention; community policing; the opposition to the growth in private security provision; better funding for projects such as safer cities, which have been cut in Bristol and which occupy and interest young people; and something to control the alarming increase in drug addiction and abuse, particularly among the very young.
  Instead, they have a Bill that is concerned with squatters, hunt saboteurs and travellers. It is simply no solution. It is being pushed through in the face of all informed professional opinion. We should not be surprised by that, as it is par for the course. The Secretary of State for Education has pushed through changes to the education system that everybody said would not work, but the children did at least have parents and professional organisations to stand up for them, and the Government have had to back off.
  The problem with the Bill is that the price will be paid by the young, the vulnerable, the inarticulate, the mentally ill and the homeless. The Government do not appear to listen to anyone who is prepared to stand up for those people.
  7.5 pm
  Mr. Michael Shersby: The Bill contains important new proposals that will be widely welcomed by my constituents. Many of those proposals will consolidate the considerable success of the Metropolitan police in my area, which arises from Operation Bumblebee and which has resulted in a substantial reduction in crime such as domestic burglary during the past few months. The Bill also commands the full-hearted support of the Police Federation of England and Wales, to which I am a parliamentary adviser. I declare that interest in speaking in the debate.
  In a statement on 24 November, the chairman of the federation, Mr. Richard Coyles, said:
  "The new Criminal Justice Bill sounds like music to our ears …"
  Talking about the proposals contained in the Bill, he went on to say:
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  "They represent the most significant package of measures for thirty years."
  He also said:
  "We support this Bill, which at least begins to reverse the tide. People are sick to the back teeth with what has been going on. They do not expect their elected representatives to play politics with law and order. Crime victimises the whole nation, and the criminal doesn't ask his victim what his politics are.
  It is a great pity that a major criminal justice bill cannot be guaranteed of general support in Parliament."
  The chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales is a very experienced police officer. He made those remarks because he felt, as do so many of the 126,000 members of the Police Federation, that the time has come for some very important and profound changes to be made in the law—changes for which they have waited a long time. Crime victimises the whole nation. I therefore believe that the people who sent all of us to this place expect us to take action, to maintain law and order and to vote for the major provisions in the Bill.
  One of the most important features of the Bill is that at last it addresses the problem faced by the public resulting from the activities of persistent young offenders. Burglary, the taking away of vehicles without consent and a host of similar offences are committed with impunity by juveniles who believe that they will not be punished. I therefore support very strongly the proposed new sentence—the secure training order—as the most practical way of dealing with those young offenders. Action must be taken. We simply cannot go on as we are. The public expect us to take action and we should do so by supporting that order as part of this very important Bill.
  When my right hon. and learned Friend replies this evening, I hope that he will tell the House more about the training that offenders will receive and how their formal education will be undertaken. What, for example, will be the role of local education authorities?
  I also welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's decision to allow the independent sector, as well as local authorities, to provide secure accommodation. I do not believe that the public sector has a monopoly of skill in providing such accommodation. The House must address its mind to every way in which it can be provided quickly and efficiently, and be properly run. I hope that the Minister will also tell the House how long it will take to provide new places, and what resources will be devoted to the programme. The need for secure places is urgent. The public, the courts and the police cannot accept undue delay before they are available.
  I shall deal now with the provisions of the Bill relating to the granting of bail, which are strongly supported by the police. At last, the scandal of the so-called bail bandits is to come to an end. The Bill rightly removes the right to bail for someone charged with an offence allegedly committed on bail. That should stop the so-called revolving door, by which persons are arrested, charged with an offence and granted bail and then offend again and again. My hon. Friends have given a number of specific examples of that, and have made the point well.
  Clause 24 gives a constable the important power to arrest, without a warrant, any person who, having been previously released on bail, fails to attend a police station at the appointed time. That welcome change demonstrates how closely my right hon. and learned Friend the Home

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  Secretary has listened to the representations that he has received on the matter from the police, who have first-hand experience of dealing with that serious problem.
  The Bill makes changes to the taking of intimate and non-intimate samples for DNA testing. Perhaps the greatest advance in tackling serious crime in recent years has been the advent of DNA testing. Part IV recognises that by allowing the police to take intimate samples from a person who is not in police detention but from whom, in the course of investigation of an offence, two or more non-intimate samples suitable for the same means of analysis have been taken, but proved to be insufficient. Here, the protection for an individual is that such samples can be taken only if a police officer of the rank of superintendent authorises it, and if the appropriate consent is given.
  Clause 43 also extends the powers of the police to take non-intimate samples without the appropriate consent if a person has been charged with a recordable offence. Those and other provisions permitting the taking of such samples will greatly assist the police in the course of their investigations of serious offences.
  The Bill also contains provisions relating to obscenity, pornography and videos. Any hon. Members who attended the exhibition organised by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton) last year, which was given by the police in the Jubilee Room, could not fail to support those provisions. As one of those who attended, I must say that I was deeply shocked and saddened by what I saw.
  Therefore, I strongly support the introduction of new offences, including those on the use of computer graphics, and the increased penalties, including imprisonment for a period of up to three months for the possession of an indecent photograph of a child. Child pornographers and those who make indecent or obscene telephone calls should take note that, this evening, the House is determined that their disgusting and corrupting behaviour should no longer be tolerated.
  Mrs. Barbara Roche: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Shersby: I shall give way briefly.
  Mrs. Roche: Will the hon. Gentleman also accept the evidence presented by many senior police officers that one of the problems is that those reprehensible individuals making huge sums of money from child pornography are using sophisticated computer technology? Could not the Bill be amended so that, if such individuals were convicted, their equipment could be confiscated and given to the police officers investigating that disgusting practice?
  Mr. Shersby: The short answer is yes.
  Some members of the legal profession and the judiciary consider that the most contentious part of the Bill is the provision in clauses 27 to 30 that allows a court to draw inferences from a suspect's failure to answer police questions or his refusal to give evidence in court. The Police Federation feels that the provision in those clauses should be supported and—
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member but his time is up.
  7.15 pm
  Mr. David Trimble: I agree with the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) that we should debate the Bill not as a party political issue but on its merits, as an attempt to deal with serious crime. On that basis, I and my colleagues welcome many of the Bill's provisions, particularly those dealing with matters such as persistent juvenile offenders, secure training units and bail.
  However, I agree with the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) that some of the Bill's provisions will not achieve much. It contains many useful measures, but they are modest measures. It would be a mistake for the Home Secretary to talk up the Bill as if it were a major measure that will radically change the situation. It is not, but we welcome its useful provisions.
  I agree with what the hon. Member for Uxbridge said about child pornography and the use of sophisticated computer techniques. It is a matter of considerable regret to me and my colleagues that those provisions—contained in clauses 64, 65 and 66—do not extend to Northern Ireland, whereas the immediately following clauses, 67 and 68, dealing with indecent telephone calls and video recordings, do extend to Northern Ireland.
  Can the Minister explain why some of the obscenity provisions are extended to Northern Ireland while others are not? If it is thought appropriate to extend some to Northern Ireland, why not all? The problem exists there too, and it should be appreciated that obscene material circulating in England and Wales can, and often does, circulate in Northern Ireland as well.
  Mrs. Margaret Ewing: And in Scotland.
  Mr. Trimble: And in Scotland. We need a more comprehensive approach.
  I shall concentrate on the provisions that have Northern Ireland implications. My first subject is prisons. Here, I notice the reference to the possibility of privatising the prison escort service. Representatives of the Prison Officers Association in Northern Ireland have told me that they have been told that that service will be put out for contract in April. That is remarkably soon. It would also be remarkable if, as a result, Group 4 was to escort some of the prisoners we have in Northern Ireland. Given its record in England and Wales, it would be very much against the public interest to take that measure.
  I am surprised that no effort has been made to introduce or extend to Northern Ireland the offence of prison mutiny, which was introduced in England and Wales in 1992. We do not have an equivalent in Northern Ireland, but we have serious problems in the prisons that should be addressed, and that offence would help.
  Part VI, which deals with the prevention of terrorism, is also welcome. It extends to England and Wales some of the provisions in the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1989, and not before time. The police, particularly in London, have been fortunate that they have not had difficulties because of the lack of legal basis for some of their operations.
  I am glad to see that the provisions are being extended; that reinforces a point that we have often made. There ought to be uniform legislation on terrorism throughout the United Kingdom, because the problem extends throughout the United Kingdom.
  We also need a uniform practice, and I turn briefly to the matter of sentencing where there are serious problems. I

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  intervened during the Home Secretary's speech to ask what the Government's position might be with regard to amnesties and early release programmes. I was disappointed by his failure to deal with early release. I hope very much that that does not mean that the Home Secretary intends to introduce some form of special early release provisions. There are difficulties because of the differences in practice in England compared with Northern Ireland. That leads to difficulties—for example, with regard to the possible transfer of prisoners.
  Many people feel that persons from Northern Ireland who have been convicted of offences in England and Wales could and should be allowed to serve their sentences in Northern Ireland. It would be a simple humanitarian gesture, but it cannot be done, because of the differences in practice. In England and Wales, there is the practice—of which I approve in principle—of ensuring that persons who are responsible for terrorist murders are kept in prison for 25 years, whereas in Northern Ireland the average time is 13 to 14 years. Obviously, where there is a difference in practice, there are problems.
  We should have a uniform practice throughout the United Kingdom. Perhaps something similar to the regime which exists in England and Wales would be appropriate. It would also be of benefit to England and Wales to adopt the release procedures which work quite successfully in Northern Ireland.
  There has been discussion of part III, which deals with inferences from silence. I will make a few points in connection with that. The first is an important point on which a number of hon. Members have made a mistake during the debate. The part of the Bill which allows a court in some circumstances to draw an inference from silence does not abolish the right to silence. It is quite inaccurate for hon. Members to suggest that the right to silence is being abolished.
  There are circumstances in which the right to silence has been abolished. Some 20 different circumstances and offences have been created in various pieces of legislation where there is no right to silence, and where people can be convicted as a result of being silent. Those include offences in connection with customs and excise and with regard to VAT and income tax, and they are largely economic offences.
  It was interesting to hear the hon. Member for Torbay (Mr. Allason) say that the anti-terrorist squad in England and Wales was particularly anxious that something should be done on that front. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the provisions in the Bill will not make a great difference. It would not make a difference if the right to silence were to be removed in some circumstances.
  The Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary suggested when introducing his annual report last spring that legislation be introduced to make it an offence to refuse to answer questions in certain circumstances. Unfortunately, neither the Home Office nor the Northern Ireland Office have got round to responding.
  Mr. Allason: I merely made the point that the head of the anti-terrorist branch in London stated that that was the single measure which would enable him to execute his duties far more efficiently. He wanted to draw the attention of a jury to the fact that a particular suspect had absolutely
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  refused all co-operation, and had refused in some cases even to give his name. That obviously was an important inference for a jury to draw.
  Mr. Trimble: I accept the hon. Gentleman's point. However, based on the experience of Northern Ireland, the provisions in the Bill will make some difference, but not the sort of difference that the hon. Gentleman's interlocutor suggested. Adopting the provisions suggested by the Chief Constable of the RUC would make a significant difference, but those provisions will not.
  When the royal commission report came out, I turned to the provisions dealing with inferences from silence. I was surprised to discover that the royal commission discussed the issue without any reference to the five years' experience of the legislation in Northern Ireland. I find that truly astonishing, particularly when one turned the page to the next section of the report, which referred to cases and experience in Australia. The report was able to refer to experience there, but not to experience in Northern Ireland, even though the report's terms of reference clearly directed it in that way. That is particularly astonishing in view of the comments at the time of the introduction of the Northern Ireland legislation in 1988 that the Government intended to extend the measure to England and Wales.
  The provisions are modest, and they do not abolish the right to silence. They do not abolish the requirement of the prosecution to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. A person will not be convicted because he is silent. Conviction can only apply in cases where there is already a prima facie case.
  In circumstances where silence is merely excluding the possibility of an innocent explanation, or where the facts call for an innocent explanation, or where that explanation is not given, the court may draw the inference that there is no innocent explanation. However, inferences which can be drawn will be based on common sense.
  No one is suggesting that juries in the past and at present have not exercised common sense. All that the legislation allows is for the court to make reference to it. We hope that there will be an opportunity later to discuss the Northern Ireland experience in greater detail—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order.
  7.26 pm
  Mrs. Ann Winterton: Crime and the fear of crime is a blight on all our lives. My constituents are sick and tired of a society in which, in some places, the elderly fear to venture out alone, in which individuals going about their lawful business face attack, assault and robbery, in which burglary and vandalism are rife and in which parents fear for the safety of their children.
  The time has come to call a halt, and to call it in loud, clear and ringing tones. That is what the Bill is about. It sends a clear message to young offenders in particular that, if they are caught, they will be punished appropriately, and it tightens bail conditions to prevent reoffending.
  There are welcome measures to deal with public order offences, and to tackle those hooligans, thugs, vandals and anarchists who, disguising their malice and anti-social tendencies with a thin cloak of compassion for animal welfare, delight in bringing havoc, injury and fear to the many law-abiding citizens who seek to exercise their right to participate in field and country sports. That is a welcome step in the right direction.

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  There are new measures to help the police deal with offences and searching suspects, and I welcome the improvements in the range of practical deterrents to terrorist activities. However, it would be timely to express my concern, which is widely shared in the House and outside, about a number of guiding principles and fundamental issues which need to be addressed, to which we must turn our attention during the coming debates on the remaining stages of the Bill.
  Let us be clear that the last bastion of a disintegrating society is the family unit. Within such a unit, we are best able to nurture in our young a sense of responsibility and an active conscience enabling them to exercise self-discipline. It is with bitter regret that I must observe that, after such a prolonged period in office, the Government have repeatedly failed to appreciate that point. They have failed to pay anything other than lip service to the concept of supporting the family and strengthening the bond of marriage which is its very foundation.
  Divorce laws have been relaxed, homosexuality is actively promoted, Government-funded agencies peddle powerful contraceptives to young children, and sex education classes for primary school children and upwards concentrate on a mechanistic and unnecessarily explicit interpretation of sexuality.
  Children are inculcated with the libertarian view, and are not encouraged to understand and willingly accept those moral values and standards which have stood civilised society in good stead for so long. Sexual mechanics and materialism are no substitute for morality and compassion. The House might also reflect that 4 million abortions have done nothing to encourage respect for human life. In addition, bleating agnostic bishops have bitterly failed their flocks by giving no clear lead on moral matters.
  Teachers, social workers, the media, the Church, Ministers and some parents have failed generations of our children and the time has come to reverse that trend. If "back to basics" is to be anything other than a snappy sound bite, it must mean, first and foremost, a return to the acceptance and reflection in public policy of those Judaeo-Christian moral standards which for so many years have bound society together, and which have proved so practical as well as so spiritually preferable.
  Only when public policy and the law are based, and seen to be based, on objective moral standards can we expect them to be respected. The Government must have the courage to say that certain practices and activities are fundamentally and objectively wrong. Unless they accept that principle and distance themselves from the outdated liberal nostrums that have underpinned public policy since the 1960s, the tide of crime will continue to rise until it rots the very heart of our society.
  I was very encouraged to hear that the Government have included in the Bill a section devoted to tightening the law on obscenity and pornography, as there are significant weaknesses in the law in that area. The changes proposed in clauses 64 to 68 are most welcome. They deal with enforcement problems, and clarify the position on computer-generated images of naked children.
  The Minister will not be surprised to hear that I welcome those measures, since I have been pressing him for action for some time. A year ago, we invited officers of the obscene publications squad at New Scotland Yard to mount a private exhibition at the Palace, which was attended by a staggering 200 or more colleagues from both
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  Houses, and through which we were able to demonstrate the very real problems that exist in that area of the law and its implementation, some of which have now been tackled by the Bill.
  However, my welcome for those aspects of the Bill is tempered by my extreme disappointment that the Government have failed to grasp the central nettle. They have failed to replace the outdated, discredited and unworkable test of obscenity that lies at the heart of the Obscene Publications Act 1959 with something more suited to the flood of pornographic material with which the police are now forced to deal. It is about three years since the present head of the obscene publications squad had the courage to highlight the fact that the law needs clarification and the courts are inconsistent in their decisions.
  I realised the nonsense of the present law when the Crown Prosecution Service, supported by the Attorney-General, refused to sanction action against the book "Juliette" by the Marquis de Sade. Hon. Members on both sides of the House joined me to express revulsion and disbelief at that decision. Given the catalogue of violent sexual acts against children that the book not only records but positively advocates, we called for a Government review of the law. Instead of a proper review, and despite clear sympathy from the Prime Minister for what we were seeking to achieve, we had a poor civil service patch-up job.
  Ministers can claim to be taking action through the Bill on relatively minor matters, but the most important issue has been either overlooked or ignored. As a result, I shall seek to table amendments to the Bill to deal with the problem. That is no substitute for a thorough Government review of the law, but in the absence of any meaningful action by the Government, we have to do what we can to ensure that the foundations of our obscenity law are secure, so that the few new pieces of brickwork proposed by the Bill will be worth while.
  May I also be clear about the fact that the House has a duty to oppose any moves that may be made later in our debates to lower the age of consent for male homosexual acts. Present law strikes a reasonable balance between the need to protect youngsters from harm and the so-called rights of adults to indulge in deviant sexual practices of their choice.
  In short, the House must have the courage to accept basic moral teachings, and to reflect them in its decisions. That is why I hope that we shall once again have the opportunity to consider and to decide on the need to restore to our courts the option of the death penalty for certain categories of murder—for those who abduct and murder young children, commit terrorist murders, murder serving police and prison officers, and kill during an armed robbery. Those are heinous crimes that are viewed with repugnance by the overwhelming majority of people. It is right that the courts should be able to impose sentences which reflect that repugnance.
  In these few words, I have sought to tackle head on several controversial issues. They are, however, extremely important issues, and I hope that the Home Secretary will give them the most careful consideration during the further stages of the Bill in the coming weeks and months.
  7.35 pm
  Mr. Gerald Bermingham: I declare an interest as a practising barrister; I also declare an interest in society, as someone who likes to see the villain caught, brought to justice and properly sentenced.
  I listened to the Home Secretary's announcement about the 27 points and to the Minister of State's recent attack on lawyers as one of the problems in tackling crime. I have also listened to comment after comment—often ill-informed—from Conservative Members on how to deal with crime and who was to blame. One-parent families, the unemployed—you name it—everyone is to blame, but they never consider the real cure for crime.
  In one capacity or another, including my time as a student, I have been in practice for the best part of 30 years, and I shall never forget a comment that an inspector made to me in the late 1960s. That was before the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and before many modern devices, at a time when we employed enough police officers, paid them and equipped them. The inspector said, "Gerry, when I arrest someone, I don't need to interview them; I've already got the evidence." [Laughter.] The hon. Member for Torbay (Mr. Allason) may giggle like a child on the back row, but he does not realise that the knowledge that one will be caught is the only deterrent to crime. As a boy or girl at school, one knew that, if one stepped out of line, one would be caught and punished, and that deterred one from doing so.
  How do we set about catching criminals? Our recent track record is somewhat poor. Only one in 50 of all crimes ends with a court case and a sentence. It is pathetic. We caution thousands of people. I question the need to caution that many. I also question the need to discontinue as many cases as we do.
  Fear of capture and punishment is the deterrent to crime. How do we start to capture people? How do we ensure that a burglar is brought to justice, whether he or she is young or old? The simple answer is this—provide society with the police force that it deserves. We should not keep cutting police authorities. The police force in Merseyside has been cut time and again. The Home Secretary is shaking his head, but there is a little demon out there called the Treasury, and it has been squeezing the Home Office for the past 10 or 15 years—it has been squeezing every Department—as it sought to spend its money elsewhere.
  We need officers on the beat, and we need officers who are equipped with the latest equipment. They need resources which are better than those possessed by the villains of today, who are very well equipped. The Home Secretary again shakes his head. I have spent my life looking at such people. I shall give way to him with the greatest pleasure.
  Mr. Howard: The hon. Gentleman is talking nonsense. We are spending 80 per cent. more in real terms on the police than we spent in 1979; we have 17,000 more police officers than in 1979; and we have 16,000 more civilians supporting the police than in 1979. The hon. Gentleman's arguments would carry a trifle more weight if they were not so remote from the facts.
  Mr. Bermingham: If the Home Secretary was not so remote from reality, he would realise that the crime rate has doubled and tripled since 1979—[HON. MEMBERS: "A different point."] Of course it is not a different point. If the crime rate goes up, one needs more police officers and
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  more people to defeat the crime wave. It is all very well for the Home Secretary to tinker with the system. His predecessor tinkered with it in 1991, and Opposition Members told him that section 29 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991 would not work. Even some Conservative Members told him that. Within a year—
  Mr. James Clappison indicated dissent.
  Mr. Bermingham: The hon. Gentleman was not here, so he would not know—[Interruption.]
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Seated interventions are not helpful.
  Mr. Bermingham: Let us see whether we can stir up a few more Conservative Members.
  We told the Home Secretary's predecessor that section 29 would not work. We told him that section 1(2) would not work.
  Mr. Clappison indicated dissent.
  Mr. Bermingham: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head. If he had sat in Committee, he would have heard what I told his predecessor. Never mind. So we go on.
  Let us be realistic. What does the Bill do to catch villains? It does not provide any more policemen, although we have a rising crime wave. The Home Secretary says that he has increased the number of police officers by 80 per cent. I do not dispute his figures in real terms. The trouble is that the crime rate has overtaken him. Unless we capture the criminals, we shall never start to make the spiral go the other way.
  Let us be realistic about how we deal with criminals once we have caught them. The Bill tinkers with the right to silence, which is a breach of the European convention on human rights, but never mind that. Saunders v. the United Kingdom is the most recent case, and it deals with the Companies Acts. No doubt we shall increase our record of bad behaviour before the European Court, and no doubt we shall have more and more convictions against us. What will tinkering with the right to silence do? Will it capture anyone?
  Mr. Howard indicated dissent.
  Mr. Bermingham: The Home Secretary shakes his head again. The reality is that we may convict more of the people we prosecute, but shall we have convicted people properly or fairly? Those of us who have been in the trade for a little while noticed throughout the 1960s and the 1970s the problems of wrongful conviction.
  We have seen a number of such cases, not just the big cases about which we have all heard, such as the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six, but the little cases involving little crimes and ordinary people, who were convicted on the old basis of verballing, which we had before the Police and Criminal Evidence Act and which raises the question of confession and other matters.
  It has been said by psychiatrist after psychiatrist that, if one puts a person in a police station, one automatically puts him or her under pressure, and there is then a risk.
  Mr. Allason: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Bermingham: No, because I am limited in time tonight.
  There is the further risk that, when the person being asked the questions does not know what the evidence is, he

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  cannot answer the questions, which may appear to be speculative. People never take that point into consideration.
  Anyone who has observed an interview should remember that, no matter how fair the interview is, the police officer, in asking the questions, has the advantage of the knowledge that he or she is said to have. How are people supposed to know what the questions mean? Often, the trick question or the ambiguous question can lead to a miscarriage of justice. I am sure that, when the general election comes and the Labour party comes to power, one of the first things it will do is restore the right to silence, so that we shall be in line with the other European nations.
  The earlier clauses deal with juveniles. In 1986—you will remember this, Madam Deputy Speaker, because you toured the United States with the rest of the Select Committee—we looked at the Massachusetts experiment and the question of containment.
  The Bill does not even begin to address the problem of the juvenile tearaway. The only solution is to identify them young enough, and then to contain them and put them into a regime—I am not talking about incarceration or imprisonment—that is rehabilitative and provides training. If that process takes six months, 12 months, 18 months or two years, so be it. At the end of the day, that child must be rehabilitated so that he can take his place in society and can play a useful part. That would be positive thinking.
  As was the case with borstals and detention centres, the Bill does not even begin really to address the problem. I tell the Home Secretary as kindly as I can that we want crime to be beaten, but that we shall achieve that only by making people realise that, if they commit a crime, they will be detected and brought speedily before the courts for punishment.
  If we identify someone who is clearly likely to be a persistent problem in our society, we must have mechanisms to enable that child to be dealt with in a caring yet containing way, so that the problems he faces can be adjusted and addressed. That will enable that child to be reintroduced into society at the earliest possible moment, and in a way that does not encourage him or her to commit further crimes. We must make our streets safe, simply by catching villians.
  7.45 pm
  Mr. Peter Butler: It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham). I now know what it must be like to be on a jury that he is addressing. I fear that he will not get the verdict that he seeks.
  Nobody who has visited the elderly victim of a burglary or an assault can doubt the seriousness of the problem that we face. If the offender has been arrested and then bailed, or convicted and then released back on to the streets, the auguish and the sheer terror is appalling to see. We must always remember that the criminal justice system does not exist to serve offenders or those employed in it. It exists to serve, to uphold and to enforce the rule of law on which we all depend for the opportunity to lead civilised lives and it exists to serve and to protect the public—every child, woman and man in this country.
  The ultimate aim of our criminal justice system, like any other, and of punishment in particular, is the control of crime. I believe that the Bill has the potential to advance that aim and to do so significantly. It is sad to hear again
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  the fallacious argument that, because crime is rising in this country and because not all criminals are caught, our policies must be wrong and should be abandoned. Crime is rising throughout the developed world. Does that mean that everyone has wrong policies? While listening to previous Opposition speakers, I began to think that Mrs. Thatcher had been in power throughout the developed world and was therefore personally responsible for every crime committed since 1979. That is absurd. Logically, such argument would lead us to disband the whole criminal justice system and to give up the fight against crime. We cannot do that, so let us not waste too much time on such arguments.
  Our people are not looking for more excuses for crime or for criminals; they are looking for a tough and effective policy for the years ahead. The Bill takes us one more step —it may not be large enough—towards achieving that. Let us approach the matter in a more useful way. All our constituents are affected by the fear of crime, so all of us should respond in a positive search for solutions.
  There is actually only one cause of crime—an individual's decision to commit an offence. There is no other cause of crime. That individual decision, repeated and replicated by criminals throughout the country, is the basis of offending. An understanding of why that decision is made must inform our approach to criminal justice and public order. It follows that we must seek to know why the decision is being made, and to change the conditions and way of thinking that lead to it.
  We must consider whether the criminal is deciding to break a known system of mores and proper conduct or whether he has no idea that there is such a thing. Has he been taught what is acceptable and what is not or, in the terms in which most of us were brought up, what is right and what is wrong, and what he can and what he cannot do? Has he decided to offend for money?
  The Select Committee on Home Affairs was told robustly by one police officer, who became exasperated by much of the talk he was hearing, that we must understand that juveniles commit offences because they like to have £200 or £300 in cash in their back pockets, and that nothing else offers them that. Is that the reason, or has the criminal decided to commit the offence for excitement? Has he committed the offence in response to peer group pressure or for some other reason? We need to know. Can he be made fundamentally to come to a different decision? Can his friends come to a different decision, if necessary as a result of the fear of being caught and of what will happen to them? The hon. Member for St. Helens, South at first seemed to repeat the old catechism that it is the fear of being apprehended, and nothing else, that prevents crime. He then corrected himself, very properly, and said that it was the fear of being apprehended and of being punished that prevents the initial decision to commit an offence.
  I welcome the central funding of measures to prevent crime or to reduce the fear of crime, to which the Bill refers. However, it is not enough just to tell people to fit better locks. It is necessary also to contradict at every stage the pervasive message from the entertainment media to our young people that crime is exciting and even amusing, that there are never any victims and that criminals are heroes. Crime does create victims. There are no innocent criminals; there are only innocent victims. It is those victims who seek—nay, demand—to be our first priority. We must now begin to treat them as such.

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  It is not sufficient merely to express disapproval of crime. We must catch, convict and sentence adequately those who deliberately choose to create victims out of citizens who themselves obey the law and who look to us to secure that same obedience from others. This Bill and other legislation will assist the detection, conviction and proper punishment of criminals.
  The proposal on the right to silence has been much spoken of; it is a catchy cliche. The innocent rarely use that right; they have no need of it. It is a shield for the guilty and now its use is being properly curtailed, but not abolished. I am surprised to find myself in support of that curtailment. Before working in the criminal justice system, I would have defended the right to silence. In my many years as a criminal lawyer, however, I have advised many hundreds of clients under questioning and I cannot recall a single instance when an innocent man or woman exercised that right. It is not a cliche to say that innocence demands the right to speak. It is guilt and a guilty conscience that demands the right to silence. There will still be cases where the proper legal advice must be to remain silent under questioning. If lawyers have been giving that advice too frequently as the easy option, they will now have to stop and think. That is a good thing.
  It is important to remember that when courts deal with juvenile offenders, they are still dealing with offenders. It does not make any difference to the victim of a burglary, assault or car theft whether that crime was committed by a juvenile. The courts should have available all the powers necessary to further the basic purpose of criminal punishment—to deter, to put into custody those who would otherwise continue to offend, to punish justly, and to rehabilitate. I would like to see further powers given to courts in due course to have the discretion to treat juveniles as adults, as exists in other jurisdictions. If a criminal commits a number of serious offences, why should his age alone give him the right to retain his liberty and to continue his offending?
  I welcome not just the principle of secure treatment centres, but their availability to the courts as quickly as possible. I believe that that welcome will be shared by everyone who has suffered from juvenile offenders.
  I also welcome what I hope will prove in retrospect to have been the tentative first steps towards a law of criminal trespass. It should be an offence knowingly to enter or remain on land or building belonging to another person without consent. Trespassers really should be prosecuted.
  Among the many other welcome changes, the power for the police to grant conditional bail will reduce unnecessary remand court hearings. The Bill represents the first step to changing the right to bail for those to whom being on bail is something to joke about on the way to the next burglary or while they are driving the next stolen car. The proposal, as drafted, may not quite achieve that aim since the allegation that the offence has been committed on bail is already taken into account when deciding on the likelihood of the commission of further offences. No doubt that proposal can be polished in Committee.
  I also regret that clause 21 is applicable only to indictable or either way offences. Might not a better test be any offence punishable by imprisonment, because summary offences are not always petty offences to the victim?
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  I also welcome the proposals relating to the intimidation of witnesses. The rebuttable presumption of specific intent in clause 38 is a good demonstration of the fact that the Bill is essentially a practical one. Its purpose is not theoretical. It will achieve the results.
  I reject totally the Opposition's view, which seems to be that if one cannot achieve everything it is not worth trying to do anything, least of all should one dare to vote in favour of anything. I welcome the Bill as a step, if I may coin a phrase, back to basics—the basic right to live in a law-abiding society without the constant fear of becoming a victim of crime. Of course one Bill cannot achieve that, but as part of an integrated, firm but fair approach to an appalling problem, the Bill should surely commend itself to us all.
  7.53 pm
  Mrs. Margaret Ewing: The Bill is complex legislation and obviously it is difficult to discuss all its aspects. I will therefore restrict my remarks to the issues that affect Scotland. I am glad that the Home Secretary is present to listen to my specific points.
  As the House will be aware, chapter II of part VIII and part IX refer specifically to Scotland, but the Bill has 117 clauses and 10 schedules, so Scotland has been demoted to a small part of it. That is an insult to the separate Scottish legal system and to the various reports that have been published by the Scottish Law Commission and by other organisations such as the Law Society of Scotland. They are concerned about the criminal procedures observed in Scotland and want improvements to be made to them.
  The vital interests of Scotland have been downgraded in the Bill because it ignores these important reports, many of which have been gathering dust inside the Scottish Office for some considerable time. The Bill ignores the need to improve the procedures observed in the sheriff courts in Scotland—police officers and witnesses are kept hanging around all day in the hope that the relevant case will be called so that evidence can be submitted. That delay undermines the process of law; who would want to be a witness if he or she is taken from work for a day and is then not called as a witness? The way in which our sheriff courts operate is in desperate need of attention.
  I am extremely disappointed that the Bill ignores specific aspects of Scottish law because, after the general election, the Secretary of State for Scotland said that he would take stock of how Scottish legislation is dealt with in the House. If the Bill is an example of that exercise, all I can say is that he has made a fine boorach of the whole thing. If the Home Secretary does not understand that good Scots word, I should add that it means that his right hon. Friend has made a fine mess of it.
  Today's debate has not paid sufficient attention to drugs. Many of us who are studying what is happening to law and order in our society are conscious of the fact that many criminal offences are drug related. This is not a party-political issue and the problem must be addressed seriously by all hon. Members. I am certainly looking forward to receiving the report of the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs, which has studied the problem.
  Drug-related offences in Scotland rose from 1,297 in 1981 to 5,459 in 1991. That represents an annual average increase of 15 per cent. Surely that must worry all of us. I
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  speak to the local representatives of the police force regularly about it and they are studying the problem closely.
  During the 10 years in which there has been a massive increase in drug-related offences, only 96 Scottish police officers have been dedicated specifically to drug duties. The Home Secretary and the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, who is also present, should note that many of us would have been much more impressed with the attack on crime if ring-fenced funding had been given directly to our police forces to ensure that additional members of staff could be employed for the detection of drug offences, and to remedy the problem.
  The same could be said in relation to the funding of Customs and Excise and prison officers. Last week's incident at Glenochil in Scotland was also drug-related. Our prison officers must deal with that problem at the tough end and they deserve our support. Although I welcome the recent projects initiated by the Scottish Office to educate young people about drugs, a great deal more needs to be done. Much of it will involve funding and I therefore ask the Home Secretary to ensure that ring-fenced funding is provided, specifically targeted at dealing with the problems caused by drugs in society.
  The prison service in Scotland is dealt with by the Bill and I must plead a special interest in it. The Under-Secretary is aware that my elder brother is a tutor at the Scottish prison college at Polmont and that my nephew is a prison officer at Shotts. I therefore have a specific personal interest as well as a general one in this matter. The funding of our prison services is also at stake. It seems that the Bill is paving the way for the privatisation of the Scottish prison service. That was echoed most effectively by the leaked memo from Sir Russell Hillhouse, the permanent under-secretary of state at the Scottish Office, Scotland's senior civil servant, in articles that appeared in The Scotsman and the Herald earlier in the year. In those articles, it was made clear by Sir Russell Hillhouse that the expenditure plans projected by the Scottish Office were such that staffing levels must be significantly reduced in our Scottish prisons and that the process would entail some risk to order and security in prison.
  I do not believe that the prison service or the escort of prisoners should be privatised. If the state takes upon itself the right to sentence, it must also accept the responsibility to ensure that that sentence is put into effect and that the state which has decreed that sentence does not wash its hands of what is ultimately its responsibility. The state cannot privatise those responsibilities or put them out to tender. The state has taken the decision and therefore must see it through. The privatisation of our prison service or escort service would be a dereliction of duty—a view echoed by the representatives of the prison service in Scotland.
  The right of access, which has been addressed by various hon. Members, will be seriously eroded by the proposed legislation. The Government would be well advised to consider the Scandinavian system, in which there is a clear and universal right for citizens to roam wherever they please. I have considered what the Rights of Way Society has said, especially in Scotland. It has made clear statements about the responsibilities of people who have access to land.
  I was born and bred in a rural community and I represent a rural community. The vast majority of people wish to have the right of access to land for hill walking, for
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  climbing or for whatever sport that they wish to follow. It is a fundamental right. Most of those people have accepted the responsibility of regarding the land as a precious part of their inheritance and heritage. The Government are taking a sledge hammer to that right, preventing many people from roaming and enjoying access to the land.
  If we observed the various codes that have been laid down by various societies such as the Rights of Way Society, people would not be facing the denial of their right to climb the Munro mountains in Scotland. They would have the right to wander wherever they wanted and to enjoy the beauties of the landscape while at the same time observing the needs of farmers. Both communities can work in harmony.
  The Bill is destroying what many of us in Scotland have seen as a basic right. There has always been an argument about trespass law and sometimes it has been interpreted too liberally. I believe that the vast majority of people want to see the right of access retained. Yet we shall see it eroded by forestry legislation and by the Bill. I hope that the Under-Secretary and others who are involved in the matter will give serious consideration to ensuring the right of access while clearly observing the rights of farmers.
  I made it clear there were many aspects of the Bill on which I could not touch because they did not specifically relate to Scotland. However, there is one aspect which the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton) and others have mentioned and which I too want to refer to: the issue of obscene publications and pornography. I have been involved in the campaign to try to change the legislation in that sphere. Like others, I saw the exhibition mounted by the Metropolitan police in the Jubilee Room. I felt physically sick when I saw exactly what was happening. I hope that any severe penalties that are introduced will apply not only to England and Wales, but to Scotland, because that obscene trade must be stamped out at all costs. We cannot allow our youngsters and our society to be undermined in that fashion and I hope all pornography legislation will be applicable throughout the United Kingdom.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse): We have come to the end of the period in which speeches were limited to 10 minutes, but I remind the House that Madam Speaker appealed to hon. Members who were called outside that period to bear in mind that there are still many right hon. and hon. Members hoping to catch my eye.
  8.4 pm
  Mr. Rupert Allason: I welcome the proposals relating to the creation of a DNA database and certainly applaud the measures to be introduced to prevent bail bandits from abusing the temporary freedom that they have been granted. I shall turn later to the abuse of the so-called right to silence, but my principal preoccupation, about which I went to see the Under-Secretary, is the problem of persistent young offenders between 12 and 15 years old who are in considerable need of the secure training orders proposed by the Bill.
  The position for those who have to look after those young offenders is extremely difficult because of the Children Act 1989. I have been involved in dealing with young offenders for some time and I have talked to the Under-Secretary in relation to adventure training, which is considerably misunderstood, and about Operation Raleigh,

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  which is an extremely effective system of overseas adventure training, but one that is certainly not for 12 to 15-year-olds.
  It is all too easy to give an off-the-cuff reaction to the journalist who rings to complain that a young offender has been taken abroad. My constituents would rather see a young offender spend two or three weeks before the mast in the North sea than terrorise a neighbourhood in Torquay, which is exactly what has been happening because of a flaw in the present legislation that the Bill will address.
  Under the current legislation there are unsuitable homes in unsuitable places which, if they have fewer than three children, are not required to be registered as children's homes. In one case, in my constituency, considerable anxiety has been expressed in the neighbourhood where there are two homes that accommodate young offenders. I use the term "accommodate" in the loosest possible sense because, under the Children Act 1989, no action can be taken to restrain the young offender who decides to leave the premises. Even grasping him by the shoulder may be considered to be an assault.
  The police tell me that on one occasion an offender who had been arrested for a criminal offence was released into the custody of the owner of such an establishment and police officers on the shame shift, a few hours later, were required to arrest the young offender who was in possession of a stolen car.
  It is too easy to say that such young offenders are some kind of mindless hooligans who have to be locked up to protect society. I believe that society has a right to protection from the youngsters, but the young offender of today will be a hardened criminal when he is a youth and adult. Therefore, any money spent on addressing that problem and ensuring that there is strong supervision, a constant regime of training and, of course, security for the individual and for the public must not be wasted.
  I find it churlish and remarkable of the Liberal Democrats, who are allegedly entering 1994 with law and order as their major battle banner, that for almost the entire debate no Liberal Democrat Members have been present on the Liberal Benches and that the one Liberal Democrat Member who has spoken has said that too much money is being spent on dealing with young offenders. Such offenders are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime. They create absolute mayhem.
  Where such premises are located in unsuitable neighbourhoods—that has certainly happened in Torquay —the youngsters can create a veritable crime wave. I have spent some time with the youngsters and I am sympathetic to the dedication of the staff who are obliged to look after them. I should like to tell you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, about the case of David—a youngster in an emergency care and respite home in my constituency. His family history is that as a youngster he was difficult to handle. His mother, who was separated from his father, passed him over to his father's custody. His father found him difficult to deal with and, therefore, he went into a home where he was looked after for the first time by foster parents who really cared for him.
  Unfortunately, Avon social services made only a temporary placement and David was moved from the first home to a second foster home. He absconded from the second foster home because he loved the first foster
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  parents. He was then considered a trouble maker and was placed in a children's home. He absconded from that home and went back to the first foster parents, who were the only people who had showed him any love, care or security in his entire life.
  By the time that David came down to my constituency, where there is a home that looks after two or three extremely difficult youngsters, he was considered to be beyond any form of control. In the first week that he was in Torquay he was caught on the M5 motorway four times in stolen cars trying to get back to Bristol, where his first foster parents lived. When I interviewed the young man he had not seen a teacher in 10 months. As far as I know, any parent who was responsible for such an individual would be up before the courts because the child had not been to school. Yet Avon social services seem to have got away with it. Worse than that, some social services departments claim praise for the way in which they deal with their youngsters.
  I was appalled to see the "Panorama" programme on the way in which Kent county council deals with such youngsters. The programme explained what a success rate it had in dealing with so-called persistent young offenders. Part of the reason why Kent's statistics look so good—I have personal experience of this—is that it sends its worse hardened cases to Torquay. They drop out of the Kent statistics. Therefore, the "Panorama" programme was bogus. It misrepresented the position completely.
  There is considerable difficulty when one meets a 14-year-old who says that his main interest in life is driving cars and driving them fast on the motorway. If we can tackle the problem with secure training orders, we shall do a favour to society in the future. It will be money well spent. Such youngsters are a menace, but it is all too easy to criticise the dedicated staff who have to look after them, sometimes in difficult conditions.
  One particular youngster springs to mind. She was aged 12 and she was in care. The reason why she originally offended and went into care was that she was having trouble with her pimp. That was a child aged 12. Similar youngsters have come to Torquay because, in an unsuitable neighbourhood, two or three residential homes have been established in which staff are available to look after them. However, under the existing legislation the youngsters are not cared for in the security that is required to protect the public.
  Drawing inferences from silence is an extremely important issue. I have already made some interventions on the subject during the debate. I hope that when the matter is debated in the House there will be a full opportunity to sweep away some of the myth surrounding the way in which terrorist suspects are dealt with and the way in which they evade their interrogation. So often none of them or few of them are prosecuted because they exercise the right to silence. That prevents the police in some cases even from determining their names, addresses and the reasons for their possession of a particular vehicle.
  While we are on the subject of dismissing myths and getting down to the facts on an emotive subject, Miss Emma Thompson, the actress, gave an interview at the weekend in New York promoting her film on the Guildford Four, in which she made some staggeringly inaccurate allegations and remarks. In particular, she alleged that there were widespread abuses of the prevention of terrorism Act. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister of

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  State has noted those remarks and will expect a letter from Miss Emma Thompson giving chapter and verse of the alleged abuses.
  Similarly, I am disappointed that the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) is not here this evening. On the last day before the Christmas recess he made a speech in the Chamber in which he made allegations about Fred Holroyd in Northern Ireland. On that occasion he alleged that Fred Holroyd gave important evidence in a terrorism extradition case in the United States. The reality is that in that case Fred Holroyd declined to be cross-examined by the Crown. That would have been an opportunity to dismiss many of the myths that have sullied the reputation of Britain abroad, particularly in Northern Ireland.
  Mr. John Gunnell: I think that the hon. Gentleman has made a mistake. I was in the Chamber listening to that speech and it was not made by my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook). It was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone), who happens to have the name of the constituency which the hon. Gentleman mentioned.
  Mr. Allason: If that is the case, I apologise. I have a copy of Hansard for that day with me, but I shall not detain the House by reading it out. If that correction is right, that is fine. My point was that Fred Holroyd declined to be cross-examined by the Crown and that all the allegations made in the House on that day were wholly unfounded.
  I shall support the Bill. For the sake of my constituents, I hope that the secure accommodation and training orders will be introduced as quickly as possible. I hope that there will be no delay in the Committee stage. My constituents want relief from the young offenders as quickly as possible and preferably by June. That is not to say that the establishments should be in any way harsh. They should be a regime which will provide security for not only the youngsters but the public at large. The accommodation should not be supervised by the county councils. It should be placed in the private sector but only where the accommodation can be provided in a suitable environment —preferably a considerable distance from Torquay.
  8.17 pm
  Mr. Mike O'Brien: I begin by declaring an interest. I am the adviser to the Police Federation, which provides resources used to pay a research assistant.
  I wish to raise several matters in the debate. Some relate to policing but primarily they are issues of concern to my constituents. I shall raise matters mainly on their behalf. The Bill before the House is a strange assortment of proposals, some of which are good and which I could support and others which are bad and which I could not support. The Bill moves from amendments to the Sea Fisheries (Shellfish) Act 1967 to provisions to enable the Home Secretary to designate as a prison any building or floating structure.
  We know of the worries about a return to prison hulks. The Police Federation seeks an assurance that police stations will not be so designated. I ask the Minister to clarify that point—when he has a moment and listens—in his reply. I am sure that someone will pass that on to him.
  I welcome some provisions in the Bill. In 1993, during the Committee stage of the Criminal Justice Bill, I called for the police to be able to identify through the courts a
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  juvenile offender accused of serious offences who has escaped and is at large. The present law prevents that. The Minister of State said that he would make a change at the first opportunity. I am pleased that he has been able to do so in clause 37 of the Bill.
  The central issue is whether the Bill will cut crime. Even the Home Secretary seemed to have doubts on that point. He refused to reply to the challenges from my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair).
  Crime in Warwickshire has trebled since the Conservatives came to power in 1979, promising to reduce it. Burglaries and car thefts have quadrupled. When I talk to the people in North Warwickshire, they are rightfully fearful of rising crime, critical of the Government's failure to deal with it, outraged that after 14 years of Conservative Government a pathetic one in 50 crimes results in a conviction, and rightly cynical at the Government's attempts to manipulate the issue to get, as the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Thames (Mr. Lamont) said,
  "three days of good headlines"
  without tackling the long-term fundamental causes of crime.
  The Bill ignores 98 per cent. of the crime that affects ordinary people and attempts to deal only with the 2 per cent. of criminals who are caught, convicted and can be punished. Locking away a few offenders for one or two years does not, of itself, deal with cause and prevention, which must be dealt with if we are to tackle the other 98 per cent. of crime.
  The Bill's sister Bill, which is starting in another place—together, they form the basis of the Government's policy on crime—will undermine the whole process of catching criminals by politicising the police, with the direct Home Office appointment of the chairman and members of police authorities and by moving towards more privatisation. The general secretary of the Police Federation told hon. Members at the all-party police group that that Bill would create the basis for a cut in manpower from the current 128,000 police officers to 80,000 by the end of the decade, at a time when the public are crying out for more police.
  Even now, Warwickshire's chief constable, Mr. Peter Joslin, is concerned that the effect of the Government's policy will cause a 2 per cent. cut in his budget next year, which may force him to delay recruitment and promotion prospects for officers, hitting both numbers and morale.
  Everyone knows that the Bill has more to do with tackling the Government's unpopularity than with tackling crime. Ministers keep talking about the trendy liberal ideas of the 1960s and 1970s, but under Mrs. Thatcher we experienced the greatest period of liberalism and leniency in history. That is not just my view but the view of Mr. Andrew Rutherford, chairman of the Howard League for Penal Reform, when he gave evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee last year.
  The Tories started with a short sharp shock, but it did not work. When the offenders came out of their boot camps they reoffended at a higher rate as soon as the discipline was removed. They had been taught nothing. Brutal prison regimes just brutalise young people and then release them into the community.
  The Government then decided to try to deal with young people through community schemes. During the latter part of the 1980s, that had begun to work and recidivism rates were coming under control. The problem was that the crime rate was not falling because new offenders were

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  constantly feeding into the system. The supply side—the causes of juvenile crime—was not being dealt with. In fact, the Government's policy of taking 16 and 17-year-olds off the dole, creating unemployment, homelessness and deprivation, was feeding the crime rate.
  Instead of tackling the causes, the Government now seem to have decided to return to where they started. They never learned the lesson that we cannot stop crime by punishment alone. Only 2 per cent. of crimes result in punishment. Unless we deal with the causes of all crimes, the crime rate will continue to rise inexorably. That is why no Minister can tell my constituents that he will cut crime to the level that the Conservatives inherited. The Government can do so neither through this Bill, nor through any aspect of their other policies.
  The provisions relating to the right to silence form a key part of the Bill. They are supposed to illustrate the Government's "back to basics" theme. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister is now in trouble with "back to basics". A Prime Minister really is in trouble when the people begin to laugh at him, especially when he tells them that they must understand a little more and condemn a little less when it comes to his colleagues' indiscretions. A question of competence hangs over the Government's proposals to end the right to silence. It is not just the silly theatre that they want to create in the courts, with judges supposedly demanding that defendants go into the dock and the defendant probably just standing there, making everyone look a little silly. It also concerns what is proposed to happen in the police station.
  The Government said that they wanted to end the professional criminals' right to silence so as to help ordinary citizens, but the Bill does not remove privileged communication between solicitors and clients. If it is passed, the professional criminal who wants to say nothing in interview simply calls his solicitor, who tells him to say nothing. When giving evidence in court, the defendant will simply say that he acted on legal advice in saying nothing. The reasons for that advice cannot be inquired into; they remain privileged. The only inference that can be drawn from that is that the defendant is a prudent man who, in interview, takes legal advice. But the ordinary citizen who is arrested for the first time, brought to the police station and does not ask for a solicitor, has no right to silence, and an adverse inference can be drawn. He is most likely to be a victim of the very injustice that the Runciman inquiry was set up to prevent.
  The Bill will create a two-tier system. It will not inconvenience professional criminals, but will create potential injustice for ordinary citizens. I put that matter to Lord Runciman when he appeared before the Select Committee on Home Affairs and he agreed that that was the case. Even the minority in the Runciman report who accepted the argument for the removal of the right to silence in police stations demanded safeguards. Those safeguards are not present in the Bill, which is why it is a recipe for injustice.
  The Bill contains some good points but fundamentally fails to deal with the central problems that are causing the rising crime rate. It does not deal with the causes of crime or seek fundamentally to change the behaviour of those juvenile offenders who offend regularly. It does not seriously address as a whole the problem of rising crime in
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  our society. That is why I cannot support the Bill. I shall support the Opposition's reasoned amendment because it seeks to set in a wider context the needs and requirements of our society at least to begin the long fight that we must all undertake to reduce the appalling crime rate over which the Government have presided for so long.
  8.27 pm
  Sir Anthony Grant: I congratulate the hon. Member for Warwickshire, North (Mr. O'Brien) on his new consultancy. I hope that he will serve our police as well, as efficiently and as honourably as does my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby).
  It is high time that the myth first perpetrated by that brilliant old fraudster, Bernard Shaw—that crime was a direct result of poverty—was dispelled. It is not true and is an insult to the poor, as it is an excuse to the rich. We must consider the fact that crime has been rising inexorably since the war in every country, under Governments of every complexion, in good times and bad. Until we accept that fact, we shall not achieve the right results.
  I welcome this immensely important Bill, which is probably the most important measure for the Government to take in this Session.
  In Cambridge city there has been a welcome 10 per cent. reduction in crime in the past year, but what has happened outside is much more disturbing. There has been a great and worrying increase in rural crime in places and villages in my constituency which did not suffer from the experiences that are all too common in our cities. People living in those places will welcome the firm measures in the Bill. I shall not deal with all of them, but I should like to mention two in particular.
  I welcome the alterations in the bail provisions. In that context I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen) who, as a new Member, latched on to the inadequacy of the law and fought hard to get the reforms that are now to be enacted.
  I attach great importance to part V of the Bill, which proposes changes in the law of trespass. People in rural areas are fed up to the back teeth with the nuisance and annoyance caused by so-called travellers and by ghastly raves. The provisions to tighten up the law on those matters are long overdue and welcome.
  I hope that that part of the Bill will deal with another pest in my constituency—the practice of illegal hare coursing. It involves disreputable people with vast sums of money and they come a long way to Cambridgeshire, some from as far away as Wales and the west country. Illegal hare coursing causes absolute chaos and will undoubtedly end in violence involving my farmer constituents unless we are careful. Perhaps the Minister will confirm—if not now, at some later time—that this undesirable practice will be covered by the Bill.
  For the next part of my speech I declare an interest as president of the Guild of Experienced Motorists. I have repeatedly drawn attention to the fact that the biggest increase in crime relates to cars, and that it is nearly all due to youngsters and juveniles. It has also gone up faster than any other crime and leads not just to inconvenience and annoyance to car owners, but all too often to death and disability and the horrifying consequences about which we all know.

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  Much more needs to be done to tackle car crime and I am not sure that the Bill goes far enough. The Government must take the matter seriously. There is no reason why all cars should not be fitted with an effective security system, of which many are available cheaply, that enables stolen cars to be located and people apprehended immediately. Such modern technological systems are well known to the Minister of Transport, but there needs to be a determination to make use of them. The Government should tackle motor manufacturers and insurers to try to have such systems automatically fitted to all vehicles. Only in that way will we reduce the curse of car crime.
  I discovered that the effect of new tax regulations on company cars is that an employee who fits a car alarm at a cost of £500 will have to pay between £45 and £70 extra in tax each year. That is an extraordinary effect of taxation by a Government dedicated to curbing crime. [Interruption.] Perhaps Opposition Members would like to intervene, but I should like to make progress.
  The Financial Secretary to the Treasury said that the new system would ensure that all car accessories were dealt with even-handedly. That is not satisfactory because for tax purposes a security system on a car should not be treated in the same way as a radio, a video or air conditioning. If the Home Office is serious about tackling car crime, I hope that it will take that matter up with the Treasury.
  We hear much about the need for more and better police. I have persistently nagged on behalf of Cambridgeshire, which has fewer police per head of population than any other county although it is the fastest growing county in the country. That is not right. I was pleased to discover that we receive a welcome revenue support grant for the police of £1·5 million. However, I also discovered with some horror that the Lib-Lab county council regime allocated only £105,000 of that money for police resources and tried to salt the rest away in other expenditure. It was only when the Conservatives on the county council twigged that, moved an amendment and forced a vote that the allocation was raised to £340,000.
  There is no point in the Government handing out money if local authorities cannot decide how to allocate it to the police in their areas. I agree that the police should have the best resources and that there should be bobbies on the beat, but it is up to local authorities to give the police the priority that they deserve.
  I welcome the Bill and so do my constituents. It is an attempt to tackle a major curse and a cause of great anxiety among our people. The change of attitude expressed by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary is right because they have anticipated that people are much more concerned to see the punishment reflect the crime rather than the character of the criminal. People are outraged by some types of crime more than they are concerned about the psychiatric background, childhood or terms and conditions of the perpetrator. To recognise that fact is to return to a basic concept which strikes a chord with our people.
  My constituents and those elsewhere will welcome the Bill, which I am happy to support. They will regard Opposition abstention as half-baked and wishy-washy. As a result, the Opposition will get from the people the contempt that they so richly deserve.
  8.37 pm
  Mr. Stephen Byers: On new year's eve, an incident in my constituency revealed all too starkly to many of my constituents the depths of lawlessness to which the country has sunk. A man in his early 30s was gunned down and died a few hours later. The murder occurred on a busy high street in Wallsend, and the weapon was a firearm.
  It is little wonder that many of our people live in a climate of fear and are so afraid that they will not go outside their doors in the evening. Many people have lost confidence in our criminal justice system and are crying out for a criminal justice Bill. However, it is a matter of deep regret that the Bill before the House is not the one for which they are crying out.
  Many of our people live under a self-imposed curfew. Women will not drive their cars after dark. Education authorities have to move well-established evening classes to the hours of daylight. In my constituency, even Church organisations have to stage many of their events and functions during the day. Law-abiding people are prisoners in their own homes, and they look to the House for positive proposals to solve such problems.
  Politicians have a tendency to come up with simple answers to complex questions. In criminal justice, there are certainly complex questions that need to be tackled. But it is not good enough to blame everything on the liberal 1960s, or to say that there is a worldwide crime wave that affects us all. Things are far more complicated than that. Yet the Government are looking for simple solutions to those complex questions. That is why the Bill is so misguided.
  The Government make no attempt to identify the reasons why people offend. We must make it clear that there can be no excuse for criminal activities, but only if we can identify why people offend do we have a chance of finding the correct solutions. Part of that process is to acknowledge, as the Government must, that they bear a heavy responsibility.
  During their 14 years in office they have presided over record increases in the crime rate, and have created a climate that promotes criminal activity and allows it to prosper. The individual is seen to be paramount, and we are told that there is no such thing as society. Those ideas are fundamentally flawed; those are the ingredients that lead people into criminal activity.
  The Bill fails to address those issues. It is a ragbag of measures with no clear or coherent strategy, and nothing to tackle the causes of crime. It ignores the needs of the victim, and does little to prevent crime. The Bill is inadequate for many reasons, and is also dangerous. We have already heard many reasons why it is unsatisfactory, and I shall touch briefly on two—the position of the victim of crime, and the important role played by the Treasury in reducing the amount of money available for the criminal justice system.
  It is a matter for deep regret that the Bill has little to say about the victims of crime. In his opening speech, the Home Secretary said that he had encouraged the Crown Prosecution Service to consult victims about the way in which the service deals with the accused. However, fine words are not enough. Many of us do not have confidence in the ability of the Crown Prosecution Service to involve

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  victims in a proper and responsible way. The arrangement must be put on a statutory footing, and that is what the Labour party's reasoned amendment seeks to do.
  At present, there is no one to safeguard the position of the victim. The defence is there to help the accused; the prosecution is there, in an even-handed way, to speak on behalf of the state, and of society as a whole. No one is charged with the responsibility of representing the interests of the victim. That must change.
  Mr. Neil Gerrard: That fact has recently been brought home to me forcibly, because I have been dealing with the family of a young man who was murdered, and they felt as my hon. Friend has described. They were ignored by the system, they could not obtain information from the Crown Prosecution Service, and they were treated in the most appalling way in court. Victims' families are forced to queue for places in the public gallery, and have to sit near people related to the defendant.
  The problem, which I hope that my hon. Friend will take on board, is that, although the family were not the direct victims of the crime—in that case, the crime was murder, so the victim was no longer alive—they clearly felt themselves to be victims, and they were totally ignored by the system.
  Mr. Byers: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, because there is a great danger that we may underestimate the sense of anger, frustration and injustice that many victims and their families feel about the way in which the system operates. That issue must be addressed, so if we are unsuccessful in pressing our reasoned amendment, I hope that further consideration will be given to the matter in Committee.
  Victims are often not informed that someone has been charged, or of the date of a court appearance, or of the outcome at the end of the court process. Cosy deals are often negotiated between the CPS and the defence, and it is the victim who feels offended against, because of the way in which the system has treated him or her. We must bring an end to such cosy arrangements.
  Such arrangements and deals are often negotiated partly because the CPS knows the pressure on court time. The Treasury has reduced the amount of money available, and as a result our courts are sitting for fewer days, although the crime rate is increasing dramatically. Our courts are not allowed to sit as often as they would like to.
  All is revealed in a confidential memo sent to the Bar Council at a national level by Heather Hallett QC, director of public affairs of the south-east Bar Council, pointing out that, between 1991 and 1992, sitting days were reduced by 6,000, from 88,000 to 82,000. The memo continued:
  "courts are being closed, sittings of recorders are being cancelled often at the last minute",
  explaining that, in Sussex and Kent, three courts had been closed, and that cases that should be dealt with in January 1994—that is, now—were being put back into the next financial year.
  That situation is totally unacceptable. The cost-cutting aspirations of the Treasury are being put first, and as a result criminals are allowed to go free on our streets. The average delay between someone being charged and the case coming before the Crown court is three and a half months—a delay that increased by 11 per cent. between
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  1991 and 1992. Such delays simply provide further opportunities for criminals to commit more offences. That is unacceptable.
  The Bill rightly deals with bail, but if we are worried about criminals going free, our principal objective must be to ensure that they are tried speedily and efficiently, and that is simply not happening.
  We should be debating a Bill that would ensure that the guilty were convicted and the innocent acquitted, that crime was prevented and real rights were given to victims. The Bill fails because it does not tackle any of those issues. The Home Secretary must know that, although platitudes and prejudice may deliver a standing ovation at the Tory party conference, they do not constitute a framework for a criminal justice system. The Bill does not serve the interests of the House or of the country. Our people deserve better.
  8.48 pm
  Mr. Michael Stephen: For the past 30 years, we in Britain have been experimenting with libertarian attitudes to crime. Those attitudes have been tried and have been proved an abject failure. It has been pointed out several times during the debate that the Conservative party has been in government for nearly 15 years. During that time, there has been a massive increase in the resources devoted to the police, to crime prevention and to the fight against crime in general. Anyone who believes that, had the Labour party been in power for the past 15 years, anything like those resources could or would have been made available will believe anything. The problem is not so much that the police do not catch the criminals; it is that we, the politicians, let them out again, either on bail or after much too short a time in prison.
  I fear that, over the past 15 years, we have listened too much to the left-wing social reformers and not enough to our constituents, to the police and to the magistrates. But I have no doubt at all that, if either of the two socialist parties—I see that the Liberal Democrats are as usual conspicuous by their absence from this important debate —had been in power, matters would have been a great deal worse.
  This Bill is the third step in this Parliament towards the restoration of common sense to Britain's criminal justice system, and I welcome it. [Laughter.] I am surprised that Opposition Members appear to find that funny. This is a very serious matter for all our constituents.
  The first step was the amendment of the Criminal Justice Act 1991 to restore the power of the courts to sentence a criminal on the basis of his whole criminal record. The second was my 10-minute Bill, which was supported by 110 Members of all parties—I wish publicly to thank all of them for their support—which reached the statute book in July as the Bail (Amendment) Act 1993, and which gives the prosecution a right of appeal against the decision of magistrates to grant bail. I have been informed by my hon. Friend the Minister that he expects to make a commencement order early in the new year. I hope that my hon. Friend will be more specific about that when he winds up, because that measure is badly needed and wanted by our constituents.
  There is no simple answer to the question "What causes crime?" During this debate, Labour Members have repeatedly posed the rhetorical question, and I have been waiting for an answer—but answer came there none. There

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  have always been criminals, and there always will be, and the situation throughout the western world is not at all encouraging.
  Of course we must manage the economy as best we can so as to provide everyone with a decent home and a good job. During the past 20 months or so, I have listened to the Labour party and Liberal Democrats in economic debates and have heard nothing from them which suggests to me that the management of the economy would be any better in their hands—quite the reverse.
  Over the past 15 years, there have been tremendous improvements in the standard of living of our people, but no Government has ever been able to provide a job for everyone who wants one, and I do not suppose that any Government ever will. There is certainly no crock of gold —I sometimes think that Opposition Members think there is—out of which all the projects that all of us want to see can be financed.
  A great many criminals have jobs, and a great majority of the poor and unemployed do not commit crime—indeed, they are most often the victims of crime. We must keep faith with them and make it clear to potential criminals that poverty or unemployment will never be accepted as an excuse for crime. How, in any event, could poverty or unemployment be accepted as an excuse for rape or for smashing a glass in someone's face?
  Much of the crime can be traced to the breakdown of respect, which I—and I am sure most hon. Members present—saw happening throughout the 1960s. I noticed a breakdown of respect between men and women and between parents and children, a breakdown of respect for religion, for the elderly and for all forms of authority. Sadly, Western society has abandoned all the traditional constraints upon human behaviour, and we are left only with the criminal law. It is not an adequate defence. The breakdown of respect to which I have referred began in the 1960s, long before Baroness Thatcher became Prime Minister.
  There is another problem which has been referred to once or twice in the debate—the terrible scourge of drugs, which is affecting the entire developed world. I have listened carefully to this debate and others, and have heard the problem identified many times by Opposition Members and by my hon. Friends. I have yet to hear a solution. All we got from the Liberal Democrats at their party conference was the suggestion that we might legalise drugs —which would turn London into the drugs capital of the world.
  Television has a lot to answer for. Anyone who doubts that that is the most powerful medium ever invented for moulding ideas and attitudes should look at the thousands of pounds that people are prepared to pay for a few minutes of advertising time.
  I believe that child-centred educational methods have a lot to answer for, too. They have taught them a lot about their rights but precious little about their responsibilities.
  The great majority of crimes are committed by people between the ages of 15 and 21. Many of those young people respond to non-custodial sentences. We must all welcome that. All forms of non-custodial treatment that work must be used, but we would be foolish if we shut our eyes to the fact that there is a hard core of young offenders who simply cannot be reformed and cannot be deterred. They simply have to be locked up, so that they can be
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  physically prevented from burgling our constituents' houses, stealing their cars and engaging in other forms of anti-social behaviour.
  I thoroughly welcome the proposal in the Bill to establish secure training centres, but I should prefer it if they were called secure schools. If a young person qualifies for custodial treatment, he is in need not of punishment but of a rescue operation.
  Such establishments should principally be schools that happen to have a fence around them, not prisons that happen to have a few teachers inside them. Sadly, also, there are youngsters of the age of 10 and 11 who commit serious and persistent crime. Fortunately, there are not very many of them, but I feel that the Bill should be amended in Committee to provide that, if a court thinks it appropriate, it can send someone aged 10 or 11 to a secure school.
  It is said that there was a high rate of reoffending from borstals, but let us not forget that we are dealing with the hard core of young criminals. Part of the problem was that they were there for too short a time. Very soon after going in, they were let out to continue their criminal careers. That is the wrong approach.
  Such children should be educated in secure schools for as long as needed. It is no good sending them in for a few months. If necessary, and if the headmaster is of that opinion, it should be possible for them to be detained in that school until they reach their normal school leaving age. I see no reason at all why the headmaster should not have the right to use the cane on boys in appropriate circumstances in those schools; nor do I see why the headmaster of any school should be prohibited by law from using the cane on boys.
  There are also youngsters between the ages of 16 and 18 who need custodial treatment, and it is no good throwing them into a young offenders' institution or "sin bin" and then forgetting about them. We are all aware of the terrible tragedies that have occurred in young offenders' institutions. The concept of the secure school must be extended to the 16-to-18 age group, but there the emphasis must be on training for work.
  Of course all that is expensive. However, what are the costs of allowing those youngsters to remain at liberty, running wild and committing offences every day? Those costs are enormous. It is said that the schools to which I have referred would be universities of crime, but I do not accept that argument. The real universities of crime are the housing estates and even the homes where those young people live. It is sometimes said that it would be wrong to take those young people from their parents, but in the case of some youngsters, that is precisely what is required. The parents may be criminals themselves, and a negative influence on their children.
  I believe that hostels should be provided for children when they leave secure schools, to ease their transition back into the real world and to help them obtain jobs, but nothing has been said about that so far. There should certainly be no trips to the Nile or to the Caribbean. Whatever may be the therapeutic effect of such trips, they are deeply offensive to our constituents who cannot afford to send their own children, who have committed no offences, to such places.
  With regard to bail, I generally welcome part II. However, I believe that the right approach is that set out in clause 2 of my Bail (Amendment) Bill, which clause I sadly had to drop in Committee because of the lack of

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  parliamentary time. That approach would have focused on people who had committed serious offences before. If a question arose whether such a person should have bail in future, the onus should be on that person to prove that he or she should have bail. It should not be for the prosecution to prove that that person should not have bail. That is a better approach than the automatic exclusion of bail.
  I welcome the provisions for privatisation. I had an opportunity to visit the Wolds prison a few weeks ago. It is doing an excellent job. The argument that it is wrong to make a profit out of custody is quite ridiculous. Opposition Members might just as well say that we should close all the undertakers because it is wrong to make a profit out of bereavement. That is a ridiculous argument.
  We should perhaps reconsider the stop-and-search powers of the police, and consider whether they are adequate. We should also consider whether it is necessary for every trifling traffic offence to go through the hands of the Crown Prosecution Service. Why should they not be dealt with by the police officer in the case?
  I am aware of clause 38. However, it is wrong for defence lawyers to be able to extract the names of witnesses during proceedings. It should be at the judge's discretion whether the names of witnesses should be disclosed. What on earth is the point of offering a £5,000 reward if people know that, if they come forward with information, the criminals and their relatives will soon have their names and probably their addresses?
  The question of anonymity in rape cases should be addressed. It is quite right that the anonymity of women should be protected, but similarly, a man accused of rape should be entitled to his anonymity unless and until he is convicted.
  With regard to compensation for victims, I welcome the very large sum of additional money that the Government are making available to the victim support organisations. However, once the Child Support Agency has concluded its excellent task of chasing fathers who do not pay maintenance, its attention, or that of a similar organisation with the necessary resources, should be devoted to collecting compensation on behalf of the victims of crime. At the moment, criminals are not paying that compensation. The courts do not have the resources and are not adapted to perform that task.
  I welcome the provisions on squatters and travellers, because they are a serious problem in my county of West Sussex. Clause 50 provides that the sound equipment used at raves can be forfeited. However, there is no corresponding provision for the forfeiture of vehicles used by new age travellers who commit mass trespass.
  Many of our constituents find it grossly offensive to see vast sums of money paid to criminals who sell their stories to newspapers, and that practice should be outlawed forthwith.
  With regard to sentencing, it is for the elected representatives of the people assembled here in Parliament, and not for Her Majesty's judges, to decide whether prison works. It is the function of judges to apply the law to the facts. If Parliament says that a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment should be imposed for a particular crime, we expect to see 10 years imposed for the most serious examples of that crime, and not the six or seven years that judges are accustomed to imposing. Some years
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  ago, I published a pamphlet urging appeals against over-lenient sentences. That was enacted as section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988.
  One reason why there are so many lenient sentences —I know this because I practised in the criminal courts for nearly 15 years—is that the defence counsel makes a speech in mitigation and tells the court what a wonderful man his client really is and how out of character it was that he thrust the broken bottle into the poor victim's face. During that time, the prosecuting counsel sits down and says nothing, except, in a rather formal way, to draw attention to the man's criminal record. Prosecuting counsel should be under a duty to draw the court's attention to anything which suggests a more serious punishment.
  We must also reconsider remission. A man who is sentenced to six years' imprisonment will probably serve only three. That is a fraud on the public. I have actually heard professionals in the criminal justice business say that it does not matter what the public think. That is a breathtaking piece of arrogance. Sentences should mean what they say, and there should be no remission for good behaviour. Our constituents do not have a reduction in their council tax for good behaviour, because good behaviour is to be expected. Bad behaviour in prison should be punished by an increase in sentence. Life imprisonment should mean life.
  I welcome part VII, to take action against pornographers. We must take the profit out of pornography and use the powers in the Obscene Publications Act 1959 to seize pornographic material. That could be done on the balance of probabilities, not on the criminal burden of proof. That is the key. The police must be assisted by private contractors who can find warehouses where filth is being stored and bring it before the courts, and pornographers should pay the costs of that.
  I welcome clause 68. Sex lines should not be controlled; they should be banned. The public telephone system is no place for pornographic conversations.
  The Foreign Office must renegotiate with our European partners the laws on pornography. It is quite unacceptable to our constituents for Euro filth to be beamed by satellite into British homes.
  I welcome clause 27 on the right of silence. As the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) said, we are not abolishing the right of silence. We are not suggesting that the thumbscrews be brought back and that people be forced to speak. It is rather odd that, if a man is accused of drink-driving, he has to incriminate himself by giving a sample of blood or urine, and he is treated as though guilty if he does not do so. However, if someone is suspected of rape or murder, he can sit with his arms folded and say, "Prove it—if you can." One hon. Member has pointed out that we need to go further.
  Under the current law, when asked at the trial, "Why did you not answer the policeman's question?" an accused person will say, "Because my lawyer told me not to." Therefore, we must place all lawyers under an obligation, when they tell their clients that they need not say anything, to tell their clients also that, if they do not speak, the jury will be able to form such view of their refusal to speak as seems appropriate to them.
  This is an excellent Bill. I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary on bringing it forward, but there is still much more to be done.
  9.8 pm
  Mr. Andrew Miller: I do not know about other hon. Members, but I am fed up with naive comments, typified by some of the remarks of the hon. Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen). He suggested that one simply has to agree with the Government or be labelled pro-criminal. That is nonsense and it is no way to conduct an important debate.
  I do not believe that the public are aware of the seriousness of some of the problems facing us or of how thin the blue line is. We must add to that the standards of behaviour and the moral values that are espoused by the Conservative party—"Me first, and to hell with the rest of society." It is no wonder there is increasing criminality. Our current problems are bound to follow.
  The causes of crime are not dealt with by the Bill. Despite the opportunity of nearly 15 years to address the causes of crime, the only opportunities that exist as a result of the Government's actions are opportunities for the criminal. I remember the various poster campaigns for general elections since 1979. The first mischievous one of 1979 was that of the dole queue, and the lies associated with that, through to the most recent one about the "double whammy". I can imagine the campaign slogan for posters in the next general election. There will be the same innuendoes, but they will say, "Vote Tory and avoid crime." I think that that will be aimed at the criminal, not at the rest of society.
  I recently spent a whole night shift with my local police force and saw some of the evidence of the problems that face us—a handful of young people with total disregard for the policeman or policewoman. I discussed at length the causes of that behaviour with the officers with whom I was assigned. They referred to a number of areas, all of which have a common link: an offender's confidence that he will not be caught; even if he is, it will be pretty difficult to pursue the case because of the problems faced by the Crown Prosecution Service and the under-resourcing of magistrates courts. I shall refer to those matters in more detail in a moment.
  I can adequately demonstrate that point by a case from my constituency, where the CPS is not prepared to pursue a violent offender who knocked down somebody with a vehicle and who has been witnessed committing violent crimes. The CPS is not prepared to pursue the case because of the difficulties associated with what it sees as a small-scale criminal. I see that person as a serious risk to society. It reflects the fact that the CPS takes the view that it cannot go any further because there is a greater need for more collection of evidence; that comes back to the resources available to the police.
  The magistrates in my constituency recently released a violent offender on bail into the local community simply because the Home Secretary failed to provide local magistrates with the necessary facilities to remedy that situation. We hear all sorts of promises, but no action. My hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend (Mr. Byers) referred to the number of court hours available. I know, from my wife's experience as chair of a bench in a district in Cheshire, of the cuts that have been imposed on the magistracy in that area.
  The shortage of police was illustrated by my night out with the police force. The four villages of Neston, Parkgate, Burton and Willaston, comprising more than 100,000 people, had no direct cover from within the
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  borough on that night while the officers with whom I was assigned were investigating a school break-in. I do not see that as a good enough response to the needs of my community.
  For the rest of the night in the town of Ellesmere Port there were only five police officers on the streets. When I was involved in the arrest of three young men—I shall not refer to the matter in great detail because of the sub judice rule—there was no cover because all the police had to converge on the one spot. What happens in such a case? Is that really a good enough response to the needs of the community? The system around us is cracking. Public confidence is being eroded. Police, magistrates and the CPS have low morale. Indeed, in my view, it is at an all time low.
  Let us look at some of the mistakes that have been made. I stress that it is no wonder that spectacular mistakes are made by the system, because shortcuts have been made. For example, I refer to the case of Paul Malone, to which I have referred several times before. He has now spent his eighth Christmas in gaol for offences that he could not have committed. I am not the only one to express that view. I have before me a sworn statement by a highly qualified forensic scientist who has been used on many occasions by the Home Office, for issues such as the shoot-to-kill policy. He is highly regarded. He has calculated, from the evidence that he has seen, that the height of the person who committed the crime does not correspond with the height of the person in gaol. In addition, the principal prosecution document has been shown to be fabricated.
  The compounding of errors gets even worse. The first inquiry failed to bother to look at transcripts of the court hearing. The officer in charge retired mid-stream. The current inquiry is on its third lead officer. That level of incompetence and bad management goes back to the person at the top of the tree. The responsibility for it—the buck stops with him—belongs to the Home Secretary and nobody else.
  The common thread in all the issues—the problems that I referred to earlier and the serious issue of the imprisonment of somebody in such circumstances—is the Government's unwillingness properly to resource criminal justice. We need to identify and tackle the causes of crime in a proper and positive manner and, when necessary, be tough—I mean tough—on proven offenders.
  The Bill deals with some of the matters in which I have a particular interest, such as the use of science and technology. Those aspects of it are interesting and worthy of serious examination. However, it fails to address the fundamental issues on which I have touched. Therefore, I join my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) in urging the House to accept the reasoned amendment and to take the debate forward much more positively.
  9.16 pm
  Mr. Alun Michael: It is clear from the debate that we are dealing with a poor Bill, ill planned and poorly drafted, which fails to deal with crime and miscarriages of justice. Those are two scandalous omissions.
  The Bill's proposals fall into two categories. Some are helpful and capable of constructive amendment, and we shall try to achieve just that in Committee. Others try to address a real issue but offer wrong-minded or ineffective

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  solutions, rather like a doctor diagnosing an illness and insisting on applying leeches when laser technology is available and more appropriate. With 15 Acts in 14 years dealing with criminal justice and many minor measures, why will not the Government take a balanced approach to such serious issues?
  I am grateful to the hon. Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen) for acknowledging the co-operation between Conservative Back Benchers and Labour Front Benchers that helped the 1993 Bail (Amendment) Bill through its stages in the House when the then Minister had geared himself up to kill it off. We now have the prospect that the prosecution will be able to appeal against the granting of bail when there is clear evidence that a mistake has been made.
  We shall take an equally responsible approach to straightening out the confused proposals in the Bill. I share the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Shoreham that the Government have delayed implementation of that Act, when these measures already apply in Scotland. There are no excuses for delay and I hope that the Minister will assure us that it will be implemented immediately.
  I am disappointed that the hon. Member for Shoreham said that not enough money was available to pay for all the steps that we would like to take to prevent crime when people were already paying a tax for crime. Some people are paying up to 30 per cent. more for their car insurance and between 20 and 30 per cent. more for their home insurance because of the effects of crimes that the Government have failed to prevent—that is for those who have insurance, or who can afford it. The suffering, as well as the taxation that is, in effect, provided by the failure to tackle crime, is a serious issue.
  I share the concern of the hon. Member for Shoreham about the failure to tackle drug abuse and I published my own analysis last year, warning of the growing size of the problem. I agree that legalising drugs would be a diversion and that we need to tackle crack trafficking. It is crazy to end drug education projects and to cut the treatment of drug addicts in the community, steps which can diminish this scourge in our community, and all the other work that we need to do to avoid the individual, family and community breakdown which the threat of drugs offers us. Why are the Government undertaking those stupid actions at the present time?
  With regret, I see little sign that we will have such a constructive approach from the Government Benches as was achieved during the debate on the Bail (Amendment) Act 1993 on some of the issues with which we are dealing today. The Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence), was at his sycophantic best today. One would almost think as he spoke that he regarded rising crime as evidence of Conservative success.
  Not from him came a word on the Government's failings. Indeed, there was not the sort of care which the hon. and learned Gentleman used to show, for instance, in 1988 when the right of silence was dealt with far more carefully by Ministers in respect of Northern Ireland. At that time, the hon. and learned Gentleman said:
  "for all its thinness and ruined state, the right to silence is still one of the significant linchpins of an accusatorial system and we should be cautious about abolishing it."—[Official Report, 8 November 1988; Vol. 140, c. 212.]
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  The hon. and learned Gentleman also criticised the Government at that time for rushing through "an ill-considered measure." What do we have today but an ill-considered measure? The Home Secretary irresponsibly has thrown aside the evidence and the conclusions of a royal commission, instead of taking the sensible conclusions which it had offered after careful and extended thought.
  We ought to see more balance from other Government Members. If the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) is so concerned about bail bandits, why did he and the Government not support Labour party proposals on Report? Those measures could now have been in place had the hon. Gentleman and the Government not voted against them. If the hon. Gentleman is serious in his declarations of support for the police, he must be more willing to put pressure on the Home Secretary and to be less partisan in his rhetoric. The hon. Gentleman also referred to computer graphics, and he should remember that he is supporting an initiative which is sponsored on an all-party basis by seven hon. Members.
  I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton), who took the lead among other hon. Members to bring that matter to general attention. Those concerns are shared, the problem is enormous and we need to work together to defeat that threat to decency. We seek to improve that part of the Bill and to include the proposal of confiscation which was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche) during the debate.
  Against that background, it was incredible that the hon. Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Hawksley) had the foolhardy audacity to criticise the Labour party's record. The hon. Gentleman justified part I by referring to the lack of places to send young people. Why did not he criticise the Government for undermining the system of community homes with education on the premises? Why did not the hon. Gentleman criticise the Government for the fact that therapeutic facilities like Peperharow, which succeeded in working with some of the most difficult young people, are now closed?
  The hon. Gentleman asked when the places dealt with under part I will be available. He is right to do that, as it is an important question which the Home Secretary failed to answer. Before becoming a Member, I campaigned for secure places to end the scandal of young people being held in adult prisons because there was nowhere else for them to go. My right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) campaigned vigorously after the suicide of a constituent in prison. Eventually, the Home Office Minister, who is now the Secretary of State for Education, promised the necessary places, although he would not say when those places would be made available. That promise was made in February 1991, during debates on one of the many Criminal Justice Bills. Not one of those places has yet been provided. It is right to ask the Minister to tell us when those places are to be made available. Let us not have the prevarication that we have had from Ministers at the time of the last announcement.
  Reference was made earlier in the debate to the availability of secure places. During the period from 1 August 1993 to the end of October 1993, there were 475 requests for secure places. During that time, 113 vacancies arose. That is the scale of difficulty that was referred to by my hon. Friends during the debate—so much for the

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  Government's determination to provide what is needed to check youngsters when they need to be in secure accommodation.
  The Government could do many other things. At about 6 o'clock in the morning during the Consolidated Fund debate just before Christmas we discussed a problem that has been highlighted by police officers throughout the country, from constables and sergeants to chief constables, who are angry and frustrated at being let down—as they see it—when the Crown Prosecution Service fails to take a prosecution through to success. That is happening at a time when reported crime is up 124 per cent. while, under this Government, there has also been a staggering 15 per cent. drop in the number of cases coming before Crown courts in the past year.
  Yes, there is plenty that the Government could do if they had the determination, and it would not even require legislation for them to get on with the job and make many of the changes, but they have failed to do so.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) referred to offences committed by those "imbued" by the values of the Government—people who were brought up during the Government's time in office. He is absolutely right; those offences have led to the burdens on police to which he referred.
  The Government's impact, in undermining initiatives undertaken by local authorities, is enormous. For the past few years, the Conservative party has been slaughtering the youth service, which used to help young people to adjust to the society in which they were growing up.
  Reports written during the second world war, the first world war and even the last years of the 19th century all emphasised the need for a youth service that was able to work with young people so that they could be brought up with values that would enable them to take a full part in society.
  Mr. Tim Devlin: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware that in the past 10 years the growth in violent crime and theft has been greater in France than in the United Kingdom. As France had a socialist Government until early last year, would he say that socialism has failed the youth of France in the same way?
  Mr. Michael: Opposition Members have been waiting all evening to contribute to this debate, yet a Member like that can wander in off the street and make that sort of inept and stupid contribution. The Government who are responsible in this country should be tackling crime in this country. I must tell the hon. Gentleman—
  Mr. Devlin: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I think that you can confirm that I have been present throughout much of the debate and that my name was on the list to speak. Therefore, would you ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his rather pathetic remark and to answer the question?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a point of order for me. The hon. Gentleman is responsible for his own speech.
  Mr. Michael: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I think that my observations are confirmed by many of my right hon. and hon. Friends. That is the sort of diversion that we are coming to expect from the Conservatives. They—not least the Home Secretary—are afraid of debating crime and of facing up to their responsibilities —
  Mr. Howard: If the hon. Gentleman does not want to be diverted, why does he not give a straight answer to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Devlin)? [Interruption.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The House must settle down.
  Mr. Michael: I did not answer because I was interrupted by a point of order and I naturally respected the Chair's need to respond to it. Conservative Members have made a fatuous attempt to say that crime has risen more in other countries, which has been disproved and challenged.
  Let us come to the real issues in the debate. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton said, the problem is that most criminals are not caught. The Home Secretary fails to recognise that the Government preside over a system in which only 2 per cent., or one in 50, of the crimes committed end up with someone being punished by a court. Yet the Home Secretary concentrates all his efforts on what happens in court.
  The Opposition have made it clear time and time again —we have contributed constructively to amendments to the law—that we want those who are brought to justice to be dealt with properly. We also, as the reasoned amendment makes clear, want crime to be prevented. Ministers have continually failed to look at the facts and to understand what is happening. What can we expect when even the Prime Minister wants to "understand a little less"?
  A year ago, the Home Office told the Home Affairs Select Committee that youth crime was going down. Eventually, it revised that opinion because Labour's analysis showed what Labour Members, local communities and the police knew all along—that youth crime had been rising, especially in relation to burglary and car crime. I am glad to have the support of the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, South-West (Sir A. Grant) in this endeavour. Technology and protection can help in tackling the problem of car crime. However, the causes of crime need to be tackled as well. Burglary and car crime now comprise 53 per cent. of crime in England and Wales. Yet those are the very crimes, which take up so much time of the police, that would be cut if the Home Secretary accepted our advice and the propositions in our reasoned amendment.
  Why will the Home Secretary not take measures that would stop people becoming victims? He made the spurious claim of being interested in the victims of crime. We have already embarrassed him into increasing his low level of support for Victim Support. He said earlier that he was proud of providing £10 million a year. He knows that £16 million a year is necessary to provide a comprehensive victim support service in every part of England and Wales, as well as a witness support scheme in the Crown courts. Only the Crown courts are covered, so it is not an over-ambitious aspiration. By the end of 1997, the Home Secretary will still only have reached the level of £11·7 million, which is not good enough. With the penny-pinching attitude that causes the Government continually to undervalue volunteers, the capacity to give adequate training and back-up is not being provided.
  Then there is the criminal injuries compensation scheme. As was rightly said by my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair), the proposals are an insult to the victims of crime. They replace a proper scheme of compensation with a system of fixed payments

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  which take no account of the individual circumstances of the victim and which will fail miserably to compensate those who miss work for weeks or months as a result of violent injury. Rape victims, those who have been most seriously hurt and thousands of others will lose out under the proposals. The proposals have little support anywhere within the criminal justice system.
  Another way in which to help victims would be to speed up our courts system, which we propose in the reasoned amendment and which we shall pursue in Committee. The Home Office has told those who have sought to help it that amendments to speed up the criminal justice system are not included in the Bill because there is not room. What a ridiculous proposition, especially when a working party has spent months getting proposals ready.
  I put it this way. Each of us accepts that if we punish or correct our own children, we do so today. We do not wait until tomorrow or for many months. We could improve matters simply with a legal framework for cautioning plus, which ends up with rapid intervention for youngsters who start getting involved in trouble. We could help by having pre-trial reviews and by speeding up, with great clarity and transparency, the system in the courts. We advanced those propositions in the Committee stage of the previous Criminal Justice Bill. They were voted down by the Conservatives only six months ago. Will they support us in the endeavour this time, as the Home Secretary seems to think that he might consider those ideas?
  During the debate on the previous Criminal Justice Bill, we made a more comprehensive proposal to deal with ticket touts. The Conservatives voted it down. We shall seek to improve the propositions before the House this time.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, East (Mrs. Prentice) referred to the low clear-up rates. I pay tribute to the Metropolitan police and to a number of police forces throughout the country for recognising the need for the local partnership approach that we recommend in the reasoned amendment, which would hand back local communities to the people who live in them. On more than one occasion, we have proposed such a legal framework, which would be welcomed by the police and by local authorities, and which would give real strength to such local partnerships. I wish that the Home Secretary would take that proposal seriously. That is part of the strength and depth of the reasoned amendment on which the House will vote later.
  Mr. Michael Bates: Is the hon. Gentleman familiar with the response to my right hon. and learned Friend's 27-point programme, announced at the Conservative party conference, from Richard Coyles, the chairman of the Police Federation? He said:
  "My message to the Home Secretary is what you have proposed is first-class. It will help tremendously in the fight against crime."
  Is the chairman of the Police Federation right or wrong?
  Mr. Michael: I have spent a considerable time talking to police representatives, including the chairman of the Police Federation, and I believe that the hon. Gentleman will find that second thoughts led to less enthusiasm being expressed. The chairman of the Police Federation said that he was extremely concerned about what the Home Secretary was not doing. The hon. Member for Langbaurgh
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  (Mr. Bates) has fallen upon the sword by seeking support from the police. They are suspicious of the Home Secretary's weak approach and the fact that he has gone for headlines rather than reality.
  It is not surprising that the Home Secretary has failed to answer the simple question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield, who asked whether he believed that any of the measures in the Bill would cut crime. The answer is that the Home Secretary does not believe it himself. How can he inspire confidence?
  The Home Secretary said that he had been out with a local watch scheme to walk around its area. It is nice for the Home Secretary to go out at night and I offer him another opportunity to go out with the South Wales police, as I have done, on to the streets of the capital city of Wales on a weekend night. He will see exactly how thin the blue line is drawn. The right hon. and learned Gentleman should contemplate the fact that that problem is faced by other police forces in cities and towns throughout the country.
  The chief constable of South Wales police has said that he needs extra finance next year above the 5·5 per cent. that the Home Office says is necessary. The Secretary of State for Wales has, however, limited the capacity of Welsh local authorities to provide above a 1·75 per cent. increase in contributions. The Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Wales are refusing to sit down with the local authorities and the police authority to discuss the chief constable's proposition. That refusal will lead to a crisis in policing in south Wales and the closure of police stations. That is an absolute scandal. The right hon. and learned Gentleman and the Secretary of State for Wales must face up to their responsibility for that. I am referring to a specific example, but I know that other right hon. and hon. Friends, who represent every town and city, will be able to cite similar examples in coming months. Conservative Members will also have to face similar problems in their communities.
  The Home Secretary has tried to say that he is interested in supporting the police, but his record is appalling. He has reneged on the Conservativea' election promise to increase police numbers by 1,000 this year; instead, he has delivered a cut of 224 in that number. He has promised a Mickey Mouse figure of 3,000 extra police by cutting paperwork, but the police have ridiculed that figure, because they know that he will not give the cash for the new technology which is the starting point for cutting that paperwork. That means jam tomorrow and no action on crime today.
  I hope that when the Minister of State replies to the debate he will apologise for his recent disgraceful behaviour. Last week the Prime Minister said that "back to basics" was not about personal morality but about public policy. That is a welcome change from the emphasis placed on that policy by the Minister at the recent launch of the report on juvenile justice by the Children's Society. The Minister turned up too late to hear the introduction to that report or to listen to the deep concern expressed on behalf of the society by the Bishop of Worcester. He brushed aside all that the report said about the need for the Government to take a positive constructive initiative on juvenile justice and he attacked the Church for not preaching individual morality.
  In fact, individual morality is preached about every Sunday in every church in the land, but that is not news. What is news is that the Church, like the police, has identified a deep malaise in our society which arises from

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  the break-up of our community on which I have commented. What is news is that the Church, the police, the Labour party and many other commentators share the view that we need to balance individual responsibility with the responsibility of the Government to create the right framework of incentives, of rewards and of punishments that effectively create a contract between the individual and society. Unless we get that balance right, the malaise will deepen. While Ministers may continue to blame everyone but themselves, their pronouncements will be of no use or benefit to the victims of crime or to the community at large.
  The real test tonight is whether Conservative Members will stop treating crime as a political football and welcome our constructive proposals, or turn them down again. If they vote against our reasoned amendment, they will reject a statutory framework for crime prevention, effective measures to prevent crime, measures to create safer communities in a safer Britain, measures to tackle youth crime, steps to tackle drugs and drug-related crime, steps to tackle truancy, new laws to tackle racial harassment and violence and measures that will put the victims at the heart of the criminal justice system. They will reject measures to limit access to dangerous weapons, the independent judicial appointments commission and an independent authority to investigate alleged miscarriages of justice. That is what the Minister and the Home Secretary will vote against if they reject our reasoned amendment tonight.
  9.43 pm
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. David Maclean): The Bill is the centrepiece of the Government's legislative programme for this Session. It carries into action the lion's share of the extensive proposals which my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary announced in October, and it will achieve a criminal justice system that protects the public and not the criminal.
  There have been two clear messages from the debate today—first, that there is widespread and genuine concern about crime levels, not just in the House but across the country ; and, secondly, that it is only on this side of the House that there are positive and effective ideas for reform.
  The hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) says that the Labour party is prepared to get tough on crime and criminals, but where is the evidence? The hon. Gentleman has not produced one policy proposal to get tough on crime. Perhaps he thinks that if he tells us often enough we will all believe that it will come true. It takes a lot more than that to convince the House and the country.
  Today, the hon. Gentleman told us of his new, decisive approach. Faced with this important and comprehensive Bill, what will he do tonight? He will abstain. My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary called the hon. Gentleman a weathervane. He is wrong: at least a weathervane ends up pointing somewhere. Watching the Opposition Front Bench —
  Mr. Blair: Why does not the hon. Gentleman resolve the matter by accepting our reasoned amendment, which contains perfectly reasonable measures, and then we can reach agreement?
  Mr. Maclean: My right hon. and learned Friend has made the point that it is a feeble amendment and is a load of rubbish that adds nothing to the Bill.
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  Watching the Opposition Front Bench this afternoon reminded me of the three vultures in Walt Disney's "Jungle Book", sitting there with eyes open and talons out.
  "Hey Flaps, what are we going to do?"
  "I dunno, what d'ya want to do?"
  "OK, so what are we going to do?"
  "Dunno."
  That is what we have seen from the Opposition Front Bench today. I loved that Walt Disney classic, but I did not think that I would see it again so soon. What a typical Labour party shambles. Labour Members do not know which way to turn.
  Mr. Blair: The hon. Gentleman says that we do not know what way to turn. I have told him that if he supports our reasoned amendment we shall deliver the Bill through Second Reading. Why will not he support it?
  Mr. Maclean: I have already told the hon. Gentleman that we consider the points in the reasoned amendment to be practically worthless and that it contains nothing to deal with the essential issues facing the House or the country. The question is whether the hon. Gentleman will still abstain if his reasoned amendment is defeated tonight. Will he and his party sit there not able to vote against the Bill but scared to vote for it because the lobby groups will hound him?
  At least the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan), in his quick rattle through the Bill, covered all the points and said why he was in favour of some and against others. He asked where was the Criminal Cases Review Authority. My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary has told the House that we are committed to the measure and will produce a consultation paper setting out the issues. The solutions that we propose and any practical problems that need to be settled will be in that paper.
  A great deal of work is needed, for example, to establish the proposed authority's constitutional position, its relationship with the courts, the police service and others, its powers and proceedings and its criteria for selecting cases for investigation and referral to the Court of Appeal. The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland also asked about the Law Commission report —
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Maclean: No. If the Opposition spokesman had left me the appropriate amount of time to respond, I would be able to take more interventions.
  It is unrealistic of the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland to expect the Bill to include proposals from the Law Commission's report on personal violence, which was published just before Christmas.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) raised points about the law of consent. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) and my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton) raised points about capital punishment. The House will be interested to know that the Government consider those matters to be issues of individual conscience. If amendments are selected, the Government will permit free votes on the Government side on both matters. We propose that both debates should take place on the Floor of the House. Time will be made available for any such debates at a relatively early stage in the

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  Committee proceedings. Any debate on capital punishment will be taken by the Government to be the once-per-Parliament debate.
  Three clear principles run through the Bill. First, protection of the public is the first duty of the Government. It must come before anything else. Secondly, the police should have all the powers that they need to prevent crime and to catch criminals. Thirdly, the balance of the criminal justice system must be tilted further against criminals and in favour of protecting the public.
  The Bill covers wide ground. It is not purely about courts, as the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) suggested. It is about combating terrorism, juvenile crime and rural crime. Of course it is about court powers and procedures, too. But it is also about bail, police powers, the treatment of witnesses and the laws governing pornography.
  The right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) said that the Bill contained trivial minutiae. They might be trivial minutiae to the Labour party, but all the matters that I have just mentioned are vitally important to all the constituents of Conservative Members. On every one of those matters the balance has been shifted to ensure that the public receive the protection that they need and deserve.
  Mr. Kaufman: To my constituents, a rise of 265 per cent. in the rate of crime since the Government came to office is not trivial. It is not trivial that my constituents are afraid to go on to the street, open their doors or drive their cars. What will the Minister say to my constituents who are suffering the worst crime rate in Britain's history?
  Mr. Maclean: Exactly. So the right hon. Gentleman should vote for the Bill. He should have voted for the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, the Criminal Justice Act 1988, which introduced the power to review lenient sentences, and countless prevention of terrorism measures, which Opposition Members refused to support. In every one of the matters that I have mentioned, the balance has been shifted to ensure that the public receive the protection that they need and deserve. On every one of those matters our position is crystal clear and Labour cannot say whether it agrees or disagrees. Thank goodness for my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby), who has put on record the strong support of the Police Federation for the Bill and the measures that we are introducing.
  Some hon. Members have referred to juvenile crime. Current laws clearly fail to protect the public. There is clearly a problem with persistent juvenile offenders, as many of my hon. Friends have pointed out. A few persistent offenders can be responsible for a vast amount of crime and the police and the courts must have the powers to stop them.
  Mrs. Bridget Prentice: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Maclean: No. I have many points to pick up from the debate and I must go on.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) made some interesting points. I welcome his suggestion that the voluntary sector should work with us on secure training units. I have met members of that sector and am keen to encourage them.
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  The description by the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) of young hooligans running riot on housing estates in his constituency was the best argument for the Bill that I have heard from the Opposition. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will join the Government in the Lobby tonight.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Hawksley) welcomed secure units. We want them built as soon as possible, but I cannot give my hon. Friend a firm timetable as it depends on the Bill's pace through the House. I have also noted what my hon. Friend said about foreign trips. We have asked councils responsible for such trips to show common sense. We shall watch carefully and take suitable action if common sense does not prevail.
  We do not want laws to be ignored by anyone and clause 45 will be enforced.
  Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: My hon. Friend will be aware that my local authority, Gloucestershire county council, has been involved in two of the most sensational cases of sending young offenders on trips abroad. Does he agree that such action is totally unacceptable to my constituents who have committed no crime whatever and that it will not deter young offenders from committing crimes in the future?
  Mr. Maclean: I look forward to the county council elections and my hon. Friend's constituents getting rid of councillors who have no common sense.
  Mrs. Bridget Prentice: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Maclean: No. I have already given way four times and I have a lot of ground to cover.
  The secure training centres will not be for children who have scrumped farmers' apples or stolen a few sweets from the local shop. Nor will they be for first-time offenders. They will be for offenders with at least three convictions who have breached a supervision order or offended during the period of a supervision order. We need to put in place a steady hierarchy of punishment, from a caution at the bottom to custody at the top, to show those youngsters that their behaviour will be dealt with seriously and that a life of crime simply does not pay.
  As a recent survey in The Times explained, 60 per cent. of youths aged between 13 and 17 said that one reason for juvenile crime was the belief that offenders would be let off with a caution. My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary is already dealing with excessive cautioning at the lower end of the scale of punishment. The Bill will put in place the necessary sentencing framework at the top end of the scale.
  The Bill also takes important steps to deal with rural crime. That was widely welcomed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Sir C. Onslow) and by my hon. Friends the Members for Ryedale and for Halesowen and Stourbridge. It is intolerable that local communities should live in fear of invasions from trespassers who have no regard for the rights of others. We shall provide the police with further powers to deal with that menace, allowing the speedy removal of trespassers and their vehicles from land. We shall also introduce new powers to prevent the appalling distress caused by unlicensed night-time raves on open land. Their incessant noise can keep residents for miles around awake all night.

  117
  The Bill will also create the new offence of aggravated trespass against those who try to disrupt perfectly legal activities. Those who oppose such activities. whether it is a race meeting at Aintree or an angling match in Essex, have a perfect right to try to change the law to ban such activities, but no one has the right to wreck lawful activities and disrupt people going about their legitimate business.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Woking asked about gipsy sites. I shall happily respond to his points in Committee. On animal rights terrorists, we already have sufficient legislation to deal with all forms of terrorism. The Bill provides new powers to deal with disruption and intimidation on private land in the open air.
  My right hon. Friend also asked about self defence and the review carried out by my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary. In a written reply on 14 December, my right hon. and learned Friend said:
  "I am satisfied that the individual should always be able to defend himself, his family and his property, as long as he only uses force that is both reasonable and necessary. I am not currently persuaded that there is a need to change the law. However, I intend to study the Law Commission's recent report on offences against the person very carefully and will be interested in the public reaction to its recommendations."—[Official Report, 14 December 1993; Vol. 234, c. 537.]
  The Bill makes important changes to our criminal justice procedures. The most significant change that has been commented on by hon. Members tonight is the proposal to curtail the so-called right to silence. It is nonsense for the Opposition to suggest that that would endanger fundamental civil liberties, as the right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) rightly pointed out. As the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) rightly said, the defendant will still be able to choose whether to answer police questions or to give evidence in court. All we propose is the removal of the artificial restriction that prevents a court from drawing its own conclusions from all the facts of the case, including what the defendant has to say for himself. If someone decides to keep quiet until the day of trial and then offers an explanation that he could perfectly well have given to the police, why should not the court know that and draw its own conclusions? The present rules are a charter for experienced crooks.
  The hon. Member for Bristol, East (Ms Corston) let the cat out of the bag. We now know why Labour is in a pickle. It knows that even the poll in The Independent showed that over 88 per cent. of the public, and I think 87 per cent. of Labour supporters, supported the Home Secretary giving new powers to the police. The Opposition know that they cannot vote against the Bill, but nor can they offend their pressure and lobby groups. They normally jump through hoops to lap up their trendy theories.
  The House has had the ridiculous spectacle of the neutral Her Majesty's loyal Opposition. It reminded me of a sheep on the fells with its horns stuck in a fence. It cannot go forward and it cannot go back, it cannot turn left and it will not turn right. It can only stay stuck, noisily bleating and waiting for something to turn up.
  The hon. Member for Sedgefield has said in the past that the 27 measures announced by the Home Secretary were gimmicks. In the debate today he said that there was just one gimmick—our proposal to prevent those charged with rape, manslaughter or murder and who have a previous conviction for those offences from getting bail. He said that such cases are rare. Of course they are rare, but just one rape or one murder committed by someone who has
  118
  already been convicted of those crimes is one too many. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that that is a gimmick, he should think again and think of the victims and say that he is wrong. I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen) that we will implement his Act as soon as possible.
  Part VII of the Bill contains important changes to the law on pornography. They were welcomed by my hon. Friends the Members for Uxbridge, for Ryedale and for Congleton and by the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing).
  I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton that Governments have traditionally held that a change in the legal definition of obscenity should be a matter for the conscience of hon. Members. However, we have made it clear that we are prepared to help any attempt to change the law, provided it seems to us to be workable, likely to command support and be an improvement on the existing definition. I look forward to my hon. Friend's proposals.
  The Bill is a key part of our strategy to attack crime, but it should be considered alongside all the other actions that we are taking to make life more difficult for criminals and easier for law-abiding citizens. We are reforming the police service, making sure that it is better managed and organised. We are introducing performance pay. Two measures alone—the abolition of two middle ranks and cutting paperwork—could, over time, free the equivalent of about 5,000 officers for front-line work. We want to make sure that for the rest of this decade and into the next century we have the most effective and efficient police service possible.
  The Bill also comes on top of what we have done in the past 14 years to ensure a tough response to crime. Crime prevention schemes have been pioneered and spread across the country.
  The Opposition's attack on the Government has been completely hollow, and that just about sums up Labour's attitude to law breaking. The Opposition's only offering is a hollow response, and their response to the Bill has been pathetic. The Bill seeks fundamental changes, but the Opposition cannot decide whether to support them. On changes to bail, they just do not know; on longer sentences for criminals, they just do not know; on more powers for the police to deal with terrorists, they just do not know. Well, the police and the public know. They know that they want those changes, and they know that we shall make them. They also know that they can never trust the Labour party—a party that is soft on crime and soft on criminals.
  The Bill introduces tough measures right across the board. It gives the police the powers that they need to catch criminals, and the courts the power to punish them. It gives the public the protection that they want and deserve. It represents justice for victims, punishment for criminals, and protection for the public. Those principles run right through the Bill, and that is why my hon. Friends should join me in the Lobby tonight.
  Question put, That the amendment be made:—
  The House divided: Ayes 275, Noes 319.

  Division No. 58]

  [10 pm

  AYES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

  Adams, Mrs Irene

  Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)

  Ainger, Nick

  Armstrong, Hilary

  Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

  Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

  Allen, Graham

  Ashton, Joe

  Alton, David

  Austin-Walker, John

  119

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Galloway, George

  Barnes, Harry

  Gapes, Mike

  Barron, Kevin

  Garrett, John

  Battle, John

  George, Bruce

  Bayley, Hugh

  Gerrard, Neil

  Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret

  Godman, Dr Norman A.

  Beith, Rt Hon A. J.

  Godsiff, Roger

  Bell, Stuart

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Bennett, Andrew F.

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Benton, Joe

  Grocott, Bruce

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Gunnell, John

  Berry, Dr. Roger

  Hain, Peter

  Betts, Clive

  Hall, Mike

  Blair, Tony

  Hanson, David

  Blunkett, David

  Hardy, Peter

  Boateng, Paul

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Boyes, Roland

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Bradley, Keith

  Henderson, Doug

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Heppell, John

  Brown, Gordon (Dunfermline E)

  Hill, Keith (Streatham)

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

  Hinchliffe, David

  Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

  Hoey, Kate

  Burden, Richard

  Hogg, Norman (Cumbernauld)

  Byers, Stephen

  Home Robertson, John

  Caborn, Richard

  Hood, Jimmy

  Callaghan, Jim

  Hoon, Geoffrey

  Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Hoyle, Doug

  Campbell-Savours, D. N.

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  Canavan, Dennis

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Cann, Jamie

  Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

  Chisholm, Malcolm

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

  Clapham, Michael

  Hutton, John

  Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

  Illsley, Eric

  Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

  Ingram, Adam

  Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

  Jackson, Glenda (H'stead)

  Clelland, David

  Jackson, Helen (Shef'ld, H)

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  Jamieson, David

  Coffey, Ann

  Janner, Greville

  Cohen, Harry

  Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side)

  Connarty, Michael

  Jones, Ieuan Wyn (Ynys Môn)

  Cook, Robin (Livingston)

  Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O)

  Corbett, Robin

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd, SW)

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

  Corston, Ms Jean

  Jowell, Tessa

  Cousins, Jim

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Cryer, Bob

  Keen, Alan

  Cummings, John

  Kennedy, Charles (Ross, C&S)

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Kennedy, Jane (Lpool Brdgn)

  Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)

  Khabra, Piara S.

  Darling, Alistair

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Davidson, Ian

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)

  Leighton, Ron

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Lewis, Terry

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Litherland, Robert

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

  Livingstone, Ken

  Denham, John

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Dewar, Donald

  Llwyd, Elfyn

  Dixon, Don

  Loyden, Eddie

  Dobson, Frank

  Lynne, Ms Liz

  Donohoe, Brian H.

  McAllion, John

  Dowd, Jim

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Dunnachie, Jimmy

  McCartney, Ian

  Eagle, Ms Angela

  Macdonald, Calum

  Eastham, Ken

  McFall, John

  Enright, Derek

  McKelvey, William

  Etherington, Bill

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

  McLeish, Henry

  Ewing, Mrs Margaret

  Maclennan, Robert

  Fatchett, Derek

  McMaster, Gordon

  Faulds, Andrew

  McNamara, Kevin

  Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

  McWilliam, John

  Fisher, Mark

  Madden, Max

  Flynn, Paul

  Maddock, Mrs Diana

  Foster, Rt Hon Derek

  Mahon, Alice

  Foster, Don (Bath)

  Mandelson, Peter

  Fraser, John

  Marek, Dr John

  Fyfe, Maria

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  120

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

  Rowlands, Ted

  Martlew, Eric

  Ruddock, Joan

  Maxton, John

  Salmond, Alex

  Meacher, Michael

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Meale, Alan

  Sheerman, Barry

  Michael, Alun

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Milburn, Alan

  Short, Clare

  Miller, Andrew

  Simpson, Alan

  Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

  Morgan, Rhodri

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

  Morley, Elliot

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

  Morris, Rt Hon A. (Wy'nshawe)

  Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

  Morris, Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

  Snape, Peter

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Soley, Clive

  Mowlam, Marjorie

  Spearing, Nigel

  Mudie, George

  Spellar, John

  Mullin, Chris

  Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)

  Murphy, Paul

  Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Steinberg, Gerry

  O'Brien, Michael (N W'kshire)

  Stevenson, George

  O'Brien, William (Normanton)

  Stott, Roger

  O'Hara, Edward

  Strang, Dr. Gavin

  Olner, William

  Straw, Jack

  O'Neill, Martin

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Parry, Robert

  Tipping, Paddy

  Patchett, Terry

  Turner, Dennis

  Pendry, Tom

  Tyler, Paul

  Pickthall, Colin

  Vaz, Keith

  Pike, Peter L.

  Walker, Rt Hon Sir Harold

  Pope, Greg

  Wallace, James

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Walley, Joan

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lew'm E)

  Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  Wareing, Robert N

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Watson, Mike

  Purchase, Ken

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Radice, Giles

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Sw'n W)

  Randall, Stuart

  Williams, Alan W (Carmarthen)

  Raynsford, Nick

  Wilson, Brian

  Redmond, Martin

  Winnick, David

  Reid, Dr John

  Wise, Audrey

  Rendel, David

  Worthington, Tony

  Richardson, Jo

  Wray, Jimmy

  Robertson, George (Hamilton)

  Wright, Dr Tony

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Co'try NW)

  Young, David (Bolton SE)

  Roche, Mrs. Barbara

  Rogers, Allan

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Rooker, Jeff

  Mr. Jon Owen Jones and

  Rooney, Terry

  Mr. Jack Thompson.

  NOES

  Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Blackburn, Dr John G.

  Alexander, Richard

  Body, Sir Richard

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

  Booth, Hartley

  Amess, David

  Boswell, Tim

  Ancram, Michael

  Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

  Arbuthnot, James

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Bowden, Andrew

  Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)

  Bowis, John

  Ashby, David

  Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Brandreth, Gyles

  Atkins, Robert

  Brazier, Julian

  Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)

  Bright, Graham

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

  Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset North)

  Browning, Mrs. Angela

  Baldry, Tony

  Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

  Banks, Matthew (Southport)

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Burns, Simon

  Bates, Michael

  Burt, Alistair

  Batiste, Spencer

  Butler, Peter

  Bellingham, Henry

  Butterfill, John

  Bendall, Vivian

  Carlisle, John (Luton North)

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  121

  Carrington, Matthew

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Carttiss, Michael

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Cash, William

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Hannam, Sir John

  Churchill, Mr

  Hargreaves, Andrew

  Clappison, James

  Harris, David

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ruclif)

  Hawkins, Nick

  Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

  Hawksley, Warren

  Coe, Sebastian

  Hayes, Jerry

  Colvin, Michael

  Heald, Oliver

  Congdon, David

  Heath, Rt Hon Sir Edward

  Conway, Derek

  Hendry, Charles

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Hicks, Robert

  Couchman, James

  Hill, James (Southampton Test)

  Cran, James

  Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas (G'tham)

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

  Horam, John

  Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)

  Hordern, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Davies, Quentin (Stamford)

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

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

  Day, Stephen

  Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

  Deva, Nirj Joseph

  Howell, Sir Ralph (N Norfolk)

  Devlin, Tim

  Hughes Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  Hunt, Rt Hon David (Wirral W)

  Dicks, Terry

  Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Hunter, Andrew

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

  Dover, Den

  Jack, Michael

  Duncan, Alan

  Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

  Duncan-Smith, Iain

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Dunn, Bob

  Jessel, Toby

  Durant, Sir Anthony

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Dykes, Hugh

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Eggar, Tim

  Jones, Robert B. (W Hertfdshr)

  Elletson, Harold

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)

  Key, Robert

  Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

  Kilfedder, Sir James

  Evans, Roger (Monmouth)

  King, Rt Hon Tom

  Evennett, David

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Faber, David

  Knapman, Roger

  Fabricant, Michael

  Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Knight, Greg (Derby N)

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

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

  Fishburn, Dudley

  Knox, Sir David

  Forman, Nigel

  Kynoch, George (Kincardine)

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Forth, Eric

  Lang, Rt Hon Ian

  Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

  Lawrence, Sir Ivan

  Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)

  Legg, Barry

  Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley)

  Leigh, Edward

  Freeman, Rt Hon Roger

  Lennox-Boyd, Mark

  French, Douglas

  Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

  Fry, Sir Peter

  Lidington, David

  Gale, Roger

  Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

  Gallie, Phil

  Lloyd, Rt Hon Peter (Fareham)

  Garel-Jones, Rt Hon Tristan

  Lord, Michael

  Garnier, Edward

  Luff, Peter

  Gill, Christopher

  Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Gillan, Cheryl

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair

  MacKay, Andrew

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Maclean, David

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Gorst, John

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

  Grant, Sir A. (Cambs SW)

  Madel, Sir David

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Maitland, Lady Olga

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Major, Rt Hon John

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

  Malone, Gerald

  Grylls, Sir Michael

  Mans, Keith

  Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

  Marland, Paul

  Hague, William

  Marlow, Tony

  Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  122

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

  Mates, Michael

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Mawhinney, Rt Hon Dr Brian

  Soames, Nicholas

  Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

  Speed, Sir Keith

  Mellor, Rt Hon David

  Spencer, Sir Derek

  Merchant, Piers

  Spicer, Sir James (W Dorset)

  Milligan, Stephen

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  Mills, Iain

  Spink, Dr Robert

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Spring, Richard

  Mitchell, Sir David (Hants NW)

  Sproat, Iain

  Moate, Sir Roger

  Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)

  Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Steen, Anthony

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Stephen, Michael

  Moss, Malcolm

  Stern, Michael

  Needham, Richard

  Stewart, Allan

  Nelson, Anthony

  Streeter, Gary

  Neubert, Sir Michael

  Sumberg, David

  Newton, Rt Hon Tony

  Sweeney, Walter

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Sykes, John

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Norris, Steve

  Taylor, John M. (Solihull)

  Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley

  Thomason, Roy

  Oppenheim, Phillip

  Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V)

  Ottaway, Richard

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Page, Richard

  Thomton, Sir Malcolm

  Paice, James

  Thumham, Peter

  Paisley, Rev Ian

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Patnick, Irvine

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

  Patten, Rt Hon John

  Tracey, Richard

  Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Tredinnick, David

  Pawsey, James

  Trend, Michael

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Trimble, David

  Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

  Trotter, Neville

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Viggers, Peter

  Rathbone, Tim

  Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

  Redwood, Rt Hon John

  Waller, Gary

  Renton, Rt Hon Tim

  Ward, John

  Richards, Rod

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Riddick, Graham

  Waterson, Nigel

  Rifkind, Rt Hon. Malcolm

  Watts, John

  Robathan, Andrew

  Wells, Bowen

  Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

  Wheeler, Rt Hon Sir John

  Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)

  Whitney, Ray

  Robinson, Mark (Somerton)

  Whittingdale, John

  Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Ross, William (E Londonderry)

  Wiggin, Sir Jerry

  Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)

  Wilkinson, John

  Rumbold, Rt Hon Dame Angela

  Willetts, David

  Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

  Wilshire, David

  Sackville, Tom

  Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

  Sainsbury, Rt Hon Tim

  Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'f'ld)

  Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Wolfson, Mark

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Wood, Timothy

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Yeo, Tim

  Shephard, Rt Hon Gillian

  Young, Rt Hon Sir George

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Shersby, Michael

  Mr. David Lightbown and

  Sims, Roger

  Mr. Sydney Chapman.

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Main Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 60 (Amendment on Second or Third Reading), and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 61 (Committal of Bills.)

  Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill [Money]
  Queen's Recommendation having been signified—
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill ("the Bill"), it is expedient to authorize—

  (1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any sums required by the Secretary of State—

  (a) for making grants—

  (i) in connection with measures intended to prevent crime or reduce the fear of crime;

  (ii) towards security costs incurred in relation to party conferences in Great Britain;

  (b) for making payments under contracts made by him with other persons for the provision by those other persons of premises, services or the discharge of functions for or in relation to offenders and other persons;

  (c) in respect of administrative expenses incurred by him under the Act;

  (d) for defraying the expenses of members of lay panels of observers charged with duties in relation to offenders transported or held in pursuance of escort arrangements made by him under the Act; and

  (2) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money provided by Parliament.—[Mr. Andrew Mitchell.]

  10.18 pm
  Mr. Bob Cryer: We should not let this motion be passed on the nod. Although the sums contained in the clause dealing with the financial effects of the Bill are not astronomical, some questions should be asked. For a start, clauses 1 to 15 relate to the design and building of secure training centres. It is made clear that no cost is expected because such centres are to be built by the private sector. However, it is made clear also that the costs in relation to the provision of secure training centres and the cost of care in the community will be about £30 million minimum.
  That is not a sum that we can lightly ignore and I would like the Minister to give me the information as to what proportion of the estimated £30 million a year—the paragraph makes it clear that it is in excess of that amount —will be devoted to servicing the private construction of the secure training centres. Clearly, the private sector will build secure training centres not because of its concern for the huge rise in crime levels under the Conservative Government but because the investment will have some sort of return.
  I assume that the return will be paid for from the £30 million mentioned in the first paragraph, dealing with clauses 1 to 15 under the financial effects of the Bill. We should know what sort of investment and reward there will be in private secure training centres. Will it be calculated on the basis of an annual return of, say, 5, 6 or 7 per cent.? What proportion of the £30 million-plus per year which is authorised in the money resolution will be paid to the private sector by the taxpayer?
  As the Government are placing such emphasis not only on clauses 1 to 15 but on others, I should have thought that they would provide the House with information about such expenditure. We should know just how much of the taxpayer's money authorised under the money resolution is available as rich pickings for the private sector.
  I do not want to stray down different roads, but there have been controversial revelations about abuse of
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  legislation by wealthy Tory Members of Parliament, and we want to see that the expenditure is authorised by the House in as cast iron a way as possible. We expect the Government to have made very precise calculations so that they can place them before the House before we agree to the money resolution.
  My second point relates to clauses 52 and 53, which deal with aggravated trespass. This is a new set of powers and I understand perfectly well that the Government may have some difficulty in making precise calculations. In the paragraph they say that it is difficult to predict the costs and that the best available estimate, apparently, will be of the order of £300,000. What concerns me is the fact that—there is universal agreement about this—police forces are badly stretched and very much in need of every possible allocation of money to stem the rising tide of Tory crime.
  Under clauses 52 and 53, expenditure is estimated at around £300,000, but it could be more and is likely to be more. Those powers have never been exercisable by the police before and the costs will come out of existing resources. It is expected that they are to be met from existing resources. What will happen under the money resolution?
  The West Yorkshire police authority needs to put more bobbies on the beat, but the allocation of resources to it by central Government does not permit that. The cuts in central Government funding prevent the police having a presence on the streets, the highways and byways and the estates.
  If the police say to the Minister that the exercise of the powers has been such that expenditure cannot be contained within the estimates of the Home Office because the Home Office has got it wrong—that would come as no great shock—will he use his powers to give them an additional grant so that other areas are not deprived of police services because of that Home Office miscalculation? It would be ironic if that happened.
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: It is possible to get the money needed because in 1984, during the miners' strike, the Government decided that they needed more police, on more overtime, in all the coalfield areas. The police arrested 9,000 miners. That cost a small fortune, but the Government found the money. Now the Government are refusing the Labour-controlled Derbyshire county council an extra 112 police officers to combat crime. Finding the money is a matter of political will. The Government did it before when it served their purpose to try to smash the National Union of Mineworkers. They could do it now.
  Mr. Cryer: My hon. Friend makes a pertinent point. I am asking the Minister whether the additional finances will be available and authorised under the money resolution. The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the right hon. and learned Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg), who is sitting below the Gangway, will recall that he brought a money resolution before the House and some of us raised some criticisms of it, which he brushed aside. Later on, he had to come back to the House for another money resolution because some of the activities resulting from the Bill were not covered by the first one. As I recall, he also served in the Home Office, which is now the subject of the money resolution.
  That is why I am asking the Minister to assure us first that any additional funds which should be paid to police

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  authorities under that clause are authorised and secondly that he will provide the political will so that police forces are not handicapped by these additional responsibilities.
  On clauses 54 and 55, which deal with mass trespass, the Home Office draftsmen use the same phraseology. They cannot make an accurate estimate because it is difficult to estimate the number of additional operations that might be mounted, but they say that the combined cost of 10 operations per annum is expected to be about £300,000. That is £600,000 in two parts of the Bill which will be expected to come from existing resources.
  Will the funding of the provisions on mass trespass come from own resources or additional funding? I see here my hon. Friends the Members for Leeds, East (Mr. Mudie) and for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Gunnell), who were with me at a meeting of the West Yorkshire police authority. It was said that resources for the police authority are stretched to the utmost and that it needs more money, rather than more obligations which will simply make policing much less effective.
  I know that others wish to speak—I welcome proper examination and deliberation of money motions and I hope that this new trend will continue—but I wish to refer to the provision for contracting out prison services in England, Wales and Scotland and prisoner escorts in Northern Ireland. The Government say that this will introduce competition, thus reducing costs in the long run. I find that surprising. Does the motion cover the possibility of additional expenditure?
  If those services are contracted out, will the prison officers and prisoner escorts who are currently employed —and who, so far as I know, are doing a perfectly good job —be made redundant? If so, will redundancy payments be made? Given the smug scale suggested by the paragraphs covering clauses 69 to 77, 78 to 93 and 94 to 101, there may well be a significant number of redundancies.
  Will people who are currently doing routine, decent. law-abiding jobs be put on the scrap heap, or will they receive the sort of redundancy pay that Ministers have received—under House of Commons legislation—when they have been kicked out of the Government for whatever reason? Whether they have been kicked out because their faces do not fit any more, because they have fallen out with the Prime Minister or because they have not accurately revealed the background of relationships in which they have indulged, they have received money.
  The motion should have provided that those who are made redundant as a result of the Government's ideological obsession with sacking people in the public service and handing over the work to their friends in the private sector should receive adequate compensation and not just the legal minimum. If they are to be kicked out, why should the Government not give them a fair deal? Why should the Government not give them enhanced redundancy pay to ensure that they can deal with the uphill task of finding a new job in difficult circumstances? I want the Minister to give a guarantee that there will be no redundancies: the motion would then not need to cover the question of extra payments.
  If people are made redundant, however, they will have a job finding new employment. Beneath this facade—which will cost between £40 million and £50 million a year, and which we are being asked to authorize—is the underlying corruption: the Government's failure to produce an economic policy that will provide full employment. Study after study now demonstrates the clear
  126
  link between the cancer of unemployment and the rising tide of crime—and the Government have made no effort to solve that problem.
  10.33 pm
  Ms Ann Coffey: None of the Government's legislation has ever been backed by sufficient money to make it workable or effective. Clauses 1 to 15 deal with the financial consequences of providing secure training places. Is the Minister aware of the current cost of secure accommodation? It costs approximately £2,000 a week per child. At the end of March 1992, 238 children were in secure accommodation, at a cost of £2,000 a week: the total cost was nearly £25 million a year.
  The cornerstone of the Government's fight against juvenile crime is plainly to increase the number of children in secure accommodation/training centres. Doubling the number of children in secure training centres will cost about £50 million a year. That is far in excess of the £30 million that the Government say will cover the costs of secure training centres. I refer here to the revenue costs, not the capital costs; the private sector may build the centres, but someone will have to pay for the places in them. And the private sector is not averse to putting the revenue costs sky high so as to recoup the capital costs incurred.
  Will the Government regulate the revenue costs of these centres? If not, they will find themselves paying a mammoth bill to the private sector for secure places. The same thing happens in the private rented sector—landlords charge far more than the market rents assessed by the rent officers, and the taxpayers pick up the bill. Again and again, public money is ploughed into the private sector. The private sector is bleeding the public services dry, and the same will happen again with this legislation.
  Who will pay for after-care and supervision? After-care demands social work time and often it demands special educational provision, because these young people frequently cannot be accommodated in local schools. Such extra provision is costly. Will local authorities have the money to pay for it? We should remember that the. Government have in effect capped every local authority in the land, so what authorities spend on one item, they cannot spend on another. Will this legislation further bleed local authorities of their finance so that they cannot put money into genuinely needed preventive measures to stop the cycle—
  Mr. Alun Michael: I am interested in the line that my hon. Friend is taking. As I read the Bill, the Government are saying that they are not too sure how much is involved. They give a rough estimate of £30 million, but my hon. Friend suggests that they do not intend to pay all the costs. Surely the Minister intends to meet all the costs implicit in the range of services and after-care that will be involved. It would be scandalous if the Minister did not intend to provide all the necessary finance for the implications, as well as the direct costs, of this Bill.
  Ms Coffey: My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. At present, local authorities pay for secure accommodation. In Stockport there are four children in such accommodation, at a cost to the social services budget of £500,000 a year. Surely the Minister does not expect local authorities to

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  carry such costs. I hope that the Home Office will pay the full costs of providing training places. I hope for an assurance to that effect from the Minister tonight.
  Perhaps the figures that the Minister has provided are naive; perhaps not. Perhaps this is just the latest example of a recurring phenomenon: legislation burdening local authorities with more and more costs. I remind the Minister that cost cutting has already led to valuable crime prevention measures not being introduced. Because of the overwhelming rise in the tide of crime, the police can no longer put time into crime prevention activities, or speak to informal groups, or get involved in the valuable work of drawing the community into a partnership with them. Owing to a lack of money, street lighting programmes, which the evidence shows reduce both crime and the fear of crime, have been stopped by many local authorities.
  I was horrified to learn of the consequences of another cost-cutting exercise. I have been told that, from time to time, the prison service considers it financially inappropriate to produce a prisoner at court. There was a recent example when a prison outside Greater Manchester considered that it was not cost-effective to produce a defendant at court because the likely sentence would not materially affect the sentence that he was currently serving. Clearly, the prison was exercising a judgment about justice on cost-cutting grounds.
  We have heard today about the Government's commitment to justice and to bringing criminals to book for the offences which they commit. Do they not understand that their own legislation and meanness, and their failure and refusal to put resources into the criminal justice system, have caused the crime which is rampant on our streets? It is not acceptable for the prison service to make a judgment that somebody should not be produced at court because of the cost. People should appear at court to be charged with the offences they commit, and the public are concerned about that.
  Never mind the justice system—half the offences committed are not detected, and people are not charged. That is not surprising if the prison service will not take them to court because it is concerned about the cost. The Government must seriously look at the money that they are prepared to provide, and they must give the House an assurance that they will provide finance for secure training centres for after-care and the supervision for preventive measures.
  The legislation will mean that money will be taken out of the preventive services. I would hate to see local authorities being unable to provide pre-school education or nursery education because they had to provide extra costs for special education for young offenders, necessary though that may be. Everybody knows that there is a link between pre-school and nursery education and later offending. A child's failure within the education system is a significant factor in his later patterns of behaviour.
  If we had universal education for the under-fives—I believe that the Prime Minister supports that—we would have fewer children failing in the system, and fewer children who were being disruptive as young offenders. If the legislation goes through, and if the Government do not provide the money to local authorities, we will not see the
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  preventive measures which are necessary. I ask the Minister again for assurances on who is providing the costs for training centres.
  10.43 pm
  Mr. Simon Hughes: My remarks will follow along the same lines as the speech of the hon. Member for Stockport (Ms Coffey) but will relate to a part of the country that I know well.
  Mr. Skinner: Tower Hamlets?
  Mr. Hughes: I have spent rather a lot of time dealing with Tower Hamlets in recent months, but tonight I shall concentrate on Southwark, which in many respects has some of the same attributes as Stockport.
  I want to relate specifically to the part of the money resolution which allows the Chancellor or the Financial Secretary to pay money provided by us for making grants specifically
  "in connection with measures intended to prevent crime or reduce the fear of crime."
  I intended to cite the figures, but in tonight's edition of the Evening Standard there is a small news item which states that 14 boroughs in London are among the poorest in the country. The item quotes a survey carried out by the Association of London Authorities which shows that the borough of Southwark is the second most deprived borough in England. It also shows that under the new local government allocations for the coming financial year the borough's funding will be reduced by 1·4 per cent. to £3·5 million. I should add in fairness that the article makes a similar point about other local authorities, and Newham is the local authority at the top of the list.
  I represent one third of the borough of Southwark. One of the things which a borough such as ours suffers from as part of its deprivation is high unemployment. It gives me no pleasure to represent a borough with one of the 10 highest unemployment rates in the United Kingdom. The Government always contend that crime and unemployment are not related, but it does not look that way to people who live in areas where there is high unemployment and who see from the figures that there is a high incidence of crime.
  On Friday 7 January another study, which was reported in The Guardian and carried out by Cambridge economist David Dickinson, suggested—it is not the first survey to do so—that rising unemployment means rising burglary, which by definition clearly means rising crime.
  The local community, in collaboration with the police —
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but he seems to be going rather wide of the money order. He must relate his remarks more closely to it.
  Mr. Hughes: I hope that you will understand that I am not going wide of the subject, Madam Deputy Speaker, as I am seeking to make a bid for money for Southwark for schemes to reduce the fear of crime and to prevent crime. I was merely explaining why that is especially important in a borough such as ours because we have such high crime levels and such high unemployment. That was the background, but it is also right to concentrate on the foreground and on the schemes that I have in mind.
  Mr. Michael: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that it should be our aspiration not to put things right in the odd borough here and there but to plan comprehensively for safer communities in every town and city and in every part of every city in England and Wales?
  Mr. Hughes: Of course it should. The hon. Gentleman knows that I would agree with that, but he should also understand that I am speaking in support of my community, which has particularly high unemployment and crime levels.
  I am asking the Minister to deal with a request that comes not only from me but from the community consultative group of the Metropolitan police, the local authority and the other forums that have been set up. We face the prospect that significant amounts of funding will be withdrawn from Southwark. The money for the North Peckham task force is to be withdrawn at the end of March. We had a lock-fitting service for pensioners, disabled people, single parents and victims of crimes—3,000 locks have been fitted in three years—but that service will come to an end.
  Under the money order, the Government have the power to grant money to reduce the fear of crime and to prevent crime. One obvious way to do that must be by enabling people to have securely locked homes and by protecting the victims of crime. The figures clearly suggest that about 80 per cent. of crimes are committed where there has previously been a crime. Someone burgles a house, looks around and goes back for more, so the victims of crime are the most vulnerable. We cannot have a situation in which a borough with a particularly high crime rate and fear of crime does not get the money that it needs.
  I should be grateful if the Minister could tell us whether, if this provision is approved by the House, Southwark's high crime level and the fear of crime there will be recognised. Will money be granted to reimburse the Metropolitan police, who are about to carry out a £10,000 survey, which they are paying for, to detect the causes of the fear of crime? Will he ensure that boroughs such as mine and the police do not end up out of pocket? They have to put more of their resources into our area, but that is not reflected in the assessed requirements of a community such as mine.
  One of the schemes that has been set up is a three-month pilot project for personal alarms in the homes of victims of violent crime who are still at risk from their attackers, whether the attacks involve domestic violence, racial harassment or other crime. If that pilot project is seen to work, as many people believe that it will be, will it and similar projects be able to be the subject of a bid under the Bill and under the money resolution? Will they allow the funding of such initiatives, which will hugely improve the quality of life in inner-city boroughs such as mine? It is no use the Government dealing with generalities unless they also ensure that things are fair area by area, as the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) argued. On behalf of the people of Southwark and the people of Bermondsey, I want to know whether we shall get some money specifically to achieve the objectives of the money resolution—to reduce the fear of crime and to prevent the amount of crime from which many of my constituents now suffer.
  10.50 pm
  Mr. Neil Gerrard: I shall be brief because I realise that other hon. Members wish to speak and that we are short of time. I shall refer to two points on the money resolution, both of which have been referred to by previous speakers. The first concerns clauses 1 to 15, and the design and build of secure training centres and their operation being put out to private tender—[Interruption.]
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but there are too many private conversations taking place—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—on both sides of the House: I repeat, on both sides of the House.
  Mr. Gerrard: Leaving aside the issue of who in the private sector will be interested in taking on such work and why, it is not just the design and build, but the operation that is being put out to tender. I recall what happened when a decision was made, under money resolutions, to put out to private tender the operation of prisons.
  A consequence is that, when hon. Members try to obtain information about what is happening inside those prisons, they are told, "You cannot have that information. It is the subject of commercial confidentiality. Because it has been put out to tender, it is now commercially confidential." Can the Minister tell us whether we shall face exactly the same problems when trying to find out what is going on in the secure training centres when they are being operated by a private tenderer?
  The other issue is grants, to which the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) referred. The point has been made many times about the need for measures to prevent crime. The power for grants to reduce the fear of crime is contained in clause 114. I should include within that the making of grants for victim support schemes. At present, we have a victim support scheme that rests on volunteers, which is funded to the tune of £10 million a year.
  The Minister should consider seriously whether it is time for us to look to much more professionally run and professionally funded victim support schemes, especially schemes that can give long-term advice to people, such as the families of murder victims, who need it. How much money, specifically, will be made available?
  The explanatory and financial memorandum outlines the financial effects of the Bill and concludes:
  "No other provisions of the Bill are expected to have significant financial effects."
  Clause 114 relates to the provision of grants to prevent crime and to reduce the fear of it, but it is not mentioned under the section dealing with the Bill's financial effects. Can we therefore assume that that clause will not have any significant financial effect and that no significant money will be found under the Bill to prevent crime and to reduce the fear of it?
  10.54 pm
  Mr. John Gunnell: I am aware of the time constraint, so I will be extremely brief.
  I spent election day 1992 waiting for the police to come to investigate a burglary at my constituency home. Since then, I have been the victim of crime seven times. I have suffered two other burglaries, two car thefts and three instances of vandalism. I would therefore greatly welcome

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  any measures that contained crime, given that I have suffered so much as a victim of it in the short time since I was elected.
  Has sufficient money been provided under the Bill to finance the measures necessary to cope with young people? The Government have not told us why the arrangement in Leeds, whereby a certain capital sum was accepted to cover an extra 10 secure places, has not been followed up. Why are Ministers unwilling to come clean on the fact that the bed bureau in Leeds has revealed that there is a grave shortage of local authority secure accommodation? Will money be made available to provide the necessary local accommodation? That is a major issue.
  Mr. Michael: I notice that the Minister is silent. He is even yawning, because he does not seem to be interested in such issues. According to the figures in the money resolution, it appears that there will be only just enough money, at a minimum level, to cover the servicing of the capital costs—the payment of interest—plus running costs, also a minimum level, for ordinary secure accommondation. No adequate provision has been made for profit on top of those costs. Therefore, no money will be available to cover all the other issues contained in the Bill. The Minister should come clean and answer my hon. Friend's question. He should also say whether what I have said is an accurate calculation.
  Mr. Gunnell: It is obvious that the clauses on trespass will create a new class of law breakers. The time and resources that the police will devote to dealing with them will therefore detract from the current use of police resources.
  Under clause 61, the number of genuine camping sites for gipsies will be reduced. I helped to provide the capital for two such sites, but they will no longer receive any Government grant towards their maintenance. That means that fewer sites will be available and that those who use them will lose their current stability. They will be found parking illegally because of that shortage of legal sites, and will be moved on by the police. That often creates conditions that are distressing to local residents, and I am afraid that the incidence of such illegal parking is bound to increase, because those who have travelled for years will be unable to find a genuine site on which to stay.
  Clause 76(2)(b) provides for private contracting for prison ships. Can the Minister tell me what discussions led to the introduction of that clause? Clearly, we would not be providing for a prison ship unless there was some definitive proposal in mind. One would like to know what sums of money are being talked about for contracting out in such an arrangement.
  Evidence from abroad suggests that prison ships are not that secure. In view of the record of the private sector so far in fulfilling the remit given to it by the Home Office, an insecure prison ship would be a recipe for great distress for those who lived anywhere near the coastline where the ship was moored. Perhaps the Minister will tell us what discussions have taken place, what costs have been spoken of and what are the value-for-money implications of a prison ship as opposed to other forms of centre.
  11 pm
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. David Maclean): I have listened carefully to this short debate, and I shall respond in a few moments to the particular points raised by hon. Members. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill is a big piece of legislation. It takes forward most of the 27 measures that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary announced at the conference in October. It underlines the Government's commitment to take firm action against crime and to protect the public. As one would expect from such a large and significant package of measures, and as the money resolution makes clear, the Bill will create new charges on public funds.
  The money resolution makes it clear that some of the provisions in the Bill will, in effect, be delivered by the private sector entering into a contractual relationship with the Government. We are proud of the link that is developing between the public and the private sectors, and there is no reason why the two should not work together closely to their mutual benefit.
  Mr. Michael: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Maclean: I have one minute left to answer the debate; I shall not give way.
  There are certainly lessons that the public sector can learn from the private sector in terms of providing services efficiently, effectively and economically. Equally, there is much that the private sector can learn from the public sector.
  The hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) asked about secure training centres. Those centres and related services will be provided after a period of competitive tendering. Of course we cannot declare in advance our precise estimates of the likely contract cost. The financial memorandum to the Bill states the overall cost, including supervision in the community following the secure part of the order. We recognise that the cost is likely to be just in excess of £30 million.
  The framework for involving providers will comply to contracts. The contracts will be entered into following a tendering process between the Home Office and a private sector company for the design, construction, financing, operation and maintenance of the centre. On the basis of that contract—
  It being three-quarters of an hour after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER put the Question, pursuant to Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business):—
  Question put:
  The House divided: Ayes 313, Noes 111.

  Division No. 59]

  [11.02 pm

  AYES

  Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset North)

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Baldry, Tony

  Alexander, Richard

  Banks, Matthew (Southport)

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

  Bates, Michael

  Alton, David

  Batiste, Spencer

  Amess, David

  Beith, Rt Hon A. J.

  Ancram, Michael

  Bellingham, Henry

  Arnold, Jacques(Gravesham)

  Bendall, Vivian

  Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Atkins, Robert

  Blackburn, Dr John G.

  Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)

  Body, Sir Richard

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  133

  Booth, Hartley

  Gillan, Cheryl

  Boswell, Tim

  Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair

  Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Bowden, Andrew

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Bowis, John

  Gorst, John

  Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes

  Grant, Sir A. (Cambs SW)

  Brandreth, Gyles

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Brazier, Julian

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Bright, Graham

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Hague, William

  Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)

  Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

  Browning, Mrs. Angela

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Burns, Simon

  Hannam, Sir John

  Burt, Alistair

  Hargreaves, Andrew

  Butler, Peter

  Harris, David

  Butterfill, John

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Hawkins, Nick

  Carlisle, John (Luton North)

  Hawksley, Warren

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Hayes, Jerry

  Carrington, Matthew

  Heald, Oliver

  Carttiss, Michael

  Hendry, Charles

  Cash, William

  Hicks, Robert

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Hill, James (Southampton Test)

  Chapman, Sydney

  Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas (G'tham)

  Churchill, Mr

  Horam, John

  Clappison, James

  Hordern, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ruclif)

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

  Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

  Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

  Coe, Sebastian

  Hughes Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Colvin, Michael

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

  Congdon, David

  Hunt, Rt Hon David (Wirral W)

  Conway, Derek

  Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)

  Hunter, Andrew

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

  Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

  Jack, Michael

  Couchman, James

  Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

  Cran, James

  Jenkin, Bernard

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

  Jessel, Toby

  Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Davies, Quentin (Stamford)

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

  Day, Stephen

  Jones, Robert B. (W Hertfdshr)

  Deva, Nirj Joseph

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Devlin, Tim

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Key, Robert

  Dover, Den

  Kilfedder, Sir James

  Duncan, Alan

  King, Rt Hon Tom

  Duncan-Smith, Iain

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Dunn, Bob

  Knapman, Roger

  Durant, Sir Anthony

  Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

  Dykes, Hugh

  Knight, Greg (Derby N)

  Eggar, Tim

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

  Elletson, Harold

  Knox, Sir David

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)

  Kynoch, George (Kincardine)

  Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

  Lang, Rt Hon Ian

  Evans, Roger (Monmouth)

  Lawrence, Sir Ivan

  Evennett, David

  Legg, Barry

  Faber, David

  Leigh, Edward

  Fabricant, Michael

  Lennox-Boyd, Mark

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Lidington, David

  Fishburn, Dudley

  Lightbown, David

  Forman, Nigel

  Lloyd, Rt Hon Peter (Fareham)

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Lord, Michael

  Forth, Eric

  Luff, Peter

  Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

  Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)

  Lynne, Ms Liz

  Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley)

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Freeman, Rt Hon Roger

  MacKay, Andrew

  French, Douglas

  Maclean, David

  Fry, Sir Peter

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Gale, Roger

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

  Gallie, Phil

  Maddock, Mrs Diana

  Garel-Jones, Rt Hon Tristan

  Madel, Sir David

  Garnier, Edward

  Maitland, Lady Olga

  Gill, Christopher

  Major, Rt Hon John

  134

  Malone, Gerald

  Sims, Roger

  Mans, Keith

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Marland, Paul

  Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

  Marlow, Tony

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  Soames, Nicholas

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Spencer, Sir Derek

  Mawhinney, Rt Hon Dr Brian

  Spicer, Sir James (W Dorset)

  Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  Mellor, Rt Hon David

  Spink, Dr Robert

  Merchant, Piers

  Spring, Richard

  Milligan, Stephen

  Sproat, Iain

  Mills, Iain

  Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Mitchell, Sir David (Hants NW)

  Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

  Moate, Sir Roger

  Steen, Anthony

  Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

  Stephen, Michael

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Stern, Michael

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Stewart, Allan

  Moss, Malcolm

  Streeter, Gary

  Needham, Richard

  Sumberg, David

  Nelson, Anthony

  Sweeney, Walter

  Neubert, Sir Michael

  Sykes, John

  Newton, Rt Hon Tony

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Taylor, John M. (Solihull)

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Norris, Steve

  Thomason, Roy

  Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley

  Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V)

  Oppenheim, Phillip

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Ottaway, Richard

  Thornton, Sir Malcolm

  Paice, James

  Thurnham, Peter

  Paisley, Rev Ian

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Patnick, Irvine

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

  Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Tracey, Richard

  Pawsey, James

  Tredinnick, David

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Trend, Michael

  Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

  Viggers, Peter

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

  Rathbone, Tim

  Wallace, James

  Redwood, Rt Hon John

  Waller, Gary

  Rendel, David

  Ward, John

  Ronton, Rt Hon Tim

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Richards, Rod

  Waterson, Nigel

  Riddick, Graham

  Watts, John

  Rifkind, Rt Hon. Malcolm

  Wells, Bowen

  Robathan, Andrew

  Wheeler, Rt Hon Sir John

  Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

  Whitney, Ray

  Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)

  Whittingdale, John

  Robinson, Mark (Somerton)

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

  Wiggin, Sir Jerry

  Ross, William (E Londonderry)

  Wilkinson, John

  Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)

  Willetts, David

  Rumbold, Rt Hon Dame Angela

  Wilshire, David

  Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

  Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

  Sackville, Tom

  Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'fld)

  Sainsbury, Rt Hon Tim

  Wolfson, Mark

  Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Wood, Timothy

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Young, Rt Hon Sir George

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Shephard, Rt Hon Gillian

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Mr. Timothy Kirkhope and

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Mr. James Arbuthnot

  Shersby, Michael

  NOES

  Adams, Mrs Irene

  Campbell-Savours, D. N.

  Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

  Clapham, Michael

  Armstrong, Hilary

  Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

  Austin-Walker, John

  Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Clelland, David

  Barnes, Harry

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  Battle, John

  Coffey, Ann

  Bayley, Hugh

  Cohen, Harry

  Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret

  Connarty, Michael

  Betts, Clive

  Cook, Robin (Livingston)

  Boyes, Roland

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Bradley, Keith

  Corston, Ms Jean

  Caborn, Richard

  Cryer, Bob

  135

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Meale, Alan

  Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Darling, Alistair

  Milburn, Alan

  Davidson, Ian

  Miller, Andrew

  Dewar, Donald

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Dixon, Don

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Etherington, Bill

  O'Neill, Martin

  Fatchett, Derek

  Parry, Robert

  Faulds, Andrew

  Patchett, Terry

  Foster, Rt Hon Derek

  Pickthall, Colin

  George, Bruce

  Pike, Peter L.

  Gerrard, Neil

  Pope, Greg

  Godman, Dr Norman A.

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lew'm E)

  Gunnell, John

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  Hain, Peter

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Hall, Mike

  Purchase, Ken

  Hanson, David

  Raynsford, Nick

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Reid, Dr John

  Henderson, Doug

  Roche, Mrs. Barbara

  Heppell, John

  Rooney, Terry

  Hill, Keith (Streatham)

  Short, Clare

  Hood, Jimmy

  Simpson, Alan

  Hoon, Geoffrey

  Skinner, Dennis

  Hoyle, Doug

  Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

  Hughes, Kevin (DoncasterN)

  Snape, Peter

  Hutton, John

  Spearing, Nigel

  Illsley, Eric

  Spellar, John

  Ingram, Adam

  Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)

  Jackson, Helen (Shef'ld, H)

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Jones, Ieuan Wyn (Ynys Môn)

  Straw, Jack

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd, SW)

  Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

  Kennedy, Jane (Lpool Brdgn)

  Turner, Dennis

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Vaz, Keith

  Lewis, Terry

  Walker, Rt Hon Sir Harold

  Llwyd, Elfyn

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Loyden, Eddie

  Wilson, Brian

  Macdonald, Calum

  Wise, Audrey

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Worthington, Tony

  McMaster, Gordon

  Wray, Jimmy

  McWilliam, John

  Mahon, Alice

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)

  Mr. Bill Olner and

  Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

  Mr. George Mudie.

  Maxton, John

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill ("the Bill"), it is expedient to authorize—

  (1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any sums required by the Secretary of State—

  (a) for making grants—

  (i) in connection with measures intended to prevent crime or reduce the fear of crime;

  (ii) towards security costs incurred in relation to party conferences in Great Britain;

  (b) for making payments under contracts made by him with other persons for the provision by those other persons of premises, services or the discharge of functions for or in relation to offenders and other persons;

  (c) in respect of administrative expenses incurred by him under the Act;

  (d) for defraying the expenses of members of lay panels of observers charged with duties in relation to offenders transported or held in pursuance of escort arrangements made by him under the Act; and

  (2) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money provided by Parliament.

  Non-Domestic Rating Bill [Money]
  Queen's Recommendation having been signified—
  11.15 pm
  The Minister for Local Government and Planning (Mr. David Curry): I beg to move,
  That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Non-Domestic Rating Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to that Act in the sums payable out of money so provided under the Local Government Finance Act 1988.
  The Non-Domestic Rating Bill includes provision that requires the Secretary of State to make good the reductions in contributions paid by authorities into the non-domestic rating pool arising from changes made by the Bill. The Bill would directly reduce business rate payments in 1994–95 by limiting the increases for properties under the non-domestic rating transitional arrangements for those years.
  Properties that, without those measures, would face increases of as much as 20 per cent. in real terms would now pay no more than 10 per cent. extra after allowing for inflation. Smaller properties that would otherwise face real increases of as much as 15 per cent. would have their increases limited to 7·5 per cent. in real terms. Small part domestic and part non-domestic property would face no real rate increases next year.
  Clearly those measures reduce the income that would otherwise have been available to the pool of business rates, and the cost of making good the shortfall in the non-domestic rating pool for England is estimated to be about £90 million in 1994–95. In Wales, which has a separate pooling arrangement, the cost would be about £5 million. The Bill would require the Secretaries of State to add those sums to the amounts paid to billing authorities out of the non-domestic rating pool for their respective countries in 1995–96.
  The Government already have powers under existing legislation to introduce fresh transitional arrangements to phase in changes in rates liability brought about by the 1995 and subsequent revaluations. We shall need to consider carefully whether and how to use those powers once firm information on the likely effect of the 1995 revaluation becomes available in the spring. We shall certainly use the powers if the circumstances warrant. However, the Bill would allow us greater flexibility in making any such arrangement.
  In particular, it would enable the Government to make arrangements that were not self-financing. We would therefore be able to devise rules that would reduce the increases in the rates burden for businesses adversely affected by that revaluation, without requiring other businesses to pay more. If we chose to do that, we should be able to make up the loss of rates yield by making further Exchequer contributions to the non-domestic rating pools in subsequent years.
  We would decide whether or when to exercise those powers in the light of the economic circumstances of the time. The regulations governing the transitional arrangements are subject to the approval of both Houses of Parliament, so any decision on the extent of any Government subsidy for the arrangement would be subject to further parliamentary scrutiny at the time, by affirmative resolution. I commend the motion to the House.
  Mr. Doug Henderson: Before the House is an unusual and, I believe, unacceptable procedure. We are being asked to approve a money resolution—in other words, to approve the amount of money that will be spent for purposes arising out of proposed legislation—before the House has had an opportunity to consider in principle, on Second Reading, the contents of the Bill concerned. Such a procedure makes an outrageous presumption about the intentions of the House, amounting to a contempt of the House.
  If I were a question master and I asked the House when such a procedure was last used, I believe that I would have to give out a lot of first prizes. It will come as no surprise to hon. Members on both sides of the House that the only other occasion on which this procedure has been used in the past five years was during our proceedings on the Community Charges (General Reduction) Act 1991. That was the last time that the Conservative Government were presumptuous enough to come to the House with a money resolution before hearing hon. Members' views on the principles involved. That tells the House a lot, not only about some of the Government's intentions in the Bill, which will be discussed later this week, but about the current state of the Government in general.
  The House will recall the procedure that was adopted last year. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) said that it was a sweetheart agreement. It was not a sweetheart agreement. It was an understanding between hon. Members on both sides of the House about how a matter affecting many businesses throughout the country could be dealt with in a reasonable, objective and reasonably sensitive way.
  The Second Reading of last year's Bill, which froze business rate increases, was dealt with in late April. A fortnight later—after people had had the opportunity to consider the general principles involved—the rest of the stages of the Bill were dealt with on the Floor of the House. That was acceptable to everyone concerned. Hon. Members who wished to receive representations from interested bodies were able to do so, and to make those views known to the House. The Bill could then be expedited. That was a reasonably acceptable way of dealing with such business.
  I may say that the Opposition have no argument with the Government about the general timing of such debates. In previous years, Bills limiting the increase in rates for business properties were introduced after the Budget—in May or June. The problem was that the effect of such legislation had to be retrospective so councils had to adjust their business rate bills and many businesses up and down the country could not make cost projections because they did not know what business rate liability they might face. I am not defending that structure; that was not the best way in which to conduct business.
  Yet what the Government are doing tonight—and I believe what they are to do later this week—is equally unacceptable. They are asking the House to curtail a parliamentary procedure. The Government will try to get the House to give the Bill a Second Reading tomorrow evening—and I believe that that may be the appropriate time for a Second Reading debate. What is not appropriate is what the Government intend to do after that, which is to curtail parliamentary procedures—not giving democracy a chance in the House—by forcing through the rest of the Bill at the beginning of January. Presumably we will hear arguments later today, and almost certainly tomorrow, that
  138
  that is necessary in order to counteract the difficulties that arose last year because the legislation had to be retrospective.
  What the Government propose is not acceptable and is not a practical solution to the problem. It might have been practical to consider Second Reading tomorrow and then to deal with the issues on the Floor of the House or in Committee—that matter could have been subject to discussion. I should have thought that it would not have been beyond the ability of the House and the other place to have expedited all the business by the end of February or March and to have given Royal Assent to any necessary legislation. But that is not what the Government propose and that is not their intention in the money resolution.
  This year's procedure is not so acceptable as that adopted last year. There are other reasons—in addition to those that I have sought to draw to the attention of the House—why the Government's procedure is unacceptable. This year's Bill is not as straightforward as last year's was. Last year's Bill basically said that many businesses throughout the country face enormous economic problems because of the recession and cannot cope with the full effect of the rates increases that they face. With the Opposition's support, the Government said that there should be an abatement to help those businesses and that the increases should be restricted to the level of inflation. That fairly straightforward Bill only affected the position last year.
  This year's Bill is quite different. There is no freeze in this Bill. As the Minister said, even with the Government's abatement, some businesses will still face increases in their business rates of up to 10 per cent. That is a major difference between last year's Bill and this year's Bill.
  This year's Bill incorporates a complete change in principle for the future determination of business rates. Last year and in the previous year, the Government said that some businesses should be given relief on their business rates, but that where that relief was given the Government would top up the aggregate rating pool so that the amount of money allocated to local authorities—and I will not argue whether that was the right amount—would still be given to the local authorities. That provision was included in regulations that came before this House.
  When the Non-Domestic Rating Bill receives its Second Reading tomorrow, it will be clear that the clauses that cover the provisions to which I have just referred will no longer apply. It will be entirely at the Government's discretion to decide whether any transitional relief will be given to businesses in 1995. We all have businesses in our constituencies. Many of our constituencies will tell us that their business premises will be revalued for 1995. Unless there is some transitional provision, they may face substantial hikes in their business rates.
  The problem will not go away. A future Government of any colour will have to consider the transitional arrangements for changes in business rates. The difference between this year's Bill and earlier legislation is not just that there is no commitment that that will be done. Even if the commitment is given and businesses receive relief, there is no requirement in future for the Government to top up the business rate pool. Therefore, the total amount of money allocated to local authorities could be reduced substantially. That is a major change and departure from the legislation which has been considered in this House over recent years and which has been accepted to a degree by businesses.

  139
  There are several procedural problems in relation to the money resolution and the subsequent stages of the legislation. As I have said, the House will be asked to vote on financial matters that will depend on discussions on structures that have not yet taken place. Hon. Members will be asked to decide whether the Government have allocated an appropriate amount of money for the Bill. Hon. Members are being asked to make that decision without knowing the future structure and whether the Secretary of State will make good losses to the aggregate rating pool that arise from the transitional relief that is provided.
  When making a judgment on this year's legislation and when deciding whether the amount of relief given to businesses this year is appropriate, many hon. Members will want to make that judgment in the context of what is happening this year and in relation to what will happen to businesses in their constituencies in future. That will depend very much on our discussions of the principles of the Bill on Second Reading. It is wrong of the Government to ask Conservative Members to make a decision before they have had a chance to express their strong views or those held by their constituents.
  We should address the costs of the changes that might take place. Interested parties may want to ask the Secretary of State many questions about the Bill and those questions may have major implications for the costs of the legislation. The business community will want to make representations. It is unreasonable and unacceptable that the business community will have no opportunity after Second Reading to make its views known to hon. Members or to make representations about amendments or changes to the Bill. That is unacceptable when, in 1993, 57,000 businesses went bankrupt, compared with 28,000 in 1990. A serious situation is affecting businesses. Many businesses will want to consider whether that 50 per cent. relief is acceptable in the context of the climate, that they face.
  Many people in the business community will want to know the regional impact of the Government's proposals and which parts of the country, which industries and which aspects of commerce will be the winners and which will be the losers. Many businesses will want to know the effects on different businesses. Many speculative representations have been made to me, and many businesses throughout the country are extremely concerned about the impact upon them. They consider the possible impacts on industrial and commercial premises. I have received many representations from companies in the retail sector, especially in the south, which are extremely concerned about the impact on their business.
  All such businesses, in a democratic parliamentary system, have the right to make known their views before legislation is dealt with in detail. They do not even have the chance to consider the principles involved on Second Reading before hon. Members decide the amount of money involved. That will not be satisfactory to organisations such as the Confederation of British Industry which have always had firm views on business rating. They would want to make known their representations on many of the details in the Bill. In procedural terms, organisations such as the Institute of Directors will not find acceptable what the Government propose. I have received representations from that institute also, but at the moment they seem to
  140
  have escaped me. Howeve, I suspect that there will be many other opportunities during our considerion of the Bill for the important views of the Institute of Directors to be made known. Bearing in mind the time, it is just as well that I was not immediately able to put my hands on the views of the Institute of Directors.
  However, the House will be pleased to know that I have before me the views of two typical chambers of commerce which have very firm views on this important matter which affects their affiliates and businesses in their communities. There are many other chambers of commerce that I could have chosen, but, for the purposes of this debate, I refer to only one, Southampton chamber of commerce, and an affiliated organisation called Lyon Pilcher, chartered accountants. A representative of that firm chaired the business rates sub-committee of Southampton chamber of commerce. That firm wrote to me on 6 January to make known some of its strongly held views about this matter. The letter has a strong bearing on the debate. I shall quote briefly—
  Mr. Curry: Read it all.
  Mr. Henderson: The Minister is urging me to quote the whole letter, but I am much more restrained than that. I shall restrict myself to the salient points of the letter. If the Minister cares to tempt me on another occasion this week, I might be able to oblige.
  That firm of chartered accountants in Southampton sayst:
  "The revaluation in 1990 produced greater increases in gross rateable values in the South than in other parts of the country. The abolition of rating boundaries by the NNDR has meant that the actual rates paid by properties in the South have increased significantly (particularly in the Retail sector) in order to pay for the downward movement in other parts of the country,"
  In other words, that chamber of commerce has a much worse deal than many of its counterparts. It continued:
  "This has hit the South particularly badly at a time when it was probably suffering the effect of the Recession worse than other parts of the country in any event.
  Our Survey indicated that Office and Industrial space in Southampton had not suffered under the NNDR as badly as had Retail."
  Those are points that the Southampton chamber of commerce would have wanted to make in the context of whether this year's regulations are acceptable. That is the sort of important representation that bodies have not been able to make, unless by chance they have got in touch with hon. Members. They will not be able to consider the matter in cost terms after hearing what the Government have to say on the principles.
  Just to show that there are no common views throughout the country, I shall quote the Barnsley chamber of commerce and industry, which is terse but salient in its view. It says:
  "transitional arrangements can be unfair to owners in northerly or depressed areas where rateable values are low, relative to owners in southerly, wealthy areas. Unfortunately, the latter shouted the loudest and to a greater extent got relief."
  Clearly, there is no unanimity among the chambers of commerce. Had I had more time, i would have been pleased to inform the House of some of the other differing views. I never believe in having too much of good thing. I am tempted to make another remark on those lines. Those views show that there is strong feeling, and that people have not had the chance to make known their opinions. The

  141
  TUC has similar views that it would have liked to make known to the House, after having heard the issues of principle set out in the Second Reading debate.
  Local government is another interest group that will be extremely anxious about the contents of the Bill, which will affect all local government. It has a clear interest in the size of the overall rating pool, which is then distributed on a basis that we can sometimes agree, though not always. If there is no guarantee that what is called in technical terms the aggregate external financing limit will take account of the need for the Government to replace moneys that have been lost by relief, local government will be extremely concerned about many of the clauses in the Bill.
  In making a judgment about whether this year's limit will be acceptable, local authorities of all colours in all parts of the country will be looking at what the impact will be on their finances in later years because of the other structural parts of the Bill. If there are no guarantees on the aggregate external financing limit or on the size of the rating pool, local government, and indirectly many other people, could suffer seriously because of the impact.
  Hon. Members who have taken a keen interest in local government matters will know that last year was a difficult year. Many local authorities have to make deep cuts in their services. Many jobs in local government were lost. There are arguments about how many, but few would deviate from an estimate of 50,000. Most of them were lost because of the reduction in the resources available to local government. This year, the situation is a little better, and there are again estimates of the exact impact of the Government's financial statement on local government. I believe that there will be a debate on that soon. Local government is clear that it will in all likelihood face great difficulties this year.
  Like business, local authorities will not have the same view. Among the local government interest groups there will be many differing views because the impact of the Bill will not be the same in all parts of the country and in all types of local government. London boroughs will have a specific view that they will want to put to the House, although they will not be able to do so because of the lack of opportunity to make representations after the Second Reading. Counties and districts will want to make their views known, and they may also have differing views depending on which parts of the country they represent.
  Given the differing regional impact of much of the legislation, a wide spectrum of regional organisations will want to make representation about how they expect business rate relief and other proposals in the Bill to affect them. That spectrum will include regional business organisations, regional workers' representatives' organisations and regional local government organisations: they will all want to make their views known.
  I believe that the timing of the legislation constitutes an abuse of the House. It prevents representations from being made to the Government before the Committee stage; it prevents many representations from being made to hon. Members on both sides of the House who take a keen interest in the matter and would like to contribute to the debate. There is a presumption that the House can consider the amount of money involved before considering the content and principles of the Bill.
  The move deviates from the relatively satisfactory procedure adopted last year. Worst of all, perhaps, it establishes a new pattern of contempt for workable, tried
  142
  and tested and in my view sensible procedures and for the assumption that it is wise for the House to debate principle before committing itself to expenditure.
  This rush is not necessary. It would have been entirely possible to debate Second Reading this week, and to time debate of the money motion appropriately. It would have been entirely possible to begin the Committee stage, either on the Floor of the House or in Standing Committee, two weeks or so after Second Reading and for the House to complete consideration of the Bill in time for Royal Assent to be given before the end of February. That would have been four months earlier than Royal Assent was given to similar legislation last year. Instead, however, we are discussing a motion on a costing that we have still not debated.
  I have no doubt that all sorts of bodies around the country will accuse Parliament of acting in undue haste. There will be complaints that organisations have had no time to consult their members before making representations to various interested parties. Inevitably, hon. Members have had to table hurriedly the amendments that they consider necessary to raise points of principle and detail and to request clarification in Committee. I believe that this is an abuse of parliamentary procedure.
  11.42 pm
  Mr. John Marshall: I was surprised to hear the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson) describe last year's system as relatively satisfactory. He admitted that, last year, local government sent out one set of bills to commercial ratepayers and then sent out a second set; he forgot to tell the House that that involved a cost to the local authorities—[Interruption.] Of course it involved a cost.
  Mr. Henderson: I did say that a cost was involved in last year's procedure.
  Mr. Marshall: The hon. Gentleman said that the procedure had been relatively satisfactory. I do not know how he can say that it is relatively satisfactory to indulge in the unnecessary cost involved in sending out two bills when one would suffice. He admitted that a cost to local authorities was involved in sending out two bills when only one should have been sent out.
  Moreover, there is a cost to industry in such cases. If an industry receives a statement from the local authority in March saying, "This is what your rates bill will be for the next 12 months," it will plan accordingly. Who knows? If that is higher than the bill that it will eventually have to pay, it may get rid of employees to try to make a workable budget. It certainly will not help that industry to plan if it receives one bill first and another in a few weeks' time. Last year's system was not satisfactory for business, jobs or economic confidence and it was bad for local government, because it involved unnecessary duplication. We had quite a lot of that earlier this evening.
  We are also told that the Bill is bad because it does not deal with the consequences of the 1995 revaluation. I do not see how a Minister can be expected to come to the House and deal with those consequences when we do not yet know what the figures will be. We do not know what the reductions in London will be. I suspect that when the 1995 revaluation is handed down, shopkeepers in Hendon will get a reduction. I note that my right hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North (Sir J. Wheeler) is in his

  143
  place; I am sure that shopkeepers in his constituency are looking forward to reductions, too. I would have expected a measure of support from the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman for a Bill that reduces the burden on industry by £95 million. That is surely worthy of commendation, not the pettifogging criticisms that we have heard this evening.
  We have also been told that there has been no time for representations to be made against the proposal. Has the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North been asleep since 30 November? The proposals were announced in the Budget. I cannot remember, but I do not think that the hon. Gentleman led his troops into the Lobby against the proposals then. Industry has known since 30 November what the proposals were, therefore, and has had nearly seven weeks in which to make representations, I have not received a single representation, and I am sure that very few hon. Members have.
  The Bill was published three and a half weeks ago, so there has been longer between publication and Second Reading than is usually granted in the House. This evening, we have listened to a load of synthetic indignation from the Opposition. Having spent many years in local government, including four years as chairman of a finance committee, I can assure the House that what the Bill proposes is for the convenience of local government and of ratepayers, and it is about time Opposition Members admitted as much and stopped engaging in the party games that have been going on late at night in the House for the past few weeks.
  11.46 pm
  Mr. David Rendel: I have only one major point to make tonight—to ask the Minister to respond to the question about why the money resolution is necessary at this stage. When the new non-domestic rating system was introduced, a certain number of transitional arrangements had to be included because the revaluation of business premises that had been due to take place every five years since 1973 did not actually take place until 1988. By that time several business premises' valuations had changed remarkably, particularly compared with business premises in other parts of the country.
  Because business rates had got so far out of step with one another, certain businesses were then faced with enormous increases, while others were lucky enough to enjoy decreases. Because the increases could, to some extent, be offset against the decreases, there was an opportunity to make the transitional arrangements self-financing. That indeed occurred during the first few years, while the NDR system worked as it was originally supposed to.
  The Government then encountered two problems. First, they hit the problems of the recession, when a number of businesses faced the possibility of bankruptcy, not least as a result of large increases in their NDR. The Government were also facing a general election, which they thought they might lose. They therefore changed the transitional arrangements and introduced a system under which all the benefits suddenly accrued to those whose rates were due to decrease, while the increases were not put in place for those whose rates were due to increase. That inevitably caused a problem; it meant that money had to be found from somewhere else.
  144
  It is thus purely as a result of the Government's attempt to bribe the electorate before the 1992 election that the need for these money provisions has become evident today, as it has been over the past few years, when the transitional relief has been changed from the original system brought in back in 1990. Does the Minister agree that it is as a result of that change just before the general election that we need the Bill today? Is not he thoroughly ashamed of himself and of the Government, in that their chickens are very much coming home to roost?
  11.51 pm
  Mr. Clive Betts: The aspect of the motion on which I want to comment refers to the issue of the discretion which is available to the Secretary of State. I have no objection to the powers which are given for revaluations, and indeed I have been critical in the past of the Government's failure to order revaluations where appropriate.
  I do not object to transitional arrangements. I think it is right and proper in certain circumstances to protect people from substantial changes coming from revaluations. The likelihood is that Secretaries of State, when faced with transitional arrangements, will look more favourably at those arrangements which cap increases in the rates to be paid by businesses. On the other hand, they will not put in restrictions on reductions in rates to be paid by other businesses. The potential impact of the arrangements for the year 1994–95 could be that those transitional arrangements will not be self-funding. That would then leave a gap in the amount of business rate collected which of course would pose serious problems for local authorities.
  The motion implies that, while the Secretary of State may have the power to make up a shortfall in any business rates resulting from transitional arrangements which he chooses to bring in, either next year or in the future, he does not have a requirement so to do. There can be a shortfall in funding to local government which has no bearing on the needs as assessed by the Government or of the requirement of local government to provide services.
  It is simply down to an arbitrary juxtaposition between the impact of the revaluation, which of itself is determined not by the Government but by independent valuers within the Inland Revenue, and the transitional arrangements which the Secretary of State has brought in. We have to be sure of the intention of the Secretary of State. Unfortunately, the motion does not give us that assurance. It gives a descretion which can be used adversely against local government in the future.
  The reality of course is that that could lead next year —if the Government so choose—to a £90 million shortfall in funding for local authorities, and could do so again in the future. If one considers the impact on individual local authorities on that basis, an authority can choose either to cut its services or to put its council tax up to pay for the shortfall. In many authorities, council tax now accounts for only about 20 per cent. of total expenditure. A reduction of 1 per cent. in an authority's income from other sources can lead to a 5 per cent. increase in council tax, because that is a smaller proportion of the total expenditure of that authority.
  On the other hand, the cuts can be made. If Sheffield were to have a £90 million shortfall from the Government, £900,000 would have to be deducted from council

  145
  expenditure or increased in council tax. By my calculations, £900,000 works out at about 90 home helps, or three or four local primary schools. Such a cut would virtually wipe out nursery education in the city. We are talking about substantial sums of money for local authorities.
  The Secretary of State might choose mischievously to try to adjust the year-on-year capping calculations. That would prevent local authorities from increasing council tax to take account of the money that he was not prepared to provide to make up the shortfall in the business rate. That would have a completely arbitrary impact on individual authorities and would bear no relation to their needs or requirements.
  I suggest that the Government have got themselves in a substantial mess; it is a mess of their own making. It comes from the long history of the 1980s when the Government tried to control and to regulate local authorities. They tried to control the expenditure of local authorities and have reduced their powers to the extent that the money that local authorities should be raising freely from their community in the form of business rates has been constrained and confined by central Government. They want to dictate exactly how much is collected in the centre and want the power not to pass that money on to local authorities where they decide that a shortfall unrelated to the needs of local authorities should not be made up.
  For those reasons, it is important that we seriously question the measure's impact on the services that local authorities provide, because it could be substantial.
  11.54 pm
  Mr. Keith Vaz: It is a great pity that the hon. Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall), who claims to have had four years' experience in local government, did not listen much more carefully to the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson). My hon. Friend came to the Dispatch Box very modestly today, but a year ago he predicted that the Government would come back again to this Chamber to introduce another measure to deal with non-domestic rates. He rightly predicted that because of the mess that the Government had made in fashioning an unacceptable policy for non-domestic rates we have had five Bills on the subject during the past four years.
  The fundamental question that the Minister failed to answer when he introduced the measure—rather quickly because he did not want to spend a great deal of time explaining the shift of policy—was why there had been such a fundamental shift in policy since his predecessor announced to the House on 13 May last year that the Government would pay full compensation to the fund and that if there were a shortfall it would not be a power but a duty for the Government to make it up. He has failed to answer that question today and I hope that in the brief time available he will give the House the explanation that it deserves.
  Hon. Members: Come on, answer.
  Mr. Jack Straw: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I hope that the Minister is going to reply to the debate, or is the abuse of procedure going to be doubled? Not only are the proceedings on the Bill to be compressed, but the Minister is not going to reply to the debate at all. It is standard procedure that a Minister
  146
  answers the points raised. Is he going to keep his feet on the Table and refuse to answer the questions that have been raised during the debate?
  Hon. Members: Come on.
  Mr. Bob Cryer: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The House has a number of conventions, which are elaborated in points of order when Ministers are required to answer. "Erskine May" lays responsibilities on Ministers to respond to questions in the House. It is clear that the Minister has been asked a number of important questions but he has just sat on his backside doing nothing. I wonder whether you can make it clear that you deprecate such an action.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: It is not for the Chair to insist that any hon. Member should speak, so that is not a matter on which I can comment.
  Mr. Straw: Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, will you confirm that it is standard practice that in a debate of this kind the Minister opens the debate, listens to the matters raised and then answers at the end?
  Madam Deputy Speaker: That may happen on a number of occasions but it is not universally so.
  Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It may be within your recollection that the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) challenged this very Minister when he sought to wind up a debate that he had commenced.
  Mr. Cryer: I have been listening to the debate and my hon. Friends have asked several questions about the money resolution but the Minister has not deigned to rise to his feet. One of the matters that my hon. Friends and I are concerned about is the way in which the money resolution has been put before the debate on the Bill and the principle which is established on Second Reading. That is generally the way in which we work; the Second Reading debate lasts all day and we discuss the terms of the Bill, although not in great detail, after which we decide on the terms of the money resolution.
  Doing things in this order means that people are denied the opportunity to listen to the extent of the debate. The reality is that many thousands—indeed millions—of people outside do not get copies of the Bill or know the details of its extent and nature. They use the focus of attention that Parliament is to obtain that information. It is true that there may well be only a short gap between the principle being debated and the money resolution being forwarded, none the less it is there. It seems to me to be an outrage that the Minister is not attempting in any shape or form to contribute to the debate. That demonstrates that the Government are treating the House with contempt.
  I warn the Minister—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Yes. There will be shouts. There are procedural means open to Back-Bench Members to use to ensure that if we do not want to listen to Ministers when they are desperate to get to the Dispatch Box, they will not get that opportunity. Ministers treat the House with contempt at their peril. The way in which Ministers have behaved, both in public and in private life, is disgraceful. There are already victims in a minority of instances. The whole tide of arrogant indifference to the democratic processes —
  It being three-quarters of an hour after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER put the Question, pursuant to Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business):—
  The House divided: Ayes 296, Noes 59.

  Division No. 60]

  [12.00 midnight

  AYES

  Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

  Day, Stephen

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Deva, Nirj Joseph

  Alexander, Richard

  Devlin, Tim

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Alton, David

  Dover, Den

  Amess, David

  Duncan, Alan

  Ancram, Michael

  Duncan-Smith, Iain

  Arbuthnot, James

  Dunn, Bob

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Durant, Sir Anthony

  Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)

  Dykes, Hugh

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Eggar, Tim

  Atkins, Robert

  Elletson, Harold

  Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset North)

  Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

  Baldry, Tony

  Evans, Roger (Monmouth)

  Banks, Matthew (Southport)

  Evennett, David

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Faber, David

  Bates, Michael

  Fabricant, Michael

  Batiste, Spencer

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Beith, Rt Hon A. J.

  Fishburn, Dudley

  Bellingham, Henry

  Forman, Nigel

  Bendall, Vivian

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Forth, Eric

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)

  Blackburn, Dr John G.

  Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley)

  Body, Sir Richard

  Freeman, Rt Hon Roger

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  French, Douglas

  Booth, Hartley

  Fry, Sir Peter

  Boswell, Tim

  Gale, Roger

  Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

  Gallie, Phil

  Bowden, Andrew

  Garel-Jones, Rt Hon Tristan

  Bowis, John

  Garnier, Edward

  Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes

  Gill, Christopher

  Brandreth, Gyles

  Gillan, Cheryl

  Brazier, Julian

  Goodlad, Rt Hon Afastair

  Bright, Graham

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)

  Gorst, John

  Browning, Mrs. Angela

  Grant, Sir A. (Cambs SW)

  Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Burns, Simon

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

  Burt, Alistair

  Hague, William

  Butler, Peter

  Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Carlisle, John (Luton North)

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Carrington, Matthew

  Hannam, Sir John

  Cash, William

  Hargreaves, Andrew

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Harris, David

  Chapman, Sydney

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Churchill, Mr

  Hawkins, Nick

  Clappison, James

  Hawksley, Warren

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Hayes, Jerry

  Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ruclif)

  Heald, Oliver

  Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

  Hendry, Charles

  Coe, Sebastian

  Hicks, Robert

  Colvin, Michael

  Hill, James (Southampton Test)

  Congdon, David

  Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas (G'tham)

  Conway, Derek

  Horam, John

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)

  Hordern, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

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

  Couchman, James

  Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

  Cran, James

  Hughes Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)

  Hunt, Rt Hon David (Wirral W)

  Davies, Quentin (Stamford)

  Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Hunter, Andrew

  148

  Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

  Renton, Rt Hon Tim

  Jack, Michael

  Richards, Rod

  Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

  Riddick, Graham

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Rifkind, Rt Hon. Malcolm

  Jessel, Toby

  Robathan, Andrew

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)

  Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

  Robinson, Mark (Somerton)

  Jones, Robert B. (W Hertfdshr)

  Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Ross, William (E Londonderry)

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)

  Key, Robert

  Rumbold, Rt Hon Dame Angela

  King, Rt Hon Tom

  Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Sackville, Tom

  Knapman, Roger

  Sainsbury, Rt Hon Tim

  Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

  Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Knight, Greg (Derby N)

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Knox, Sir David

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Kynoch, George (Kincardine)

  Shephard, Rt Hon Gillian

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Lang, Rt Hon Ian

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Lawrence, Sir Ivan

  Shersby, Michael

  Legg, Barry

  Sims, Roger

  Leigh, Edward

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Lennox-Boyd, Mark

  Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

  Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Lidington, David

  Soames, Nicholas

  Lightbown, David

  Spencer, Sir Derek

  Lloyd, Rt Hon Peter (Fareham)

  Spicer, Sir James (W Dorset)

  Lord, Michael

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  Luff, Peter

  Spink, Dr Robert

  Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Spring, Richard

  Lynne, Ms Liz

  Sproat, Iain

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)

  MacKay, Andrew

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Maclean, David

  Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Steen, Anthony

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

  Stephen, Michael

  Maddock, Mrs Diana

  Stem, Michael

  Madel, Sir David

  Stewart, Allan

  Maitland, Lady Olga

  Streeter, Gary

  Malone, Gerald

  Sumberg, David

  Mans, Keith

  Sweeney, Walter

  Marland, Paul

  Sykes, John

  Marlow, Tony

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Taylor, John M. (Solihull)

  Mawhinney, Rt Hon Dr Brian

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Merchant, Piers

  Thomason, Roy

  Milligan, Stephen

  Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V)

  Mills, Iain

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Thotnton, Sir Malcolm

  Mitchell, Sir David (Hants NW)

  Thurnham, Peter

  Moate, Sir Roger

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Monro, Sir Hector

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

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Tracey, Richard

  Moss, Malcolm

  Tredinnick, David

  Needham, Richard

  Trend, Michael

  Nelson, Anthony

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Neubert, Sir Michael

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Newton, Rt Hon Tony

  Viggers, Peter

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Waller, Gary

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Ward, John

  Norris, Steve

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley

  Waterson, Nigel

  Oppenheim, Phillip

  Watts, John

  Ottaway, Richard

  Wells, Bowen

  Paice, James

  Wheeler, Rt Hon Sir John

  Patnick, Irvine

  Whitney, Ray

  Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Whittingdale, John

  Pawsey, James

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Wiggin, Sir Jerry

  Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

  Wilkinson, John

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Willetts, David

  Rathbone, Tim

  Wilshire, David

  Redwood, Rt Hon John

  Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton).

  Rendel, David

  Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'f'ld)

  149

  Wolfson, Mark

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Young, Rt Hon Sir George

  Mr. Timothy Wood and

  Mr. Timothy Kirkhope.

  NOES

  Adams, Mrs Irene

  McWilliam, John

  Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)

  Barnes, Harry

  Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

  Bayley, Hugh

  Meale, Alan

  Campbell-Savours, D. N.

  Miller, Andrew

  Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

  Mudie, George

  Clelland, David

  Olner, William

  Coffey, Ann

  O'Neill, Martin

  Cohen, Harry

  Parry, Robert

  Connarty, Michael

  Patchett, Terry

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Pickthall, Colin

  Corston, Ms Jean

  Pope, Greg

  Cryer, Bob

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lew'm E)

  Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  Davidson, Ian

  Purchase, Ken

  Dixon, Don

  Roche, Mrs. Barbara

  Dowd, Jim

  Rooney, Terry

  Etherington, Bill

  Skinner, Dennis

  Godman, Dr Norman A.

  Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

  Gunnell, John

  Spearing, Nigel

  Hain, Peter

  Spellar, John

  Hall, Mike

  Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)

  Hanson, David

  Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

  Heppell, John

  Turner, Dennis

  Hill, Keith (Streatham)

  Wise, Audrey

  Hood, Jimmy

  Wray, Jimmy

  Illsley, Eric

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd, SW)

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Kennedy, Jane (Lpool Brdgn)

  Mr. Terry Lewis and

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Mr. Kevin Hughes.

  McMaster, Gordon

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Non-Domestic Rating Bill, it is expedient to authorise the
  150
  payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to that Act in the sums payable out of money so provided under the Local Government Finance Act 1988.

  ADMINISTRATION
  Ordered,
  That Mr. Jacques Arnold be discharged from the Administration Committee and Mr. Iain Duncan Smith be added to the Committee.—[Sir Fergus Montgomery, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]

PETITION

  Thornaby-on-Tees
  12.12 am
  Mr. Tim Devlin: I beg leave to present this petition on behalf of the townspeople of Thonaby-on-Tees in my constituency. Thornaby is a town comprising 24,000 people. I estimate that the petition contains about 6,000 signatures. The petition declares:
  that Thornaby is not a postal town and is to become part of the new Unitary Authority of Stockton Borough; that for cultural and ceremonial purposes Thornaby, being south of the River Tees is to revert to North Yorkshire; and that Thornaby should not be addressed as "Stockton, County Durham".
  The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons declare Thornaby-on-Tees a postal Town in its own right, thus giving its citizens the equal and official right already enjoyed by their fellow citizens in the other Towns of Stockton Borough to give their own town's name as their address and to establish a Town Council so that the Town maintains its identity in spite of being part of Stockton Borough.
  I hope that the petition will in due course be given careful and sympathetic treatment by the Department of Trade and Industry, the Department managing the Post Office.
  To lie upon the Table

  Council Tax Banding
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Robert G. Hughes.]
  12.14 am
  Sir Anthony Durant: I am grateful to have an opportunity to raise the question of council tax banding from two points of view: first, for those in mobile homes; and, secondly, with regard to valuation appeals.
  My interest in the position of those in mobile homes began when I received a petition signed by 140 residents of Garston park in my constituency. A similar approach has been made by the residents of Crookham caravan park in Newbury, who heard that I had this Adjournment debate and wrote to me asking for my support. I sent the petition to the Ministry and received a reply from the Minister of State, who laid out the current position. I was already aware of that, but at least the position was looked into.
  My constituents in Garston park were keen on the community charge. They thought that it was a good tax and are upset that it has now been changed to a council tax, as they suffer under that proposal. Their petition pointed out that their properties were of a lower value than the bottom band of £40,000 and that they should therefore have special consideration. mr. Cox, a gentleman from the estate, commented:
  "At the moment we are in Band A, £40,000. This is far too high for these tin boxes. We now pay council tax, the same as someone living in a 2–3 bedroom house."
  I have looked at their case. I do not question whether that is fair, but agree that they should have either a lower band or special dispensation.
  Mobile homes differ from bricks and mortar homes in four ways: the average price is lower; they depreciate in value quickly; their occupants do not get full services because the homes are usually on estates; and, although they form a cross-section of society, the residents are slightly unusual.
  Those in Garston park say that their properties are worth, on average, some £20,000. A survey of mobile homes showed that the average price for 1980–90 in the country as a whole was £34,000 for a new mobile home and £19,400 for a second-hand mobile home, giving an average of £24,000 for all mobile homes. That shows that the average price of many mobile homes is roughly £20,000.
  Residents therefore feel that their properties should be given special consideration. The value of a mobile home drops nearly 50 per cent. when it becomes second-hand and occupants do not get full services. They must pay, through their rent to the owner of the site, for street lighting and road maintenance. Although they have rubbish collections, education and other local government facilities, they do not receive all the facilities available to bricks-and-mortar homes.
  Residents are not a cross-section of the population but predominantly small households of one or two people, often elderly and retired. They are on low incomes and, although many have sold their bricks and mortar and moved from a house to a mobile home, they have done so to give them a bit of capital for their old age.
  On introducing the consultative proposals to the House, the then Secretary of State for the Environment, my right hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), said that the new tax would be simple and cheap to collect,
  152
  would not impose excessive demands on any household, and would be seen to be fair. However, those people do not think that that has come about. He introduced another band —band H—at the top after a number of pressures, but nothing has been done at the lower end.
  It is estimated that there are some 75,000 to 80,000 mobile homes in England. A special discount for them would probably benefit their occupants to the tune of some £90, on average, for each mobile home. I hope that the Government will have another look at the matter in any review of the council tax that they undertake.
  On council tax valuations, the most recent national figure issued by the Minister of State in answer to the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) was that a total of 770,467 people had appealed against their valuations, and that the number of valuations outstanding was 597,931. The most recent figure for Reading is 4,611, and for Newbury it is 3,325. The figures were supplied by Reading's valuation officer. That suggests that the total is close to the original Government estimate of 1 million claims.
  One of the matters that concerns me about the speed of dealing with valuations is that people have to pay the tax that is settled by the original valuation and then have to have a refund. Over the years, the refund accumulates and that presents a difficulty for the local authority which has to repay it. Therefore, it would be better if the business of the valuation was dealt with much quicker than at present.
  My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, who is replying to the debate, said in a written answer on 26 November that 560,000 cases would be settled by the end of 1994 and that the rest would be settled as soon as possible. I hope that we can get quicker valuations and have the matter settled. The tribunals need more support and perhaps more resources. In a speech to the National Committee of Valuation Tribunals conference, the Minister said:
  "We must not underestimate the danger that public attitudes to the new council tax will be soured by the perception that appeals are taking too long to settle."
  In Reading, there is a unique situation. Twelve people successfully appealed out of the 120 people in Amity road, and the valuation officer reviewed the whole street and lowered the banding for everybody, which delighted the residents. The difficulty is that some 800 houses in other streets are similar to those that had their banding lowered. The local council got excited about that and made a national appeal in The Guardian and in all the local papers urging everybody in Reading to appeal. As a result, the number of appeals increased by more than 2,500, which meant more work for the valuation officer and the valuation department.
  I am concerned that many of the people who got excited over the press release by the Labour-controlled council will not have their appeals upheld and will be disappointed and angry that they were misled into appealing unnecessarily. About 800 or 900 house will probably benefit as a result of the Amity road appeals, but there are now so many people appealing in Reading that the valuation officer is overwhelmed by work. I would not say that he is annoyed, because civil servants are not allowed to become annoyed. It must be unusual for a local council to tell everybody to appeal against valuations that obviously benefit the council.
  While the council tax is basically fair and in many ways fairer than the poll tax, there is no doubt that a minority of

  153
  council tenants and those with mobile homes feel aggrieved about the tax. I hope that the Minister will look at the matter. It is almost a year since the tax was introduced, and perhaps it is time to review its workings. Will he also look at mobile homes valuations to try to improve the situation which particularly affects my constituency?
  12.24 am
  Mr. Nick Hawkins rose—
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order. Does the hon. Member have the permission of the hon. Member for Reading, West (Sir A. Durant) and the Minister to speak?
  Mr. Hawkins: Yes, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Sir A. Durant) and to the Minister for allowing me to intervene.
  I shall be brief. I wish to speak about mobile homes and park homes. As the Minister is aware, my constituency has a large number of park home estates, and people there approached me in the way that the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West was approached by his constituents. I have written on their behalf to the Minister and have had factual replies both from him and from miss Modupe Kuponyi, a civil servant at the Department.
  My constituents emphasise that the values of the properties in which they live are much lower than the £40,000 figure that defines the bottom council tax band. My hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Sir A. Durant) was right to say that such dwellings also suffer much greater depreciation than other forms of property, and that those constituents do not receive the full range of services.
  Many of my constituents have deliberately chosen to buy park homes rather than become a burden on the state and add to the already overcrowded council housing list —in order to release a little capital, as my hon. Friend said, so as to have some savings to alleviate the problems of their old age. I strongly support my hon. Friend in urging the Minister to review the tax and to introduce an extra bottom band—I suggest that it should be called the AX band—to ensure that the special needs of park home owners are recognised.
  12.26 am
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Tony Baldry): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Sir A. Durant) for raising the subject of the council tax. I do not believe that there will ever be such a thing as a popular tax, and any new tax is even more likely to attract public criticism, especially in an area that has been the subject of prolonged controversy. The degree of acceptance that the council tax has already won, only nine months into its life, is therefore outstanding. As the Financial Times said just before last year's local elections:
  "Predictions of renewed political storm over the introduction of the council tax have not been borne out … Voters are cen:ainly not ecstatic about the new property-based tax, but they regard it as a substantial improvement on the poll tax".
  154
  One would not expect ecstasy, but one does find acceptance, and a recognition that the council tax is the fairest possible way of paying for local government services.
  Although he supports the principle of the council tax, my hon. Friend raised three specific concerns. The first was the length of time taken to process council tax appeals; the second was the council tax treatment of mobile homes; the third was what appears to be a disproportionate number of appeals in the Reading area. I shall deal with those matters in detail in that order.
  With regard to the timetable for appeals, the Valuation Office Agency—the VOA—had received about 860,000 appeal proposals for England by the end of the council tax appeal period on 30 November. To put that figure in context, that means that 96 per cent. of householders in England have accepted the banding assigned to their home. Only 4 per cent. have lodged appeals.
  Clearly, the people who have appealed will want their appeals to be dealt with as quickly as possible. To date, 175,000 appeals have been cleared up. I am also glad to be able to tell my hon. Friend and the House that the Department has agreed to allocate about £2·5 million more of its resources to the task of clearing up appeals, and as a result we expect the VOA and the valuation tribunals to have dealt with four out of every five appeals by the end of 1994.
  That means that 700,000 taxpayers should see their appeals settled in just over 12 months after the end of the appeal period, which I think will be a sound achievement. Any remaining appeals will be settled as quickly as possible in 1995—a rather better target than that of which I was able to advise my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West shortly before Christmas.
  We hope that the vast majority of cases can be resolved through discussions between the taxpayer and the Valuation Office Agency. That depends on the great majority of appellants being willing to settle their cases through such negotiation without recourse to a valuation tribunal hearing. Clearly, mutual agreement will not be possible in all cases, and there will be many appeals in respect of which the tribunals will need to adjudicate. We shall of course be monitoring progress closely, and stand ready, if necessary, to review our plans in the light of experience in handling appeals.
  I fully understand the concerns of the taxpayers who are aggrieved at having to pay tax at a higher level than they believe is right and at having to do so until their appeal is settled. But if we had said that anyone who appealed would immediately have his tax bill reduced, it would have led to a large number of speculative appeals made with a view to achieving short-term tax reductions, and could also have led to serious collection problems. Under the present system, we can be sure that those people who have challenged their banding have done so on genuine grounds and not to gain short-term financial advantage or for any other spurious reason.
  It is also important to keep matters in proportion. The vast majority of cases in which there is an appeal involve a change of only one band—over the course of a year, that amounts typically to around £60—and taxpayers who face real difficulties can ask to have their cases prioritised. Moreover, those receiving council tax benefit will have that benefit calculated against their actual bill: they will receive that benefit against the bill for the band at which

  155
  they are paying. I do not think that we are likely to see cases of serious hardship merely because an appeal has not yet been resolved.
  The valuation office has set itself tough targets. Where the initial banding is clearly wrong, it is offering to reband the property within 60 days of the date on which the appeal is first received. If, on the other hand, it believes that banding to be correct, it will inform the taxpayer of that within 90 days. In all other cases—those where careful and considered discussion will be needed—it will establish contact within 120 days.
  Those are challenging deadlines, which serve to emphasise our very real determination to crack on switfly with the job of getting the appeals settled to everyone's satisfaction. It is obviously in the interests of everyone who wishes council tax to succeed that appeals should be resolved as speedily as possible.
  Understandably, my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West focused on the situation in Reading. By and large, I suspect that the situation in Reading is similar to that elsewhere, but there appear to be one or two specific difficulties, some of which have been clearly exacerbated by comments made by the local authority.
  As my hon. Friend said, one of those difficulties centred on some 120 houses in Amity road, Reading, which were put in band C in the original valuation exercise. That banding was based on evidence from sales on or around the April 1991 reference date which showed the typical market price to be around £52,000, which is at the lower margin of band C. Some residents of the road disagreed with that valuation—as is their right—and in respose to their appeals, the listing officer, having conducted some further research on prices in the vicinity, concluded that on balance the evidence pointed to a value just below, rather than just above, the banding level.
  Those properties were very much on the cusp of the values between two bands. The houses concerned were therefore rebanded to band B, which is clearly good news for the residents concerned. That shows that the appeal system works. The listing officer now has in hand the alteration of the bands of a number of other similar houses in the locality.
  The council tax bill for a house in Reading with two residents in band C is £540. The bill for one in band B is £67 less. The monthly council tax payments of residents of Amity road will therefore have been reduced by about £7 as a result of the rebanding. That is further good news for the residents of Amity road, as that will have been the second reduction in local tax bills experienced by many in less than a year. Even the band C council tax for Reading was more than £100 less than the community charge payable for two adults. Reading is required to refund any over-payment to the taxpayer's account, so no resident in Amity road has lost. Indeed, they have all gained, which is good news for Amity road residents.
  However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West made clear, the situation in Amity road made the local press. It was even seized upon by some national journalists who were desperate to grab any possible bad news council tax story. However, the facts in relation to Amity road are good news for local residents and show that the system clearly works, whatever irresponsible local Labour councillors and others might seek to suggest.
  156
  If Amity road is the worst case that the Labour party can find to try to rubbish the council tax, that proves the robust fairness of the council tax. The fact that the valuation of one group of houses is on the cusp between two bands does not mean that all the bandings in Reading or in the rest of the country are in doubt, because there are clearly particular circumstances in Amity road.
  It would be common sense and reasonable to conclude that there are not going to be that many instances when the value of properties are so close to the borderline between two specific council tax bandings. Such circumstances are unlikely to apply generally elsewhere—or, indeed, in many other circumstances in Reading. Obviously, every case must be treated on its merits.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West wanted to know whether it will be possible to provide additional funding for the valuation office in Reading. The allocation and distribution of resources on individual offices is a matter for my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury and for the Valuation Office Agency. However, the House will recognise that it would be wrong to focus our efforts and resources on specific areas to the detriment of others.
  We all share the important objective of ensuring that all appeals are progressed at the same rate in all parts of the country. I have already made it clear that the extra resources that we have provided will enable that to be achieved quickly and effectively. I hope that, in due course in Reading, where there seems to have been a disproportionate number of appeals, many householders who have investigated the matter with the valuation office will be able amicably to settle their valuation banding and that they will not have been misled into making unnecessary appeals by some rather rash comments by the local authority.
  My hon. Friends the Member for Reading, West and for Blackpool, South (Mr. Hawkins) referred to mobile homes. It was suggested that an additional valuation band should be created to accommodate mobile homes and, presumably, other properties worth considerably less than £40,000, which is the upper limit of band A. Such representations have, of course, been made on several occasions. Indeed, the House carefully considered the matter when the legislation was originally before it.
  However, we believe that one of the significant advantages of the banded system that we have adopted is that it limits the variation between the highest and lowest bills in an area. There is unlikely to be much difference in ability to pay between mobile home dwellers and residents of low-value bricks-and-mortar homes. I appreciate that, if one is on a low income, a mobile home may be an economically attractive choice of home, but most low-income families live in conventional dwellings. We target help on such families through the council tax benefit system. Those whose incomes are at or below the income support level normally pay nothing at all in council tax, and that is the case whether they live in mobile homes or houses.
  It is argued that we should make a special case for residents of mobile homes on the ground that they receive a number of their services from site owners rather than from the local authority. It is true that some services such as street lighting and road maintenance on mobile home sites are often privately provided, but local people living in mobile homes benefit from nearly all local authority services—for example, their children go to local schools,

  157
  and they have the support of local social services, the local fire brigade, local police, and so on. Of course, when those living in mobile homes go out on to public roads, they benefit from the local authority's construction, maintenance and lighting.
  We are not convinced, and Parliament has not been convinced, of the benefits of creating another valuation band. However, the Government are not wholly unsympathetic to the special circumstances which mobile home residents might face. The organisations representing mobile home owners and occupiers have put to us representations about the council tax treatment of unoccupied homes.
  At present, the regime for unoccupied mobile homes is exactly the same as that for unoccupied bricks-and-mortar dwellings, which are exempt for up to six months while they are unoccupied and substantially unfurnished. Having listened to the case put to us, we have accepted that
  158
  caravans are rarely left unfurnished, either because the furniture is sold along with the home or because the furniture is actually physically fixed to the caravan. We therefore propose that, from April, all unoccupied caravans should be exempt from the council tax, whether or not they are furnished. I hope that that proposal, which is presently the subject of consultation, will be welcomed by mobile home residents and their representatives.
  I close by quoting a particularly candid comment in The Daily Telegraph this year, when it admitted:
  "Journalists comb the country for tales of erroneous house valuations and vastly increased bills. In reality, the reform looks like being a modest success."
  When journalistic seekers of doom and despondency admit that a new tax is a success—even a modest one—the House can be confident that the council tax is a success.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at seventeen minutes to One o'clock.

ENVIRONMENT

  Special Advisers
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the name and job description of each special ministerial adviser employed in his Department, showing any particular outputs for which each adviser is responsible.

  Mr. Gummer
  Mr. Keith Adams is my personal special adviser and Mr. James Gray is special adviser to the Ministers of State in my Department. Mr. Tom Burke provides expert advice to Ministers and senior officials on environmental affairs and Professor Peter Hall similarly provides expert advice on planning affairs.

  Net current expenditure on public transport1

  £ thousand

  1989–90 outturn

  1990–91 outturn

  1991–92 outturn

  1992–93 revised estimate

  1993–94 budget

  Shire counties

  87,943

  100,769

  109,215

  105,394

  104,842

  Passenger transport authorities

  313,321

  350,296

  381,501

  405,125

  408,893

  1 Includes expenditure on public transport support, concessionary fares for elderly, blind, disabled and children (excluding school travel), public airport companies. Excludes expenditure and income incurred by the PTA levy.

  Water
  Mrs. Helen Jackson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) pursuant to his answer of 6 December 1993,Official Report, column 13, what consultations he has had with the water regulator and the National Rivers Authority on the use of targets for each water company in respect of the reduction of leakage from water company pipes;

  (2) if he will consider giving power to the water companies through the regulator to fit water conservation devices in homes.

  Mr. Atkins
  We are considering these matters following consultation, including with the Director General of Water Services and the National Rivers Authority, on our paper, "Using Water Wisely".

  Local Authority Legislation
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) how many Acts resulting from Bills introduced by his Department have altered the powers of local authorities in each year since 1990;

  (2) how many Acts of Parliament have resulted from Government Bills that affect the powers of local authorities for each year since 1990.

  Mr. Baldry
  Since
  anuary 1990 those Acts of Parliament which have resulted from Government Bills and which affect local authorities in England include:

  Smoke Control Areas
  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he will issue regulations to control the sale of unauthorised fuels in smoke control areas and prohibit the sale of high-sulphur solid fuel.

  Mr. Atkins
  Since the proposals were presented, levels of smoke and sulphur dioxide in the United Kingdom have continued to decline. Last year, annual average concentrations were 5 per cent. lower than in 1991–92 and only one site exceeded the European Community directive limit value. The need for these regulations is therefore being reconsidered.

  Transport Expenditure
  Mr. Nigel Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what has been the annual expenditure on transport by county councils and passenger transport authorities since 1989.

  Mr. Baldry
  The information is as follows:

  Environmental Protection Act 1990

  Food Safety Act 1990

  National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990

  Caravans (Standard Community Charge and Rating) Act 1991

  Community Charges (General Reduction) Act 1991

  Community Charges (Substitute Setting) Act 1991

  Local Government Finance and Valuation Act 1991

  Planning and Compensation Act 1991

  Dangerous Dogs Act 1991

  New Roads and Street Works Act 1991

  Road Traffic Act 1991

  Further and Higher Education Act 1992

  Local Government Act 1992

  Local Government Finance Act 1992

  Severn Bridges Act 1992

  Boundary Commissions Act 1992

  Education (Schools) Act 1992

  Noise and Statutory Nuisance Act 1992

  Education Act 1993

  Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993

  This list does not include consolidation Acts.

  Water Quality
  Sir Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement outlining the steps which have been taken to repeal the water quality directives following the European Council meeting; and what obligations will remain relevant to the United Kingdom in respect of water quality.

  Mr. Atkins
  We welcome the European Council's decision to make water legislation consistent with subsidiarity and up-to-date science. It is now important that the Commission and the Council should, in giving effect to this decision, ensure that the details of new and revised
  3
  directives really are consistent with subsidiarity and are confined to essential quality and health parameters. Existing directives will remain in place until the Commission has brought forward proposals, and substitute directives have been agreed by the Council after consultation with the European Parliament.

  Homelessness
  Mr. Nigel Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many people are homeless in the parliamentary constituency of Cheltenham.

  Sir George Young
  Information is reported quarterly by local authorities in England on the number of households for whom they accept responsibility, to secure permanent accommodation, under the homelessness provisions of the Housing Act 1985.

  This is not available for the Cheltenham parliamentary constituency but Cheltenham district council reported that they had accepted 39 households as homeless in the quarter ending 30 September 1993.

  Anderton Boat Lift
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what assistance he will give to the Trent and Mersey Canal Society Ltd. towards the restoration and reopening of the Anderton boat lift; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Baldry
  The lift is the responsibility of British Waterways which receives substantial grant-in-aid from this Department. It is for BW to determine what funds it can commit to a restoration scheme in line with its statutory responsibilities. I welcome the initiative between British Waterways, local authorities and the private and voluntary sectors to explore the potential for a joint funding and management scheme. This would enable costs to be apportioned according to benefits, particularly those accruing to local interests.

  Derelict land grant may be able to assist in enhancing surrounding land, depending on the competing claims on limited resources, and what funding can be secured from other sources.

  Bathing Beaches
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will place in the Library the full details of the test results collected by the National Rivers Authority on bathing beaches in England, Wales and Scotland in the 1993 bathing season.

  Mr. Atkins
  The customary detailed summary of results for all United Kingdom bathing waters will be placed in the Library early in the year. Full results are available from the monitoring authorities.

  Regional Development Fund
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will provide for full additionality for European regional development fund schemes by extending the automatic cover available for European regional development fund receipts to include the matching local authority contribution; and if he will make it his policy to maintain the levels in other areas of local authority capital spending.
  4
  Mr. Baldry
  The Government already provide for the full additionality of European regional development fund —ERDF—receipts.

  Matching funds can come from a variety of sources including:

  —Local Authorities

  —City Challenge

  —Derelict Land Grant

  —DTI Funds for Regional Assistance

  —British Rail, water companies

  —voluntary bodies and Charities

  —Economic Regeneration Bodies

  —TECs

  —private sector.

  From 1 April 1994, an important source of matching funding for ERDF projects will be the single regeneration budget, which will merge 20 separate domestic public expenditure programmes.

  Local authorities are required to provide matching funding from within their existing resources, as are all ERDF beneficiaries. It is important that local authorities continue not to be treated differently from other beneficiaries in this respect. They must determine their own priorities in deciding whether or not to allocate resources to ERDF programmes. They must consider all the options available to them, with or without ERDF funds, and must decide which will offer the best value for money, whilst meeting local priorities. But they do have a further active contribution to make to the effective delivery of ERDF programmes to their areas, through their membership of partnership committees.

  To increase local authority financial resources in the manner requested would act as a disincentive to resources being spent judiciously and would be contrary to the Government's policy of firm control over all United Kingdom public expenditure.

  Research and Development
  Mrs. Anne Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the spending on research and development in each of the last five years given in 1992–93 prices in his Department.

  Mr. Gummer
  Expenditure by my Department on research in the last five years based on 1992–93 prices in £ million is as follows:

  £ million

  1988–89

  72·1

  1989–90

  77·1

  1990–91

  88·3

  1991–92

  103·5

  1992–93

  104·9

  Squatters
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what are his Department's responsibilities in the matter of problems arising from squatters; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir George Young
  Policy on squatting is primarily the responsibility of my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary. This Department does, however, have an interest in the problems arising from squatting in both residential and commercial property, in particular the implications for housing stock management and the effects on private property owners.
  5
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to designate squatters as being statutory homeless.

  Sir George Young
  Under the present homelessness legislation—part HI of the Housing Act 1985—squatters could be accepted as statutorily homeless if, on application to the appropriate local authority, the authority was satisfied that they were homeless, had become homeless unintentionally, and had a priority need for accommodation, as specified in the Act.

  As I said in an earlier reply to the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Raynsford)—Official Report, 21 October 1993, column 281—the Government propose to reform the homelessness legislation. We intend that the new legislation should continue to provide that suitable accommodation is available for vulnerable people who are genuinely homeless through no fault of their own. We will announce our proposals shortly.

  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what discussions he has held with local authorities during the last 12 months about the occupation of council housing stock by squatters; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir George Young
  My Department discusses housing management issues regularly with the local authority associations. These have not focussed specifically on squatting, but the associations responded to my right hon. and learned Friend's consultation paper on the proposals in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill.

  Defective Houses
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will take further measures to aid financially persons who knowingly purchased defective houses under the right-to-buy scheme and who now find they cannot sell them on.

  Sir George Young
  No. The housing defects legislation —part XVI of the Housing Act 1985—compensates people who purchased designated defective house types from public sector landlords before it was known that they contained serious inherent structural defects, and who paid a price which did not reflect the existence of the defects. People who knowingly purchase defective houses do so at their own risk, and the purchase price should take account of the defects.

  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many homes, classified as defective under the Housing Act 1985, have been sold under the right-to-buy scheme.

  Sir George Young
  Local authority returns do not identify how many dwellings designated defective under part XVI of the Housing Act 1985 have been sold under the right-to-buy scheme. However, local authorities report that some 31,000 designated dwellings were sold by public sector bodies to people qualifying for assistance under the housing defects scheme.

  Home Energy Efficiency Scheme
  Mr. Bowden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what target he has set for take-up by pensioners of the home energy efficiency scheme over the first year of its extension to all pensioner households.
  6
  Mr. Atkins
  The target for the home energy efficiency scheme in 1994–95 is to treat 440,000 homes. My Department does not set a separate target for pensioner households.

  Water Charges
  Mr. Parry
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what representations he has received concerning the level of water charges in the north-west.

  Mr. Atkins
  The regulation of water charges is a matter for the Director General of Water Services. But my right hon. Friend has received representations from a number of hon. Members and members of the public about North West Water's charges.

  North West Water's average household bill in 1993–94 for unmeasured water and sewerage services is £169. The equivalent average for England and Wales is £185.

  Radioactive Waste
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what criteria he intends to use to judge whether or not the option of high for low-level waste substitution of radioactive reprocessing wastes wall produce an environmental detriment to the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Atkins
  The Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee has been asked to identify the environmental implications resulting from substitution and to advise in what circumstances these may be significant.

  Carbon Dioxide Emissions
  Mr. Dafis
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his estimate of the annual increase in global carbon dioxide emissions which will result from the additional production resulting from the latest round in the general agreement on tariffs and trade.

  Mr. Atkins
  The intergovernmental panel on climate change will be evaluating projections of world greenhouse gas emissions, including the impact of the GATT, for its second assessment report to be published in 1995. The implications are not solely for increased emissions. Increased trade and prosperity offer the opportunity for investment in more efficient production and use of energy generally in both developed and developing countries. The obligations for developed countries under the Framework Convention on Climate Change to take measures aimed at returning greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2000, and for all parties to the convention to review the adequacy of provisions by the end of the decade, remain.

  Departmental Representations
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his answer of 15 December regarding representations to his Department, in what format records relating to such representations are kept.

  Mr. Baldry
  Since 1991 we have received a large number of representations of various types about the review of local government structure. Those received in response to departmental consultation exercises are retained separately, as are those about individual reviews in progress. Correspondence dealing with particular local
  7
  government functions is also kept together. Formal representations to the Secretary of State on the Local Government Commission's final reports are of course recorded with particular care. Other representations are generally retained according to their origin.

  Nuclear Fuel Storage
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what consideration he has given to the matters raised in and recommendations of the report of July, presented by the European Parliament's Environment Committee on the environmental and public health aspects of the storage, transport and reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel (A3–0220/93) a copy of which was sent to Her Majesty's Government by the President of the Parliament.

  Mr. Atkins
  The conclusions of the report have been noted.

  Council Tax
  Mr. Bowden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his best estimate of the percentage take-up of the single person's discount for the council tax by all pensioner households which would be eligible.

  Mr. Baldry
  I have no information about the take-up rate for discounts.

  Mr. Bayley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many appeals against council tax valuations from York residents(a) have been heard since April and (b) are currently outstanding.

  Mr. Baldry
  As at 31 December 1993, of the 1,425 proposals to alter the valuation list received in the area of York district council, two had been heard by the valuation tribunal as appeals and 958 were outstanding. A total of 465 had therefore been settled by discussion between the listing officer and the taxpayer, and we expect most proposals to be resolved in this way.

  Energy Efficiency
  Mr. Bowden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what steps he is taking to publicise the extension to all pensioners of the home energy efficiency scheme.

  Mr. Atkins
  The Energy Action Grants —AgencyEAGA—is responsible for administering the home energy efficiency scheme. EAGA supply HEES leaflets free of charge to local authorities, Housing benefit offices, housing associations, citizens advice bureaux, the Benefits Agency, job centres, Age Concern and other organisations which have contact with the HEES client group. EAGA also encourages installers to promote HEES locally by means of advertising, press publicity and distribution of its own leaflets.

  Negative Equity
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will estimate the number of households with negative equity in each region in each year since 1987.

  Sir George Young
  Estimates of the number of households with negative equity are not available for all regions and all years since 1987. Estimates made for the third quarter of 1993, are as follows:8

  Number

  Greater London

  140,000

  South East excluding London

  340,000

  South West and East Anglia

  160,000

  East Midlands and West Midlands

  100,000

  Yorkshire and Humberside, North West, North

  60,000

  England

  800,000

  Changes in the value of houses between the quarter in which they were purchased and the third quarter of 1993 are estimated from the DoE mix-adjusted index of prices of second hand dwellings. Mortgage debt is as at the time of purchase, as there is no direct information about subsequent changes. Ratios of mortgage advances to price, and the distribution of purchases between regions as derived from the building societies mortgage survey are assumed to have applied to house purchase loans by other lenders as well, in the absence of specific information about them.

  Public Bodies
  Mr. Straw
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment in respect of how many boards, authorities, committees and other public bodies he is responsible, in whole or in part, for appointments; what is the total number of such appointments; and what is the total public spending by such boards, authorities, committees and other public bodies.

  Mr. Gummer
  Information about the nationalised industries and non-departmental public bodies for which I am responsible is contained in "Public Bodies 1993". A copy is available in the House of Commons Library and shows the number of bodies, their gross expenditure and the number of appointments to each body.

  "Public Bodies" includes the Commons Commissioners and valuation tribunals, for which I am responsible but to which appointments are made by the Lord Chancellor and local authorities respectively.

  I also appoint one-third of the members of the seven national park authorities in England and nine of the 35 members of the Broads Authority. Departmental support for these bodies in 1992–93 was £16·4 million.

  No central record is maintained of departmental committees and boards not listed in "Public Bodies".

  Coventry Cyrenians and Norton House
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) if he will consider the provision of emergency help to Coventry Cyrenians and Norton House in Coventry;

  (2) what long-term plans he has to provide increases in grants to Coventry Cyrenians and Norton House;

  (3) what representations he has received from Coventry Cyrenians and Norton House about the effect of recent cuts in grants.

  Sir George Young
  My Department has received no request for emergency help from the Coventry day centre —Norton House—or from Coventry Cyrenians; nor has either organisation made formal representations about the level of grant it is receiving in 1993–94 under section 73 of the Housing Act 1985 as revenue funding for homelessness
  9
  projects. Coventry day centre has sought to vary the terms of its current grant agreement, and we will consider that request when we have received further information.

  I will be considering shortly, on their merits, the applications which both organisations have made for grant under section 73 in 1994–95. Any future applications will be treated similarly.

  Quangos
  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the names of all former British representative members in the European Parliament who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Name of body

  Postholder

  Position

  Annual salary (£)

  First appointed to board

  Present appointment

  From

  To

  Commission for the New Towns

  Lord Finsberg

  Deputy Chairman

  9,790

  1 September 1992

  1 September 1992

  31 August 1996

  Lord Bellwin

  Member

  5,310

  1 April 1985

  1 April 1993

  31 March 1995

  Countryside Commission

  Lord Denham

  Member

  5,050

  1 August 1993

  1 August 1993

  30 June 1996

  English Nature

  Earl of Cranbrook

  Chairman

  35,150

  5 November 1990

  5 November 1990

  31 March 1994

  Earl Peel

  Member

  6,310

  5 November 1990

  1 April 1993

  31 March 1996

  Housing Action Trust North Hull

  Lord Bellwin

  Chairman

  25,315

  20 July 1993

  20 July 1993

  19 July 1995

  Joint Nature Conservation Committee

  Lord Selborne

  Chairman

  23,435

  4 September 1991

  4 September 1991

  31 March 94

  National Rivers Authority

  Lord Crickhowell

  Chairman

  52,945

  10 July 1989

  10 July 1989

  30 June 1994

  Lord Gregson

  Member

  8,090

  1 July 1991

  1 November 1992

  31 October 1995

  Rural Development Commission

  Lord Shuttleworth

  Chairman

  31,360

  1 May 1990

  1 May 1990

  30 April 1994

  Urban Development Corporation Leeds

  Baroness Lockwood

  Member

  5,030

  30 June 1988

  30 June 1991

  29 June 1994

  Urban Development Corporation London Docklands

  Lord Cocks

  Deputy Chairman

  23,175

  1 November 1988

  2 March 1992

  1 March 1995

  Urban Development Corporation

  Lord Dormand

  Deputy Chairman

  8,590

  22 June 1987

  22 June 1993

  21 June 1995

  Teesside

  Baroness Eccles

  Member

  5,030

  22 June 1987

  22 June 1993

  21 June 1995

  Urban Regeneration Agency

  Lord Walker

  Chairman

  1—

  10 November 1993

  10 November 1993

  9 November 1996

  1 Salary declined.

  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the names of all former hon. Members who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, ex-cluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. Baldry
  Such information is not available centrally.

  Nuclear Issues
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) how many meetings he or Ministers or officials of his Department had with the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs or Ministers or officials of his Department in regard to nuclear proliferation or nuclear security issues since 16 November 1992;

  (2) how many meetings he held with the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food between 21 May and 28 June on the reports submitted by the pollution and agriculture inspectorate on THORP—the thermal oxide reprocessing plant.
  10
  Mr. Baldry
  Such information is not available centrally.

  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the names of all individuals who are or were members of the House of Lords who since 1979 have been appointed to any quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. Baldry
  The following members of the House of Lords currently serving on the boards of executive non-departmental public bodies sponsored by my Department. Information on previous appointments is not available centrally.

  Mr. Atkins
  Ministerial colleagues and officials have had a number of meetings with Ministers and officials from other Government Departments on issues relating to the revised draft authorisations for the disposal of radioactive waste from the Sellafield site.

  Community Charge
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his estimate of the number of people with outstanding community charge liability; and what is the average sum involved.

  Mr. Baldry
  The information requested is not available.

  THORP
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many copies of his decision on the application by British Nuclear Fuels for authorisations to discharge radioactive wastes from the thermal oxide reprocessing plant at Sellafield as issued on 15 December were published; at what cost; and to which organisation and individuals they were circulated.
  11
  Mr. Atkins
  Copies of the decision document were placed in the House Libraries and the Vote Office and sent to all those who were consulted, at no charge.

  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what account he took of the concerns raised by the group of United States Congress members, Japanese Diet members and hon. and right hon. Members, over the proliferation risk of THORP, before deciding on support for THORP at Sellafield.

  Mr. Atkins
  My right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for the Environment and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food took into account all responses to the consultation before reaching their decisions.

  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what has been the total cost of consultation with other departments of Her Majesty's Government seeking interdepartmental advice on THORP as part of the review of the submissions to the THORP consultation process referred to at paragraph 19 of his decision document on THORP of 15 December.

  Mr. Atkins
  These costs have not been separately identified.

  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the application of article 14 of the 1978 tripartite UK-Euratom-IAEA Safeguards Agreement to the safeguards for the thermal oxide reprocessing plant set out in paragraphs 142–43 of the decision document on THORP.

  Mr. Eggar
  I have been asked to reply.

  Article 14 of the 1978 tripartite UK-Euratom-IAEA safeguards agreement describes provisions for the exclusion of nuclear material from safeguards by the United Kingdom on the grounds of national security and applies to safeguarded material at all United Kingdom facilities subject to the agreement. The thermal oxide reprocessing plant—THORP—at Sellafield will be used for the reprocessing of civil nuclear material only.

  Wildlife and Countryside (Management Agreements)
  Mr. Martlew
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many management agreements have been entered into under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 in England where payments have been in each band of £10,000 up to £60,000 or £60,000 and over; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Atkins
  Fifteen management agreements involving payments of between £10,000 and £60,000 and one involving payments of over £60,000 were made in England by English Nature in the financial year 1992–93. Figures for the years 1986–87 to 1991–92 have been given to the House by English Nature and its predecessor the Nature Conservancy Council in annual reports to Parliament which are available in the Library of the House.

  Mr. Martlew
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how much has been spent on management agreements in England under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 for sites of special scientific interest in each year since the Act came into force; if for each year he will give the number of agreements, the hectarages involved, and what the threats of damage were; and if he will make a statement.
  12
  Mr. Atkins
  Details of annual expenditure on management agreements in England and the hectarage involved are given by English Nature and its predecessor the Nature Conservancy Council in annual reports to Parliament which are available in the Library of the House. Details of the threats in each individual case could be supplied only at disproportionate cost.

  Nuclear Reprocessing (Discharges)
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what information he has received from the National Radioactive Protection Board regarding the comparative exposure levels to carbon 14 arising from the operation of nuclear reprocessing in the United Kingdom against the levels of discharges abroad.

  Mr. Atkins
  Copies of the National Radiological Protection Board's letter of 25 November about Sellafield collective dose assessments are in the House Library.

  Hedgerows and Ponds
  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the remit, the name of the organisation conducting the work, the publication date and the cost of the survey he has commissioned into hedgerows and ponds in England and Wales; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Atkins
  The current hedgerow survey aims to assess the type and amount of changes to hedgerows and ponds which occurred between 1984, 1990 and 1993 in England and Wales. The work is being undertaken by the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology and will be completed by 31 March 1994. The results will be published as soon as possible thereafter. The Department's maximum total liability for the work is £87,988.

  Caravan Sites Act 1968
  Mr. Luff
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the progress of his review of the Caravan Sites Act 1968.

  Mr. Baldry
  I announced our legislative proposals on 31 March 1993 at column 291. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill, introduced on 17 December, includes provisions to implement those proposals.

  Mr. Luff
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will designate Wychavon district council under the Caravan Sites Act 1968; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Baldry
  Wychavon district council and Hereford and Worcester county council have submitted to my Department a joint application for the designation of Wychavon under section 12 of the Caravan Sites Act 1968. The application is now being considered, and I will write to my hon. Friend when I have made a decision.

  Hydrochlorofluorocarbons
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to write the letter to the hon. Member for Tooting mentioned in his answer of 5 November,Official Report, column 487, on HCFCs.

  Mr. Atkins
  My hon. Friend the then Minister for the Environment and Countryside wrote to the hon. Member for Tooting on 29 November 1993.

  Asylum and Immigration (Housing)
  Mr. Gerrard
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to publish the code of guidance for local authorities on the implementation of the housing provisions of the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993.

  Sir George Young
  Following wide consultation on a draft version, I hope to issue to local authorities in the next few weeks guidance on the housing provisions of the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993. The guidance will take the form of a supplement to the current, 3rd, 1991, edition of the homelessness code of guidance for local authorities.

  Rents
  Ms Coffey
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish figures broken down by rent registration area showing the number of private sector cases referred to rent officers, and the number of cases where rents were reduced as a result, for 1989–90, 1990–91, 1992–93 and the latest available date for the current year.

  Sir George Young
  Information from January 1990, on housing benefit referrals to rent officers classified by registration area, can be found in table 1.3 of the publication "Rent Officer Statistics". The latest figures available are for the June quarter of 1993. No comparable data is available for the period April to December 1989.

  Copies of this quarterly publication are in the Library.

  SSSIs
  Mr. Martlew
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) how many sites of special scientific interest in England have been de-notified in each year since 1982; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) how many sites of scientific interest in England have been damaged or destroyed in each year since 1982; whether each of these sites (a) was lost completely, (b) was partially lost, (c) suffered long-term damage or (d) suffered short-term damage; whether the damage or destruction in each case was due to (i) agriculture, (ii) forestry, (iii) poor management, (iv) pollution, (v) third-party activities, (vi) developments controlled through the planning system, (vii) road building or (viii) other activities; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Atkins
  The information requested is contained in the annual reports of English Nature and of the former Nature Conservancy Council, copies of which are in the Library.

  Grandstands
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what steps have been taken to ensure the checking by qualified engineers of temporary grandstand structures; and whether existing technical guidance on the design of such structures is being taken fully into account.

  Mr. Baldry
  The Government recognise the importance of checking temporary grandstand structures by qualified engineers. The Building Regulations Advisory Committee has considered this recently, and as a result my officials are discussing with the Institution of Structural Engineers and other bodies in what ways the existing technical guidance needs to be strengthened.

  National Parks
  Martlew
  172. Mr. To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the occasions when his powers of compulsory purchase of land under section 17 of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 have been used in England in each year since 1981; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Atkins
  The Secretary of State has confirmed one compulsory purchase order over land within Somerset. However, following further discussions with the landowner the compulsory purchase order was not implemented.

  Crossrail (Compensation)
  Mr. Butterfill
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the issues examined earlier in respect of the statutory compensation code referred to by the Minister for Transport in London in the Second Reading debate on the Crossrail Bill on 8 June 1993,Official Report, column 219; and if he will make a statement concerning the details of the extent and character of the facts and evidence that were taken into account in deciding that the provisions strike a fair balance between the interests of landowners and the community as a whole.

  Mr. Baldry
  The main compensation concerns raised in relation to the Crossrail project have been, firstly, that owners of high value commercial property which may need to be compulsorily acquired should have the protection of the statutory blight code and, secondly, that London Regional Transport should be statutorily required to acquire property which stands to be seriously affected by construction work.

  The provisions of the compensation code reflect a judgment as to what constitutes a sensible balance between, on the one hand, the interests of those whose land is required for or affected by public development and, on the other, the prudent use of public funds. We have carefully examined the representations made to my Department by the Crossrail compensation campaign. But the present Government, like their predecessors, are not persuaded of the case for bringing high value commercial property within the scope of the statutory blight code or for placing bodies responsible for public development under an obligation to acquire property for which they have no use. Commercial interests in London will ultimately derive substantial benefits from major infrastructure projects such as Crossrail

  "London: Making the Best Better"
  Mr. Dobson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many replies have been received to the document "London: Making the Best Better"; and how many were from addresses(a) in inner London, (b) outer London and (c) outside London.

  Mr. Gummer
  [holding answer 10 December 1993]: Nearly 9,000 completed questionnaires have been received so far. Information about the location of respondents is still being analysed.

  Press Releases
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many press releases his Department has issued in each year since 1979.
  15
  Mr. Gummer
  [holding answer 16 December 1993]: The number of press notices which have been issued by my Department are as follows:

  Number

  1979

  601

  1980

  552

  1981

  510

  1982

  520

  1983

  606

  1984

  592

  1985

  642

  1986

  703

  1987

  552

  1988

  737

  1989

  736

  1990

  739

  1991

  819

  1992

  865

  1993

  1866

  1 To date.

  Local Government Legislation
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many powers were conferred upon the holder of his post by(a) the Local Government Act 1988, (b) the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1990, (c) the Local Government Finance and Valuation Act 1991, (d) the Local Government Finance Act 1992 and (e) the Land and Urban Development Act 1992.

  Mr. Curry
  [holding answer 16 December 1993]: The information requested can be provided only at dispropor-tionate cost.

  Regional Regeneration Budget
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will tabulate each of the existing Government programmes for Greater London which he is expecting to incorporate in the planned unified regional regeneration budget, together with the sums he intends to allocate to each programme together with the total.

  Mr. Gummer
  [holding answer 17 December 1993]: From 1 April 1994, the single regeneration budget will bring together 20 existing Government programmes to provide flexible support for local initiatives to promote regeneration and economic development in England. The Government programmes transferring to the budget are:
  From the Department of the Environment:

  Estate Action

  Housing Action Trusts

  City Challenge/Urban Programme

  Urban Regeneration Agency

  Urban Development Corporations

  Inner City Task Forces

  City Action Teams

  From the Employment Department

  Programme Development Fund

  Education Business Partnerships

  Teacher Placement Service

  Compacts/Inner City Compacts

  Business Start-Up Scheme

  Local Initiative Fund

  TEC Challenge

  From the Home Office

  Safer Cities

  Section II Grants (part)

  Ethnic Minority Grant

  Ethnic Minority Business Grant

  16
  From the Department of Trade and Industry
  Regional Enterprise Grants (plus English Estates, to be subsumed into English Partnerships)
  From the Department for Education
  Grants for Education Support and Training (part)
  Resources totalling over £1·4 billion are being made available under the single regeneration budget in 1994–95: a regional breakdown is not currently available. However a regional breakdown of resources for 1993–94 under my Department's targeted programmes was provided in my reply to the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) on 10 December at columns 384–86.

  Departmental Offices
  Mr. Straw
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the regional and area offices of his Department, of the Property Services Agency—and its successors—the pollution inspectorate, the National Rivers Authority, the Countryside Commission, the Housing Corporation, the Audit Commission, the Rural Development Commission, the Nature Conservancy Council, and of other inspectorates, agencies and other public bodies for which he is responsible.

  Mr. Gummer
  [holding answer 17 December 1993]: The regional and area offices of the Department of the Environment and of the agencies and non-departmental public bodies for which I have responsibility are as listed.
  1. Regional Offices of the Department of the Environment
  Northern (Newcastle Upon Tyne), Yorkshire and Humberside (Leeds), North West (Manchester), West Midlands (Birmingham), East Midlands (Nottingham), Eastern (Bedford), South West (Bristol), South East (London), Merseyside Task Force (Liverpool), London.
  2. Property Services Agency
  Following the sale in 1993 of PSA's Building Management businesses, PSA Services now has headquarters in Central London, Croydon and Hastings, together with smaller outstationed offices in Croydon, Bristol, Cambridge, Manchester, Leeds and Edinburgh.
  3. HMIP
  Anglian (Bedford, Lincoln) Midlands (Sutton Coldfield) North East (Leeds, Sheffield, Thornaby) North West (Lancaster, Runcorn) Southern (Fleet, East Grinstead) South West (Bristol) Wales (Cardiff).
  4. Agencies, Non-Departmental Public Bodies (NDPBs) and other organisations sponsored by the Secretary of State for the Environment, as at December 1993.
  Executive Agencies
  Building Research Establishment: Garston, Borehamwood, Cardington, East Kilbride.

  The Planning Inspectorate: Bristol, Cardiff.

  Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre: London.

  The Buying Agency: Liverpool.

  Security Facilities Executive: London, Burtonwood, Cardiff.

  Ordnance Survey: Southampton, and 120 field offices throughout Great Britain.

  Executive NDPBs

  Audit Commission: London, Bristol, Chorley, Exeter, Gateshead, Leeds, Redhill, Solihull, Stevenage, Winchester, Cardiff (and other local offices in England and Wales)

  British Board of Agrément: Garston

  Commission for the New Towns: London, Basildon, Milton Keynes, Telford, Warrington

  Countryside Commission: Cheltenham, Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne

  English Nature: Peterborough, Ashford, Newbury, Newcastle upon Tyne, Shrewsbury, Taunton, Windermere

  English Partnerships: London

  Housing Action Trusts: Birmingham (Castle Vale), Hull, Liverpool, London (Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest)

  Housing Corporation: London, Croydon, Exeter, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester, Wolverhampton

  Joint Nature Conservation Committee: Peterborough

  Letchworth Garden City Corporation: Letchworth

  17

  Local Government Commission: London

  London Pensions Fund Authority: London

  London Residuary Body: London

  National Rivers Authority: Bristol, Birmingham, Bridgewater, Exeter, Leeds, London, Newcastle upon Tyne, Peterborough, Reading, Solihull, Warrington, Worthing, Cardiff, plus 89 district offices, 121 depots and 27 fish farms and laboratories

  Rural Development Commission: Salisbury, London, Bedford, Belper, Bingham, Bury St Edmonds, Darlington, Dorchester, Exeter, Goole, Lewes, Maidstone, Malvern, Moreton-in-Marsh, Morpeth, Nantwich, Newport (Isle of Wight), Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Penrith, Preston, Skelton, Sleaford, Stoneleigh Park, Taunton, Telford, Truro, Winchester

  United Kingdom Ecolabelling Board: London

  Urban Development Corporations: Birmingham (Black Country and Heartlands), Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, London (Docklands), Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, Plymouth, Sheffield, Stockton-On-Tees

  Advisory NDPBs

  Inland Waterways Amenity Advisory Council: Birmingham

  Local Government Staff Commission: London

  Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution: London

  Tribunals

  Commons Commission: London

  Rent Assessment Panels: Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Ipswich, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Nottingham, Plymouth, Southampton, Watford, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow

  Valuation Tribunals: Aylesbury, Birmingham, Bolton, Botley, Bridlington, Cheltenham, Chester, Chesterfield, Chichester, Chorlton-Cum-Hardy, Croydon, Darlington, Doncaster, Dudley, Eastbourne, Harrow, Hertford, Homcastle, Hounslow, Ilford, Ipswich, Leamington Spa, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Maidstone, Middlesbrough, North Shields, Norwich, Nottingham, Peterborough, Plymouth, Preston, Southampton, Stafford, Whitehaven, Winchester, Witham, Woking, Wokingham, Worcester, Yeovil. (There are also Tribunal offices in Cardiff, Carmarthen, Colwyn Bay and Newport.)

  Other Bodies
  British Waterways Board (Nationalised Industry): Watford, Bilston, Bradford, Bromsgrove, Burton-on-Trent, Castleford, Devizes, Ellesmere, Enfield, Gloucester, Hemel Hempstead, Lancaster, Leeds, London (Paddington), Loughborough, Manchester, Northwich, Nottingham, Nuneaton, Rugby, Stafford, Tamworth, Tring, Warwick, Wigan, York, Abergavenny, Argyll, Falkirk, Glasgow, Inverness.
  Commission for Local Administration: London, Coventry, York. Office of Water Services (OFWAT): Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Exeter, Leeds, London, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, Cardiff.

  Notes:

  1. For Agencies and NDPBs, where only one office is listed this is the headquarters; every Housing Action Trust and Urban Development Corporation has one office. For organisations with more than one office, headquarters offices are shown in italics.

  2. Where an organisation operates in a very large number of locations, the main ones have been listed and numbers given for the rest.

  3. Offices in Wales and Scotland are shown for organisations operating throughout Great Britain.

  4. Other advisory NDPBs operate from the Department's offices in London.

  Communication Masts
  Mr. Byers
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to make the erection of communication masts subject to the normal local authority planning procedures; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Baldry
  [holding answer 17 December 1993]: I have no plans to change the selective planning controls over the erection of telecommunication masts which were introduced in January 1993.

  The erection of masts up to 15 m in height has a general planning permission, under the Town and Country
  18
  Planning General Development Order 1988. But if a local planning authority considers that a proposed mast would threaten amenity, it may determine that prior approval is required for its siting and appearance. The mast may not then be erected without that approval. A planning application is required for masts above 15 m, and in protected areas such as conservation areas and areas of outstanding natural beauty.

  I am satisfied that these powers strike a reasonable balance between the need to protect amenity and the needs of the telecommunications industry.

NATIONAL FINANCE

  Children's Homes
  Mrs. Fyfe
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make it his policy to exempt residential establishments which care for children with multiple handicaps who require a very warm atmosphere and which are labour intensive(a) from VAT on fuel and (b) from bearing the cost of statutory sick pay.

  Sir John Cope
  VAT is designed as a broad-based tax on general consumer expenditure. In line with this principle the changes in the taxation of fuel and power will apply across the board to all consumers. Special treatment or particular sectors would produce inconsistencies. The revenue and environmental objectives of the changes would be put at risk. It is far better to provide extra financial help to those who need it via the benefit system, and this is what the Government have done.

  Subject to parliamentary approval, the Statutory Sick Pay Bill 1993 will end the reimbursement of 80 per cent. of employers' SSP costs from April 1994. At the same time, employers' national insurance contributions will be reduced to ensure that employers as a whole are more than compensated for their additional SSP costs. Small employers will receive further help in the form of full reimbursement of any SSP paid after four weeks' sick absence.

  Grace and Favour Accommodation
  Mr. Alan Williams
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer on what basis and how frequently(a) grace and favour accommodation and (b) accommodation for members of the royal family no longer on the civil list at the occupied royal palaces is assessed for taxable value ; when the last assessment was; what is the gross value of these assessments; and on how many of each category tax is actually paid.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The same income tax rules apply to grace and favour accommodation as to other living accommodation. Accommodation which is taxable is assessed each year along with other income. The information requested by the hon. Member about the number and value of assessments on grace and favour accommodation is not held centrally and could be obtained only at a disproportionate cost.

  As regards the tax affairs of certain members of the royal family, I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 16 December 1993 at column 844.

  Quangos
  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the names of all individuals who are or were members of the House of Lords who since 1979 have been appointed to any quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. Nelson
  Since 1979 the following members of the House of Lords have held appointments on quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations for which I have responsibility:

  (a) Securities and Investments Board (SIB):

  Lord Runciman: non-executive director; duration of appointment four years from 1986; salary £8,000 pa in 1986 to £ 10,500 in 1989. Deputy chairman; duration of appointment four years from 1990; salary £32,500 pa.

  Lord Stewartby: non-executive director; duration of appointment two years from 1993; salary £13,500 pa. Lord Alexander of Weedon: Deputy chairman; duration of appointment three years from 1994; salary £32,500 pa.

  (b) Financial Services Tribunal (FST):

  Lord Grantchester: chairman; duration of appointment three years from 1988 to 1991; paid a daily fee for work done.

  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the names of all former British representative members in the European Parliament who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. Nelson
  Since 1979 no former British representative members in the European Parliament have held appointments on quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations for which I have responsibility.

  Exchange Rate
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what is the reduction in the sterling exchange rate since(a) August 1992 and (b) February 1993 in terms of 1990 weights for United Kingdom imports plus United Kingdom exports of manufacturers; and what are the corresponding figures for the ecu and non-ecu currencies;

  (2) if the country weights used in the Bank of England index covers total United Kingdom imports as well as United Kingdom exports;

  (3) what is the reduction in the rate of exchange between sterling and non-ecu currencies since (a) August 1992 and (b) February 1993; and if he will publish a table showing the rate of exchange for sterling against non-ecu currencies for each year since 1970;

  (4) what was the composition of the Bank of England index for the pound sterling, together with the weights attached to each currency, in 1975 and 1985; and what was the equivalent for 1990 in each case.

  Mr. Nelson
  Figures for the sterling exchange rate on the dates requested and corresponding figures for separate EC and non-EC currencies can be found in the monthly CSO "Financial Statistics" publication and in the monthly OECD "Main Economic Indicators" publication. A single exchange rate index against non-EC currencies is not available. Sterling exchange rates in terms of 1990 weights for United Kingdom imports and exports could be 20
  constructed from data in the CSO "Monthly Review of External Trade Statistics", but only at disproportionate cost. A table of rates of exchange of sterling against separate non-EC currencies for each year since 1970 could be reproduced only at disproportionate cost.

  From 2 February 1981 to 2 January 1989 the weights of the Bank of England sterling exchange rate index were based on average trade flows at 1977, with a base year of 1975. From 3 January 1989 to the present day, weights have been based on disaggregated trade flows at 1980 with a base year of 1985. The weighted composition and methodological construction of the sterling exchange rate index at the dates requested are available in the Treasury "Economic Progress Report" for March 1977 and the Bank of England "Quarterly Bulletins" for March 1981 and November 1988.

  Sovereign Immunity
  Mr. Hardy
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to his answer of 16 December,Official Report, column 842, in which OECD states sovereign immunity arrangements in respect of repayment of taxes upon business are more severe than in the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The arrangements which most OECD countries adopt in this area are not statutory and comprehensive information about their practice is not available. An exception is the United States of America which, under section 892 of the IRS code, provides a statutory exemption for the investment income of foreign Governments. Although details are not available, I understand that a number of other OECD countries adopt a similar approach in practice.

  Unified Budget
  Mr. Luff
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what representations he has received about the impact of the date of the unified budget on retail sales; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Dorrell
  I have received a number of letters on this subject. The Government recognise the importance of pre-Christmas consumer expenditure to businesses, especially retailers, and will continue to take this factor into account in deciding the most appropriate dates for future Budgets.

  Fears that retail sales would suffer this year in the run-up to the Budget in November have, however, proved groundless. Retail sales have been on a strong upward trend for over a year, and stand at record levels. In the three months to November—the three months before the Budget —they were 3·6 per cent. up on the equivalent period in 1992.

  Customs and Excise
  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of the losses in customs and excise duties arising from the operation of the European single market and cross-channel shopping; and how this has changed from previous estimates.

  Sir John Cope
  I refer to the answer given to the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East (Mr. Brown) on 10 December at column 403. The latest estimate of the total revenue loss—£175 million—compares with an estimate of £250 million published in March 1992.
  21
  Sir Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the total net payment to the EC since 1 January 1973.

  Mr. Nelson
  The United Kingdom's total net contribution to the European Communities' budget from 1973 to 1993 is £20 billion.

  Barlow Clowes Group
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will list the names and addresses of the parties he has brought legal proceedings against in connection with the affairs of the collapsed Barlow Clowes Group.

  Mr. Nelson
  In the course of proceedings against third parties to reduce the cost to the taxpayer of its ex gratia payments scheme for Barlow Clowes investors, the Government have issued over 500 writs. The details of these writs could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Customs and Excise, Gatwick
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) how many passengers arriving at Gatwick in charter or scheduled flights from the Caribbean on 21 December 1993 were strip searched; what sex the passengers were who were strip searched; what illegal substances were discovered; how many passengers objected to or refused to be strip searched; and under what powers passengers are strip searched.

  (2) what illegal substances were found by Customs and Excise officers on passengers from Jamaica who arrived on charter or scheduled flights from the Caribbean arriving at Gatwick on 21 December 1993; if he will give details of the circumstances; and how many passengers were charged with any related offences;

  (3) how many Customs and Excise officers were on duty during the day at Gatwick South Terminal on 7 December 1993: 14 December 1993; 21 December 1993: 28 December 1993 and 4 January 1994.

  Sir John Cope
  On 21 December 1993 a total of three passengers—two males and one female—arriving at Gatwick on flights from the Caribbean were subject to strip search by Customs. No objections were raised and no passenger refused to be strip searched. No illegal substances, were found on the passengers searched. In the search of passengers, Customs act within the provisions of section 164 of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979.

  No illegal substances were found by Customs on any passenger arriving from Jamaica who arrived on charter or scheduled flights from the Caribbean arriving at Gatwick on 21 December 1993. Consequently no passengers were charged with any related offences.

  The only staff based specifically at Gatwick south terminal are those who deal with demand-led activities such as duty collection, VAT retail export schemes, custody officers and so on. The numbers of these for the dates in question are as follows:

  Staff

  7 December 1993

  15

  14 December 1993

  15

  21 December 1993

  16

  28 December 1993

  21

  4 January 1994

  14

  22
  For anti-smuggling purposes, including intelligence and investigation, Customs staff are not based at any particular terminal at Gatwick but are required to respond to the perceived risk at any given time. The total number of these staff on duty at Gatwick on the days listed was as follows:

  Anti-Smuggling

  Intell. and Invest.

  7 December 1993

  75

  23

  14 December 1993

  67

  25

  21 December 1993

  55

  22

  28 December 1993

  66

  17

  4 January 1994

  57

  17

  Stamp Duty Reserve Tax
  Mr. Dykes
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many representations he has received on the issue of the imposition of stamp duty reserve tax on American depositary receipts issued on behalf of United Kingdom companies; and from whom.

  Mr. Nelson
  [holding answer 17 December 1993]: I have received a few representations on this matter.

  Mr. Dykes
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what assessment he has made about the impact of stamp duty reserve tax on rights and scrip issues arising from American depositary receipts issued on behalf of United Kingdom companies on inward investment into the United Kingdom;

  (2) if he will outline the Government's policy on the taxation of rights offers and scrip issues taken up by American shareholders of American depositary receipts issued on behalf of United Kingdom companies.

  Mr. Nelson
  [holding answer 17 December 1993]: Higher rate stamp duty reserve tax applies to all new shares going into depositary receipt form, including rights and scrip issues. This reflects the fact that stamp duty reserve is not charged on transactions in the depositary receipts themselves. These arrangements provide a fair balance between investment in depositary receipt form and investment through direct shareholdings.

  Civil Servants
  Mr. Burns
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how the regional distribution of the civil service has changed since the Government's current relocation policy was introduced in March 1988; and what plans he has for monitoring and reporting the relocation of civil servants.

  Mr. Dorrell
  Under the Government's delegated relocation policy it is for departments and agencies to review the location of their work regularly and systematically with the intention of locating where best value for money is offered.

  The annual publication "Civil Service Statistics" records the regional distribution of civil servants by Department. The 1993 edition shows that between 1 April 1988 and 1 April 1993, influenced by relocation and location decisions, the number of non-industrial civil servants in London and the south-east reduced by nearly 7,000 while the numbers outside the south-east increased by over 4,600. Departments and agencies have also moved civil servants between regions outside the south-east.
  23
  The Government intend to continue monitoring the location of civil servants and publishing the results in "Civil Service Statistics", thereby making evident the changing regional distribution of the civil service. This monitoring will continue, but central monitoring of decisions to relocate civil service posts will be ended.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Exhibitions
  Ms Armstrong
  To ask the Chairman of the Administration Committee if he has considered an application for an exhibition relating to Voluntary Service Overseas, to be displayed in the Upper Waiting Hall.

  Mr. Michael J. Martin
  I understand that, under procedures agreed by the Administration Committee, arrangements have been made for the exhibition to be held in the Upper Waiting Hall from 21 February to Friday 25 February.

  Mr. Milligan
  To ask the Chairman of the Administration Committee if he has considered an application for an exhibition relating to the "BBC Marshall Plan of the Mind" to be displayed in the Upper Waiting Hall.

  Mr. Michael J. Martin
  I understand that, under procedures agreed by the Administration Committee, arrangements have been made for the exhibition to be held in the Upper Waiting Hall from 28 February to Friday 4 March.

  Data and Video Network
  Mr. David Shaw
  To ask the Chairman of the Information Committee what consideration has been given to allowing access via the parliamentary data and video network to Government computer data bases which are accessible by the public; and if he will list those data bases which have been considered.

  Mr. Waller
  The Central Office of Information press data base is the only Government computer data base accessible by the public which is at present available as part of the parliamentary data and video network pilot experiment. It contains the text of press notices issued by some Government Departments, and is available via the POLIS service.

  The Library of the House already subscribes to various data bases and is considering the possibility of providing the United Kingdom official publications, census and other data bases, available on CD-ROM, over the network. The Information Committe hopes to publish its report on the parliamentary data and video network early in 1994. Any decisions involving increased funding for the PDVN will need to await that report and its consideration by the House.

  Stationery
  Mrs. Anne Campbell
  To ask the Chairman of the Administration Committee what was the total amount of stationery issued to each hon. Member during the year 1992–93 in terms of(a) sheets of paper, (b) franked envelopes and (c) unfranked envelopes.
  24
  Mr. Michael J. Martin
  During the period from 1 April 1992 to 31 March 1993 7,279,870 sheets of paper; 4,807,376 post paid envelopes and cards; and 1,080,735 unfranked envelopes were issued to Members.

  Visitors
  Mr. Gapes
  To ask the Chairman of the Administration Committee if he will carry out a survey of the number of visitors in the public gallery at 3 pm, 5 pm, 7 pm, 9 pm and 11 pm on Monday 17 January, Tuesday 18 January, Wednesday 19 January, Thursday 20 January and at 11 am on Friday 21 January 1994 or other suitable dates; and if he will publish the results.

  Mr. Michael J. Martin
  The Serjeant at Arms has undertaken to conduct a survey of the kind suggested; and will write to the hon. Member in due course.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Special Advisers
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list the name and job description of each special ministerial adviser employed in his Department showing any particular outputs for which each adviser is responsible.

  Mr. Scott
  My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State, has one special adviser, Mr. Peter Barnes. His duties vary.

  Family Benefits
  Sir David Knox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will publish figures showing(a) the number of United Kingdom families with children and (b) the numbers of United Kingdom children, dependent on family income supplement or family credit in 1979, 1989 and 1992.

  Mr. Burt
  The information provided is for Great Britain only:

  1979 (000's)

  1989 (000's)

  1992 (000's)

  Number of families with dependent children

  17,100

  27,100

  36,900

  Number of dependent children

  113,500

  212,903

  312,500

  Number of families receiving Family Income Supplement or Family Credit

  476

  5313

  6656

  Number of dependent children in families receiving Family Income Supplement or Family Credit

  —

  5435

  6903

  Notes:

  Information about the number of children in families receiving Family Income Supplement in July 1979 is not available.

  Sources:

  1 Based on Child Benefit statistics.

  2 1989 Labour Force Survey.

  3 Based on Child Benefit statistics.

  4 Social Security Statistics: information for 31 July 1979.

  5 Five per cent. sample of Family Credit recipients at 31 July 1989.

  6 Five per cent. sample of Family Credit recipients at 31 July 1992.

  Social Security statistics for Northern Ireland are the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

  Entertainment
  Mr. O'Hara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will itemise under heads of expenditure how the budget for entertainment within his Department was expended in the financial year 1992–93.

  Mr. Hague
  The Department does not have a budget for entertainment. Any such expenditure is met from within the budget for hospitality. I refer the hon. Member to answers I gave to the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) on 20 October 1993, at column 247, 23 November 1993, at columns 34–35, and 30 November 1993, at column 450.

  Benefits
  Mr. Luff
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what steps he will take to ensure that those claimants for the new incapacity benefit who suffer from diseases with cyclical patterns such as ME are not disadvantaged by the objective medical test for the benefit.

  Mr. Scott
  Claimants with such conditions will not be disadvantaged. Doctors from the Benefits Agency medical services, who will apply the new more objective medical test, will be required to consider the effect of conditions on ability to work over a period of time not merely at the point when they conduct the medical examination or when the claimant completes the questionnaire.

  Family Credit
  Mr. Chisholm
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) what percentage of lone parents on family credit receive(a) the maximum applicable level of family credit, (b) within £10 of the maximum applicable level of family credit and (c) within £20 of the maximum applicable level of family credit;

  (2) what percentage of families on family credit receive (a) the maximum applicable level of family credit, (b) within £10 of the maximum applicable level of family credit and (c) within £20 of the maximum applicable level of family credit.

  Mr. Burt
  The information is in the table.

  Lone parents percentage

  All cases percentage

  Families receiving maximum family credit

  28

  24

  Families receiving within £10 of the maximum family credit

  43

  35

  Families receiving within £20 of the maximum family credit

  58

  47

  Source: Five per cent. sample of family credit recipients at 30 April 1993.

  Member

  Title of post

  Duration of appointment

  Annual salary payable

  Lord Mackie

  Member of Central Advisory Committee on War Pensions

  1988-date

  nil

  Lord Mayhew

  Member of Central Advisory Committee on War Pensions

  1982–1987

  nil

  Lord Gridley

  Trustee of Far Eastern (Prisoners of War and Internees) Fund

  1973-date

  nil

  Baroness Vickers

  Trustee of Far Eastern (Prisoners of War and Internees) Fund

  1962–1991

  nil

  Lord Brimelow

  Chairman of Occupational Pensions Board

  1978–1982

  £5,900-£11,100

  Baroness Turner of Camden

  Member of Occupational Pensions Board

  1974–1993

  nil

  Quangos
  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list the names of all former hon. Members who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. Hague
  The available information covering appointments or reappointments since 1979 is as follows. All are non salaried positions.

  The information requested is not readily available for the independent tribunal service and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Former Member and Title of Post

  Duration of Appoinment

  Mr. Dick Dougles

  Member of Central Advisory Committee on War Pensions

  1987–1990

  Sir Paul Hawkins

  Member of Central Advisory Committee on War Pensions

  1976–1987

  Sir David Price

  Member of Central Advisory Committee on War Pensions

  1987–1992

  Mr. Alec Woodall

  Member of Central Advisory Committee on War Pensions

  1975–1987

  Mr. Martin Flannery

  Trustee of Far Eastern (Prisoners of War and Internees) Fund

  1987–1988

  Mr. James Tinn

  Trustee of Far Eastern (Prisoners of War and Internees) Fund

  1979–1986

  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list the names of all individuals who are or were members of the House of Lords who since 1979 have been appointed to any quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. Hague
  The available information covering appointments or reappointments since 1979 is as follows. The information requested is not readily available for the independent tribunal service and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
  27
  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list the names of all former British representative members in the European Parliament who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. Hague
  Details of appointments to the independent tribunal service could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. There are none in the other remaining organisations.

  Income Support
  Mr. Burden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the number of persons without accommodation claiming income support in the area covered by the DSS office in Northfield, Birmingham.

  Table 1

  Sickness Benefit recipients as a percentage of the adult working population

  Region31

  1Estimated total working population

  2Total recipients

  Percentage of population

  1Estimated male working population

  2Male recipients age 16–64

  Percentage of population

  1Estimated female working population

  2Female recipients age 16–59

  Percentage of population

  Great Britain4

  34,576,000

  138,000

  0·40

  18,117,000

  104,000

  0·57

  16,459,000

  34,000

  0·21

  England

  29,678,000

  108,000

  0·36

  15,566,000

  84,000

  0·54

  14,112,000

  25,000

  0·18

  Northern

  1,884,000

  13,000

  0·67

  987,000

  10,000

  0·97

  897,000

  3,000

  0·33

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  3,056,000

  14,000

  0·46

  1,609,000

  12,000

  0·76

  1,447,000

  2,000

  0·13

  East Midlands

  2,492,000

  6,000

  0·25

  1,312,000

  5,000

  0·34

  1,180,000

  2,000

  0·14

  East Anglia

  1,265,000

  3,000

  0·26

  669,000

  3,000

  0·37

  596,000

  1,000

  0·13

  South East

  11,053,000

  26,000

  0·23

  5,770,000

  19,000

  0·33

  5,284,000

  7,000

  0·13

  South Western

  2,823,000

  8,000

  0·29

  1,487,000

  7,000

  0·45

  1,336,000

  1,000

  0·11

  West Midlands

  3,228,000

  13,000

  0·41

  1,705,000

  10,000

  0·59

  1,523,000

  3,000

  0·22

  North Western

  3,877,000

  25,000

  0·64

  2,027,000

  19,000

  0·95

  1,849,000

  5,000

  0·30

  Scotland

  3,174,000

  17,000

  0·53

  1,646,000

  11,000

  0·66

  1,527,000

  6,000

  0·39

  Wales

  1,724,000

  12,000

  0·72

  904,000

  9,000

  1·03

  820,000

  3,000

  0·38

  1 The estimated resident working population at mid-1992, male 16–64, female 16–59 rounded to the nearest thousand.

  Source: Population Estimates Unit, OPCS.

  2 The number of Sickness Benefit recipients on 4 April 1992 of working age.

  Source: 1 per cent. sample of claimants in Great Britain, rounded to the nearest thousand.

  3 Standard Statistical Region.

  4 The Great Britain recipient figures include a number of overseas cases.

  Table 2

  Invalidity Benefit recipients as a percentage of the adult working population

  Region31

  1Estimated total working population

  2Total recipients

  Percentage of population

  1Estimated male working population

  2Male recipients age 16–64

  Percentage of population

  1Estimated female working population

  2Female recipients age 16–59

  Percentage of population

  Great Britain4

  34,576,000

  1,175,000

  3·40

  18,117,000

  845,000

  4·66

  16,459,000

  330,000

  2·00

  England

  29,678,000

  874,000

  2·94

  15,566,000

  641,000

  4·12

  14,112,000

  232,000

  1·65

  Northern

  1,884,000

  107,000

  5·65

  987,000

  81,000

  8·19

  897,000

  26,000

  2·86

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  3,056,000

  112,000

  3·67

  1,609,000

  86,000

  5·36

  1,447,000

  26,000

  1·80

  East Midlands

  2,492,000

  67,000

  2·70

  1,312,000

  52,000

  3·93

  1,180,000

  16,000

  1·33

  East Anglia

  1,265,000

  25,000

  1·94

  669,000

  18,000

  2·75

  596,000

  6,000

  1·04

  South East

  11,053,000

  203,000

  1·84

  5,770,000

  138,000

  2·40

  5,284,000

  65,000

  1·24

  South Western

  2,823,000

  60,000

  2·11

  1,487,000

  46,000

  3·11

  1,336,000

  13,000

  1·00

  West Midlands

  3,228,000

  99,000

  3·05

  1,705,000

  74,000

  4·35

  1,523,000

  24,000

  1·60

  North Western

  3,877,000

  201,000

  5·20

  2,027,000

  146,000

  7·19

  1,849,000

  56,000

  3·01

  Scotland

  3,174,000

  169,000

  5·32

  1,646,000

  111,000

  6·74

  1,527,000

  58,000

  3·79

  Wales

  1,724,000

  125,000

  7·26

  904,000

  87,000

  9·65

  820,000

  38,000

  4·63

  1 The estimated resident working population at mid-1992, male 16–64, female 16–59 rounded to the nearest thousand.

  Source: Population Estimates Unit, OPCS.

  2 The number of Invalidity Benefit recipients on 4 April 1992 of working age.

  Source: 1 per cent. sample of claimants in Great Britain, rounded to the nearest thousand.

  3 Standard Statistical Region.

  4 The Great Britain recipient figures include a number of overseas cases.

  28
  Mr. Burt
  The information is not readily available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Benefit Statistics
  Mr. Hain
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what percentage of(a) the adult male population of working age, (b) the adult female population of working age and (c) the total population of working age receives (i) invalidity benefit, (ii) sickness benefit and (iii) industrial injuries benefit; and if he will provide a breakdown for each standard United Kingdom region.

  Mr. Scott
  The information for Great Britain is in the tables. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, is responsible for Social Security statistics in Northern Ireland.
  29

  Table 3

  Industrial injurious Disablement Benefit Pensions as a percentage of the adult working population

  Region31

  1Estimated total working population

  2Total pensions

  Percentage of population

  1Estimated male working population

  2Male pensions age 16–64

  Percentage of population

  1Estimated female working population

  2Female pensions age 16–59

  Percentage of population

  Great Britain4

  34,576,000

  124,000

  0·36

  18,117,000

  109,000

  0·60

  16,459,000

  15,000

  0·09

  England

  29,678,000

  101,000

  0·34

  15,566,000

  88,000

  0·57

  14,112,000

  13,000

  0·09

  Northern

  1,884,000

  14,000

  0·73

  987,000

  12,000

  1·25

  897,000

  1,000

  0·16

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  3,056,000

  11,000

  0·37

  1,609,000

  10,000

  0·65

  1,447,000

  1,000

  0·06

  East Midlands

  2,492,000

  10,000

  0·40

  1,312,000

  9,000

  0·68

  1,180,000

  1,000

  0·08

  East Anglia

  1,265,000

  4,000

  0·29

  669,000

  3,000

  0·45

  596,000

  1,000

  0·11

  South East

  11,053,000

  23,000

  0·21

  5,770,000

  20,000

  0·34

  5,284,000

  4,000

  0·07

  South Western

  2,823,000

  8,000

  0·27

  1,487,000

  7,000

  0·45

  1,336,000

  1,000

  0·07

  West Midlands

  3,228,000

  14,000

  0·42

  1,705,000

  12,000

  0·69

  1,523,000

  2,000

  0·13

  North Western

  3,877,000

  18,000

  0·47

  2,027,000

  16,000

  0·76

  1,849,000

  3,000

  0·14

  Scotland

  3,174,000

  12,000

  0·37

  1,646,000

  11,000

  0·66

  1,527,000

  1,000

  0·06

  Wales

  1,724,000

  9,000

  0·53

  904,000

  8,000

  0·89

  820,000

  1,000

  0·12

  1 The estimated resident working population at mid-1992, male 16–64, female 16–59 rounded to the nearest thousand.

  Source: Population Estimates Unit, OPCS.

  2 The number of Industrial Injuries Disablement pensions in payment at 4 April 1992 to people of working age. (A person can be in receipt of more than one Disablement pension).

  Source: 10 per cent. sample of assessments in Great Britain with an allowance for late returns, rounded to the nearest thousand.

  3 Standard Statistical Region.

  4 The Great Britain Pensions include a number of overseas cases.

  Housing Benefit
  Ms Coffey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) if he will publish the figures showing the total amount of housing benefit subsidy in the private sector broken down into(a) DOE and (b) local authority where the rent was above the level agreed by the rent assessment officers and where the tenants were (i) elderly, (ii) adults with special handicaps and (iii) families with dependent children, for 1989–90, 1990–91, 1992–93 and the latest available date for the current year;

  (2) what amount of housing subsidy is produced by (a) central Government and (b) local authorities to private landlords, where the rent is above the level agreed by the rent assessment officers, where the tenants are (i) elderly, (ii) disabled, (iii) adults with special handicaps and (iv) families with dependent children for the years 1989–90, 1990–91 and 1992–93.

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

  Rent Allowances paid in Great Britain to vulnerable groups exceeding the Rent Officer's determination of a Reasonable Market Rent (RMR).

  Year

  Total expenditure exceeding RMR

  DSS Subsidy

  Local Authority Expenditure

  £

  £

  £

  1989–90

  5,339,306

  2,669,672

  2,669,634

  1990–91

  21,030,787

  10,515,424

  10,515,363

  1991–92

  26,119,913

  13,060,020

  13,059,893

  1992–93

  26,971,288

  13,485,705

  13,485,583

  1993–94

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  Source: Housing Benefit final subsidy claim forms.

  Notes:

  1. No benefit subsidy in respect of rent allowances is paid by the Department of the Environment.

  2. Vulnerable groups include the elderly, sick and disabled people and families with dependent children.

  3. The figures for 1992–93 are provisional.

  Social Fund
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what criteria are used for determining the maximum deduction from income support to repay a loan from the social fund; what is the minimum level of benefit left payable; what changes he is considering to the criteria; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Scott
  In determining the rate at which social fund loans are repaid the applicant's commitments are taken into account. The normal repayment rate is 15 per cent. of the applicant's Income Support applicable amount, less housing costs. Where the applicant has existing commitments the rate may be set at 10 per cent., 5 per cent. or lower. In exceptional circumstances, with the applicant's agreement, the repayment rate may be set at 25 per cent., leaving a minimum 75 per cent. of the applicable amount, but only if it is clear that the applicant can afford to repay at this rate. All aspects of the social fund are closely monitored, including repayment rates for loans.

  Disability Living Allowance
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list the publications and television channels in which his Department advertised the introduction of disability living allowance in April 1992; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Scott
  Advertising the introduction of disability living allowance—DLA—in the publications and on the television stations shown in the table, was one part of a successful, multi-stranded publicity campaign which was targeted at disabled people, carers, advisers and health professionals. By the end of November 1993 over one million claims to DLA had been processed and over a half a million awards of benefit made.Publications

  Daily Mail

  Daily Express

  Daily Telegraph

  Daily Record

  Daily Mirror

  Daily Star

  31

  Guardian Times

  Guardian

  Independent on Sunday

  Independent

  Mail on Sunday

  News of the World

  Observer

  Star

  Sun

  Sunday Express

  Sunday People

  Sunday Mirror

  Sunday Times

  Sunday Telegraph

  Times

  Today

  TV Times

  Amspar

  Disability Arts Mag

  Disability News (London)

  Disability Now

  Disabled

  Disabled Driver

  Phab

  Amar Deep

  Asian Times

  Black Briton

  Cineblitz

  Daily Jang

  Eastern Eye

  Garavi Gujarat

  India Times

  Punjabi Times

  Sing Tao

  Surma Bengali

  The Voice

  Care Weekly

  Caring Times

  Community Care

  General Practitioner

  Health Visitor

  Health Service Journal

  Hospital Doctor

  New Statesman and Society

  Nursing Standards

  Nursing Times

  Social Work Today

  Therapy Weekly

  Chat

  Me

  My Weekly

  Take a Break

  Woman

  Woman's Own

  Woman's Weekly

  Woman's Realm

  Television stations

  Anglia

  BBC Select

  Border

  C4 Network except Ulster

  Central

  Grampian

  Granada

  HTV

  Lifestyle

  LWT

  STV

  Thames

  TSW

  TVS

  Tyne Tees

  Yorkshire

  TVAM included in areas

  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what guidance is issued in respect of the social fund to ensure that similar priority levels are applied to 32
  applications throughout the financial year; what changes to the guidance he is considering; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Scott
  Guidance on the management of the social fund is contained in the "Social Fund Officer's Guide", a copy of which is in the Library.

  All aspects of the social fund are closely monitored, including the guidance issued to social fund officers.

  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the normal maximum repayment period for a loan from the social fund; what changes to that period he is considering; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Scott
  The normal maximum repayment period for a social fund loan is 78 weeks although this can be extended to 104 weeks. All aspects of the social fund are closely monitored, including repayment periods for loans.

  Pensioners Incomes
  Mr. Bowden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what proportion of(a) single pensioners and (b) pensioner couples had incomes below one half of average household income each year since 1979.

  Mr. Hague
  [pursuant to his reply, 6 December 1993, c. 111]: The available information is published in tables Fl (BHC) and Fl (AHC) of "Households Below Average Income 1979–1988/89" and "Households Below Average Income 1979–1990/91", copies of which are in the Library.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Arable Area Payments
  Mr. Tipping
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many holdings in each county of Northern Ireland have taken up the arable area payments scheme.

  Mr. Ancram
  The number of holdings which have taken up the arable area payments scheme are:

  Number

  Antrim

  683

  Armagh

  256

  Down

  1,109

  Fermanagh

  2

  Londonderry

  700

  Tyrone

  344

  Mr. Tipping
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many landowners in Northern Ireland are receiving annual payments under the arable area payments scheme(a) in each band of £25,000 up to £500,000 and (b) over £500,000; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Ancram
  In Northern Ireland, 3,090 landowners are receiving annual payments under the arable area payments scheme of up to £24,999, and four landowners payments between £25,000 and £49,999. No landowners are receiving payments higher than these amounts.

  Agri-environmental Funding
  Mr. Martlew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much will be spent in Northern Ireland in each year from 1993–94 to 1995–96 on(a)

  33
  environmentally sensitive areas, identifying the amount allocated for the new access option, (b) new nitrate sensitive areas, (c) the moorland scheme, (d) the new habitat scheme, (e) the new countryside access scheme, (f) the organic aid scheme and (g) the total amount of money being spent on the agri-environment scheme in Northern Ireland; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Ancram
  Planned expenditure in Northern Ereland for each of the schemes under the agri-environment programme is set out in the table.

  1993–94 '000

  1994–95 '000

  1995–96 '000

  ESA Scheme

  —

  2,700

  4,000

  Moorland Scheme

  —

  —

  90

  Habitat Creation Scheme

  —

  —

  100

  Organic Aid Scheme

  —

  60

  60

  TOTAL

  —

  2,760

  4,250

  The NI programme, which is still subject to EC approval, does not have provisions for nitrate sensitive areas, countryside access or access in environmentally sensitive areas—ESAs.

  1993 Holdings growing

  County

  Cereals

  Potatoes

  Linseed

  Horticultural crops

  Oilseeds

  Antrim

  1,216

  523

  1—

  80

  1—

  Armagh

  394

  170

  1—

  498

  6

  Down

  1,853

  591

  1—

  174

  38

  Fermanagh

  6

  44

  1—

  30

  1—

  Londonderry

  1,090

  431

  1—

  39

  11

  Tyrone

  519

  316

  1—

  105

  1—

  Northern Ireland

  5,078

  2,075

  13

  926

  64

  1 Information cannot be released because of the small number of growers.

  Mr. Tipping
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many holdings there are in each county of Northern Ireland in 1992 and 1993 growing(a) cereals, (b) potatoes, (c) linseed, (d) sugar beet, (e) horticultural produce and (f) oilseeds.

  Hectares

  County

  Cereals

  Potatoes

  Horticultural crops

  Oilseeds

  1992

  Antrim

  9,618

  3,156

  227

  52

  Armagh

  3,281

  436

  1,941

  69

  Down

  18,822

  3,369

  954

  616

  Fermanagh

  98

  18

  92

  7

  Londonderry

  10,846

  2,920

  165

  274

  Tyrone

  3,965

  851

  198

  45

  Northern Ireland

  46,630

  10,750

  3,577

  1,063

  Hectares

  County

  Cereals

  Potatoes

  Linseed

  Horticultural crops

  Oilseeds

  1993

  Antrim

  9,685

  2,550

  1—

  173

  1—

  Armagh

  3,354

  368

  1—

  1,846

  72

  Down

  18,912

  2,915

  1—

  931

  397

  Fermanagh

  17

  13

  1—

  94

  1—

  Londonderry

  11,099

  2,344

  1—

  153

  157

  Tyrone

  4,022

  698

  1—

  138

  1—

  Northern Ireland

  47,089

  8,888

  128

  3,335

  689

  1 Information cannot be released because of the small number of growers.

  Crops
  Mr. Tipping
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many holding there are in each county of Northern Ireland in 1992 and 1993 growing(a) cereals, (b) potatoes, (c) linseed, (d) sugar beet, (e) horticultural produce and (f) oilseeds.

  Mr. Ancram
  No sugar beet is grown in Northern Ireland. Information on the numbers of growers of linseed, horticultural crops and oilseeds is not available for any year prior to 1993. Where rules on disclosure permit, the information requested is as follows:

  1992 Holdings growing

  Country

  Cereals

  Potatoes

  Antrim

  1,265

  655

  Armagh

  407

  207

  Down

  1,966

  709

  Fermanagh

  11

  77

  Londonderry

  1,135

  549

  Tyrone

  550

  431

  Northern Ireland

  5,334

  2,628

  Mr. Ancram
  No sugar beet is grown in Northern Ireland and information on the area of linseed is not available for any year prior to 1993. Where rules on disclosure permit, the information requested is as follows:

  Training
  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1) what is his policy in respect of independent companies tendering for public contracts in competition with the existing training centres to manage training, education and enterprise programmes;

  (2) what is his policy in respect of independent companies entering into partnership with the existing training centres to manage training, education and enterprise programmes.

  Mr. Tim Smith
  Responsibility of the the subject in question has been delegated to the Training and Employment Agency under its chief executive, Mr. J. S. Crozier. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from J. S. Crozier to Mr. Andrew Hunter, dated 5 January 1994.

  The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has asked me to reply to your questions about policy in respect of independent companies tendering for public contracts in competition, or entering into partnership, with existing Training Centres.

  The Training and Employment Agency currently has sufficient contracted capacity to manage and deliver its training programmes. Independent companies and other organisations do operate in competition with Training Centres. There is no bar on such organisatiions entering into parternship with Training Centres for those purposes.

  I hope that you find this helpful.

  Quangos
  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list the names of all former British representative members in the European Parliament who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Sir John Wheeler
  None.

  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list the names of all individuals who are or were members of the House of Lords who since 1979 have been appointed to any quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of, the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Sir John Wheeler
  The following is the information:

  Name

  Title of post

  Salary (£)

  Duration of appointment

  Duke of Abercorn

  Chairman, Laganside Corporation

  21,065

  1989–95

  Lord Lowry

  Ex-Officio Chairman, Statute Law Committee

  None

  1979–88

  Lord O'Neill

  Chairman, Northern Ireland Museums Advisory Committee

  None

  1989–93

  Chairman, Northern Ireland Museums Council

  None

  1993–97

  Trustee, Ulster Folk and Transport Museum including

  None

  1969–90

  36

  Name

  Title of post

  Salary(£)

  Duration of appointment

  Vice-Chairman of Board of Trustees

  1987–90

  Northern Ireland Member of Museums and Galleries Commission

  None

  1987–96

  The Viscount Brookeborough DL

  Member, Green Park Hospital Trust

  5,000

  1992–96

  Lord Plant1

  Chairman of SACHR

  Nominal

  1976–80

  Lord Blease1

  Member of SACHR

  None

  1977–79

  Member of Rathgael and Whiteabbey Schools Management Board

  None

  1989–92

  1 Life Peerage conferred during 1978.

  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list the names of all former hon. Members who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Sir John Wheeler
  John Carson, CBE, a former MP, was a member of Laganside Corporation from June 1989 to June 1992. His salary at the end of his term was £6,820.

  James Frederick Nicholson MEP was a member of the Southern health and social services board from July 1979 to June 1985. No salary was paid. He was an MP from June 1983 to June 1985.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Russia
  Mr. David Atkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the outcome of the Russian election and referendum.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The elections and referendum have given Russia her first post-Soviet democratic Parliament and a constitution which guarantees democratic institutions and individual human rights. This is an historic advance. No single party won an overall majority in the new Parliament. The democrats and reformers have won about one third of the seats. The extreme nationalists did unexpectedly well, but we should keep this in proportion; they have 64 seats out of the 450 in the lower House, the Duma. President Yeltsin has said that Russia will continue on the path of reform and Britain will continue to support that progress.

  British observers, including several hon. Members of this House, concluded that the election procedures, although complex, were adequate to ensure a fair poll and reflected the views of the Russian people. Copies of their report have been placed in the Library of the House.

  Bank of Credit and Commerce International
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assistance he will be giving to the liquidators of BCCI when they visit Abu Dhabi to discuss BCCI.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  No request for assistance during their visit to Abu Dhabi has been received from the liquidators of BCCI.

  Consulate, Dusseldorf
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is the civil service grade of Mr. Bullen who works at the consulate in Dusseldorf; and what training he and other members of staff have received in dealing with members of the public.

  Mr. Goodlad
  Mr. Bullock—not Bullen—is a locally engaged visa clerk. He received all necessary training in the consulate general in Dusseldorf to enable him to deal with members of the public. Other members of staff at the consulate general have received the training necessary to undertake their particular duties.

  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many visitors' applications have been made in Dusseldorf for each year since 1983; and how many refusals have been made for visitors' visas.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  Separate statistics are not available for the number of "visit" applications and visitor refusals made at the British consulate general, Dusseldorf since 1983.

  The following figures are available for non-settlement applications—including visitors, students, and working holidaymakers.

  Year

  Received

  Refused

  1992

  19,529

  461

  1991

  18,327

  287

  1990

  17,327

  282

  1989

  12,067

  147

  1988

  no figure are available

  1983

  Ex-Soviet Nuclear Plants
  Ms Quin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement about the take-up of technical assistance in the Commonwealth independent states for making safe nuclear power plants in the states of the former Soviet Union.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  I refer the hon. Lady to the reply I gave the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) on 6 December 1993, at column 74.

  Foreign Affairs Council
  Mr. Barnes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the outcome of the EC Foreign Affairs Council of 20 and 21 December, indicating the voting record of each member state on each item and where no formal votes were taken.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  I attended the Foreign Affairs Council on 20 and 21 December.
  38
  The Council agreed negotiating mandates for new partnership agreements between the European Union and Tunisia and Israel.

  There was a brief discussion on follow-up to the European Council on 10 and 11 December. The presidency noted that follow-up work would fall to the Greek and German presidencies and the Commission. The Commission called for an early decision on interest-rate subsidies for small and medium-sized enterprises, in the light of the European Council conclusions calling for a conclusion by the end of the year.

  There was a brief discussion of the outcome of the Uruguay round negotiations: the Commission confirmed that it would seek to improve EC access to third country markets before market access schedules are finalised on 15 February. The Council also agreed on the need for an early discussion of trade policy towards central and eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

  There were ministerial negotiating sessions with the four applicants for Community membership. Excellent progress was made. A large number of negotiating chapters have now been closed, including the difficult environmental standards chapters and all of the Maastricht chapters except economic and monetary union.

  On the former Yugoslavia, Ministers prepared for their meeting with the parties on 22 December. The Council subsequently discussed the Union's joint action on the delivery of humanitarian aid to Bosnia. They agreed to make 48 mecu—£39 million—available for urgent needs, notably in the energy sector, of which the financing would be split 50:50 between the Community and member states.

  Ministers agreed to invite the President of the Commission to propose a middle-ranking Commission official to act as the Cyprus observer for the Union. His terms of reference will be
  "in the light of the Council's review in January 1995 of the question of Cyprus' accession to the European Union, to report periodically to the Council on the implications of political developments in Cyprus for the requirements of the acquis of the Union, including progress in the UN Secretary-General's good offices mission for Cyprus."

  The Council discussed the Commission's proposals for new free trade agreements with the Baltic states.

  The Council approved unanimously a joint action, covering the first phase of the initiative for a pact on stability in Europe. This involves a conference to launch the initiative to be held in April 1994 in Paris.

  The presidency reported on progress made so far in agreeing negotiating directives for the Community in the mid-term review of the Lomé convention. Negotiations with the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries will begin in 1994.

  The Council discussed outstanding nominations to the Committee of the Regions. The Portuguese—Portugal is the only country yet to make nominations—said that they would aim to do so before 15 January, the date agreed by the last special European Council as the deadline for the first meeting of the Committee.

  The Council adopted a decision to put into effect from 1 January 1994 the code of conduct it had agreed on 6 December on public access to documents held by the Council. The Netherlands and Denmark voted against.

  The Council briefly reviewed progress towards agreeing a regulation on a common export regime for dual use goods.

  The Council voted to remove tariff concessions from the Austrian subsidiaries of GM and Grundig, both of

  39
  which had received illegal state aid. Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg voted against. The decision on Grundig was subsequently suspended following full repayment of the state aid.

  The Council discussed the proposed budget discipline decision without reaching agreement.

  The EC/India co-operation agreement was signed by the Commission, the presidency and the Indian Commerce Minister in the margins of the Council.

  Dealings with Companies
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what dealings he or any member of his Department has had, whether for export promotion or for any other purpose with(a) ATE International Ltd., (b) Admincheck Ltd., (c) Advance Electronics Development Ltd., (d) Arctic Centre ICE Ltd., (e) Atlas Equipment Co. Ltd., (f) Atlas Air Conditioning Co. Ltd., (g) Dominion International, (h) Endshire Export Marketing, (i) Falcon Systems, (j) Geodesigns, (k) Investacast Precision Castings Ltd., (l) Meed International Ltd., and (m) Rajbrook Ltd.; and if he will give the purpose of his dealings with each of these companies.

  Mr. Goodlad
  The information requested is not readily available and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Lomé Convention
  Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the implications of agreement in the latest round of the general agreement on tariffs and trade for the future of the Lomé convention.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The mid-term review of the fourth Lomé convention is under way. This will involve negotiations between the EC and the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific—ACP—states on possible changes to the convention to reflect developments since it was agreed in 1989. These negotations must be concluded by March 1995. The convention itself will expire on 1 March 2000.

  The mid-term review takes place in the context of the successful conclusion of the Uruguay round. However, the Final Act agreed on 15 December does not affect the status of the convention.

  Sudan
  Mr. Burden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has received in the last three months regarding the persecution of Christians in the Sudan; and what action he is taking to promote an end to the conflict in Sudan.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  We receive many representations, both from the Churches themselves and from interested human rights organisations. We have welcomed the initiative of the Kenyan, Ugandan, Ethiopian and Eritrean Presidents to try to encourage dialogue between the Government of Sudan and the factions of the Sudan People's Liberation Army. With other European Union member states, we are encouraging the parties to respond positively to mediation efforts.

  Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant
  Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps he will take to ensure that the operation of THORP does not contribute towards the international proliferation of materials useful for the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Our policy of non-proliferation aspects of reprocessing at THORP is set out in the statement of Government policy on reprocessing and operation of the thermal oxide reprocessing plant at Sellafield: a copy of this statement is in the Library of the House. The statement makes it clear that we consider that any potential proliferation risks associated with the operation of THORP are satisfactorily met by the existing arrangements to prevent theft, sabotage and diversion.

  EC Voting
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will set out for each member state of the European Community(a) its estimated population, (b) the number of votes allocated to its respective ministers in the Council of Ministers when voting on the basis of a qualified and weighted majority, (c) the approximate population represented by each vote, (d) that population expressed as a percentage of that member state's population and (e) the population per vote expressed as a percentage of the total approximate population of all member states of the European Community, together with the respective totals and the requisite number of votes and assenting member states required for assent.

  Mr. Goodlad
  The information is as follows:

  Member state

  Estimated population (millions)

  Number of votes in council

  Approximate population per vote (thousands)

  Belgium

  10·1

  5

  2,020

  Denmark

  5·2

  3

  1,733

  Germany

  80·6

  10

  8,060

  Greece

  10·3

  5

  2,060

  Spain

  39·1

  8

  4,888

  France

  57·5

  10

  5,750

  Ireland

  3·6

  3

  1,200

  Italy

  56·9

  10

  5,690

  Luxembourg

  0·4

  2

  200

  Netherlands

  15·2

  5

  3,040

  Portugal

  9·9

  5

  1,980

  United Kingdom

  58·0

  10

  5,800

  336·7

  76

  —

  Member state

  Approximate per cent. of member state population

  Approximate per cent. of total EC population

  Per vote

  Per vote

  Belgium

  20

  0·60

  Denmark

  33

  0·51

  Germany

  10

  2·39

  Greece

  20

  0·61

  Spain

  12·5

  1·45

  France

  10

  1·71

  Ireland

  33

  0·36

  Italy

  10

  1·69

  Luxembourg

  50

  0·06

  Netherlands

  20

  0·90

  41

  Member state

  Approximate per cent. of member state population

  Approximate per cent. of total EC population

  Per vote

  Per vote

  Portugal

  20

  0·59

  United Kingdom

  10

  1·72

  The number of votes which constitutes a qualified majority is 54. There are numerous combinations of member states whose total number of votes in Council reaches or exceeds this figure.

  Quangos
  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the names of all individuals who are or were members of the House of Lords who since 1979 have been appointed to any quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, ex-cluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. Goodlad
  There are currently 14 members of the House of Lords. No salaries are paid.The British Council

  Lord Chorley: board member. Three-year renewable appointment.

  Lord Wilson of Tillyorn: board member. Five-year renewable appointment.

  Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission

  Lord Desai: board member. Three-year appointment renewable.

  The Great Britain-China Centre

  Lord Callaghan: vice-president. Indefinite appointment.

  Lord Holme: board member. Indefinite appointment.

  Lord Howe: president. Indefinite appointment.

  Lord Maclehose: vice president. Indefinite appointment.

  British Association for Central and Eastern Europe

  Baroness Blackstone: board member. One-year appointment.

  The Britain-Russia Centre

  Lord Bottomley: board member. Indefinite appointment.

  Lord Dormand: board member. Indefinite appointment.

  Lord Runcie: vice-president. Indefinite appointment.

  Viscount Whitelaw: president. Indefinite appointment.

  Commonwealth Institute

  Baroness Flather: governor. Four-year appointment.

  Commonwealth of Learning

  Lord Briggs: chairman.

  To answer the question in full would incur disproportionate cost.

  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the names of all former hon. Members who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. Goodlad
  There are currently six former MPs. No salaries are paid. All appointments are for an indefinite period.

  The British Russia Centre

  Mr. Peter Blaker: board member

  Sir David Crouch: board member

  Sir Douglas Dodds-Parker: board member

  42

  Sir Fitzroy Maclean: board member

  Sir John Osborn: board member

  Sir Kenneth Warren: board member

  To answer the question in full would incur disproportionate cost.

  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the names of all former British representative members in the European Parliament who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. Goodlad
  There are currently no former MEPs. To answer the question in full would incur disproportionate cost.

  Foreign and Security Policy Unit
  Mr. Cash
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on what date the Foreign and Commonwealth Office established its common foreign and security policy unit.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  With effect from 16 March 1992 the existing European political co-operation unit, which had been part of the EC presidency department in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, became the common foreign and security policy unit.

  Immigration
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when a decision is to be taken on an application to enter the United Kingdom made to the high commissioner in Islamabad on behalf of Israr Ahmed, who was born on 30 May 1989, REF-IMM/CO 442.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  In the absence of any information about this case, I have asked the correspondence unit migration and visa department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to let the hon. Member have a substantive reply in due course.

  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when the high commission in Islamabad will take a decision on applications to grant British citizenship to Mr. Wajid Aziz, born on 15 January 1981 and Miss Majida Aziz, born on 15 January 1984, reference CON/4534; when these applicants were interviewed; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  The British high commission in Islamabad refused on 3 August 1993 the passport applications submitted on behalf of Mr. Wajid Aziz and Miss Majida Aziz. The children's alleged father, Mr. Abdul Aziz, was interviewed that day but the interviewing officer was not satisfied that the children were related, as claimed. The reasons were explained to Mr. Aziz at the time and the passport fees refunded.

  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when a decision is to be taken on an application by Nasreen Akhtar, REF: IMM/B6820 to enter the United Kingdom made to the high commissioner in Islamabad; whether the high commissioner has received the result of a comparative DNA test; and if he will make a statement.
  43
  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  In the absence of any information about this case, I have asked the correspondence unit migration and visa department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to let the hon. Member have a substantive reply in due course.

  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when a decision is going to be taken by the United Kingdom post in Islamabad on an application to visit the United Kingdom by Mrs. Tasawar Fatima; when the post agreed to undertake to reconsider the application following representations by the hon. Member for Bradford, West; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  In October 1993 the high commission in Islamabad took the decision to maintain the refusal of entry clearance to Mrs. Tasawar Fatima. I am sorry that the hon. Member was not so informed at the time.

  German Constitutional Court Judgment
  Mr. Cash
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will ensure that the English translation of the judgment of the German constitutional court of 12 October 1993 is made available to the general public as soon as possible and placed in the Library.

  Mr. Goodlad
  A translation was placed in the Library of the House on 3 December 1993. It will be published in the International Law Reports later this year.

  European Union Funding
  Mr. Cash
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the powers he has under English and Community law to prevent the European Union providing financial resources within the United Kingdom to British organisations for a purpose which is avowedly political within the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  Within the United Kingdom, organisations which are duly constituted and have lawful objectives are entitled to seek funding from any source. There are no powers under domestic or Community law to prevent funds being disbursed on behalf of the European Union in accordance with Community law.

  EC Visitors' Visas
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has received to date from the representatives of any country concerning their nationals being required, from 1996, to obtain visas to visit the EC; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  I have received no representations to date about the proposed European Union common visa list. The Commission's proposals have not yet been formally communicated to the member states by the Council secretariat. When they are, they will be made available to Parliament in accordance with normal scrutiny arrangements.

  Jamaica
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for.Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many British citizens wishing to visit Jamaica during 1993 were(a) refused
  44
  entry, (b) detained and (c) deported; how many such persons were able to appeal against refusal to grant entry; how many appeals were (i) upheld and (ii) rejected; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  I am aware of no cases of British citizens visiting Jamaica who were refused entry, detained or deported in 1993. I am informed that Jamaican immigration legislation makes no provision for appeal against refusal of entry.

  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what advice is issued to Jamaican citizens wishing to visit the United Kingdom as to whether they should apply for pre-entry visas; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  Jamaican citizens seeking to visit the United Kingdom are advised by both the Jamaican Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the British high commission in Kingston that prior entry clearance is advisable, but not mandatory.

  Prospective visitors contacting the high commission, whether or not they apply for prior entry clearance, are advised as to the documentation required. Information leaflets are freely available and telephone enquiries, personal callers and correspondence are dealt with by trained entry clearance staff at the British high commission. Local airlines and travel agents are also conversant with requirements.

  EU Agricultural Harmonisation
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the outcome of the EU Foreign Affairs Ministers Council meeting of 21 December 1993 in regard to enlargement of the European Communities; and what outstanding matters remain on health, environment, and agricultural harmonisation between the European Union and European Economic Area.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  Excellent progress was made at the negotiating sessions with Sweden, Finland, Norway and Austria at the 21 December Foreign Affairs Council. A large number of negotiating chapters were closed.

  The European economic area—EEA—came into force on 1 January. On health, the EEA extends EC legislation to the participating European Free Trade Association —EFTA—states—Norway, Sweden, Austria, Finland and Iceland—so that EEA nationals are entitled to reciprocal health care benefits in all EEA member states. On the environment, the agreement provides for increased co-operation between EEA states but does not include the harmonisation of environmental legislation. On agriculture, the EEA does not require the participating EFTA states to bring their support arrangements into line with the common agricultural policy, but they have agreed to adopt much of the EU's regulatory legislation in the veterinary, phytosanitary and other areas. Except where transitional periods are agreed, or derogations granted, the four members of EFTA currently negotiating to join the EU will have to adopt the entire body of Community legislation in these areas on their accession.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Forestry Commission
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what land in Lancashire and the north-west the Forestry Commission proposes to sell under the current disposal programme.

  Mr. Jack
  The Forestry Commission has no forest land on the market at present in Lancashire and the north-west.

  Departmental Offices (Heating Bills)
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if she will list, by location, the annual fuel heating bills for each of her Department's offices for the last four years, and for this year to date.

  Mr. Jack
  Office heating is not distinguished separately in the fuel bills for the 260 or so sites occupied by the Ministry and its executive agencies. It would be disproportionately expensive to calculate such costs, but readily available global figures for all types of energy are as follows:

  £

  1990–91

  3,376,336

  1991–92

  3,755,951

  1992–93

  4,035,098

  This represents a six per cent increase in real terms when adjusted for inflation and the floor area occupied. The increase is due to operational requirements, particularly in the Ministry's laboratories, and the introduction of information technology equipment to most offices over the past three years. We are, however, stepping up our energy efficiency measures with a view to achieving reductions in consumption by 1995–96.

  Special Advisers
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what arrangements are made to ensure that special advisers to Ministers in her Department do not have access to the kind of information, and are not involved in the type of business, that would be likely to create suspicion of impropriety in relation to subsequent employment.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  Care is taken to ensure that the special adviser does not have access to the kind of information likely to create suspicion of impropriety. She is not involved in evaluating tenders or letting contracts.

  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if she will list the names and job descriptions of each special ministerial adviser employed in her Department showing any particular outputs for which each adviser is responsible.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  My special adviser is Dr. Elizabeth Cottrell. She advises me on all policy issues.

  Milk Industry
  Mrs. Peacock
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to what extent Britain's demand for milk and milk products is satisfied by domestic production;46
  what are the main sources of imported milk products; to what extent the gap is affected by the extent of the Milk Marketing Board's promotion of the use of home-produced milk; and what effect she expects the Milk Marque to have on the shortfall between domestic production and demand.

  Mr. Jack
  The United Kingdom produces sufficient milk to meet its needs for liquid consumption and for protein products like skimmed milk powder. It is, however, only 85 per cent. self-sufficient in butterfat, so production is insufficient to meet the demand for cheese and butter. Imports of milk products into the United Kingdom come mainly from other EC countries. In 1992, 92 per cent. of our cheese imports, 231,693 tonnes, came from the EC, with the remainder imported mainly from New Zealand, 7,964 tonnes, Canada, 4,068 tonnes, and Australia, 2,500 tonnes. In the same year, 97 per cent. of our imports of yoghurt, buttermilk and whey originated in the Community. For butter, the position is rather different since a large proportion, 41 per cent., of our imports comes from New Zealand under a preferential access agreement which was concluded at the time of our accession to the EC. The remaining 59 per cent. of our butter imports come from the Community.

  The level of the United Kingdom's self-sufficiency in milk has less to do with the promotional activities of the milk marketing boards than with the total amount of milk quota available to our producers. Our national production quota is insufficient to meet the total domestic demand for milk and milk products; the introduction of new milk marketing arrangements next year will not alter this position.

  Mrs. Peacock
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assessment she has made of whether the national interest and that of milk producers would be better served by the bulk of our milk being handled by processors who have a proven track record in the development of new products instead of by Milk Marque, the successor of the Milk Marketing Board.

  Mr. Jack
  My right hon. Friends the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretary of State for Wales will have to have regard to all the circumstances when deciding whether to approve the Milk Marketing Board's reorganisation scheme. One of the main purposes of ending the milk marketing scheme is to allow producers to decide to whom and on what terms to sell their milk. I look forward to when they will be free to do so.

  Mrs. Peacock
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the Government's working definition of the term "marketing"; and what connection Milk Marque will have with marketing.

  Mr. Jack
  Milk Marque's objects are set out in its constitution. They include"the activities of marketing and preparation for market of milk produced by its Members on land occupied by them and used for agriculture".

  It is for Milk Marque to decide how to pursue this object.

  Mrs. Peacock
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is her policy on the concept of an interdependent partnership between milk producers and an established milk processor with a vested interest in generating demand for new milk products and satisfying it from British farms.
  47
  Mr. Jack
  The Government welcome the establishment of new partnerships between producers and processors which are in accordance with our objectives of establishing a competitive market in raw milk.

  Diseased Cattle
  Mrs. Dunwoody
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if she will take urgent action to institute a system of full compensation at market price of cattle bought under the animal health regime of other EC countries which were found to have been diseased at the time of purchase.

  Mr. Soames
  The Department has no plans to extend the current compensation arrangements for cattle.

  Fur Farms
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if she will list the regulations concerning Arctic foxes kept on fur farms.

  Mr. Soames
  There is no legislation relating specifically to the keeping of Arctic foxes.

  EC Surplus Foods
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if she will list the butter and beef EC surplus foods that have been distributed in each London borough in each of the last five years.

  Mr. Jack
  Figures for the amounts of food distributed annually since 1988–89 in each London borough are not available.

  Maize
  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what estimate she has as to the acreage of maize crops planted with EC subsidy, not harvested because there is allegedly no market; and if she will make a statement.

  Mr. Jack
  The most recent Commission estimate is that some 3,635,000 hectares of maize were harvested in the Community in 1993. There is no information about the area of maize which has not been harvested, the reasons why it was not harvested or whether any area-based payments were made on such crops. Crops do not have to be harvested to qualify for such payments but they do have to be sown in line with locally recognised standards and maintained until at least the beginning of flowering in normal growth conditions.

  Milk
  Mr. Clifton-Brown
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what reasons underlay the change in instructions to the Milk Marketing Board concerning the butterfat base of transferred milk quota.

  Mr. Jack
  The Ministry's supplementary note on the butterfat base of converted milk quota reflects guidance issued in November by the European Commission which clarifies the application of the provisions in the EC regulations. We are bound by the EC regulations and have no discretion as regards their implementation.
  48
  Mr. Clifton-Brown
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when the new rules regarding butterfat base will come into operation; and if they apply to applications already received by the Milk Marketing Board for which the market price has been agreed.

  Mr. Jack
  The Commission's clarification of the rules concerning the calculation of the butterfat base of direct sales quota converted into wholesale quota applies to all applications to convert quota since the beginning of the current quota year on 1 April 1993.

  Mr. Fabricant
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the effect of article 7 of Commission regulation 1546/86 on the allocation of milk quota to landlords who are not operating a holding.

  Mr. Jack
  Article 7 of Commission regulation (EEC) No. 1546/88, which was repealed in 1993 and replaced by Council regulation (EEC) No. 3950/92 and Commission regulation (EEC) No. 536/93, deals with the transfer of milk quota. Where an entire holding is transferred, the corresponding quota is transferred in full to the producer who takes over the holding. Where part or parts of a holding are transferred, the corresponding quota is distributed among the producers operating the holding in proportion to the areas used for milk production. Where the transfer takes place as a result of the termination of a tenancy, the producer taking over the holding might be the landlord. A holding is defined as all the production units operated by the producer within a member state of the Community.

  Mr. Fabricant
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if she will make a statement about the allocation of milk quota to landlords who are not operating a holding.

  Mr. Jack
  Milk quota is allocated to producers for use on land occupied by them. Landlords may hold quota only if they are in occupation of a holding.

  Mr. Fabricant
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food under which article of the Dairy Produce Quota Regulations 1989 he instructs the president of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors to appoint an arbitrator to act between a landlord, transferer and transferee.

  Mr. Jack
  The Dairy Produce Quotas Regulations 1989 now superseded by the Dairy Produce Quotas Regulations 1993, required that where there was a transfer of part of a holding the apportionment of quota relating to that holding had to be notified to the Minister within two months. The transferer and transferee were also required to sign a statement agreeing on the apportionment of milk quota according to the areas used for milk production, and the transferer had to supply a consent or sole interest notice in respect of the entirety of the holding. Where these requirements were not fulfilled, the apportionment had to be determined by arbitration. Paragraph 1(3) of schedule 4 provided for the Minister to apply to the president of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors for the appointment of an arbitrator, if within two months of the transfer, no arbitrator had been appointed by the parties.

  The parties to an arbitration would usually be the transferer and transferee. Landlords have an interest in any

  49
  quota apportionment in respect of a holding owned wholly or partly by them because of the clear link established in the EC regulations between quota and land. If a landlord with an interest in the holding does not sign the consent notice then this would require the apportionment to be decided by arbitration.

  Mr. Clifton-Brown
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what consideration has been given to the position of producers who have high butterfat producing breeds of cows in respect of the changes in the rules about the butterfat base of milk.

  Mr. Jack
  The EC regulations on the butterfat base for milk do not specifically provide for producers who have high butterfat producing breeds of cows, except where the producer's entire wholesale quota has been allocated from the national reserve and where production commenced after 1 April 1992. Producers in this position are required to provide proof each year that they maintain within their herd breeds of animals which justify a higher than average butterfat base.

  Neptune Flood Warning System
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if she will place in the Library a map of the marker buoys located offshore which are financed by her Department as part of the Neptune flood warning system.

  Mr. Jack
  I am placing in the Library a map showing the locations of the tide gauges around the coast which provide information on sea levels to the national storm tide warning service, which is operated on the Ministry's behalf by the Meteorological Office.

  Neptune is a local warning system of events which may lead to flooding on the west coast between Llandudno and the Solway Firth. It is operated by the National Rivers Authority and draws on information from tide gauges at Workington, Heysham, Fleetwood and Liverpool, as well as gale warnings from the Manchester weather centre and surge forecasts from the storm tide warning service. The National Rivers Authority has carried out a wave measuring experiment, using wave rider buoys, in Morecambe bay over the past 12 months with the aim of improving understanding of wave conditions for forecasting purposes.

  Relocation
  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what are the costs and benefits of relocating parts of her Department's headquarters' work from the south-east, with particular reference to the financial implications of moving work from Guildford to York.

  Mr. Jack
  The overall costs of running our relocated operations in York will be significantly lower than a similar operation in the south-east. There are, in addition, distinct operational benefits in bringing together under one roof in York a number of related, but previously geographically separated, divisions, especially those with close working links with the new MAFF central science laboratory under construction at Sand Hutton, just outside York. The main costs of the move cover expenditure on moving staff and fitting out costs for the new building.

  Agriculture Wages Board
  Dr. Strang
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when she now expects to complete her consideration of the response she has received to consultative document on the future of the Agriculture wages board.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  I hope to be able to complete my initial consideration of the responses soon. It will then be necessary to consult other ministerial colleagues with an interest in the matter.

  I hope that an announcement on the way forward can be made before Easter.

  Herbs
  Mr. Bowden
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what plans she has to restrict the availability of herbs and herbal ingredients; and if she will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  I have no plans at present to restrict the availability of herbs and herbal ingredients used as foods.

  Mr. Bowden
  To ask the Minister, of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if she will list all those organisations from which she has recently received representations calling for restrictions on the availability of herbs and herbal ingredients.

  Mr. Soames
  We have received no such representations.

  Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) what plans she has(a) to extend the current voluntary ban on comfrey and comfrey products to other herbs and herbal ingredients or (b) to introduce a compulsory ban on any such herb; and if she will make a statement;

  (2) if the review of herbs from which medicinal licences have been withdrawn by the Department of Health but are still on sale as foods has now been completed; and if she will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  I have no plans either to alter or to extend the action that we have already taken on comfrey. The review of other herbal substances by the independent expert committees that advise the Government on food safety issues has been completed—and the conclusion that there were no problems requiring action was announced in the September edition of the Food Safety Directorate bulletin.

  Area Payments
  Sir Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the administrative cost of operating the area payments system; and how many staff are involved in the procedures.

  Mr. Jack
  The arable area payments scheme is one of a number of schemes covered by the integrated administration and control system—IACS. It is not possible to give precise costs for administering each of the individual schemes within this joint system but the estimated United Kingdom cost for administering the arable area payments scheme for the 1993–94 financial year, including an appropriate share of the cost of IACS, is £7·2 million, involving some 365 man years.
  51
  These figures do not include certain initial development costs.

  Sir Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how much has been spent on the payment of the new area allowances in the current financial year; what is the maximum individual sum paid to date; and what is the general purpose of the area payments.

  Mr. Jack
  Arable area payments made by the end of December 1993 totalled £692 million. This does not include the final instalment of the area payment for oilseeds, which is due to be made early in 1994.

  Under the integrated administration and control system, a single application must be submitted in respect of all holdings farmed by the same individual or organisation and some applications cover a significant number of separate holdings; the maximum total payment to an individual IACS applicant to date has been just over £1¼ million.

  Arable area payments were introduced as part of the 1992 package of measures to reform the common agriculture policy. They are intended to compensate farmers for significant reductions in EC support prices for cereals over the next three years and to replace earlier support systems for oilseeds and proteins.

  Set-aside
  Mr. Bayley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether the Government are seeking to change the EU regulations which prevent the development of forestry on agricultural set-aside land.

  Mr. Jack
  The Government believe that use of set-aside land for woodland should be further encouraged. The United Kingdom has taken the lead in pressing for the EC rules to be changed to allow arable land withdrawn from production under EC forestry schemes to count as set-aside under the arable area payments scheme. My right hon. Friend the Minister achieved significant progress at the Agriculture Council last month, when the Commission was asked by the Council to carry out a study of the relationship between set-aside and arable land taken out of production for forestry or environmental purposes. We are pleased that the matter is at last to be given serious attention, and we shall continue to press for a satisfactory outcome.

  Woodland planting on set-aside land is not entirely ruled out under the present rules of the arable area payments scheme, provided that the trees are not used for commercial purposes and that no EC-funded grant, other than set-aside, is paid.

  Mr. Luff
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what studies she is conducting into possible alternative uses of set-aside land.

  Mr. Jack
  The United Kingdom has taken the lead in the EC in seeking to enable set-aside to be used for longer term environmental purposes, by pressing for arable land taken out of production under forestry or agri-environment schemes to count as set-aside under the arable area payments scheme; the Commission has now been asked by the Council to study this. We will also be encouraging farmers to put their set-aside land to recreational use through the proposed countryside access scheme which we hope to launch later this year.
  52
  Set-aside land may also be used to grow crops for non-food use, such as oilseed rape, linseed, and short rotation coppice.

  We are keen to encourage crops which have the potential for commercial viability. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and, in some cases, other Government Departments are funding research into industrial oilseeds, energy crops, fibre crops and an assessment of novel crops. MAFF, with other Government Departments, also funds joint research projects with industry through the LINK—crops for industrial use—programme.

  Forestry, Cornwall
  Mr. Tyler
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if she will list all the plantations at present owned by the Forestry Commission in Cornwall, and those disposed of within the last 10 years giving, in each case, their acreage and the extent of public access, indicating which are included in the current disposals programme and setting out her plans to ensure no future erosion of rights of access.

  Mr. Jack
  The Forestry Commission manages 3,290 hectares of woodland in Cornwall. The commission is preparing a list of the individual woods and I shall send a copy to the hon. Member as soon as possible.

  Lists giving details of the areas of forest land sold by the Forestry Commission from the start of the disposals programme in July 1981 to December 1992 are held in the Library of the House. The commission is compiling a list of the areas sold in 1993 and a copy will be placed in the Library when this is completed.

  The Commission does not maintain detailed records of the extent of public access to individual woods.

  The areas of forest land in Cornwall that the commission is currently offering for sale on the open market are as follows:

  Name

  Area (hectares)

  Croft Pascoe

  45

  Hay Wood

  54

  Penance and Derrys

  7

  Port Elliot Estate

  108

  Prideaux

  24

  Treworgey

  17

  Wheal Par

  5

  Rights of way over commission land are unaffected by a change of ownership. In addition, arrangements for securing continued public access to former Forestry Commission woodlands after sale, by way of prior agreements entered into between the commission and local authorities, have been in place since October 1991. These arrangements are currently being reviewed.

  Fish Diseases
  Mr. Tyler
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what effect EU directive 91/87 has had on the implementation of the Diseases of Fish Act 1983, with respect to fish farms in the United Kingdom; and if she will make a statement.

  Mr. Jack
  The fish health directive 91/67/EEC came into force on 1 January 1993. It provides for measures,
  53
  applicable throughout the Community, to safeguard zones of proven high fish health status within the context of the single market. Great Britain and Northern Ireland have secured such approved zone status in respect of the most serious fish diseases and accordingly we are able to restrict introductions of fish, particularly the salmonid species, from other parts of the Community on the basis of the disease risks which they might pose. We are also seeking additional guarantees in respect of trade in species susceptible to some of the less serious fish diseases.

  We have thus carried forward in the EC context the United Kingdom's longstanding disease controls embodied in the Diseases of Fish Acts of 1937 and 1983, with the controls largely unchanged. The Community measures will be supplemented later this year by new arrangements which member states must apply in the event of an outbreak of serious fish diseases. Overall, we are confident that these measures, taken together, will afford sound protection to our farmed and wild fish stocks and provide United Kingdom producers with new trade opportunities.

  Organic Farming
  Mr. Tyler
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what consideration she has given to the effect of her decision to concentrate support for organic farming on new entrants; what information she has as to the support given to organic agriculture in each other EU member state and on the competitive pressure placed on existing organic enterprises; and if she will make a statement.

  Mr. Jack
  My right hon. Friend has given careful consideration to the proposed aid scheme which she has discussed with representatives of organic farmers. The decision to concentrate aid on those wishing to convert to organic farming represents the best value for money in terms of increasing the area of land farmed organically.

  I shall write to the hon. Gentleman concerning aid in other member states.

  Quangos
  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) if she will list the names of all individuals who are or were members of the House of Lords who since 1979 have been appointed to any quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment;

  (2) if she will list the names of all former British representative members in the European Parliament who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment;

  (3) if she will list the names of all former hon. Members who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. Jack
  The information requested is not held centrally and collection of the information would be at disproportionate cost. Summary details of appointments 54
  made by my right hon. Friend, including details of remuneration, are contained in "Public Bodies", published annually by the Cabinet Office and available in the Library of the House.

  Potatoes
  Mr. Tyler
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what progress she has made in her discussions with other members of the EU Council of Agricultural Ministers to achieve an effective, comprehensive and fully supportive potato marketing regime to replace the United Kingdom scheme.

  Mr. Jack
  I refer the hon. Member to my reply to him on 3 December at column 852.

  Dover Sole
  Mr. Channon
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) what are the recorded landings of Dover sole in area 4c from beam trawlers of 17 m and over in each year since 1983;

  (2) what is the yearly total of recorded Dover sole fish landed from over 10 m and under 17 m boats in area 4c in each year since 1983.

  Mr. Jack
  The information requested is as follows:

  Landings of Dover sole by United Kingdom vessels from ICES area IVc

  Beamers over 17 m

  10–17 m vessels

  Total United Kingdom vessels

  Year

  Tonnes

  Tonnes

  Tonnes

  1984

  57

  292

  468

  1985

  158

  321

  614

  1986

  171

  184

  440

  1987

  101

  220

  443

  1988

  217

  208

  570

  1989

  312

  205

  713

  1990

  511

  243

  963

  1991

  504

  190

  900

  1992

  272

  116

  585

  Note:

  All quantities are given in tonnes liveweight. Length bands given relate to registered, not overall, length because prior to 1989 vessel lengths were measured in terms of registered lengths only. No comparable data is available for 1983 and the final figures for 1993 are not yet available.

  Arable Areas
  Mr. Tipping
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) how many holdings in each county of England have taken up the arable area payments scheme;

  (2) how many hectares have been taken up under the arable area payments scheme in its first year of operation for (a) cereals, (b) oilseeds, (c) proteins, (d) linseed, (e) simplified scheme and (f) set aside in the county of Nottinghamshire; and if she will make a statement.

  Mr. Jack
  County-based figures will be published as soon as possible and I will place a copy in the Library of the House.

  Mr. Tipping
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many landowners in England are receiving annual payments under the arable area payments scheme(a) in each £25,000 band up to £500,000 and (b) over £500,000; and if she will make a statement.
  55
  Mr. Jack
  This information can currently be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Mr. Tipping
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many holdings there are in each

  County

  Holdings with

  Cereals

  Potatoes

  Linseed

  Sugar beet

  Horticultural produce

  Oil seed rape

  Bedfordshire

  691

  183

  87

  28

  344

  252

  Berkshire

  292

  24

  76

  0

  83

  89

  Buckinghamshire

  682

  39

  75

  0

  136

  262

  Cleveland

  260

  45

  8

  0

  27

  120

  Cambridgeshire

  2,575

  1,063

  368

  1,407

  922

  619

  Cheshire

  1,120

  608

  18

  19

  324

  104

  Cornwall

  2,126

  777

  133

  10

  697

  54

  Cumbria

  1,406

  344

  4

  0

  117

  17

  Derbyshire

  1,030

  298

  17

  17

  143

  196

  Devon

  2,921

  684

  188

  6

  627

  65

  Dorset

  672

  69

  103

  1—

  221

  58

  Durham

  789

  142

  50

  0

  59

  343

  Essex

  1,763

  398

  380

  219

  868

  805

  Gloucestershire

  1,005

  173

  227

  11

  380

  278

  Hampshire

  850

  148

  274

  1—

  514

  247

  Isle of Wight

  133

  38

  47

  0

  75

  36

  Hereford and Worcester

  2,408

  828

  116

  277

  1,329

  336

  Hertfordshire

  553

  48

  103

  6

  195

  255

  Kent

  1,280

  353

  374

  3

  1,451

  464

  Lancashire

  659

  509

  10

  29

  936

  78

  Leicestershire

  1,362

  171

  157

  45

  130

  485

  Lincolnshire

  3,979

  1,786

  626

  2,034

  2,053

  1,244

  Merseyside

  239

  143

  7

  20

  177

  36

  Greater London

  71

  12

  12

  0

  138

  28

  Norfolk

  3,285

  1,098

  557

  2,367

  1,374

  349

  Northamptonshire

  1,044

  79

  173

  25

  94

  532

  Tyne and Wear

  139

  22

  13

  0

  25

  73

  Northumberland

  1,079

  105

  55

  0

  66

  435

  Nottinghamshire

  1,260

  366

  209

  392

  225

  487

  Oxfordshire

  1,034

  105

  234

  6

  158

  433

  Avon

  415

  113

  35

  0

  194

  56

  Shropshire

  1,940

  539

  75

  438

  205

  168

  Somerset

  1,242

  330

  114

  20

  522

  94

  Staffordshire

  1,047

  355

  58

  108

  235

  162

  Suffolk

  2,279

  392

  415

  967

  713

  612

  Isles of Scilly

  0

  28

  0

  0

  52

  0

  Surrey

  229

  25

  77

  0

  280

  68

  East Sussex

  476

  74

  154

  0

  294

  119

  West Sussex

  513

  81

  168

  0

  508

  165

  Warwickshire

  1,118

  246

  116

  8

  187

  366

  Greater Manchester

  192

  99

  1—

  8

  153

  31

  Wiltshire

  1,046

  119

  258

  5

  175

  322

  West Midlands

  150

  69

  1—

  8

  65

  27

  North Yorkshire

  686

  233

  154

  98

  114

  234

  South Yorkshire

  3,783

  1,260

  425

  889

  410

  1,045

  West Yorkshire

  506

  195

  41

  32

  225

  165

  Humberside

  2,412

  771

  378

  658

  759

  1,010

  1 Data suppressed to prevent disclosure of information about individual holdings.

  Source: June 1992 Agricultural and Horticultural Census, MAFF (excludes estimates for minor holdings).

  Mr. Tipping
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many hectares were taken up in each county of England in 1992 and 1993 by(a) cereals, (b) potatoes, (c) linseed, (d) sugar beet, (e) horticultural produce and (f) oilseeds.

  Area of crops (ha)

  Country

  Cereals

  Potatoes

  Linseed

  Sugar beet

  Horticultural produce

  Oilseed rape

  Bedfordshire

  47,580

  691

  1,922

  492

  2,077

  8,803

  Berkshire

  29,001

  107

  2,111

  0

  433

  4,299

  Buckinghamshire

  41,762

  132

  1,597

  0

  508

  7,666

  Cleveland

  13,102

  149

  108

  0

  47

  2,569

  Cambridgeshire

  153,531

  11,349

  6,182

  23,149

  10,201

  19,422

  56
  county of England in 1992 and 1993 growing (a) cereals, (b) potatoes, (c) linseed, (d) sugar beet, (e) horticultural produce and (f) oilseeds.

  Mr. Jack
  The following table gives the requested information for 1992. Data from the June 1993 agricultural and horticultural census are not yet available by county.

  Mr. Jack
  The following table gives the requested information for 1992. Data from the June 1993 agricultural and horticultural census are not yet available by county.
  57

  Country

  Cereals

  Potatoes

  Linseed

  Sugar beet

  Horticultural produce

  Oilseed rape

  Cheshire

  23,984

  4,418

  402

  175

  1,154

  1,714

  Cornwall

  37,982

  4,052

  1,933

  104

  2,808

  927

  Cumbria

  20,772

  553

  52

  0

  221

  318

  Derbyshire

  29,687

  1,013

  416

  331

  606

  3,712

  Devon

  58,164

  1,554

  2,345

  56

  1,905

  1,342

  Dorset

  46,447

  274

  2,909

  1—

  606

  2,104

  Durham

  35,496

  865

  710

  0

  140

  7,014

  Essex

  143,983

  5,464

  6,808

  4,246

  5,668

  25,733

  Gloucestershire

  58,814

  844

  6,195

  177

  1,554

  8,454

  Hampshire

  88,601

  835

  7,692

  1—

  3,419

  8,902

  Isle of Wight

  7,152

  272

  887

  0

  360

  1,132

  Hereford and Worcester

  82,126

  7,649

  1,492

  4,531

  9,647

  6,346

  Hertfordshire

  52,472

  378

  2,340

  171

  390

  8,957

  Kent

  77,170

  4,056

  7,495

  2

  21,823

  16,005

  Lancashire

  16,198

  2,719

  142

  308

  5,303

  1,136

  Leicestershire

  78,520

  1,262

  3,389

  963

  623

  13,315

  Lincolnshire

  273,449

  17,530

  13,158

  33,913

  36,453

  35,459

  Merseyside

  8,560

  894

  48

  208

  1,134

  472

  Greater London

  3,540

  98

  173

  0

  713

  703

  Norfolk

  200,235

  14,025

  11,341

  57,557

  22,418

  8,948

  Northamptonshire

  81,374

  794

  3,475

  405

  218

  18,558

  Tyne and Wear

  6,405

  69

  161

  0

  108

  1,609

  Northumberland

  75,594

  1,058

  1,091

  0

  450

  11,601

  Nottinghamshire

  73,235

  5,535

  4,343

  8,276

  2,417

  11,277

  Oxfordshire

  89,697

  791

  5,350

  118

  913

  15,569

  Avon

  13,417

  211

  457

  0

  404

  1,049

  Shropshire

  79,514

  7,701

  1,016

  10,057

  938

  3,380

  Somerset

  38,305

  1,708

  1,399

  365

  2,344

  1,716

  Staffordshire

  40,578

  4,071

  941

  2,432

  1,384

  3,307

  Suffolk

  158,367

  5,437

  7,572

  23,541

  11,828

  16,475

  Isles of Scilly

  0

  27

  0

  0

  173

  0

  Surrey

  9,928

  81

  1,574

  0

  1,195

  1,748

  East Sussex

  21,541

  296

  3,510

  0

  1,444

  2,962

  West Sussex

  34,091

  977

  3,886

  0

  1,635

  5,032

  Warwickshire

  58,674

  2,354

  2,665

  167

  1,367

  10,398

  Greater Manchester

  5,442

  508

  1—

  45

  882

  435

  Wiltshire

  93,286

  639

  6,505

  98

  589

  10,027

  West Midlands

  4,968

  349

  1—

  182

  310

  625

  South Yorkshire

  32,679

  1,640

  3,830

  1,855

  792

  4,691

  North Yorkshire

  187,990

  12,083

  5,728

  12,522

  2,498

  18,660

  West Yorkshire

  20,926

  1,075

  491

  406

  1,083

  3,023

  Humberside

  167,952

  8,483

  5,202

  9,387

  12,919

  23,487

  1 Data suppressed to prevent disclosure of information about individual holdings.

  Source: June 1992 Agricultural and Horticultural Census, MAFF (excludes estimates for minor holdings).

  Mr. Tipping
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what monitoring is conducted of the arable area payments scheme; and if she will make a statement.

  Mr. Jack
  It is not Government policy to publish specific information about monitoring arrangements, as that could seriously hamper effective enforcement. However, a number of techniques are used to monitor compliance with the scheme, including detailed checks of area aid applications and field inspections.

  Agriculture Council
  Mr. Barnes
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if she will make a statement on the outcome of the EC Agriculture Council of 13 to 16 December, indicating the voting record of each member state on each item and where no formal votes were taken.

  Mr. Jack
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply which my right hon. Friend gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Mr. Porter) on 17 December,Official Report, columns 1071–72.

  Environmentally Sensitive Areas
  Mr. Martlew
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how much will be spent in England in each year from 1993–94 to 1995–96 on(a) environmentally sensitive areas, identifying the amount allocated for the new access option, (b) new nitrate sensitive areas, (c) the moorland scheme, (d) the new habitat scheme, (e) the new countryside access scheme, (f) the organic acid scheme and (g) the total amount of money being spent on the agri-environment scheme in England; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Jack
  Forecast expenditure on agri-environment payments, including new schemes planned for launch later this year, is shown in the following table:

  £ million

  1993–94

  1994–95

  1995–96

  Environmentally Sensitive Areas

  18·0

  31·0

  43·1

  Nitrate Sensitive Areas

  1·6

  1·6

  8·3

  Moorland Scheme

  —

  —

  1·6

  Habitat Scheme

  —

  —

  3·0

  Countryside Access Scheme

  —

  —

  4·5

  Organic Scheme

  —

  0·8

  1·5

  Countryside Stewardship

  7·5

  9·3

  9·8

  TOTAL

  27·1

  42·7

  71·8

  59
  There is a single budget for environmentally sensitive areas, which includes the new access option, and a single budget for nitrate sensitive areas, which includes both current and new areas.

  Sheep Quota
  Mrs. Lait
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) what assessment she has made of whether all farmers will be able to obtain, complete and return the forms for sheep quota by 7 January following advice to do so by Reading regional service centre on 11 December; and what contingency plans she has to relax the deadline;

  (2) why Reading regional service centre of her Department changed its advice to sheep farmers and stopped sending application forms for sheep quota automatically.

  Mr. Jack
  It is essential that producers applying to the reserve receive their payments under the sheep annual premium scheme as quickly as possible. For this reason, we decided that applications should be invited first from producers eligible to apply to categories 1 and 2 of the 1993 sheep reserve. For the same reason, and to keep the burden of paper to the minimum, the application form was not sent out automatically to all sheep producers. Not all producers were eligible to apply to these categories. All sheep producers received a letter explaining the situation clearly, and in detail. The deadline of 7 January was also set so that payments could commence quickly. It allowed adequate time for the completion of the application form which was kept as simple as possible. The reserve categories have been the subject of widespread consultation and discussion, so that most producers will have given detailed consideration to their eligibility well in advance of receiving the application form.

  Livestock Imports
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what proposals she has to review the system governing livestock imports from eastern Europe; and if she will make a statement.

  Mr. Jack
  [holding answer 16 December 1993]: My right hon. Friend does not have any proposals to review the system governing imports of livestock from eastern Europe, which is set out in the Europe agreements that the EU has concluded with the six countries principally involved, and in other EU legislation. My right hon. Friend has, however, recently announced newly strengthened measures designed to help prevent the introduction of disease into Great Britain through imported animals generally. These measures include an increase in the number of routine checks carried out on all imported livestock at points of destination and, because of particular concerns arising from the import of foot and mouth disease sero-positive cattle from Eastern Europe in 1992, the blood testing of all cattle imported from Eastern Europe.

  Less-favoured Areas
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if she will set out the considerations underlying the recent cuts in funding for less-favoured areas; and if she will make a statement.

  Mr. Jack
  [holding answer 16 December 1993]: Despite the reduction in hill livestock compensatory allowances
  60
  over the last three years, overall levels of direct subsidies from all sources to hill farmers have increased, and total payments of direct subsidies in 1994 are expected to be at least £550 million. The decision to reduced the rates payable under the 1994 hill livestock compensatory allowances scheme was taken as part of the autumn review of economic conditions in the hills and uplands. This showed that net farm incomes of hill farmers have risen by 33 per cent. in real terms during 1992–93 and are forecast to rise by a further 28 per cent. in the next year. A copy of the statistical tables which formed the basis of the review is in the Library of the House. The rates of grant available under the farm and conservation grant scheme 1989 have been reduced in the light of progress in reducing pollution incidents resulting from farm wastes and the development of other schemes addressing particular environmental concerns.

  Dr. Strang
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) what was the average(a) single man's, (b) single woman's, (c) married man's and (d) married woman's personal income as chargeable for income tax from self-employment in the capacity as a hill farmer in the less-favoured areas of the United Kingdom for each year since 1979 in both nominal and real terms;

  (2) what proportion of self employed male hill farmers in the less-favoured areas in the United Kingdom claimed the married man's tax allowance in the tax year prior to the change over to the independent method of assessing taxation and in the tax year for which the most recent figures are available;

  (3) what is the average income from self-employment as assessed for tax for farmers in the less-favoured areas of the United Kingdom for each year since the 1981–82 tax year;

  (4) what was the average personal income of a (a) single man, (b) single woman, (c) married man and (d) married woman hill farmer in the less-favoured areas of the United Kingdom as chargeable to income tax from all sources other than self-employment in farming for each year since 1979 in both nominal and real terms.

  Mr. Jack
  [holding answer 17 December 1993]: The Inland Revenue's survey of personal incomes provides information on the income as assessed for tax from a sample of persons with an income from agriculture. It is not, however, possible to analyse this data for farms of particular types or for farmers in the less-favoured areas. I regret, therefore, that the information requested is not available.

  Dr. Strang
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what according to(a) the most up-to-date and comprehensive data she has available and (b) the farm business survey, was the average number of (1) beef cows and (2) ewes, carried on less-favoured areas livestock farms, by county and in England.

  Mr. Jack
  [holding answer 16 December 1993]: The following table provides information on the average number of beef cows and ewes on cattle and sheep farms, wholly or mainly in the less-favoured areas in England from the agricultural census as at June 1992. As the farm business survey covers only farms which are considered to be full time commercial businesses, very small farms are excluded from the survey. The farm business survey records the average number of livestock on the holding throughout the year. The average numbers of beef cows

  61
  and ewes on cattle and sheep—LFA —farms in England estimated from the farm business survey in 1992–93 were 30 and 456 respectively. This compares with averages as at June 1992 of 30 and 420 respectively for similar farms in the agricultural census. Results from the farm business survey are not available by county.

  Average number of animals on cattle and sheep farms, wholly or mainly in the LFA as at June 1992

  County

  Beef cows

  Ewes

  Cleveland

  10

  115

  Cheshire

  10

  243

  Cornwall

  20

  114

  Cumbria

  20

  407

  Derbyshire

  12

  158

  Devon

  20

  202

  Durham

  23

  290

  Hereford and Worcester

  15

  267

  Lancashire

  12

  224

  Northumberland

  40

  441

  Shropshire

  22

  292

  Somerset

  26

  399

  Staffordshire

  12

  72

  Greater Manchester

  10

  123

  South Yorkshire

  19

  168

  North Yorkshire

  17

  351

  West Yorkshire

  10

  101

  England

  19

  271

  Administration
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the total expenditure by her Department on administration in 1992–93; what is the estimated outturn for expenditure by her Department on administration for 1993–94 in (i) cash terms and (ii) real terms in 1992–93 prices; and what is her estimate for expenditure on administration by her Department for 1994–95 in(a) cash terms and (b) 1992–93 prices.

  Mr. Jack
  [holding answer 16 December 1993]: (i) The final outturn for the recurrent costs of running the Department in 1992–93 is £358 million.

  (ii) The estimated outturn for 1993–94 is £418 million. This reflects the reduction on the Department's gross running cost limit announced by the Minister on 1 November 1993.

  (iii) The Department's planned running costs expenditure for 1994–95 is £407 million.

  Rates of subsidies available to hill farmers—United Kingdom

  Current prices

  £/head (unless otherwise specified)

  1984

  1985

  1986

  1987

  1988

  1989

  1990

  1991

  1992

  1993

  Sheep

  Hill Livestock Compensatory Allowances

  SDA Sheep (higher rate)

  6·25

  6·25

  6·75

  6·75

  6·75

  6·75

  7·50

  8·75

  8·75

  6·50

  SDA Sheep (lower rate)

  4·25

  4·25

  4·50

  4·50

  4·50

  4·50

  4·50

  4·90

  4·90

  3·60

  DA

  —

  2·12

  2·25

  2·25

  2·25

  2·25

  2·25

  2·45

  2·45

  2·86

  Sheep Annual Premium Scheme1

  4·68

  7·32

  5·12

  6·24

  6·11

  6·94

  9·88

  12·91

  17·48

  219·25

  LFA supplement

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  3·12

  6·57

  5·16

  Average Variable Premium—pence/kg(dead weight)13

  48·35

  50·60

  40·94

  43·11

  59·11

  44·40

  41·61

  63·06

  —

  —

  Beef

  Hill Livestock Compensatory Allowances

  SDA

  44·50

  44·50

  54·50

  54·50

  54·50

  54·50

  54·50

  63·30

  63·30

  63·30

  DA

  —

  22·75

  27·25

  27·25

  27·25

  27·25

  27·25

  31·65

  31·65

  31·65

  62
  The GDP deflators required to calculate real terms figures are shown on page 121 of the "Financial Statement and Budget Report 1994–95" (HC 31), copies of which are available in the Library of the House.

  Milk Marketing
  Mr. Tyler
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps she is taking to ensure the reorganisation scheme for milk marketing in England and Wales is successful, both in relation to the Agriculture Act 1993 and to relevant European Union legislation; and if she will make a statement.

  Mr. Jack
  [holding answer 16 December 1993]: Under the Agriculture Act 1993 it is for the Milk Marketing Board to decide what to propose in its reorganisation scheme. My right hon. Friends the Minister and the Secretary of State for Wales have responsibility for deciding whether to approve the reorganisation scheme in accordance with the terms of the Act. This requires them to have regard to all the circumstances. These include the compatibility of the board's proposals with European Community law.

  Hill Farming
  Mr. Tyler
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if she will list the subsidy and price support available to hill farming enterprises over the last 10 years for which figures are available; and how they have varied in value at constant prices in relation to(a) farm input costs and (b) retail prices index over the same period.

  Mr. Jack
  [holding answer 8 December 1993]: I estimate that the total direct subsidies paid on cattle and sheep in the less-favoured areas in 1994 will be about £550 million. The support available to individual hill farming enterprises will depend on the number of livestock on which subsidy is claimed as well as the rates of subsidy available. The figures in the following tables show the information requested for the direct livestock subsidies available to farmers. The subsidy rate are those available in the scheme years shown; different rules of eligibility apply and these may vary from year to year. Not all livestock will qualify for all schemes. Support is also available through intervention and other forms of market support, but it is not possible to apportion the effects of this to hill farmers.

  Detailed information on 1991–92 net farm incomes for LFA livestock farms can be found in table 1.16 of "Farm Incomes in the United Kingdom 1991–92", a copy of which can be found in the Library of the House.
  63

  1984

  1985

  1986

  1987

  1988

  1989

  1990

  1991

  1992

  1993

  Suckler Cow Premium1

  Basic Rate

  24·74

  24·74

  24·74

  33·40

  33·40

  47·43

  51·69

  59·64

  59·64

  65·73

  Extensification Premium

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  28·17

  Beef Special Premium45

  Basic Rate

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  29·19

  31·81

  31·82

  35·90

  656·34

  Extensification Premium

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  628·17

  Average Variable Premium—pence/kg17

  Dead weight8

  15·85

  15·71

  16·33

  17·71

  15·87

  18·09

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Live weight

  8·72

  8·64

  8·98

  9·74

  8·73

  9·95

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1990 prices—deflated by Agricultural Input Prices Index

  Sheep

  Hill Livestock Compensatory Allowances

  SDA Sheep (higher rate)

  7·14

  7·10

  7·80

  7·76

  7·42

  7·02

  7·50

  8·45

  8·21

  5·81

  SDA Sheep (lower rate)

  4·86

  4·83

  5·20

  5·17

  4·95

  4·68

  4·50

  4·73

  4·60

  3·22

  DA

  —

  2·41

  2·60

  2·59

  2·47

  2·34

  2·25

  2·36

  2·30

  2·56

  Sheep Annual Premium Scheme1

  5·35

  8·32

  5·92

  7·17

  6·72

  7·21

  9·88

  12·46

  16·40

  217·21

  LFA supplement

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  3·01

  6·16

  4·61

  Average Variable Premium—pence/kg(dead weight)12

  55·26

  57·48

  47·31

  49·57

  65·00

  46·15

  41·61

  60·86

  —

  —

  Beef

  Hill Livestock Compensatory Allowances

  SDA

  50·86

  50·55

  62·98

  62·66

  59·93

  56·64

  54·50

  61·09

  59·38

  56·58

  DA

  —

  25·84

  31·49

  31·33

  29·97

  28·32

  27·25

  30·55

  29·69

  28·29

  Suckler Cow Premium1

  Basic Rate

  28·27

  28·10

  28·59

  38·40

  36·73

  49·30

  51·69

  57·56

  55·95

  58·75

  Extensification Premium

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  25·18

  Beef Special Premium45

  Basic Rate

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  30·34

  31·81

  30·71

  33·68

  650·36

  Extensification Premium

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  625·18

  Average Variable Premium—pence/kg17

  Dead weight8

  18·12

  17·85

  18·87

  20·36

  17·46

  18·80

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Live weight

  9·97

  9·82

  10·38

  11·20

  9·60

  10·34

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1990 prices—deflated by Retail Prices Index

  Sheep

  Hill Livestock Compensatory Allowances

  SDA Sheep (higher rate)

  8·84

  8·34

  8·70

  8·36

  7·97

  7·39

  7·50

  8·27

  7·97

  5·72

  SDA Sheep (lower rate)

  6·01

  5·67

  5·80

  5·57

  5·31

  4·93

  4·50

  4·63

  4·46

  3·17

  DA

  —

  2·83

  2·90

  2·79

  2·66

  2·46

  2·25

  2·32

  2·23

  2·52

  Sheep Annual Premium Scheme1

  6·62

  9·77

  6·60

  7·73

  7·21

  7·60

  9·88

  12·20

  15·92

  216·94

  LFA supplement

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  2·95

  5·99

  4·54

  Average Variable Premium—pence/kg(dead weight)13

  68·41

  67·50

  52·80

  53·37

  69·76

  48·60

  41·61

  59·59

  —

  —

  Beef

  Hill Livestock Compensatory Allowances

  SDA

  62·96

  59·37

  70·28

  67·47

  64·32

  59·66

  54·50

  59·82

  57·66

  55·70

  DA

  —

  30·35

  35·14

  33·74

  32·16

  29·83

  27·25

  29·91

  28·83

  27·85

  Suckler Cow Premium1

  Basic Rate

  35·00

  33·00

  31·90

  41·35

  39·42

  51·92

  51·69

  56·36

  54·33

  57·83

  Extensification Premium

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  24·79

  Beef Special Premium45

  Basic Rate

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  31·95

  31·81

  30·07

  31·70

  649·57

  Extensification Premium

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  624·79

  Average Variable Premium—pence/kg17

  Dead weight8

  22·43

  20·96

  21·06

  21·92

  18·73

  19·80

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Live weight

  12·34

  11·53

  11·58

  12·06

  10·30

  10·89

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1 GB figures.

  2 Based on Commission estimate made in November 1993 converted at current green rate.

  3 Average of weekly rate. Sheep Variable Premium Scheme phased out in 1991.

  4Figure each year up to 1992 as at December.

  5 Beef Special Premium Scheme started 1st April 1989.

  6 Full rate. Actual payments will be scaled back as regional ceilings have been exceeded.

  7Average of weekly rate. Beef Variable Premium Scheme ended March 1989.

  8 Assumes a killing out ratio of 0·55.

  Forests, Honiton
  Sir Peter Emery
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if she will list the Forestry Commission woods in the Honiton constituency.
  64
  Mr. Jack
  [holding answer 15 December 1993]: The Forestry Commission has no forest land on the market at present in my right hon. Friend's constituency.

  Hill Farmers
  Dr. Strang
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many hill farmers there are in England; what is the total amount of subsidy that has been paid to them in each of the last five years; and what are her forecasts for the amount she expects they will be paid in the next year.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  The system of farm classification distinguishes farms in the less-favoured areas, it does not distinguish hill farms. Analysis of the returns for the June 1992 census for England shows that there were 11,840 cattle and sheep farms wholly or mainly in the less-favoured areas. Statistics are not collected on the total amount of subsidy paid to each type of farm. It is, however, estimated that the total amount paid on cattle and sheep in the less-favoured areas in the United Kingdom under the various livestock subsidy schemes will be about £550 million in 1994.

  Common Agricultural Policy
  Mr. Grocott
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, pursuant to her answer of 9 December,Official Report, column 369, if she will set out each reason why she cannot estimate the precise cost to United Kingdom consumers of the CAP; and what is the best approximate figure available to her for the cost (a) to the Exchequer and (b) to an average family in terms of food prices.

  Mr. Jack
  Estimates of the cost of the CAP to United Kingdom consumers, and of the savings that could be secured if current policies were ended, are possible only be making many assumptions. Important judgments are necessary about the current levels of world prices—no simple matter given the wide variations in quotations and substantial fluctuations from year to year—and the changes in these prices if present policies were abandoned. The latter depend on how producers and consumers throughout the world might respond to the new circumstances and on the impact on such factors as exchange rates.

  Estimates made by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development—OECD—using a particular set of assumptions, imply that the transfers from European Community consumers in 1992 resulting from agricultural policies in European Community as a whole were equivalent to £11 per week for a family of four. This is one estimate of the extent to which the CAP raises the cost of food and agricultural products compared to existing world prices. The estimate takes no account of the effect that removal of farm support would have on world prices, and other variables, and thus gives no indication of the extent to which European consumers might be better off if current policies were removed. OECD does not publish a separate estimate for the United Kingdom.

  The Exchequer cost of CAP expenditure in the United Kingdom in the current financial year is estimated at £2,727 million. In addition, the United Kingdom also contributes to the cost of the CAP in other member states. However, the United Kingdom contributes to the EC budget as a whole, and this is reduced by the Fontainebleau abatement which cannot be attributed to particular sectors of the EC budget.

  Research and Development
  Mrs. Anne Campbell
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the spending on research and development in each of the last five years given in 1992–93 prices in her Department.

  Mr. Jack
  MAFF's expenditure on agriculture, horticulture, fisheries and food R and D, in cash and real terms, is:

  Year

  Cash £ million

  Real terms1 £ million

  1988–89

  115·0

  146·8

  1989–90

  112·2

  133·9

  1990–91

  119·1

  131·5

  1991–92

  121·5

  126·2

  1992–93

  134·4

  134·4

  1Using the GDP deflator (1992–93=100).

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

  Costs Awards
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, pursuant to his answer of 15 December,Official Report, column 637, what is the average interval between the award of (a) costs and (b) expedited costs, including tax costs, and their payment in (i) the inner London criminal court, (ii) outer London courts and (iii) other courts.

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  No information is available about the average interval between the award and payment of costs in civil or criminal proceedings. It could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  However, the following information on the taxing and payment of costs in criminal proceedings may be helpful:

  The Crown Court is responsible for the payment of defence costs from the legal aid fund in respect of proceedings in that court if the defendant has been granted a legal aid certificate, or from central funds if a privately represented defendant is acquitted on any count in the indictment and the judge orders the award of a defendant's costs order. The Legal Aid Board is responsible for legal aid costs incurred in respect of magistrates courts proceedings.

  Where costs are to be paid from the legal aid fund or central funds by the Crown Court, legal representatives are required to submit their claims to the court within three months of the conclusion of proceedings, although that period may be extended upon reasonable request. An officer of the Crown Court is then required to consider the claim and allow such sums as will provide reasonable remuneration in respect of work reasonably done.

  Targets have been set to ensure payments are made within a reasonable time. Where a practitioner has claimed a standard fee, the target is for payment within five working days where the claim is lodged on the day that the case is concluded, and within 10 working days where it is not. For non-standard fees, where counsel's brief fee or the solicitor's total costs are less than £4,000, there is a target of no more than 30 per cent. of claims to be outstanding after four weeks from date of receipt. If counsel's brief fee or the solicitor's total costs are in excess of £4,000, these claims are considered by the central taxing teams which

  67
  were established in March 1991 to give a consistent approach to the determination of large claims from the legal aid fund or central funds. The targets set for these claims are that 75 per cent. of claims should be determined within three months of becoming ready to tax—that is to say, when all related claims have been lodged—and that all claims should be determined within six months of becoming ready to tax.

  The tables provide the most recent figures for the performance against these targets:

  Crown Court Performance for Standard Fees (Target: All to be paid within 5 to 10 working days)

  Counsel Per cent.

  Solicitors Per cent.

  Percentage paid in time—November 1993

  Inner London sessions house

  98·03

  99·31

  All London courts

  88·7

  93·6

  All courts

  88·84

  89·6

  January to November 1993

  Inner London sessions house

  98·3

  97·9

  All London courts

  78·1

  80·9

  All courts

  85·1

  85·9

  Performance for ex post facto fees below £4,000 (Target: No more than 30 per cent. outstanding after 4 weeks)

  Counsel Per cent.

  Solicitors Per cent.

  Percentage outstanding after four weeks—October 1993

  Inner London sessions house

  0

  2·13

  All London courts

  19·39

  12·91

  All courts

  25·3

  26·7

  Percentage outstanding after four weeks April—October 1993

  Inner London sessions house

  3·6

  4·1

  All London courts

  35·3

  30·4

  All courts

  26·8

  28·2

  Public body

  Member

  Date of appointment

  Retainer £

  Council on Tribunals

  Lord Archer of Sandwell QC1

  1 November 1992–31 October 1995

  28,248

  Lord Gibson-Watt MC1

  May 1980—April 1986

  17,290

  Lord Wigoder QC

  February 1980—February 1986

  2,960

  Lord Tweedsmuir1

  Retired April 1980

  not known

  Lady Fulton

  Retired March 1980

  nil

  Lord Mancroft TD

  Retired December 1979

  not known

  Legal Aid Advisory Committee

  Lady Park of Monmouth

  as Chairman 1985–90

  nil

  Lady Flather of Windsor and Maidenhead

  1985–88

  nil

  Advisory Council on Public Records

  Lord Skidelsky

  29 March 1988–31 December 1993

  nil

  Advisory Committee on Legal Education and Conduct

  Lord Griffiths MC

  16 October 1990 (appt. as chair-man announced)—30 September 1993

  nil

  Advisory Committee on Justices of the Peace in Northern Ireland (Fermanagh Division)

  Earl of Earn

  Member 1975 Chairman 1986

  nil

  Advisory Committee on Justices of the Peace in Northern Ireland (Tyrone Division)

  Duke of Abercom

  Chairman 1987

  nil

  1 Denotes chairmanship as well as membership.

  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will list the names of all former British representative members in the European Parliament who since 1979 have been appointed to 68

  Performance for ex post facto fees over £4,000 (Target: 75 per cent. determined within three months and 100 per cent. determined within six months of becoming ready to tax)

  Circuit

  Percentage taxed within three months Percent.

  Percentage taxed within six months Percent.

  November 1993

  South Eastern

  50

  100

  Midland and Oxford

  51

  100

  Northern

  97

  100

  North Eastern

  99

  100

  Wales and Chester

  65

  97

  Western

  80

  100

  Quangos
  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will list the names of all individuals who are or were members of the House of Lords who since 1979 have been appointed to any quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, ex-cluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  A complete answer could be provided only at disproportionate cost. However, the schedule includes details readily to hand of members of the House of Lords who have been appointed by the Lord Chancellor since 1979 to non-departmental public bodies for which he has ministerial responsibility.

  quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  A complete answer could be provided only at disproportionate cost. Readily available
  69
  records on the appointments made by the Lord Chancellor since 1979 to non-departmental public bodies for which he has ministerial responsibility do not indicate that any were former British representative members in the European Parliament.

  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will list the names of all former hon. Members who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  A complete answer could be provided only at disproportionate cost. However, details readily to hand of hon. Members who have been appointed by the Lord Chancellor since 1979 to non-departmental public bodies for which he has ministerial responsibility, are as follows:the Right Hon. the Lord Archer of Sandwell, QC who was a Member of the House of Commons, as Peter Archer, 1974–1992. He was appointed as chairman of the Council on Tribunals at a retainer of £28,248. The appointment runs from 1 November 1992 to 31 October 1995.
  In addition, the following existing hon. Members are members of the Advisory Council on Public Records:
  Alexander Charles Carlile QC—13 March 1989 to 31 December 1994;
  Terence Anthony Gordon Davis—13 March 1989 to 31 December 1994;
  David Sumberg—23 November 1992 to 31 December 1995.

  Appointments to the Advisory Council on Public Records do not attract a fee.

  This list is not complete as in many cases only current or recently finished appointments have been included and no information on rule committees, tribunals, advisory committees on justices of the peace in England—excluding the Duchy of Lancaster—and Wales, and on advisory committees on general commissioners of income tax in England and Wales has been included. A full answer could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

NATIONAL HERITAGE

  BBC Radio
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what information he has concerning the cost per listener hour of the output of each of the British Broadcasting Corporation's national radio stations; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Brooke
  I understand from the BBC that the cost per listener hour for each BBC network radio station, in 1992–93, was as follows:

  pence

  Radio 1

  0·37

  Radio 2

  0·81

  Radio 3

  7·26

  Radio 4

  1·51

  Radio 5

  4·81

  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what information he has concerning the total number of listeners attracted per week by each of the national radio stations operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation.
  70
  Mr. Brooke
  I understand from the BBC that, for the period 21 June to 19 September 1993, the estimated weekly audience reach for each BBC network radio station was as follows:

  million

  Radio 1

  16

  Radio 2

  9

  Radio 3

  3

  Radio 4

  8

  Radio 5

  4

  Note: The audience reach figures for each station are based on the total number of listeners tuning in for at least 15 minutes per week.

  Film Industry
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage if he will commission a report on(a) the levy, (b) the investment incentive, and (c) other measures which have been adopted by each member country of the European Community in seeking to encourage investment in its film production industry with a view to making a statement to the House indicating which of those measures might be appropriate for adoption in the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Brooke
  Film support measures in other member states are a matter for the authorities of those states to determine according to their own policies and circumstances. I have no plans to adopt measures designed to meet objectives which we do not share. Last year, I held a series of 10 consultative meetings with all sectors of the United Kingdom film industry to review the state of the industry and hear their ideas about possible further action to raise the level of investment in film production. I am carefully considering all the views put to me during the round of meetings and subsequently, and I shall announce the Government's conclusions as soon as practicable.

  London Orchestras
  Sir Thomas Arnold
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what information he has about the cost of the Hoffman inquiry into the funding of London's orchestras.

  Mr. Brooke
  The Hoffman inquiry was commissioned by the Arts Council as part of its review of its support for the London orchestras. I understand that the Council's direct costs in connection with the inquiry were in the region of £5,000, arising mainly from the travel and subsistence costs of the members of the Hoffman committee. I have no details of costs incurred by other parties involved in the review.

  Special Advisers
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what arrangements are made to ensure that special advisers to Ministers in his Department do not have access to the kind of information, and are not involved in the type of business, that would be likely to create suspicion of impropriety in relation to subsequent employment.

  Mr. Brooke
  Care is taken to ensure that my special adviser does not have access to the kind of information likely to create suspicion of impropriety. He is not involved in evaluating tenders or letting contracts.
  71
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage if he will list the name and job description of each special ministerial adviser employed in his Department showing any particular outputs for which each advisor is responsible.

  Mr. Brooke
  My special advisor is Dominic Loehnis. His job is to provide me with advice of a political nature which assists me in my role as a Minister in Her Majesty's Government, advice which it would not be proper to expect from those civil servants who work in my Department.

  Civil Servants
  Mr. Pendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage how many civil servants are employed at the Department of National Heritage to deal with sport issues; and what is the total annual cost of their salaries.

  Mr. Brooke
  There are 23 posts in the Department's sport and recreation division, including secretarial and typing support—two posts. The paybill budget for 1993–94 amounts to £641,350.

  Administration Expenditure
  Mr. Rhodri Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what was the total expenditure by his Department on administration in 1992–93; what is the estimated outturn for expenditure by his Department on administration for 1993–94 in (i) cash terms and (ii) real terms in 1992–93 prices; and what is his estimate for expenditure on administration by his Department for 1994–95 in(a) cash terms and (b) 1992–93 prices.

  Mr. Sproat
  [holding answer 16 December 1993]: The information is as follows:

  (i) The final outtum for the current costs of running my Department, including the Historic Royal Palaces Agency and the Royal Parks Agency, in 1992–93 is £34·871 million.

  (ii) The estimated outtum for 1993–94 is £45·404 million—£43·975 million in 1992–93 prices.

  (iii) My Department's planned running costs expenditure figure for 1994–95 is not yet available. The figure will be published in the unified Budget supplement to the Autumn Statement and my Department's annual report due in February/March.

EDUCATION

  Student Grants
  Mr. Luff
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education whether he will review the operations of the discretionary grant system as it affects students of the performing arts.

  Mr. Boswell
  The responsibility for making discretionary awards rests with local education authorities. The early results of a national survey led by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Sir John Cass' Foundation show total numbers of discretionary awards bestowed and total local education authority spending on discretionary awards above the levels of three years ago. My right hon. Friend awaits with interest the full results of the survey, which are expected in March.

  Mr. Robert Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what was the percentage of all dependent 72
  students receiving a full maintenance grant, and the percentage of those receiving no maintenance grant, assuming residual parental income is calculated without the benefit of a covenant agreement, for each of the academic years 1988–89, 1989–90 and 1990–91; if he will calculate the percentage change across this period; and if he will make a statement on the causes of the changes over that period.

  Mr. Boswell
  In determining the residual parental income under the regulations, any deductions made for income tax purposes in respect of payments made under covenant are disregarded.

  Information on the percentage of dependent students receiving a full maintenance grant under the Education (Mandatory Awards) Regulations and those receiving nil maintenance are given.

  Percentage of dependent students receiving full and nil maintenance in England and Wales

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–911

  Percentage Point change 1988–89 to 1990–91

  Full maintenance

  29·1

  27·4

  27·1

  -2·0

  Nil maintenance

  28·2

  29·1

  29·0

  0·8

  1 Calculated from subset of LEAs able to provide data.

  The changing distribution reflects the effects of a range of, sometimes conflicting, factors including the economic climate over the period and the changing socio-economic composition of the parents of mandatory award holders.

  Quangos
  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education (1) if he will list the names of all individuals who are or were members of the House of Lords who since 1979 have been appointed to any quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment;

  (2) if he will list the names of all former hon. Members who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment;

  (3) if he will list the names of all former British representative members in the European Parliament who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. Boswell
  Information is given relating to members of the House of Lords and former hon. Members appointed to our public bodies since 1988.

  No current United Kingdom Member of the European Parliament has been appointed to any of our public bodies.

  Information concerning membership of our public bodies dating back to 1979 could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
  73

  Name of NDPB and peer

  Post

  Remuneration

  Duration of appointment

  Council for National Academic Awards

  Baroness MacFarlane

  Member

  —

  4·5 years

  Lord Pearson

  Member

  —

  2 years

  National Council for Educational Technology

  Lady Parkes

  Chairman

  —

  3 years1

  School Examinations and Assessment Council

  Lord Griffiths

  Chairman

  £275 per day2

  2 years

  Lord Skidelsky

  Member

  —

  3 years1

  University Commissioners

  Lord Butterworth

  Member

  £246 per day2

  5 years

  Universities Funding Council

  Lord Chilver

  Chairman

  £14,000 per annum2

  3 years

  Visiting Committee of the Cranfield Institute of Technology

  Lord Lewis

  Chairman

  —

  10 years

  1 Served 1 year.

  2 Part-time.

  Name of NDPB and former hon. Member

  Post

  Remuneration

  Duration of appointment

  Further Education Funding Council

  Mr. N. Bennett

  Member

  £4,000 per annum1

  3 years

  Higher Education Funding Council

  Mr. M. Fallon

  Member

  £4,000 per annum1

  3 years

  Honorarium.

  Grant-maintained Schools
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education how many grant-maintained schools have been approved so far in the secondary sector.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  To date, 559 secondary schools have been approved for self-governing—grant-maintained —status.

  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education how many pupils are now being taught in grant-maintained schools; and what is the expected number by August 1994.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  More than half a million pupils are currently being educated in over 800 self-governing—grant-maintained—schools.

  Over 160 more schools have already been approved to become self-governing later this year or have applications in the pipeline, and there is continuing demand for parental ballots on the question of self-governing status. The number of pupils in self-governing schools will therefore continue to grow. The rate of growth will depend on the views of parents in ballots, and on the merits of the applications submitted to my right hon. Friend.

  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will list(a) the political control and (b) the number of grant-maintained schools in each local education authority.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The information requested is as follows:74

  LEA

  Political control

  Number of self-governing schools operating at 11 January1994

  Avon

  NOC

  2

  Barking

  Lab

  0

  Barnet

  Con

  11

  Barnsley

  Lab

  0

  Bedfordshire

  NOC

  13

  Berkshire

  Lab/LD/Ind

  17

  Bexley

  Con

  6

  Birmingham

  Lab

  18

  Bolton

  Lab

  4

  Bradford

  Lab

  7

  Brent

  Con/Ind

  9

  Bromley

  Con

  13

  Buckinghamshire

  Con

  15

  Bury

  Lab minority

  1

  Calderdale

  NOC

  6

  Cambridgeshire

  LD/Lab

  22

  Camden

  Lab

  2

  Cheshire

  Con/LD

  6

  City

  Ind

  0

  Cleveland

  Lab

  0

  Cornwall

  LD

  0

  Coventry

  Lab

  0

  Croydon

  Con

  6

  Cumbria

  Lab minority

  21

  Derbyshire

  Lab

  21

  Devon

  LD minority

  7

  Doncaster

  Lab

  0

  Dorset

  LD

  10

  Dudley

  Lab

  7

  Durham

  Lab

  0

  Ealing

  Con

  9

  East Sussex

  LD/Lab

  0

  Enfield

  Con

  6

  75

  LEA

  Political control

  Number of self-governing schools operating at 11 January1994

  Essex

  Lab/LD

  117

  Gateshead

  Lab

  0

  Gloucestershire

  NOC

  29

  Greenwich

  Lab

  0

  Hackney

  Lab

  0

  Hammersmith

  Lab

  1

  Hampshire

  LD/Lab/Ind

  30

  Haringey

  Lab

  0

  Harrow

  Con

  1

  Havering

  Lab minority

  4

  Hereford and Worcester

  Lab/LD

  5

  Hertfordshire

  NOC

  25

  Hillingdon

  Lab

  23

  Hounslow

  Lab

  2

  Humberside

  Lab

  2

  Isle of Wight

  LD

  0

  Isles of Scilly

  Ind

  0

  Islington Kensington

  Lab

  0

  Kent

  Con

  2

  Kingston-upon-Thames

  NOC

  72

  Kirklees

  Lab

  2

  Knowsley

  Lab

  1

  Lambeth

  Lab minority

  10

  Lancashire

  Lab

  9

  Leeds

  Lab

  2

  Leicestershire

  NOC

  5

  Lewisham

  Lab

  1

  Lincolnshire

  Lab/LD

  44

  Liverpool

  Lab minority

  3

  Manchester

  Lab

  0

  Merton

  Lab

  0

  Newcastle-upon-Tyne

  Lab

  0

  Newham

  Lab

  1

  Norfolk

  Lab minority

  23

  North Yorkshire

  NOC

  0

  North Tyneside

  Lab

  0

  Northamptonshire

  Lab

  21

  Northumberland

  Lab

  1

  Nottinghamshire

  Lab

  3

  Oldham

  Lab

  0

  Oxfordshire

  NOC

  1

  Redbridge

  Con

  1

  Richmond upon Thames

  LD

  0

  Rochdale

  Con/LD

  4

  Rotherham

  Lab

  0

  Salford

  Lab

  1

  Sandwell

  Lab

  1

  Sefton

  NOC

  0

  Sheffield

  Lab

  6

  Shropshire

  Lab/LD

  6

  Solihull

  Con/Ind

  1

  Somerset

  LD

  2

  South Tyneside

  Lab

  0

  Southwark

  Lab

  9

  St. Helens

  Lab

  0

  Staffordshire

  Lab

  6

  Stockport

  NOC

  0

  Suffolk

  Lab/LD

  0

  Sunderland

  Lab

  0

  Surrey

  Con/LD

  22

  Sutton

  LD

  11

  Tameside

  Lab

  3

  Tower Hamlets

  LD

  1

  Trafford

  Con

  4

  Wakefield

  Lab

  0

  Walsall

  Con/Ind

  8

  Waltham Forest

  Lab

  2

  Wandsworth

  Con

  8

  Warwickshire

  Lab minority

  8

  West Sussex

  LD minority

  0

  Westminster

  Con

  0

  76

  LEA

  Political control

  Number of self-governing schools operating at 11 January1994

  Wigan

  Lab

  0

  Wiltshire

  NOC

  19

  Wirral

  NOC

  2

  Wolverhampton

  Con minority

  3

  Key:

  Con = Conservative

  Ind = Independent

  Lab = Labour

  LD = Liberal Democrat

  NOC = No overall control

  Notes:

  1. No Overall Control. Such councils are not controlled by any party or group of parties.

  2. Where several parties are shown—Lab/LD/Ind—the authority is being run by a joint administration of some sort. This does not mean that there will necessarily have been a formal pact. In several cases the joint administration will be as a result of an informal understanding of some kind.

  Language Teaching (Primary Schools)
  Mr. Luff
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what consideration he has given to making funding available to primary schools for extra language teaching, in the light of the reductions in section 11 funding for these schools.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  Local education authorities—LEAs —at present receive an additional allowance in their standard spending assessment—SSA—to meet the educational needs of children with origins outside predominantly English-speaking countries. SSAs are not prescriptive and LEAs are responsible for funding primary schools according to their own priorities between and within services. When undertaking the recent review of education SSAs for the 1994–95 financial year, we took account of the reduction in the section 11 grant rate.

  University Applicants
  Mr. Robert Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what assessment he has made of the reasons for the change in the percentage of applicants to the Universities Central Council on Admissions from social class V between 1986 and 1991.

  Mr. Boswell
  UCCA has collected these details from the academic year 1989–90 onwards. The percentage of applicants to UCCA from social class V has increased slightly since then from 1·2 per cent. in 1989 to 1·7 per cent. in 1992. A number of factors will have contributed to this change. Data collected by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys suggest the proportion of the total young population in social classes IV and V declined over this period.

  Mr. Robert Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will publish figures for the social class of 1992 university applicants on the same basis as has been published in UCCA's statistics in previous years.

  Mr. Boswell
  Comparable data on the social class of applicants have been published by UCCA in its annual
  77
  statistical supplement for more than the last 10 years, the latest for 1992. Students applying to the former polytechnics and colleges which are members of PCAS —Polytechnics central admissions systems—have also been asked, since 1991, to provide information on their social background on the same basis as UCCA applicants. The new joint admissions agency, UCAS—Universities and Colleges Admissions Service—will continue to collect and publish information on the social background of higher education applicants.

  Student Incomes
  Mr. Robert Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what was the percentage income of a university degree/course student, whose parental contribution is assessed as nil, derived from grants and loans for each year from 1988; and what is his forecast for the next three years.

  Mr. Boswell
  Information is not available in the form requested. No data are collected centrally that identify the percentage of total income which a student whose parental income is assessed as nil derives from grant and student loan. The hon. Member may find it helpful to refer to the student income and expenditure survey published on 16 December 1993, a copy of which is in the Library. The table gives the maximum income available to a student from the main rates of grant and loan.

  Academic year

  Total £

  1988–89

  2,050

  1989–90

  2,155

  1990–91

  2,685

  1991–92

  2,845

  1992–93

  2,980

  1993–94

  3,065

  1994–95

  3,190

  No forecast is available for 1995–96 or 1996–97.

  Note to table

  The table assumes that the student is studying outside London and living away from his parents. From the academic year 1990–91 when student loans were introduced, the income from grant and student loan will depend on whether the student applies for a loan and, if eligible, on how much of the loan he takes up. The grant and loan rates for 1994–95 are subject to Parliamentary approval of the relevant regulations.

  Numbers of full and part-time students on further education courses in construction, motor vehicle maintenance and engineering at 1 November of each year (England)

  Data from the Further Education Statistical Record for the appropriate years

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1991–92

  1992–931

  Construction and Related Subjects

  110,909

  120,831

  114,070

  97,569

  82,395

  Motor Vehicle Maintenance

  39,771

  43,541

  41,084

  40,113

  38,566

  All Other Engineering

  120,869

  126,447

  126,505

  127,647

  121,430

  1 Provisional.

  Local Education Authorities
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will list the capital allocation made to local education authorities for 1994–95 together with the bid made in each case; and if he will give each allocation as a percentage of the relevant bid.

  Further Education Colleges
  Dr. Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what information he has on changes in(a) the number of senior non-teaching posts in further education colleges and (b) salaries of principals and senior staff, so designated by the instruments and articles of government in further education colleges in each of the last five years; and whether such information will be collected in future as a prerequisite for securing funding from the Further Education Funding Council.

  Mr. Boswell
  The Department does not collect information on numbers of staff in non-teaching posts, except where those posts are filled by staff employed on academic-research pay scales. Average salaries of principals of further education colleges in England in each of the four years up to 1991, the latest year for which figures are available, are shown in the table. Comparable figures for vice-principals and other heads of departments for years up to 1990 are also given; similar information for these groups is not available for 1991 because these posts were transferred to a new "Management spine" from April 1990.

  Average salary (£) at 31 March

  1988

  1989

  1990

  1991

  Principals

  28,030

  29,820

  32,980

  39,120

  Vice-Principals

  24,750

  26,400

  28,810

  —

  Other Heads of Department

  21,800

  23,030

  24,980

  —

  Under the financial memorandum between the Further Education Funding Council and institutions in the new further education sector, which sets out terms and conditions for the payment of grant, institutions will be required to disclose in the notes to their accounts the salaries of all of their senior posts holders.

  Dr. Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what information he has on the number of students in further education colleges undertaking courses in construction, motor vehicle maintenance and engineer-ing in each of the last five years.

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

  Mr. Forth
  The table gives details of allocations to local education authorities of annual capital guidelines for schools.

  Allocation of annual capital guidelines (ACGs)for 1994–95

  LEA

  Total ACG bid(£000)

  Total ACG(£000)

  ACG as percentageof bid

  Barking

  5,409

  556

  10

  Barnet

  11,514

  2,838

  25

  Bexley

  6,881

  1,880

  27

  79

  LEA

  Total ACG bid (£000)

  Total ACG (£000)

  ACG as percentage of bid

  Brent

  4,675

  665

  14

  Barnsley

  4,198

  881

  21

  Bromley

  9,937

  2,761

  28

  Croydon

  7,613

  748

  10

  Ealing

  40,012

  2,945

  7

  Enfield

  6,656

  3,052

  46

  Haringey

  15,688

  2,288

  15

  Harrow

  11,156

  2,357

  21

  Havering

  8,665

  606

  7

  Hillingdon

  9,349

  1,085

  12

  Hounslow

  11,959

  2,347

  20

  Kingston

  1,747

  772

  44

  Merton

  10,050

  366

  4

  Newham

  11,379

  518

  5

  Redbridge

  3,733

  3,715

  100

  Richmond

  4,490

  228

  5

  Sutton

  5,049

  1,403

  28

  Waltham

  10,085

  1,830

  18

  City

  0

  0

  —

  Camden

  1,544

  576

  37

  Westminster

  475

  67

  14

  Greenwich

  8,101

  273

  3

  Hackney

  8,438

  1,493

  18

  Hammersmith

  2,775

  744

  27

  Islington

  9,135

  438

  5

  Kensington

  2,919

  198

  7

  Lambeth

  9,703

  1,061

  11

  Lewisham

  23,049

  1,514

  7

  Southwark

  6,263

  631

  10

  Wandsworth

  11,856

  786

  7

  Tower Hamlets

  25,560

  10,915

  43

  Birmingham

  51,514

  10,904

  21

  Coventry

  4,087

  716

  18

  Dudley

  6,090

  667

  11

  Sandwell

  9,685

  1,472

  15

  Solihull

  5,325

  2,238

  42

  Walsall

  6,218

  621

  10

  Wolverhampton

  11,465

  1,167

  10

  Knowsley

  13,496

  859

  6

  Liverpool

  15,662

  4,540

  29

  St. Helens

  5,544

  937

  17

  Sefton

  3,445

  1,563

  45

  Wirral

  6,098

  1,547

  25

  Bolton

  4,180

  122

  3

  Bury

  3,536

  864

  24

  Manchester

  49,217

  12,900

  26

  Oldham

  7,815

  1,628

  21

  Rochdale

  14,464

  599

  4

  Salford

  13,104

  1,997

  15

  Stockport

  2,115

  488

  23

  Tameside

  11,031

  1,434

  13

  Trafford

  6,292

  591

  9

  Wigan

  5,055

  390

  8

  80

  LEA

  Total ACG bid (£000)

  Total ACG (£000)

  ACG as percentage of bid

  Barnsley

  4,198

  881

  21

  Doncaster

  6,178

  396

  6

  Rotherham

  2,792

  605

  22

  Sheffield

  36,617

  2,773

  8

  Bradford

  37,329

  6,926

  19

  Calderdale

  5,275

  1,424

  27

  KirKless

  9,499

  2,572

  27

  Leeds

  26,671

  2,568

  10

  Wakefield

  27,991

  7,550

  27

  Gateshead

  5,488

  845

  15

  Newcastle

  29,483

  4,356

  15

  North Tyneside

  11,510

  3,749

  33

  South Tyneside

  7,000

  618

  9

  Sunderland

  6,373

  1,212

  19

  Isle of Scilly

  94

  134

  143

  Avon

  12,314

  3,060

  25

  Bedfordshire

  5,888

  1,855

  32

  Berkshire

  13,267

  2,386

  18

  Buckinghamshire

  14,981

  6,829

  46

  Cambridgeshire

  25,235

  7,244

  29

  Cheshire

  21,141

  10,071

  48

  Cleveland

  11,683

  4,883

  42

  Cornwall

  16,030

  1,744

  11

  Cumbria

  25,037

  6,312

  25

  Derbyshire

  36,317

  6,460

  18

  Devon

  25,526

  7,961

  31

  Dorset

  22,612

  5,395

  24

  Durham

  53,165

  4,593

  9

  East Sussex

  38,458

  12,942

  34

  Essex

  58,195

  9,795

  17

  Gloucestershire

  32,281

  7,964

  25

  Hampshire

  50,728

  18,583

  37

  Hereford and Worcester

  14,432

  3,218

  22

  Hertford

  9,806

  2,722

  28

  Humberside

  19,253

  3,894

  20

  Isle of Wight

  10,369

  3,992

  38

  Kent

  40,464

  15,660

  39

  Lancashire

  40,633

  7,948

  20

  Leicester

  11,838

  5,900

  50

  Lincolnshire

  17,278

  9,503

  55

  Norfolk

  12,791

  3,890

  30

  North Yorkshire

  17,530

  4,182

  24

  Northampton

  14,097

  3,404

  24

  Northumberland

  5,996

  2,511

  42

  Nottinghamshire

  17,045

  1,778

  10

  Oxfordshire

  21,641

  3,745

  17

  Shropshire

  8,448

  6,990

  83

  Somerset

  10,090

  3,240

  32

  Staffordshire

  16,119

  3,188

  20

  Suffolk

  19,715

  5,892

  30

  Surrey

  25,970

  11,452

  44

  Warwickshire

  5,384

  856

  16

  West Sussex

  16,087

  2,810

  17

  Wiltshire

  13,051

  2,420

  19

  Public Bodies
  Mr. Straw
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education in respect of how many boards, authorities, committees, and other public bodies he is responsible, in whole or in part, for appointments; what is the total number of such appointments; and what is the total public spending by such boards, authorities, committees and other public bodies.

  Mr. Boswell
  The information required may be found in "Public Bodies 1993" published last month by the Cabinet Office. The information given applies to those bodies not included in that report.

  Number or amount

  School Curriculum and Assessment Authority

  Total number of appointments

  15

  Budget for financial year 1993–94 (£ million)

  17

  The (nine) Regional Committees of the Further Education Funding Council

  Total number of appointments

  102

  The regional committees are advisory bodies and do not have funding responsibilities. Administrative costs are met by the FEFC

  Student Loans Company Ltd

  Total number of appointments (made jointly by the Secretaries of State for Education and Scotland)

  3

  Administrative expenditure, financial year 1993–94 (maximum grant in aid available jointly from DFE, SOED and DENI) (£ million)

  16·1

  Current gross provision for making loans to students, financial year 1993–94 (funded jointly by DFE, SOED and DENI) (£ million)

  292·3

  Low Achievers
  Dame Angela Rumbold
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what plans he has to ensure that the Further Education Funding Council encourages schools and colleges to do more for low achievers on training courses; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Boswell
  The new funding methodology being developed by the Further Education Funding Council will help low achievers by requiring colleges to reach agreement with individual students on their lerning needs, their learning programmes and their goals. This will provide an incentive to colleges to ensure that they match students to programmes as effectively as possible. In addition, the funding methodology recognises that the cost of providing suitable courses for low achievers in colleges requires additional support. The Further Education Funding Council's funding responsibilities do not cover schools.

  Training Targets
  Dame Angela Rumbold
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what steps he has taken to ensure that his Department is fully committed to the national education and training targets; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Boswell
  As my right hon. Friend made clear in the House on 26 November 1993,Official Report, columns 692–759, the national education and training targets have the full commitment of the Department. The Department's
  82
  action plan on the targets published in March 1993 sets out a four-fold strategy towards the achievement of the targets, which is being actively pursued: publicising and promoting the targets among education institutions at all levels; co-operating with others in developing necessary data sources for monitoring purposes; monitoring policies and, as appropriate, developing new ones to facilitate progress towards the targets; and developing human resources, in particular aiming to gain maximum benefit from the Investors in People standard. In addition, it is a requirement in the Department that every new policy proposal must demonstrate its contribution to the achievement of the targets.

  Dame Angela Rumbold
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what plans he has to ensure that the Further Education Funding Council favours those colleges which plan vocational and part-time courses in relation to national education and training targets.

  Mr. Boswell
  The new funding methodology being developed by the Further Education Funding Council will provide incentives to colleges to assist more students, including students taking vocational and part-time courses, to achieve qualifications contributing to the national education and training targets.

  Teaching Hours
  Lady Olga Maitland
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will list the 12 schools with(a) the longest and (b) the shortest teaching hours per week and the hours at which teaching takes place in each school.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  My right hon. Friend is not satisfied with the reliability of the figures provided by the small number of schools which have reported hours of lesson time per week at the extremes of the range. I have taken steps to improve the accuracy of the return in future.

PRIME MINISTER

  Departmental Offices (Heating Bills)
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will list by location the annual fuel heating bills for each of his Department's offices for the last four years, and for this year to date.

  Mr. Newton
  I have been asked to reply.

  The main source of heating for 10 Downing street is the Whitehall district heating scheme—WDHS. The WDHS charges for 10 Downing street are based on a percentage of the overall cost and, including both space and water heating, for each of the last four years were as follows:

  £

  1989–90

  4,728

  1990–91

  3,983

  1991–92

  3,782

  1992–93

  3,700

  For the current year heat meters have been installed and charges have yet to be levied.

  Civil Servants
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Prime Minister how many civil servants in the Cabinet Office, and of what grade, are currently working on constitutional matters.

  Mr. Newton
  I have been asked to reply.

  None works exclusively on constitutional issues although much of the work of the Cabinet Office requires an understanding of constitutional matters.

  Michael John Smith
  Sir Nicholas Bonsor
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will refer the case of Michael John Smith to the Security Commission.

  Mr. Newton
  I have been asked to reply.

  In accordance with the established procedures in such matters, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has consulted the chairman of the Security Commission and the Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith) on this case and has decided to refer it to the Security Commission with the following terms of reference:
  "To investigate the circumstances in which breaches of security have or may have occurred arising out of the case of Micheal John Smith, who was convicted on 18 November 1993 of offences under section 1 of the Official Secrets Act 1911; and to advise in the light of that investigation whether any change in security arrangements is necessary or desirable."

  Engagements
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 11 January.

  Mr. Newton
  I have been asked to reply.

  My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is travelling back from the NATO summit in Brussels.

  Genetic Testing
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Prime Minister what arrangements Her Majesty's Government are making to respond to the report under the chairmanship of Professor Dame June Lloyd of the Nuffield council of bioethics relating to genetic testing; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Newton
  I have been asked to reply.

  The Government welcome this authoritative and timely report.

  We will consider the conclusions and recommendations of the report and study the reaction of public and professional interests before deciding whether action by the Government is needed.

  Ministers
  Mr. Grocott
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement about ministerial responsibility and the accountability of Ministers for decisions taken by the Department.

  Mr. Newton
  I have been asked to reply.

  Guidance on ministerial responsibility and accountability is provided at paragraph 27 of "Questions of Procedure for Ministers", a copy of which is in the Library.

  Mr. Grocott
  To ask the Prime Minister if he.will list each Minister who has left his Administration, with the reason for their departure in each case.
  84
  Mr. Newton
  I have been asked to reply.

  The names of resigning Ministers, and the reasons for their resigning, have been announced on each occasion.

  Documents
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will make it his policy to advise all Ministers that marginal notes on documents circulated between themselves or departmental officials always are made directly on to the documents and not on detachable notes.

  Mr. Newton
  I have been asked to reply.

  My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has no plans to issue such advice.

  Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Prime Minister how many representations he has received in the form of coupons from the advertisement placed by the citizens of Hiroshima, Japan, in The Times of 20 December, setting out opposition to the THORP reprocessing plant at Sellafield.

  Mr. Newton
  I have been asked to reply.

  My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has received numerous representations.

  EC Directives
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) of 17 December 1993,Official Report, column 959, how the list of 17 EC directives which the European Council agreed should be repealed or withdrawn has been made available to the general public.

  Mr. Newton
  I have been asked to reply.

  The Commission's report on subsidiarity, which includes the annex to which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister referred in his answer of 17 December to my hon. Friend, the Member for Southend, East, has been published by the Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. As is the practice for all official Community plublications, it is available to the general public through HMSO.

  Police and Magistrates
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Prime Minister what amount of new money is proposed to support the reformed(a) magistrates courts system and (b) the police authorities; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Newton
  I have been asked to reply.

  The costs of establishing the new administrative structure for the magistrates courts service will depend on local management decisions, but during the one to two year implementation period costs in the region of £5 million a year may be incurred. The Government have reflected the additional costs of the reforms in determining future grant provision for the service.

  As regards the police, the overall effect of the changes in the Police and Magistrates' Courts Bill on ongoing expenditure from the Consolidated Fund and by local government will be broadly neutral. It is expected that additional expenditure by police forces on financial and personnel management will be offset by increases in efficiency.
  85
  Some start-up costs are expected. These will arise from a period of parallel operation by the current police authorities and their successors to be established by the Bill. The new authorities will incur some costs for their own purposes and some for the purposes of the police force for whose maintenance they will become responsible from April 1995. The force may need to recruit and train new staff in areas such as personnel or finance or to purchase computer hardware. Taken together, the start-up costs of the reforms for police authorities and police forces are not expected to exceed £21 million. They will be rnet by central Government grant.

  Press Officers
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Prime Minister how many press officers his Office has employed in each year since 1983.

  Mr. Newton
  [holding answer 17 December 1993]: I have been asked to reply.

  Detailed figures were not recorded separately prior to 1987–88. From then onwards the complement remained at six, until 1 April 1992, when it was increased to seven to enable the press office to continue to respond effectively to the growing number of press inquiries.

SCOTLAND

  Enterprise Directors
  Ms Short
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many directors of Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise are (i) male and (ii) female; how many are from ethnic minority backgrounds; how many directors are from the private sector and which industrial sectors they come from; how many non-private sector directors are from(a) local authorities, (b) local education authorities, (c) other educational organisations, (d) trade unions, (e) voluntary organisations, (f) ethnic minority organisations, (g) employers associations and (h) others.

  Mr. Stewart
  Directors of Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise are senior executives, directly responsible to the chief executives of the enterprise bodies.

  At board level there are in total 23 members of Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, of whom 19 are male and four are female. No information is collected on their ethnic origin.

  The information requested on numbers of board members from the private and public sectors, set out in the table, relates to the principal activity of the member concerned. Many of Scottish. Enterprise's and Highlands and Islands Enterprise's board members are currently active in more than one of these areas.

  Scottish Enterprise

  Highlands and Islands Enterprise

  Private Sector

  Agriculture and Fisheries

  —

  2

  Construction and Manufacturing

  5

  4

  Financial and other Services

  3

  3

  Total

  8

  9

  Public Sector

  (a)

  1

  1

  86

  Scottish Enterprise

  Highlands and Islands Enterprise

  (b)

  —

  —

  (c)

  1

  —

  (d)

  1

  —

  (e)

  —

  1

  (f)

  —

  —

  (g)

  —

  —

  (h)

  1

  —

  Total

  4

  2

  Health Board Staff
  Mr. Galbraith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will consider giving advice to health boards concerning the re-employment on the same salary of staff who have been sacked by the health boards but who are threatening legal action.

  Mr. Stewart
  My right hon. Friend has, at present, no plans to issue such advice.

  Hospitals
  Mrs. Fyfe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many hospital wards were closed at weekends in(a) 1979, (b) 1984, (c) 1989 and (d) the latest date for which figures are available.

  Mr. Stewart
  This information is not held centrally.

  Mrs. Fyfe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make it his policy to establish ratios of qualified nurses to patient numbers in all branches of in-patient hospital provision.

  Mr. Stewart
  No. All patients should be carefully assessed on admission to hospital and their combined needs for care and treatment will determine the number of qualified nursing staff required.

  Lung Cancer
  Mrs. Fyfe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many women have died of lung cancer in each year since 1975; and how much he plans to spend on publicising these figures.

  Mr. Stewart
  The information is set out in the table:

  Year

  Numbers

  1975

  735

  1976

  806

  1977

  890

  1978

  1,017

  1979

  1,010

  1980

  990

  1981

  1,117

  1982

  1,199

  1983

  1,187

  1984

  1,272

  1985

  1,336

  1986

  1,284

  1987

  1,377

  1988

  1,372

  1989

  1,426

  1990

  1,453

  1991

  1,503

  1992

  1,547

  87
  The figures are published in the annual report of the Registrar General for Scotland. The policy statement "Scotland's Health: A Challenge to Us All" published in 1992 drew specific attention to the fact that Scottish women have the highest mortality rate from lung cancer in the developed world and this has influenced our policies on smoking and targets for reduction of cancer mortality.

  Spending Statistics
  Mr. Martlew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how much will be spent in Scotland in each year from 1993–94 to 1995–96 on(a) environmentally sensitive areas, identifying the amount allocated for the new access option, (b) new nitrate sensitive areas, (c) the moorland scheme, (d) the organic aid scheme and (e) the total amount of money being spent on the agri-environment scheme in Scotland; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir Hector Monro
  The forecast outturn expenditure on environmentally sensitive areas in Scotland for 1993–94 is £1·5 million. Subject to approval by Parliament and the EC Commission, the Government propose to introduce a heather moorland scheme, an organic aid scheme, a habitat

  Cereals

  Potatoes

  Region

  Holdings

  Area (ha)

  Holdings

  Area (ha)

  Borders

  865

  60,890

  163

  1,950

  Central

  375

  12,225

  69

  153

  Dumfries and Galloway

  885

  17,946

  115

  397

  Fife

  678

  42,162

  285

  2,961

  Grampian

  4,056

  137,040

  1,312

  6,042

  Highland

  1,292

  30,127

  715

  1,049

  Lothian

  631

  41,933

  149

  2,053

  Strathclyde

  1,353

  22,814

  391

  1,064

  Tayside

  1,813

  91,429

  1,142

  11,843

  Orkney, Shetland, Western Isles

  1,038

  3,962

  1,172

  365

  Linseed

  Horticultural Crops

  Oilseeds

  Region

  Holdings

  Area (ha)

  Holdings

  Area (ha)

  Holdings

  Area (ha)

  Borders

  37

  510

  106

  1,513

  217

  6,506

  Central

  6

  62

  31

  100

  67

  1,155

  Dumfries and Galloway

  0

  0

  43

  47

  17

  332

  Fife

  9

  105

  162

  3,062

  290

  6,470

  Grampian

  45

  730

  340

  2,233

  928

  20,844

  Highland

  1—

  1—

  111

  168

  150

  2,900

  Lothian

  7

  88

  118

  961

  195

  4,231

  Strathclyde

  1—

  1—

  166

  304

  16

  298

  Tayside

  62

  906

  528

  6,159

  695

  14,111

  Orkney, Shetland, Western Isles

  0

  0

  195

  57

  9

  13

  1 Less than 5 holdings.

  Figures for sugar beet are not collected.

  GP Fundholders
  Mrs. Fyfe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many general practitioner fundholders there are in each health board area.

  Mr. Stewart
  The latest information from health boards indicates the numbers of operational general practitioner fundholders as set out in the table.

  Health Board

  Current Number of Fundholders

  Argyll and Clyde

  5

  Ayrshire and Arran

  3

  Borders

  1

  88
  scheme and a set-aside access scheme, which, together with the environmentally sensitive area scheme, will comprise the agri-environment programme for Scotland. There are no nitrate sensitive areas currently designated or proposed in Scotland. Planned expenditure on the Scottish agri-environment programme as a whole is expected to be in the region of £7 million for 1994–95 and £11 million for 1995–96.

  Land Use
  Mr. Tipping
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) how many holdings there are in each region of Scotland in 1992 and 1993 growing(a) cereals, (b) potatoes, (c) linseed, (d) sugar beet, (e) horticultural produce and (f) oilseeds;

  (2) how many hectares were taken up in each region of Scotland in 1992 and 1993 by (a) cereals, (b) potatoes, (c) linseed, (d) sugar beet, (e) horticultural produce and (f) oilseeds.

  Sir Hector Monro
  Final June agricultural census information for 1993 is not yet available. The figures for main holdings at June 1992 are as follows:

  Health Board

  Current Number of Fundholders

  Dumfries and Galloway

  0

  Fife

  3

  Forth Valley

  2

  Grampian

  25

  Greater Glasgow

  4

  Highland

  1

  Lanarkshire

  8

  Lothian

  9

  Orkney

  0

  Shetland

  0

  Tayside

  8

  Western Isles

  0

  TOTAL

  69

  Arable Area Payments
  Mr. Tipping
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many landowners in Scotland are receiving annual payments under the arable area payments scheme(a) in each band of £25,000 up to £500,000 and (b) over £500,000; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir Hector Monro
  This information could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Mr. Tipping
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many holdings in each region of Scotland have taken up the arable area payments scheme.

  Sir Hector Monro
  The number of applications in Scotland under the arable area payments scheme in 1993 was as follows:

  Number

  Less-favoured area (LFA)

  3,957

  Non-less-favoured area (non-LFA)

  4,892

  Combined claimes

  603

  Combined claims are those which include both LFA and non-LFA land.

  NHS Common Services Agency
  Mrs. Fyfe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many people have been made redundant in the past year in the building division of the national health service Common Services Agency, and for what reason; and if the work formerly done by it will now be carried out by(a) direct labour or (b) private contractors.

  Mr. Stewart
  Thirty staff have been made redundant in the past year. It was necessary to restructure the organisation to reflect increased efficiency and change in the workload.

  Building Division is fee earning and has to compete with private firms for its share of the advisory, design and consultancy work available at this time in relation to NHS building projects. Private firms have also had to make redundancies where they have not won contracts.

  Sites of Special Scientific Interest
  Mr. Martlew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many sites of special scientific interest in Scotland have been damaged or destroyed in each year since 1982; whether each of these sites(a) was lost completely, (b) was partially lost, (c) suffered long term damage or (d) suffered short term damage; whether the damage or destruction in each case was due to (i) agriculture, (ii) forestry, (iii) poor management, (iv) pollution, (v) third party activities, (vi) developments controlled through the planning system, (vii) road building or (viii) other activities; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir Hector Monro
  Details of damage to sites of special scientific interest in Scotland are published in the annual reports of the former Nature Conservancy Council for Scotland and the Nature Conservancy Council, copies of which are in the Library of the House.

  Mr. Martlew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how much has been spent on management 90
  agreements in Scotland under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 for sites of special scientific interest in each year since the Act came into force; if for each year he will give the number of agreements, the hectarages involved, and what the threats of damage were; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir Hector Monro
  Details of the annual expenditure on management agreements in Scotland and the area involved are published in the annual reports of the former Nature Conservancy Council for Scotland and the Nature Conservancy Council, copies of which are in the Library of the House.

  Mr. Martlew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many sites of special scientific interest in Scotland have been denotified in each year since 1982; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir Hector Monro
  The number of sites of special scientific interest which have been denotified in Scotland is published in the annual reports of the former Nature Conservancy Council for Scotland and the Nature Conservancy Council, copies of which are in the Library of the House.

  Compulsory Purchase
  Mr. Martlew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list the occasions when his powers of compulsory purchase of land under section 17 of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 have been used in Scotland in each year since 1981; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir Hector Monro
  Such powers of compulsory purchase are not available to my right hon. Friend; they are exercisable by Scottish Natural Heritage, previously the Nature Conservancy Council for Scotland and the Nature Conservancy Council, but only with my right hon. Friend's authorisation. No use of these powers has been made.

  Management Agreements
  Mr. Martlew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list the number of management agreements that have been entered into under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 in Scotland where payments have been in each band of £10,000 up to £60,000 or £60,000 and over; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir Hector Monro
  Agreements may involve either annual or capital payments. An analysis of the information by both categories is set out in the following table.

  Type of cost

  Range of costs

  Annual

  Capital

  No costs

  94

  107

  Up to £9,999

  200

  131

  £10,000 to £19,999

  13

  13

  £20,000 to £29,999

  5

  15

  £30,000 to £39,999

  1

  13

  £40,000 to £49,999

  0

  8

  £50,000 to £59,999

  2

  3

  Over £60,000

  0

  25

  315

  315

  Figures as at 31 March 1993.

  Mr. Laurence Peterken
  Mrs. Fyfe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will place in the Library a copy of the report of the investigation into the dismissal of Mr. Laurence Peterken as general manager of Greater Glasgow health board when it is published; and if he will list within the report those consulted in the course of the investigation.

  Mr. Stewart
  My right hon. Friend announced in the House on 8 December that the report would be published in due course.

  Mrs. Fyfe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what assessment he has made of Mr. W. S. Fyfe's chairmanship of Greater Glasgow health board before the dismissal of Mr. Laurence Peterken; and what action he took.

  Mr. Stewart
  Mr. Fyfe brought to the chairmanship of Greater Glasgow health board in April 1993 the qualities of leadership he had displayed earlier over 12 years as chairman of Ayrshire and Arran health board. His actions in dismissing Mr. Peterken, however, led the non-executive members of the board to lose confidence in him.

  Common Services Agency
  Mrs. Fyfe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland on what date it was decided that the operation of the Common Services Agency needed review; and whether a list of external management consultants was drawn up at any stage in the process with a view to inviting them to tender for this work.

  Mr. Stewart
  The chief executive decided that a review of the Common Services Agency was necessary soon after his appointment on 1 September. No list of external. management consultants was drawn up with a view to inviting them to tender for this work.

  EC THERMIE Programme
  Mr. Salmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many Scottish applicants there have been for the EC THERMIE programme; how many of these applications were successful; what level of funds were awarded; and if he will make a statement.

  Number of holdings as at June 1992 growing:

  Cereals

  Potatoes

  Linseed

  Sugar beet

  Horticultural produce

  Oilseeds

  Clwyd

  619

  163

  11

  1—

  93

  12

  Dyfed

  1,577

  608

  38

  1—

  208

  25

  Gwent

  303

  161

  6

  1—

  76

  10

  Gwynedd

  491

  270

  0

  1—

  58

  6

  Mid Glamorgan

  57

  27

  4

  0

  19

  5

  Powys

  664

  142

  9

  1—

  47

  13

  South Glamorgan

  119

  30

  8

  0

  26

  9

  West Glamorgan

  118

  118

  0

  0

  75

  0

  Wales

  3,948

  1,519

  76

  19

  602

  80

  Source: June Agricultural and Horticultural Census.

  Note: Figures exclude minor holdings.

  1 Data withheld to avoid disclosure of information relating to any particular land or business.

  Mr. Tipping
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many hectares were taken up in each county of Wales in 1992 and 1993 by(a) cereals, (b) potatoes, (c) linseed, (d) sugar beet, (e) horticultural produce and (f) oilseeds.
  92
  Mr. Eggar
  [holding answer 14 December 1993]: I have been asked to reply.

  The THERMIE programme is administered by the Directorate General of Energy of the European Commission who keeps records of the number of applications from the United Kingdom, but only as a whole. Up to and including the 1993 round, there have been a total of 281 applications from the United Kingdom, of which 88 were successful. Although information on the number of Scottish applicants is not available, the Commission has advised my Department that 19 THERMIE projects located in Scotland have been approved and awarded a total of £11·46 million.

WALES

  Arable Area Payments
  Mr. Tipping
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many landowners in Wales are receiving annual payments under the arable area payments scheme(a) in each band of £25,000 up to £500,000 and (b) over £500,000; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Redwood
  It is not possible to differentiate between landowners and tenants who claim aid. The number of claimants receiving payment is:

  1. £25,000-£49,000: 10

  2. £50,000 and above: none

  Agriculture
  Mr. Tipping
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many holdings there are in each county of Wales in 1992 and 1993 growing(a) cereals, (b) potatoes, (c) linseed, (d) sugar beet, (e) horticultural produce and (f) oilseeds.

  Mr. Redwood
  Data for 1992 are shown in the following table. The requested information is not yet available for 1993.

  Mr. Redwood
  The requested information for 1992 is shown in the following table along with the only available data so far for 1993 which are provisional figures at national level.
  93

  Hectares at June 1992 taken up by:

  Cereals

  Potatoes

  Linseed

  Sugar beet

  Horticultural produce

  Oilseeds

  Clwyd

  8,188

  298

  152

  1—

  371

  200

  Dyfed

  18,084

  2,211

  453

  1—

  384

  308

  Gwent

  6,180

  452

  80

  1—

  251

  181

  Gwynedd

  4,659

  293

  0

  1—

  91

  81

  Mid Glamorgan

  1,809

  70

  112

  0

  71

  207

  Powys

  9,640

  310

  98

  1—

  85

  230

  South Glamorgan

  3,647

  137

  79

  0

  61

  109

  West Glamorgan

  1,144

  302

  0

  0

  249

  0

  Wales

  53,350

  4,074

  974

  97

  1,564

  1,316

  2Hectares at June 1993:

  Wales

  47,879

  3,769

  1,738

  105

  1,548

  1,433

  Source: June Agricultural and Horticultural Census.

  Note: Figures exclude minor holdings.

  1 Data withheld to avoid disclosure of information relating to any particular land or business.

  2 Provisional.

  Mr. Martlew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how much will be spent in Wales in each year from 1993–94 to 1995–96 on(a) environmentally sensitive areas, identifying the amount allocated for the new access option, (b) new nitrate sensitive areas, (c) the moorland scheme, (d) the new habitat scheme, (e) the new countryside access scheme, (f) the organic acid scheme and (g) the total amount of money being spent on the agri-environment scheme in Wales; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Redwood
  Current provision is as follows:

  £million

  1993–94

  11994–95

  21995–96

  i. Environmentally sensitive areas

  5·037

  6·863

  7·015

  ii. Public access in ESAs

  —

  0·051

  0·052

  iii. The Moorland Scheme

  —

  1·090

  3·168

  iv. The New Habitat Scheme

  —

  0·500

  0·700

  iv. The New Countryside Access Scheme

  —

  3—

  3—

  vi. Organic Aid Scheme

  0·050

  0·170

  0·310

  Total

  5·087

  8·674

  11·245

  1 Figures to be confirmed in the 1994–95 Main Supply estimates.

  2 Figures may be subject to change in the 1994 Public Expenditure Survey round.

  3 Provision to be determined.

  Name/Post

  Remuneration (£)

  Appointment commenced

  Appointment expires

  Former MPs

  Mr. Ian Grist

  19,285 per annum (pro rata 3.5 days a week)

  1 August 1992

  31 July 1996

  Chairman South Glamorgan District Health Authority

  Former MEPs

  Miss Beata Brookes

  Nil

  16 April 1991

  15 April 1994

  Member Consumers Committees for Great Britain and for England and Wales1

  Members of the House of Lords

  Lord Brooks of Tremorfa

  (i) Deputy Chairman Cardiff Bay Development Corporation

  18,050 pre annum (pro rata 2 days a week)

  30 November 1992

  31 March 1996

  (ii) Chairman Sportsmatch Awards Panel

  Nil

  The Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor

  Nil

  1 October 1971

  30 September 1995

  Member Historic Buildings Council for Wales

  Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas

  20,544 per annum (pro rata 2 days a week)

  1 Spetember 1993

  20 December 1996

  Chairman Welsh Language Board

  94
  I have no plans to designate any nitrate sensitive areas in Wales.

  Quangos
  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) if he will list the names of all former British representative members in the European Parliament who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment;

  (2) if he will list the names of all former hon. Members who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment;

  (3) if he will list the names of all individuals who are or were members of the House of Lords who since 1979 have been appointed to any quasi-autonomous nongovernmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. Redwood
  Information is not available centrally in the form requested. The information in respect of current appointments that I make is as follows:
  95

  Name/Post

  Remuneration £

  Appointment commenced

  Appointment expires

  Lord John Moran

  Nil

  1 April 1990

  31 August 1994

  Member NRA Advisory Committee for Wales

  The Earl of Selborne

  24,045 per annum (pro rata 2 days a week)

  24 November 1991

  31 March 1994

  Chairman Joint Nature Conservation Committee2

  Rt. Hon. The Lord Rees, QC

  Nil

  1 March 1987

  8 February 1994

  Member National Museum of Wales Court and Council

  1 Joint Appointment with the Minister of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretary of State for Scotland.

  2 Joint Appointment with Secretaries of State for Environment and Scotland.

  Overgrazing
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales before making hill livestock compensatory allowance payments, what steps are taken by the Welsh Agriculture Department to ascertain whether overgrazing is causing adverse effects on the growth, quality or species composition of vegetation.

  Mr. Redwood
  Between a quarter and one third of livestock subsidy claimants are visited each year by Welsh Office field staff who are trained to look out for evidence of overgrazing either from the sward or the general condition of the animals. Any complaints from individuals or bodies about possible overgrazing will be investigated by these field staff. The rules of the hill livestock compensatory allowance scheme contain stocking and financial limits per hectare which also militate against overgrazing.

  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what progress has been made in persuading the European Union to incorporate within the sheep annual premium scheme a requirement that payments should be withheld where overgrazing is causing adverse effects on the growth, quality or species composition of vegetation.

  Mr. Redwood
  The Council of Ministers agreed in December a regulation which provides that member states may apply to the annual ewe premium environmental protection measures appropriate to their particular situation.

  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales on how many occasions since the introduction of a definition of overgrazing in the Hill Livestock (Compensatory Allowances) Regulations 1992, hill livestock compensatory allowances payments have been withheld because of adverse effects on the growth, quality or species composition of vegetation.

  Mr. Redwood
  Claimants for the hill livestock compensatory allowances are warned that if the land on

  Private pay beds in Welsh health authorities

  1986

  1987

  1988

  1989

  1990

  1991

  1992

  1993

  Clwyd

  12

  12

  12

  12

  12

  12

  12

  1—

  East Dyfed

  7

  7

  7

  7

  15

  15

  15

  1—

  Gwent

  6

  6

  6

  6

  6

  6

  6

  23

  Gwynedd

  8

  8

  8

  8

  8

  8

  8

  8

  Mid Glamorgan

  3

  3

  3

  3

  3

  4

  4

  23

  Pembrokeshire

  3

  3

  3

  3

  3

  3

  1—

  1—

  South Glamorgan

  11+2Em3

  11+2Em3

  11+2Em3

  11+2Em3

  11+2Em3

  11+2Em3

  11+2Em3

  11+2Em3

  West Glamorgan

  4

  4

  4

  4

  4

  4

  4

  22

  1Figure is not applicable as pay bed allocation is the responsibility of NHS Trusts.

  2Figure does not include pay beds in NHS Trusts.

  3To be used solely for emergency admissions and only when the basic number of beds is already occupied.

  96
  which the stock is kept is found to be overgrazed the payment will be reduced. There have been no claims so far where this has been necessary. There are in the scheme regulations additional stocking rate safeguards which discourage overgrazing and these are applied quite frequently.

  National House Building Council
  Mr. Hanson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) what action his office has taken with regard to complaints about the performance of the National House Building Council following correspondence with Mr. C. Gavin of 15 Palace close, Flint, Clwyd; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) if he will institute a review into the operation of the complaints procedure with regard to the National House Building Council in Wales;

  (3) if he will carry out an independent assessment of whether properties in Palace close, Flint, comply with Schedule 1 Part B of the Fire Building Regulations 1985; and if he will reconsider the approval given by the Inspector authorised by the National House Building Council to that effect.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  My right hon. Friend has no powers to intervene in individual cases involving approved inspectors. However, since Mr. Gavin first wrote in February 1992 my officials have made inquiries of the National House Building Council on a number of occasions.

  Private Beds
  Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many private pay beds there are in each health authority in Wales; and how many there were in each year since 1986.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  The information is as follows:

  Unemployment
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will publish a table showing the unemployment levels in each travel-to-work area in Wales; and what are the top 10 areas for people continuously unemployed for periods of(a) six months and (b) 12 months.

  Mr. Redwood
  The unemployment data requested are available from the NOMIS database, which can be accessed on line by the staff of the Library of the House.

  Welsh Development Agency
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what consultations he has had with the chairman of the Welsh Development Agency concerning the advertisement in the "Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Communities" in relation to the property management services contract on offer for the marketing and negotiation of disposals of approximately £75 million of industrial property assets of the Welsh Development Agency; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Redwood
  None. Public bodies such as the agency are required to advertise in the Official Journal of the European Communities for contracts over a certain threshold—currently £149,728. The sale of industrial property forms part of the agency's established and continuing strategy of disposals to the private sector thereby providing a welcome injection of private finance for reinvestment to the Welsh economy and reducing the burden to the taxpayer.

  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales whether the Welsh Development Agency is required to notify his Department over the engagement of lawyers.

  Mr. Redwood
  No.

  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he was informed of the plan by the Welsh Development Agency to offer for sale a large number of factories; and what formal arrangements exist for the notification by executive agencies in Wales wanting to sell off their assets.

  Mr. Redwood
  The sale of industrial property forms part of the agency's established and continuing strategy of disposals to the private sector; it provides a welcome cash injection for reinvestment in the Welsh economy. I have told Parliament of the need for a mixture of grant and asset sales to pay for new asset creation.

  SSSIs
  Mr. Martlew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many sites of special scientific interest in Wales have been damaged or destroyed in each year since 1982; whether each of these sites(a) was lost completely, (b) was partially lost, (c) suffered long term damage or (d) suffered short term damage; whether the damage or destruction in each case was due to (i) agriculture, (ii) forestry, (iii) poor management, (iv) pollution, (v) third party activities, (vi) developments controlled through the planning system, (vii) road building or (viii) other activities; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  Prior to the establishment of the Countryside Council for Wales in April 1991 the Nature 98
  Conservancy Council gave details in its annual report of all loss and damage to SSSI in Great Britain although not in the detail requested. Separate details for Wales are not available for this period. Since 1991 similar information has been included in the Countryside Council's annual reports. Copies of the reports are available in the Library of the House.

  Mr. Martlew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many sites of special scientific interest in Wales have been denotified in each year since 1982; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  Between 1982 and April 1991 the Nature Conservancy Council approved 34 SSSI for denotification, although the procedure for two of them concluded after the Countryside Council for Wales was established. The Countryside Council has not approved any for denotification. The details are as follows:

  Number

  1982

  3

  1983

  2

  1984

  2

  1985

  7

  1986

  6

  1987

  10

  1988

  —

  1989

  1

  1990

  1

  1991

  2

  1992

  —

  1993

  —

  Wildlife and Countryside Act
  Mr. Martlew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) if he will list the number of management agreements that have been entered into under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 in Wales where payments have been in each band of £10,000 up to £60,000 or £60,000 and over; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) how much has been spent on management agreements in Wales under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 for sites of special scientific interest in each year since the Act came into force; if for each year he will give the number of agreements, the hectarages involved, and what the threats of damage were; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  Management agreements are negotiated with owners and occupiers of SSSI under the terms of the Countryside Act 1968. Information in the format requested is not available centrally.

  However, prior to the establishment of the Countryside Council for Wales in April 1991 the Nature Conservancy Council gave details in its annual reports of all management agreements in Wales. Since then the Countryside Council has continued to report such information in its annual reports. Copies of the reports are in the Library of the House.

  Superannuation Funds
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales which authority will administer the superannuation funds currently managed by the county councils in the event of the reorganisation of local government in Wales.
  99
  Mr. Redwood
  I will announce my decision as to which authorities will administer superannuation funds in due course.

  Milk Marketing Board
  Mr. Hanson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he expects to make an announcement on the reorganisation scheme submitted by the milk marketing board in Wales under the provisions of the Agriculture Act 1993.

  Mr. Redwood
  When Ministers have finished studying it.

  Superannuation Costs
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, pursuant to his answer of 16 December,Official Report, column 853, if he will estimate the cost of superannuations transferred to his Department's running cost budget in the present financial year; from which vote they were transferred; and what was the estimated cost under that vote in 1992–93.

  Table 1

  DHA final allocations 1988–89 to 1992–93

  £000s

  Health Authority

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1991–92

  1992–93

  Clwyd

  108,963

  115,683

  126,724

  164,941

  175,161

  East Dyfed

  67,268

  77,402

  87,398

  92,903

  108,854

  Gwent

  129,822

  138,892

  151,447

  169,075

  183,530

  Gwynedd

  64,496

  68,264

  74,496

  94,864

  110,865

  Mid Glamorgan

  151,922

  161,916

  180,235

  220,227

  240,599

  Pembrokeshire

  25,905

  29,045

  33,090

  46,440

  46,447

  Powys

  29,992

  32,568

  35,587

  54,702

  62,338

  South Glamorgan

  173,656

  188,941

  216,094

  196,050

  218,304

  West Glamorgan

  115,748

  123,695

  135,358

  147,062

  164,924

  Source: Final allocation notified to individual authorities within period specified.

  Table 2 shows the authorities' outturn expenditure— revenue plus capital—as recorded in their annual accounts. These figures are in accruals terms and differ' from cash

  Table 2

  £000s

  Health Authority

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1991–92

  1992–93

  Clwyd

  109,681

  116,075

  127,534

  164,826

  180,858

  East Dyfed

  66,501

  77,261

  86,017

  97,918

  107,747

  Gwent

  128,706

  138,995

  152,907

  175,195

  181,888

  Gwynedd

  64,715

  69,412

  75,156

  96,150

  111,199

  Mid Glamorgan

  149,941

  162,687

  182,452

  218,863

  237,265

  Pembrokeshire

  26,245

  29,846

  33,592

  45,087

  48,626

  Powys

  29,903

  32,378

  35,852

  55,988

  62,345

  South Glamorgan

  171,328

  190,563

  214,811

  198,689

  219,111

  West Glamorgan

  114,495

  125,600

  135,721

  151,432

  173,372

  Source: Health Authority Annual Accounts.

  Compulsory Purchase
  Mr. Martlew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the occasions when his powers of compulsory purchase of land under section 17 of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 have been used in Wales in each year since 1981; and if he will make a statement.
  100
  Mr. Redwood
  The Department's running cost budget for superannuation is £5·4 million in 1993–94. These costs were previously met from class XVIII, vote 4 HM Treasury: civil superannuation. The estimated cost under that vote in 1992–93 was £6·1 million.

  Public Appointments
  Mr. Hanson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make it his policy that all appointments to non-departmental public bodies in Wales will be made from individuals resident in Wales.

  Mr. Redwood
  No, I wish to appoint the best people for the job, irrespective of where they live.

  Health Authority Spending
  Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what was the forecast spending for each health authority in Wales for each of the last five years; and what was the actual expenditure.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  The following table—table 1—gives the total final cash allocations, as at 31 March of each financial year.

  allocations and cash expenditure due to the effect of movements in debtors, creditors, stocks and year-end cash balances.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  None.

  Hedgerows
  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many agreements have been made, how much has been spent and how many kilometres of hedgerow were restored under the hedgerow renovation scheme by his Department in(a) 1992–93 and (b) 1993–94 in each county in Wales; and if he will make a statement.
  101
  Sir Wyn Roberts
  The information which is available only on a regional basis is as follows:

  December 1992 to March 1993

  April 1993 to December 1993

  North Wales (Clwyd/Gwynedd)

  Agreements

  4

  42

  Total spent

  £2,926

  £119,410

  Length of hedgerow renovated

  0·5 km

  18·0 km

  Mid Wales (Dyfed/Powys excluding Brecon Beacons NP)

  Agreements

  6

  82

  Total spent

  £11,306

  £192,972

  Length of hedgerow renovated

  2·0 km

  44·0 km

  South Wales (Gwent/Mid, South and West Glamorgan, Brecon Beacons NP)

  Agreements

  —

  32

  Total spent

  —

  £77,131

  Length of hedgerow renovated

  —

  17·0 km

  Total

  Agreements

  10

  156

  Total spent

  £14,231

  £389,513

  Length of hedgerow renovated

  2·5 km

  79·0 km

  Agreements are made with landowners covering a 10-year period, and additional funds are availble under the scheme from the Welsh Office Agriculture Department, although these are not included in the figures. A significant feature of the scheme is that the agreements bring under management all hedgerows on a landholding, not just those which are to be renovated.

  NHS Public Relations
  Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what guidance his Department has issued to health authorities and trusts on staff relations with the media, public and hon. Members.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  Guidance for staff on relations with the public and the media was issued to health authorities and NHS trusts in June 1993. General managers and chief executives were asked to ensure that all staff were made aware of the guidance and that all staff have access to a copy. A copy of the guidance is available in the Library of the House.

  Wells Kelo
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he expects to make a final decision on whether to(a) relocate or (b) extinguish Wells Kelo of Holyhead, Gwynedd; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Redwood
  [holding answer 17 December 1993]: The decision on whether to relocate or extinguish the business at Holyhead is a commercial one for the directors of Guiness Brothers Group plc, the successors of Wells Kelo Ltd., to make.

  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what consultations he has had with(a) the Welsh Development Agency and (b) the district valuer concerning the relocation of Wells Kelo of Holyhead, Gwynedd.

  Mr. Redwood
  [holding answer 17 December 1993]: None, although I have been kept informed of developments.

  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what representations he has received in relation to the advice given by the district valuer that Wells Kelo of Holyhead, Gwynedd, be extinguished rather than relocated.
  102
  Mr. Redwood
  [holding answer 17 December 1993]: No such advice has been given.

  I have received 14 representations in respect of the land compensation negotiations between Wells Kelo Ltd., its successor company at Holyhead Guiness Brothers Group plc and the district valuer.

  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what are the total sums expended to date by(a) the Welsh Office and (b) the Welsh Development Agency, on the project to relocate Wells Kelo of Holyhead, Gwynedd.

  Mr. Redwood
  [holding answer 17 December 1993]: To date, the Welsh Office has made discretionary advance payments of compensation totalling £1·161 million. In addition, the Welsh Development Agency has spent 1·424 million on the provision of a new factory.

  One-stop Shops
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wakes when he expects the report by the enterprise and business support working group on one-stop shops for business support to be completed.

  Mr. Redwood
  [holding answer 17 December 1993]: I refer the hon. Member to my answer to the hon. Member for Clwyd, North-West (Mr. Richards) on 16 December 1993 at columns 854–55. In reaching my decision I took into account the work of the Enterprise and Business Support working group which gave advice to me last year.

EMPLOYMENT

  Health and Safety Executive
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will list the number of new pieces of legislation, including regulations, which have been implemented, and which the Health and Safety Executive is required to enforce, since 1 April 1980.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  Since 1 April 1980, 194 regulations have been introduced which the Health and Safety Executive is required to enforce. Of these 69 have subsequently been revoked as part of the Health and Safety Commission's on-going programme of rationalisation and modernisation of health and safety legislation and the need to implement European legislation.

  Youth Training
  Mr. Rowe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many 16 and 17-year-olds in Kent have not been offered training, education or work under the Government's guarantee in the latest year for which information is available; and what was the figure in the previous year.

  Miss Widdecombe
  Information on the number of young people who have not had an offer of training, education or work is not collected. However, in November there were 53 young people in Kent who were covered by the youth training guarantee and waiting for eight or more weeks and almost 5,700 in training. This is a significant improvement over March last year when there were 338 young people waiting for eight or more weeks. There is no reliable information available for November 1992 on eight-week queues.

  Unemployment
  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what were the levels of unemployment in(a) Dundee, (b) Scotland and (c) the United Kingdom in each year since 1979.

  Miss Widdecombe
  Seasonally adjusted claimant unemployment figures are available nationally from January 1971 and regionally from April 1974. For travel-to-work areas, only unadjusted unemployment figures are available and these go back to June 1983.

  All this data can be obtained from the NOMIS database in the Library.

  Public Bodies
  Mr. Straw
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment in respect of how many boards, authorities, committees, and other public bodies he is responsible, in whole or on part, for appointments; what is the total number of such appointments; and what is the total public spending by such boards, authorities, committees and other public bodies.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The non-departmental public bodies sponsored by the Employment Department are listed in the recently published book "Public Bodies 1993", a copy of which is available in the Library. In addition, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State, has recently appointed the Commissioner for Protection against Unlawful Industrial Action and the chief executive of Investors In People UK. My right hon. Friend is responsible for over 3,300 appointments.

  The total gross expenditure for 1992–93 of the non-departmental public bodies is also listed in "Public Bodies 1993".

  Social Affairs Council
  Mr. Barnes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on the outcome of the EC Social Affairs Council of 22 December, indicating the voting record of each member state on each item and where no formal votes were taken.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  There was no meeting of the Labour and Social Affairs Council on 22 December.

  Training and Education (Tenders)
  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is his policy in respect of independent companies other than existing training and enterprise councils tendering for public contracts to manage training, education and enterprise programmes.

  Miss Widdecombe
  Training and enterprise councils are strategic organisations which reflect the composition of local business and the wider community. I have a close relationship with TEC boards and I am satisfied with their performance to date. I have no plans to change this policy.

  Training for Work
  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what assessment he has made of how positive outcomes from the training for work programme compare with those achieved under employment training programmes.

  Miss Widdecombe
  Training for work replaced employment training—ET—in April 1993 and it is still too early to say how many leavers have gained a positive outcome. The latest period for which figures are available is April 1992 to February 1993. In that period 41 per cent. of all ET leavers in Great Britain gained a positive outcome.

  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is the average cost per job placement under the training for work programme.

  Miss Widdecombe
  There is no current information on the cost of job placements in training for work—TfW—which started in April 1993. The plans for the first three years of TfW do however include costs per positive outcome. A positive outcome is a job, further education or training. The planned costs which include the allowances paid to participants are as follows:

  Year

  Cost per positive outcome £

  1993–94

  9,718

  1994–95

  8,451

  1995–96

  7,548

  Labour Statistics
  Mr. Hain
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment (1) what are the latest figures from the 1993 labour force survey for each standard United Kingdom region of the number and percentage of(a) all males, (b) all females and (c) total of those recorded as economically inactive and of working age;

  (2) what is the formal definition of "economically inactive".

  Miss Widdecombe
  Estimates from the labour force survey showing the number and percentage of economically inactive individuals of working age are given in the table. Estimates for regions in Great Britain are for summer 1993, while the latest available Northern Ireland results are for spring 1993.
  105
  According to the guidelines recommended by the International Labour Office—ILO—economically inactive people are defined as:

  Economically inactive people of working age1. Not seasonally adjusted

  Thousands/percentage

  Standard regions

  Males

  Per cent.

  Females

  Per cent.

  Total

  Per cent.

  South East

  657

  11·6

  1,468

  28·0

  2,125

  19·5

  Greater London

  322

  14·6

  644

  30·7

  967

  22·5

  Rest of South East

  334

  9·7

  824

  26·3

  1,158

  17·6

  East Anglia

  67

  10·0

  158

  26·2

  225

  17·7

  South West

  168

  11·5

  340

  25·5

  508

  18·1

  West Midlands

  214

  12·8

  450

  29·7

  664

  20·8

  East Midlands

  156

  12·0

  321

  27·2

  477

  19·2

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  216

  13·7

  396

  27·6

  612

  20·4

  North West

  319

  16·0

  557

  30·3

  875

  22·9

  North

  172

  17·8

  263

  29·7

  435

  23·5

  Wales

  171

  19·1

  271

  33·2

  442

  25·8

  Scotland

  243

  15·1

  449

  30·1

  692

  22·3

  Northern Ireland (spring1993)

  88

  18·0

  185

  40·0

  273

  28·7

  United Kingdom

  2,469

  13·5

  4,858

  28·9

  7,327

  20·9

  1Percentages are of the total population of working age (for example men aged 16 to 64 and women aged 16 to 59).

  Source: Labour Force Survey, summer 1993 and spring 1993.

  Private Pits
  Mr. Skinner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment under what authority TECs in coalfield areas are allocating money to private mineowners to reopen pits; what sums of money are involved; and whether the sums of money are paid for each miner employed.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The Department contracts with coalfield training and enterprise councils to implement business plans to help communities affected by pit closures. The plans cover labour market measures in line with TEC remits and provide job search, training and business start up programmes for those affected by the closures.

  Hazardous Substances
  Mr. Barron
  To ask the Secretary of i State for Employment what is his estimate of the total cost to the Health and Safety Executive of publishing guidance and otherwise promoting awareness and understanding of the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations throughout Great Britain.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The Health and Safety Executive—HSE—spent approximately £700,000 publishing control of substances hazardous to health—COSHH—guidance since the regulations were implemented in 1989. This includes the production and print costs of the COSHH approved code of practice and free leaflets for industry and employees.

  An advertising campaign aimed at promoting awareness and understanding of COSHH was mounted by HSE in 1989–90 at an additional cost of £270,000, plus £80,000 spent on fulfillment—distribution, handling, postage, etc.

  Sales revenue from COSHH guidance published by HSE amounted to £650,000 to 30 September 1993.

  Health and Safety
  Mr. Barron
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment when the Health and Safety Executive will amend its publication "Safety Representatives and Safety 106
  "all those who are neither in employment (including those on Government employment and training programmes and unpaid family workers), nor unemployed on the ILO definition."

  Committees" (ISBN 0118839594) to include references to the new regulation 4A(1), which was enacted by regulation 17 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations on 31 December 1992.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The Health and Safety Executive proposes to take forward work on this publication in 1994–95 following publication of an open learning package for safety representatives and taking account of recent research.

  Mr. Barron
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what plans he has for altering charges to industry for the services provided by the Health and Safety Executive.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The Health and Safety Commission has under review the scope for introducing new charges for the performance by the Health and Safety Executive of statutory functions and the provision of facilities and services. Existing charges are reviewed annually.

  Mr. Barron
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if the Health and Safety Commission will publish the findings of its review of regulations prior to publishing proposals for the reform of the regulatory system for health and safety at work based upon the review.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The Health and Safety Commission will be submitting to Ministers the findings of its review of regulation in April 1994. If the Government decide, in the light of these findings, to put forward proposals for changes in health and safety legislation, these will of course be subject to consultation.

  Mr. Barron
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what action the Health and Safety Executive has taken in response to the view recently expressed in paragraph 46 of the efficiency scrutiny report commissioned by the President of the Board of Trade "Review of the Implementation and Enforcement of EC law in the UK: Health and Safety" on guidance for all sizes of business on what is required to undertake risk assessment; and what
  107
  action has been taken to comply with the recommendation that the HSE considers issuing a basic pro forma which businesses could use or adapt.

  Mr. Forsyth
  The Health and Safety Executive is to publish, next month, a leaflet which will meet the efficiency scrutiny recommendations. The leaflet will provide guidance on how to assess risks in the workplace and what should be recorded. It will incorporate a pro forma with blank spaces, which employers can use to record their assessments.

  Mr. Barron
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many letters complaining about the burden of health and safety legislation he received in the 12 months prior to requesting the Health and Safety Commission to commence its review of health and safety regulations.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  In the 12 months preceding my request to the Health and Safety Commission to undertake a review of existing regulation, the Department received over 750 letters about health and safety.

  Many of these raised issue about the interpretation, contents enforcement of health and safety regulations, and identified what the writer considered a burden on his or her business. However, it is not possible without disproportionate cost to separately identify the letters which raised these issues specifically.

  Mr. Barron
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what plans the Health and Safety Executive has to publish a second edition of its publication "100 Practical Applications of Noise Reduction Methods".

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The Health and Safety Executive is currently preparing a new edition of this publication which it hopes to publish in the summer of 1994.

  Mr. Barron
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many Health and Safety Executive staff-years have been expended on the review of regulations; and what has been the effect of the other activities of the HSE of servicing the review.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  It is estimated that 3.5 staff years will be expended by the Health and Safety Executive's review team on the review of regulation. Additional resources for the review were built into the Health and Safety Commission's plan of work for 1993–94 and beyond as part of its medium term aim to propose reform of existing legislation under the 1974 Act.

  Mr. Barron
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what activities currently carried out by the Health and Safety Commission and Executive will be curtailed as a result of the reduction in its grant-in-aid provision in 1995–96 and 1996–97.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  Information about financial provision for the Health and Safety Executive will be published in the departmental report. The Health and Safety Commission's planned future activities will be set out in its plan of work for 1994–95 and beyond which is scheduled for publication in June.

  Mr. Barron
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment when the Health and Safety Executive guidance on the electricity at work regulations for hotels will be published.
  108
  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  At the end of January 1994.

  Mr. Barron
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if the members of the sector task groups appointed by the Health and Safety Commission to assist in its review of regulations will be fully consulted over the contents of the commission's final report prior to it being submitted to the Secretary of State.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  This is a matter for the Health and Safety Commission. It appointed the task group members to assist it under section 13 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. I am informed that the groups are making an invaluable contribution to the Commission's review and I would expect that to be reflected in both the preparation and content of the Commission's final report.

  Mr. Barron
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what response he has made to the view expressed by the Health and Safety Executive director-general in the foreword to the HSE annual report that Government policy has created imperatives, like the review of regulations, which have impinged upon the Health and Safety Executive.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  Reform of health and safety law has been central to the achievement of a better health and safety system since the passing of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 some 20 years ago. The Health and Safety Commission's review of regulation has given fresh impetus to this work, but is fully consistent with the roles and duties of the Health and Safety Commission and Executive already laid down in the 1974 Act.

  Health and Safety Commission (Chairman)
  Mr. Barron
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment which of the duties or activities carried out by his full-time predecessor the part-time chairman of the Health and Safety Commission will not fulfil.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  It is for the Health and Safety Commission chairman to decide how best to carry out his functions and duties within the time available.

  The decision to make the chairman's appointment part-time reflected the loading of the post in current circumstances, including the appointment last year of a second full-time deputy director general of the Health and Safety Executive. This additional post will strengthen the senior management support available to the chairman, allowing the full responsibilities of leading the Commission to be managed without a full-time commitment.

  Deregulation (Briefings)
  Mr. Barron
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment who was responsible for briefing all seven of the Health and Safety Commission's sector task groups on the findings of the Department of Trade and Industry deregulation task forces, as referred to in paragraph 5 of the interim report of the HSC review of regulations sent to the Minister on 22 November 1993; and on what dates these briefings were carried out.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  I am informed that Department of Trade and Industry officials, appointed to support the Government's deregulation sector task forces, were
  109
  responsible for briefing the Health and Safety Commission's—HSC—sector task groups on their emerging findings, and that this was done through a series of meetings with HSC task group chairmen in August and September and in subsequent correspondence.

  Works Councils
  Mr. Cash
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is his policy on works councils in British companies in the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The Government wholeheartedly supports voluntary employee involvement. If a company in the United Kingdom wishes to introduce a works council or any other form of employee involvement, it is free to do so in whatever way best suits its circumstances. The Government are resolutely opposed to any measure which would force United Kingdom companies to adopt prescribed structures or forms of employee involvement.

HEALTH

  GPs
  Ms Primarolo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what evidence she has on the relative level of income and expense reimbursement of general practitioners for areas of low mortality and morbidity and inner city areas.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  Information placed in the Library shows, by family health services authority the gross payments in 1992–93 to general medical practitioners for provision of general medical services and the standardised mortality ratios for the local authority areas which most closely match each FHSA. Information on morbidity by inner city areas is not available.

  There are many factors affecting the level of payments to general medical practitioners, such as list size and cost of premises, which make it difficult to draw conclusions about levels of payments in relation to mortality data.

  Mr. Luff
  To ask the Secretary of State for Hpalth if she will make a statement on the progress of general practitioner fundholding in the Worcester area.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  Regional health authorities are responsible for managing the general practitioner fundholding scheme in their areas. Nationally 25 per cent. of the population is covered by fundholding, in the West Midlands region the figure is just over 26 per cent. From April about a third of the population will be covered.

  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to her answer on 13 December,Official Report, column 470, if she will break down the amounts retained by general practitioner fundholders by region.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave him on 17 December 1993 at col 1010.

  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will give figures for the management consultants' fees for assessing applications by general practitioners for fund-holder status by(a) wave and (b) region.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  This information is not available centrally. Regional health authorities are responsible for assessing applications to join the fund-holding scheme.
  110
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many fund-holding general practitioners are now in place.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  There are now over 6,000 general practitioner fundholders in over 1,200 practices.

  Occupational Health Services
  Mr. Galbraith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what guidance is given by her Department to employing bodies within the national health service to establish an occupational health service.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  Current guidance on establishing occupational health services in the national health service is contained in HN(82)33, copies of which are in the Library.

  Extra-contractual Referrals
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will estimate the number of extra-contractual referrals agreed by region in the last year.

  Mr. Sackville
  The information on which to base an estimate is not available centrally.

  University College London Hospitals
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much transitional funding is being made available to University College London hospitals; and what is the source of this funding.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  In 1993–94 to date, £8·247 million transitional funding support has been agreed in respect of University College London hospitals. Transitional funding for London in 1993–94 is being sourced from central top-sliced funds from within the overall national health service allocation.

  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the agreed programme for consolidating the University College London hospitals into fewer buildings; and if this includes the construction of new buildings.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The University College London hospitals—UCLH—have already made progress on consolidating services on the Middlesex site as part of their programme of rationalisation. We await further detailed proposals from UCLH.

  St. Bartholomew's Hospital
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what contributions have been agreed by the private sector to the development of a new facility at St. Bartholomew's for minor injuries; and if she will make a statement.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  There has been no agreement about what, if any, contribution the private sector might make, to the new minor injuries facility at St. Bartholomew's.

  We welcome the interest the City has shown in this proposal and we will be exploring what positive and practical contribution it can make to its development.

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to her answer of 15 December,Official Report, col. 722–23, concerning changes in certain hospital

  111
  provision in London, if she will list the number of accident and emergency cases dealt with by that department of St. Bartholomew's hospital in the first six months of 1993, indicating the numbers within any convenient category of treatment or severity; and how many within each such category she would expect to be dealt with in each adjacent and named accident and emergency unit which she plans to retain.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  This information is not available centrally for the first six months of 1993. However, there

  Hospital

  GP care

  MIU care

  Accident and Emergency care

  Total

  Royal London

  300

  650

  4,850

  5,800

  Homerton

  250

  450

  2,100

  2,800

  Whittington

  100

  100

  800

  1,000

  UCH

  450

  950

  5,700

  7,100

  Guy's

  50

  200

  2,300

  2,550

  St. Thomas'

  Smithfield Minor Injuries Unit

  —

  9,450

  —

  9,450

  Totals

  1,150

  11,800

  15,750

  28,700

  Note: 2,450 cases are estimated to go to alternative primary care centres. In addition, a small number of cases are "lost", when an A and E department closes. In this case, an estimate of 375 "lost" cases has been made.

  Drug Prescribing
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what representatives she has received on piggyback licensing on the back of generic drugs; what is her charging policy in such instances; and if she will make a statement.

  Mr. Sackville
  Applications made under article 4·8.a.i, of directive 65/65/EEC—sometimes known as piggyback applications—are permitted for generic drugs. The application fee, payable on receipt of the application, is presently £2,090. We are not aware of any recent representations about these applications.

  Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton
  Mr. Mellor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she has considered Wandsworth borough council's report on the findings of the South West London hospitals review group and the specialty review team's report on plastic and burns as they affect Queen Mary's university hospital, Roehampton; and if she will make copies available in the Library.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  South West Thames regional health authority considered the views of Wandsworth borough council, the specialty review report on plastics and burns, and the views of other bodies who responded to the South West London hospitals review, before submitting its recommendations to the Department. The report of the South West London hospitals review and the region's recommendations on it are currently being considered by the London implementation group. A copy of Wandsworth borough council's report will be placed in the Library.

  Mr. Mellor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many letters she has received opposing the findings of(a) the specialty review team's report on plastics and burns and (b) the South West London hospitals review group as they affect Queen Mary's university hospital,
  112
  were 31,278 new attendances at the St. Bartholomew's hospital accident and emergency departments in the 12 months from 1 April 1992 to 31 March 1993.

  A sample of these attenders showed that 12 per cent. were suitable for general practitioner care; 36·5 per cent. for care in a minor injuries unit, and 51·5 per cent. for care in a hospital accident and emergency department.

  The expected patient flows to other hospitals have been modelled, assuming the alternative facilities announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health on 15 December 1993 are in place. This analysis shows the expected attendances:

  Roehampton; and if she will give due consideration to the views of local people when considering the future of the vital services the hospital provides.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  Ministers received 401 letters concerning Queen Mary's university hospital, Roehampton between 1 August 1993 and 31 December 1993. No decisions will be taken on the future pattern of services at Queen Mary's without careful consideration of all the arguments and proposals put forward. Any proposals to materially change the pattern of services would of course be subject to public consultation.

  Homerton Hospital
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the cost of redevelopment of Homerton hospital; and from what sources it will be met.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The estimated capital cost of further redevelopment at Homerton hospital is £25 million. This is a preliminary figure subject to formal appraisal and business case approval. Funding for the development will be made available from the national health service capital programme.

  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what planned improvements in local primary care facilities will relieve pressure on local accident and emergency services at Homerton hospital.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  Improvements to primary care services around the Homerton hospital are being made as part of the investment programme within the London initiative zone. Specific projects include the development of facilities at Barton house, John Scott and Sorsby road health centres; these schemes will improve primary care services to the residents of north Hackney, who look to Homerton hospital for accident and emergency treatment and, in some cases, for primary care services as well.

  London Ambulance Service
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will tabulate for the months of July to November the response performance by percentage of emergency call of the London ambulance service for each month under the headings(a) activation time, (b) response time within eight minutes, (c) response time within 14 minutes and

  Activation time: Within 3 minutes

  Response time: Within 8 minutes

  Response time: Within 14 minutes

  Average daily number of "999" calls received

  Average daily number of calls where response 26 minutes or over

  Month

  Per cent.

  Per cent.

  Per cent.

  Number

  Number

  July

  38

  13

  62

  1,083

  76

  August

  40

  14

  65

  1,034

  67

  September

  38

  13

  64

  1,051

  63

  October

  31

  10

  58

  1,115

  91

  Performance benchmarks:

  95 per cent. of calls activated within three minutes.

  50 per cent. of calls responded to within eight minutes.

  95 per cent. of calls responded to within 14 minutes.

  Patient's Charter Standard:

  95 per cent. of calls responded to within 14 minutes.

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to her answer on 15 December,Official Report, col. 721, concerning an increase of £14 million for the London ambulance service in the financial year 1994–95, what portion of this sum is likely to be used in defraying and deficit in the year 1993–94; what net increase in the number of emergency ambulances and qualified ambulance personnel she expects to be in service by December 1994 or any later month; and what percentage increase this represents over those currently available in each case.

  Mr. Sackville
  The reply given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to my hon. Friend the Member for Surbiton (Mr. Tracy) on 15 December at col.721 stated that, the London ambulance service—LAS—will receive an extra £14·8 million in 1994–95 over its baseline budget for 1993–94. None of this is expected to be used to cover any deficit in the 1993–94 financial year. £4 million is capital money to assist the LAS in the purchase of 120 new accident and emergency vehicles. The balance is revenue moneys, of which £3·5 million is to fund on-going developments already started by the LAS including: extra telephonists in central ambulance control, improved fleet maintenance, motorcycle and rapid response units and paramedic training. The remaining £7·3 million is to fund an increase in accident and emergency staffing, additional paramedic training and to strengthen management skills, especially in information technology. The LAS will now be able to renew over a third of its accident and emergency fleet and, by December 1994, to increase the number of qualified ambulance persons by 240–16 per cent.—sufficient to staff an additional 20 ambulances—15 per cent.—around the clock every day.

  Public Bodies
  Mr. Straw
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health in respect of how many boards, authorities, committees, and other public bodies she is responsible, in whole or in part, for appointments; what is the total number of such 114
  (d) response time within 26 minutes; and what was the average number of calls per day in each month where the response time exceeded 26 minutes, together with an indication under each heading of the ORCON and patients charter standard.

  Mr. Sackville
  The available information is shown in the table. Data for November are not yet available.

  appointments; and what is the total public spending by such boards, authorities, committees and other public bodies.

  Mr. Sackville
  The boards, authorities, committees and other public bodies for which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is responsible are listed in the publication "Public Bodies", copies of which are available in the Library. Government spending on the national health service is forecast to be £29,215 million in 1993–94 and planned to rise to £30,669 million in 1994–95. Government spending on Department of Health non-departmental public bodies outside the NHS is shown in "Public Bodies".

  Prescriptions (Selected List)
  Mrs. Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if she will list the new selected items that have been made available to the NHS;

  (2) if she will list the new chemical entity products made available to the national health service since February 1993 that would have been covered by the selected list scheme.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  This information is not available centrally.

  Mrs. Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list the representations she has received from(a) the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, (b) those who prescribed drugs and (c) others to extend the number of drugs on the current selected list.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  None.

  Mrs. Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health which drugs have been deleted from the current selected list giving their manufacturers, since February 1993; and which company manufactured each.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The generic drug Ammonia and Ipecacuanha Mixture BP has been deleted from the selected list since February 1993.
  115
  Mrs. Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what drugs have been included on the selected list since February 1993; and who were their manufacturers.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The information is shown in the table.

  Drug

  Manufacturer

  Algipan

  Wyeth Laboratories

  Anadin Extra Soluble Tablets

  Whitehall Laboratories

  Arnica Lotion

  Weleda UK

  Asilone Liquid

  Crookes Healthcare

  Ayrtons Analgesic Balm

  Ayrton Saunders

  Beecham Analgesic Cream

  SmithKline Beecham

  Boots Menthol and Wintergreen Embrocation

  Boots Pharmaceuticals

  Bronalin Decongestant

  Seton Healthcare

  Calpol Infant Suspension

  The Wellcome Foundation

  Camphor Spirit

  J. M. Loveridge

  Cremalgin Balm

  Rhone Poulenc Rorer

  Cuprofen Soluble Tablets

  Seton Healthcare

  Culpepper Healing Ointment

  Culpepper

  Culpepper Rheumatic Cream

  Culpepper

  Cupanol Under Six Suspension

  Seton Healthcare

  DHL Rheumatic Massage Cream

  DHL Products

  Diazepam oral solution 5mg/5m1

  Generic; various manufacturers

  Diazepam oral suspension 5mg/5m1

  Generic; various manufacturers

  Disprin Direct Tablets

  Reckitt & Colman

  Dragon Balm

  Gerrard House

  Dubam Cream

  Norman Chemicals

  Dubam Spray Relief

  Norman Chemicals

  Elliman Universal Embrocation

  SmithKline Beecham

  Fibrosine Analgesic Balm

  International Chemicals

  Fiery Jack Cream

  J. Pickles & Sons

  Fiery Jack Ointment

  J. Pickles & Sons

  Fluimucil Granules

  Zambon (UK)

  Gaviscon 250 Tablets

  Reckitt & Colman

  Germolene Ointment

  SmithKline Beecham

  Goodards White Oils Embrocation

  LRC Products

  Isoaminile Linctus

  Fisons Pharmaceuticals

  Lemsip Flu Strength

  Reckitt & Colman

  Lloyds Cream (Odour Free)

  Seton Healthcare

  Lloyds Heat Spray

  Haventrail

  Mentholatum Deep Heat Massage Liniment

  Mentholatum Company

  Mentholatum Deep Heat Maximum Strength Rub

  Mentholatum Company

  Mentholatum Deep Heat Rub

  Mentholatum Company

  Nella Red Oil

  Nella Pharmaceuticals

  Paldesic Elixir

  RP Drugs

  Panadol Body and Infant

  Sanofi Winthrop Suspension

  Panadol Extra Soluble Tablets

  Sanofi Winthrop

  Phor Pain

  Goldshield Pharmaceuticals

  Phor Pain Double Strength

  Goldshield Pharmaceuticals

  Potters Household Liniment

  Potters Herbal Supplies

  Potters Nine Rubbing Oils

  Potters Herbal Supplies

  PR Heat Spray

  Crookes Healthcare

  Radian-B Liniment

  Fisons Consumer Health

  Radian-B Rub

  Fisons Consumer Health

  Ralgex Cream

  SmithKline Beecham

  Ralgex Stick

  SmithKline Beecham

  RRC1 Cream

  Radiol Chemicals

  Salonair

  Salonpas (UK)

  Sanatogen Children's Vitamins Plus Minerals

  Fisons Consumer Health

  Solpadeine Tablets

  Sterling Health

  Sudafed Nasal Spray

  The Wellcome Foundation

  Superdrug Heat Spray

  Mentholatum Company

  Thermogene Medicated Rub

  SmithKline Beecham

  Tiger Balm Liquid

  LRC Products

  Tiger Balm Red

  LRC Products

  Tiger Balm White

  LRC Products

  Unicap M Tablets

  Upjohn

  Unicap T Tablets

  Upjohn

  Vadarex Wintergreen Heat Rub

  Cupal Products

  Vicks Vaposyrup Childrens Dry Cough

  Procter & Gamble

  Zam Buk Ointment

  Fisons Consumer Health

  116
  Mrs. Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the procedure for(a) pharmaceutical companies and (b) prescribers to (i) ask for a particular drug to be included in the selected list and (ii) overturn a decision to remove a drug from the selected list.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  Prescribers or manufacturers can at any time ask the committee to review any product which is on the list of non-prescribable drugs, or to ask for one to be added to it.

  Mrs. Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what discussions she has had with(a) representatives of the pharmaceutical industry and (b) the advisory committee on NHS drugs about research and development into new products and medicines that may be affected by the selected list.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  None.

  Drugs Advisory Committee
  Mrs. Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what procedures are in place to ensure the effectiveness of the advisory committee on NHS drugs since February 1993.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The independent advisory committee has been asked to provide expert advice to Ministers. We are satisfied that it does so effectively.

  Mrs. Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list the representations she has received since February 1993 from pharmaceutical manufacturers regarding the posts on the advisory committee on NHS drugs.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  We have received no such representations. A member with experience of the pharmaceutical industry was appointed to the committee in February 1993.

  Mrs. Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the composition of the advisory committee on NHS drugs; for how long appointees have served on the committee; and what was the level of remuneration where appropriate.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The names of the members and the dates they were appointed are shown in the table.

  Firstappointed

  Chairman

  Dr. Jeremy Metters

  1989

  Members

  Professor A. M. Breckenridge

  1985

  Professor M. Castleden

  1990

  Mr. D. L. Coleman

  1985

  Professor H. D. Edmondson

  1987

  Dr. P. R. Fellows

  1993

  Professor D. Ganderton

  1985

  Miss A. F. Glasier

  1993

  Dr. C. Grafton

  1993

  Dr. A. Greenough

  1993

  Dr. G. Hargreaves

  1993

  Professor S. Holgate

  1993

  Dr. D. Jones

  1992

  Professor R. M. Jones

  1990

  Mr. A. G. Kerr

  1990

  117

  First appointed

  Mrs. S. Noyce

  1993

  Dr. S. J. Richards

  1989

  Dr. C. H. Swan

  1991

  Professor P. J. Tyrer

  1989

  Dr. D. M. B. Ward

  1991

  Members other than the chairman receive a fee of £100 for attending each meeting.

  Mrs. Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what criteria appointees to the advisory committee on NHS drugs have to meet.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  Appointments to the advisory committee are made by Ministers from names which have been put forward by the relevant professional organisations.

  Salford District Health Authority
  Mr. Lewis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what has been the cost to date of the honouring of the contract of the immediate past district manager of Salford health authority; and if she will make a statement.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  This is a local matter for Salford health authority. The hon. Member may wish to contact the chairman, Dr. F. B. Beswick, for details.

  Sellafield (Radiation)
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment she made of the National Radiological Protection Board report NRPB-M453, published in October, on the estimate of collective radiation doses from Sellafield.

  Mr. Sackville
  The report was prepared by the National Radiological Protection Board—NRPB—in line with a recommendation by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment. The results of the NRPB work confirm that the discharges from THORP will result in radiation doses much lower than natural background radiation levels. The NRPB has described the annual attributable risk to individuals in the world population as "vanishingly small".

  Drug Costs
  Mrs. Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what information she has on drug costs in each member state of the European Community.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The total levels of public expenditure on drugs supplied to patients in each member state of the European Union is shown in the table. Data on public expenditure cannot be taken to correlate to total expenditure—public and private—as the share of the public sector if total spending differs between countries.

  Country

  Public expenditure (£ million)

  Public expenditure (£)per capita

  United Kingdom

  3,349·3

  58

  Germany

  7,983·6

  126

  France

  5,317·9

  94

  Italy

  5,463·1

  95

  118

  Country

  Public expenditure (£million)

  Public expenditure (£)per capita

  Spain

  2,407·1

  62

  Netherlands

  762·1

  51

  Belgium

  704·4

  71

  Portugal

  357·6

  36

  Greece

  137·9

  14

  Ireland

  193·9

  55

  Denmark

  121·2

  23

  Luxembourg

  51·4

  114

  Source: Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development. Figures have been converted to £ at purchasing power parities. Figures are for 1990, except those for Portugal and Denmark where 1989 figures are the latest available.

  Non-prescription Drugs
  Mrs. Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans she has to extend the availability of over-the-counter medicines.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  We are continuing to extend the range of medicines which may be supplied without prescription where this can be done safely. In January 1993, we introduced a new timetable to provide for reclassification within 12 months and an order—SI 1993 No. 3256—which will allow a number of medicines previously restricted to prescription control to be supplied as pharmacy medicines, was laid on 31 December 1993 and is due to come into effect on 21 January. From July 1994, we shall be increasing the opportunities for reclassifying medicines by making two orders a year.

  Traffic Accidents
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what additional financial provision is made for hospitals adjacent to motorways to take into account the cost of treating victims of traffic accidents; and if she will make a statement.

  Mr. Sackville
  It is for district health authorities to purchase accident and emergency services and emergency ambulance services which take account of local factors and meet the needs of all corners, regardless of their district of residence. The cost of any in-patient treatment, following attention in the A and E department, is charged to the patient's district of residence.

  External Bodies (Funding)
  Ms Primarolo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health which organisations received how much money in grants from her Department in each of the last three years.

  Mr. Bowis
  The Department makes a large number of grants to voluntary organisations. The main channel is the section 64 general scheme and for details of those grants for the last three financial years I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall) by my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Dorrell) on 21 May 1991 at cols.435–39; the reply given to the hon. Member for Paisley, South (Mr. McMaster) by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Sackville) on 18 January 1993 at col. 96; and the reply I gave my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Shaw) on 21 June 1993 at cols 34–39.

  Health Authority Projects
  Ms Primarolo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) pursuant to her answer of 6 December,Official Report, columns 70–71, what are the capital assets of the regional health authority earmarked for current projects where contracts have already been signed.

  (2) pursuant to her answer of 6 December, Official Report, columns 70–71, what is the value of the assets of regional health authorities earmarked for projects over each of the next five years (a) where contracts have already been signed and (b) where contracts have not been signed.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  Proceeds from the sale of capital assets are not normally earmarked to offset the cost of individual capital developments, but enable the total capital spending for a region to increase.

  Community Care
  Ms Primarolo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimates have been made by her Department regarding the future need for community nurses in each health district.

  Mr. Sackville
  The Department does not keep estimates of the need for community nurses by health district. It is the responsibility of regions to plan the demand for health visitors and district nurses.

  Ms Primarolo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the total expenditure on community care per thousand of population in each local authority area for the last five years.

  Mr. Bowis
  This information is not held centrally in this form, because expenditure by the national health service on community health and expenditure by the Department of Social Security on some social security benefits are not available at local authority level.

  Ms Primarolo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the total expenditure on community care for people aged 75 years and over per thousand of population in each local authority area in each of the last five years.

  Mr. Bowis
  This information is not available centrally.

  Ms Primarolo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what representations she has received regarding the integration of health commissioning functions with community care under local authority control.

  Mr. Bowis
  Various proposals for change are received from time to time but at present there is no intention to alter the current responsibilities for the provision of health care.

  Quangos
  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list the names of all former British representative members in the European Parliament who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. Sackville
  Available information shows that no former British representative members in the European Parliament have been appointed to Department of Health non-departmental public bodies.
  120
  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if she will list the names of all former hon. Members who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment;

  (2) if she will list the names of all individuals who are or were members of the House of Lords who since 1979 have been appointed to any quasi-autonomous nongovernmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. Sackville
  I refer the hon. Member to the replies I gave the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Grocott) on 20 July 1993 at columns 112–14.

  NHS Estates Information Group
  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what was the income of the national health service estates information group in 1992–93 and what is the projected income for 1993–94;

  (2) what was the net cost of the national health service estates information group to the National Health Service Estates Executive Agency in 1992–93; and what is the projected cost for 1993–94.

  Mr. Sackville
  The income for the information systems group of the national health service estates agency for 1992–93 was £1·3 million. The projected income for 1993–94 is £1·25 million.

  The group made a surplus of income over expenditure for 1992–93 of £40,000. The projected cost of the group for 1993–94 is £1·25 million.

  Magnetic Resonance Imaging
  Mr. Critchley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the cost of a magnetic resonance imaging scanner.

  Mr. Sackville
  The price of a magnetic resonance imaging scanner will depend on the technical specification required by the site purchasing the machine and negotiation with manufacturers before a contract is awarded.

  Mr. Critchley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many magnetic resonance imaging scanners are at present the property of the NHS;. and in which hospitals they are located.

  Mr. Sackville
  According to information held by the Department, the number of magnetic resonance imaging scanners installed in national health service premises—up until June 1993—in England is 59.

  These are located in the following hospitals:
  The Maudsley hospital, Newcastle general hospital, South Cleveland hospital, Hull royal infirmary, St. James's University hospital, Leeds, Leicester royal infirmary, Nottingham university hospital, Royal Hallamshire hospital, Derby royal infirmary, Addenbrooke's hospital, Hammersmith hospital, Northwick Park hospital, Mount Vernon hospital, Royal Brompton and National Heart hospital, St. Mary's hospital, Paddington, Royal Marsden hospital, Royal National Orthopaedic hospital, Middlesex hospital, St. Bartholomew's hospital, Royal Free hospital, The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, The

  121
  Hospital for Sick Children, London, the London hospital (Whitechapel), Royal Surrey County hospital, Atkinson Morley's hospital, St. George's hospital, Poole general hospital, Southampton general hospital, Stoke Mandeville hospital, John Radcliffe hospital, Nuffield orthopaedic centre, Royal Berkshire hospital, Bristol royal infirmary, Cheltenham general hospital, Royal Cornwall hospital, Frenchay hospital, Walsgrave general hospital, Royal Orthopaedic hospital, Birmingham, Liverpool MR research centre, Walton hospital, Liverpool, Clatterbridge Centre, Wirral, Manchester royal infirmary, Royal Preston hospital.

  Some locations have more than one scanner.

  Information about the ownership of these scanners is not available centrally.

  Mr. Critchley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much the national health service pays at present to privately-run hospitals for the use by national health service patients of their scanners.

  Mr. Sackville
  This information is not available centrally.

  "Health of the Nation"
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment she has made to the proportion of the target for the reduction in road accidents in her "Health of the Nation" White Paper which could be achieved by a move to central European time.

  Mr. Sackville
  [holding answer 16 December 1993]: The "Health of the Nation" White Paper sets the following targets for reduction by the year 2005 in the death rate from accidents of all types, measured against a baseline of the average rate for the three years 1989–91:

  Percentage reduction

  Children under 15

  33

  Young people aged 15 to 24

  25

  People aged 65 and over

  33

  It is estimated that the introduction of single-double summer time would reduce accidental deaths among children by some 4 per cent. below their level in 1989–91 and by 1 per cent. among the rest of the population.

TRANSPORT

  M1 (Widening)
  Mr. Skinner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when the scheme to widen the M1 between junctions 28 and 32 will commence; what is the estimated cost; and what is the projected length of time from beginning to end for work on the scheme.

  Mr. Key
  We are holding local public exhibitions in February of proposals for widening to dual four lanes within the existing land take between junctions 31 and 32. The work is estimated to cost £5 million.

  The remaining proposals for the section of M1 between junctions 28 and 32 are at an earlier stage of development. Further progress will depend on the priority accorded to them following the current review of schemes, the completion of any statutory procedures and the availability of funds. The next stage would be public consultation about the options for widening. The estimated works cost
  122
  for the whole section at the time of the 1990 report, "Trunk Roads, England into the 1990s", was approximately £200 million.

  Flags of Convenience
  Mr. Nigel Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list the country or origin of flag of convenience fishing boats on the British register.

  Mr. Norris
  There are 99 EC qualified fishing vessels on the British register, of which 73 are Spanish, 24 are Dutch and two are 50 per cent. Danish owned.

  A27
  Sir Terence Higgins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) if he will update the table on the page headed "Alternatives Considered", of his Department's document entitled "A27 Worthing/Lancing Improvement Statement", explaining the proposals and new technical summary of the environmental statement to give up-to-date figures for the three alternatives and if he will also give figures for the Government's published scheme if the tunnel is bored rather than constructed on the basis assumed in this document;

  (2) what are his latest estimates of the cost of converting the A24 to dual carriageway in current and 1989 prices; and if he will express these figures so that they are comparable with updated figures in a table corresponding to that in his Department's leaflet summarising the A27 Worthing/Lancing improvement proposals.

  Mr. Key
  The public inquiry into the A27 Worthing-Lancing improvement scheme is now under way. Current estimates of the cost for the scheme and related proposals will be available from the Department's representative at the inquiry. I will ask him to write to the hon. Member.

  Light Dues
  Mr. Bates
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what was the amount paid in light dues by merchant ships entering the Tees and Hartlepool ports last year.

  Mr. Norris
  The total amount of light dues collected by Customs and Excise in the financial year to 31 March 1993 was £4,133,427 in the area of the Tees and Hartlepool port authority.

  Bus Fares
  Mrs. Dunwoody
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what study his Department has made of the effect on bus fares of the rise in duty on diesel fuel.

  Mr. Freeman
  The effect should be very small. The rise in duty on diesel fuel represents an increase of under 1 per cent. on total operating costs.

  Coastal Shipping
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what research he has undertaken to assess the reduction in heavy goods vehicle traffic movements resulting from an increase in the use of transshipment or feeder journeys using coastal shipping.

  Mr. Norris
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. Redmond) on 22 October at column 342.
  123
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will set targets for the greater use of coastal shipping as an alternative to road transport; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Norris
  No. The choice of transport mode for freight is primarily a commercial matter.

  We encourage shippers and others in the freight industry to consider the merits of coastal and short sea shipping where this is a practical option.

  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport in which(a) inland ports and (b) small ports he proposes to increase coastal shipping traffic; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Norris
  It is for individual ports to decide what facilities they will provide for coastal shipping. It is for shippers and ship operators to decide how they will use such facilities. The Government are assisting this process by removing constraints on the ability of ports to operate efficiently, and by continuing to provide grants for inland waterways freight facilities, under section 36 of the Transport Act 1981, where these can be justified on environmental benefit grounds.

  Coopers and Lybrand
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he has anything to add to his answer of 25 November concerning Coopers and Lybrand,Official Report, column 102, following the 63rd report of the Committee of Public Accounts, Session 1992–93, HC658.

  Mr. Freeman
  Further to my reply of 25 November, there is no comparison between the circumstances of the appointment of consultants to the Wessex Regional health authority and Sir Christopher Foster's role as adviser to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. As my earlier answer made clear, the need to avoid potential conflicts of interest was covered in Sir Christopher's terms of appointment.

  Common Transport Policy
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what discussions he has had with the European Council of Ministers in respect of the common transport policy for European ports in respect of United Kingdom ports where he intends to develop inter modal transport; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Norris
  Officials from my Department are taking part in the Community initiative for pilot action for combined transport. As one of the projects under that initiative the United Kingdom and Ireland plan shortly to commission a study of combined transport links between Ireland, the United Kingdom and mainland Europe.

  Crossrail
  Mr. Peter Shore
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether the terms of reference of the current review of crossrail include an assessment of the possibilities of linking the channel tunnel rail link with Crossrail.

  Mr. Norris
  Although not specifically included in the terms of reference, the consultants have been asked to consider links to Union Railways at Stratford.
  124
  Mr. Butterfill
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what was the estimated cost, at current values, of the crossrail project before the start of the Bovis/Gibb study; what was the date of that estimate; and what proportion of that cost related to compensation payable under the statutory compensation code.

  Mr. Norris
  The base cost of the crossrail project was estimated in April 1993 to be £1,703 million at March 1990 prices, which is equivalent to £2,049 million at current values. The latter figure includes a sum of £259 million for property purchases and compensation for loss and disturbance to property owners in accordance with existing legislation.

  Register of Shipping
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) if he will reject proposals for a British open register of shipping;

  (2) if he will place in the Library a copy of his reply to the chief executive and secretary of the Baltic Exchange's letter of 3 December concerning proposals for a British open register of shipping.

  Mr. Norris
  These proposals will need to be studied carefully before any conclusion is reached.

  The Department's letter of 15 December, acknowledging the one from the chief executive of the Baltic Exchange, briefly explained this.

  Container Ports
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will give in respect of(a) imports into and (b) exports from the United Kingdom for each United Kingdom container terminal port the number of containers currently discharged subsequently transhipped to (i) other ports in the United Kingdom and (ii) other European ports.

  Mr. Norris
  This information is not available to my Department.

  Transport Grants
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list the transport supplementary grant/transport policy and plans allocations for 1994–95, giving the relevant bid in each case and expressing the allocation made as a percentage of the bid.

  Mr. MacGregor
  The figures are as follows:

  Bids, and accepted expenditure, for transport supplementary grant (TSG) and credit approvals for 1994–95

  Total bid 1994–95

  Gross accepted for TSG and credit approvals 1994–95

  £'000s

  £'000s

  Per cent.

  City of London

  3,068

  1,749

  57·0

  Barking and Dagenham

  7,122

  1,132

  15·9

  Bamet

  5,647

  2,602

  46·1

  Bexley

  10,004

  8,022

  80·2

  Brent

  8,023

  2,743

  34·2

  Bromley

  4,023

  1,895

  47·1

  Camden

  7,123

  4,064

  57·1

  Croydon

  12,295

  5,045

  41·0

  Ealing

  7,394

  3,268

  44·2

  125

  Total bid 1994–95

  Gross accepted for TSG and credit approvals 1994–95

  £ '000s

  £ '000s

  Per cent.

  Enfield

  12,241

  5,507

  45·0

  Greenwich

  4,888

  2,613

  53·5

  Hackney

  7,362

  3,347

  45·5

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  9,953

  5,516

  55·4

  Haringey

  6,989

  3,159

  45·2

  Harrow

  9,510

  8,594

  90·4

  Havering

  2,183

  868

  39·8

  Hillingdon

  13,892

  5,129

  36·9

  Hounslow

  9,858

  5,599

  56·8

  Islington

  8,023

  3,127

  39·0

  Kensington and Chelsea

  1,602

  1,153

  72·0

  Kingston upon Thames

  7,880

  3,505

  44·5

  Lambeth

  3,129

  1,728

  55·2

  Lewisham

  15,001

  9,876

  65·8

  Merton

  3,635

  1,727

  47·5

  Newham

  16,638

  11,174

  67·2

  Redbridge

  7,292

  1,689

  23·2

  Richmond upon Thames

  2,594

  1,936

  74·6

  Southwark

  5,872

  3,841

  65·4

  Sutton

  5,982

  2,319

  38·8

  Tower Hamlets

  15,471

  5,373

  34·7

  Waltham Forest

  4,481

  2,510

  56·0

  Wandsworth

  13,551

  6,401

  47·2

  Westminster

  19,090

  3,709

  19·4

  Bolton

  7,855

  3,693

  47·0

  Bury

  4,978

  2,266

  45·5

  Manchester

  46,162

  24,685

  53·5

  Oldham

  15,644

  5,115

  32·7

  Rochdale

  5,477

  2,420

  44·2

  Salford

  16,448

  2,949

  17·9

  Stockport

  11,104

  4.834

  43·5

  Tameside

  8,555

  1,929

  22·5

  Trafford

  23,864

  11,399

  47·8

  Wigan

  7,815

  1,415

  18·1

  Knowsley

  23,216

  19,498

  84·0

  Liverpool

  11,480

  6,018

  52·4

  St. Helens

  5,846

  722

  12·4

  Sefton

  5,702

  1,122

  19·7

  Wirral

  7,092

  3,083

  43·5

  Barnsley

  9,941

  6,666

  67·1

  Doncaster

  9,539

  6,248

  65·5

  Rotherham

  8,794

  4,803

  54·6

  Sheffield

  56,086

  20,145

  35·9

  Gateshead

  3,700

  1,351

  36·5

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  17,991

  9,255

  51·4

  North Tyneside

  4,148

  1,692

  40·8

  South Tyneside

  2,783

  1,319

  47·4

  Sunderland

  13,972

  3,733

  26·7

  Birmingham

  55,591

  38,660

  69·5

  Coventry

  16,056

  15,176

  94·5

  Dudley

  16,428

  10,640

  64·8

  Sandwell

  15,387

  5,828

  37·9

  Solihull

  4,709

  3,713

  78·8

  Walsall

  25,953

  17,704

  68·2

  Wolverhampton

  28,274

  19,487

  68·9

  Bradford

  18,012

  7,215

  40·1

  Calderdale

  9,689

  3,412

  35·2

  Kirklees

  15,506

  7,079

  45·7

  Leeds

  43,944

  20,507

  46·7

  Wakefield

  13,972

  3,421

  24·5

  Avon

  37,386

  18,750

  50·2

  Bedfordshire

  13,415

  5,037

  37·5

  Berkshire

  29,574

  10,203

  34·5

  Buckinghamshire

  12,106

  3,256

  26·9

  Cambridgeshire

  17,010

  6,716

  39·5

  Cheshire

  38,453

  21989

  57·2

  Cleveland

  18,596

  12,702

  68·3

  Cornwall

  18,658

  11,260

  60·3

  Cumbria

  16,927

  4,927

  29·1

  Derbyshire

  16,067

  5,175

  32·2

  Devon

  29,423

  10,320

  35·1

  Dorset

  9,902

  6,458

  65·2

  Durham

  20,168

  11,204

  55·6

  126

  Total bid 1994–95

  Gross accepted for TSG and credit approvals 1994–95

  £'000s

  £'000s

  Per cent.

  East Sussex

  21,495

  8,760

  40·8

  Essex

  38,263

  19,318

  50·5

  Gloucestershire

  19,100

  8,302

  43·5

  Hampshire

  46,513

  28,864

  62·1

  Hereford and Worcester

  12,369

  3,647

  29·5

  Hertfordshire

  22,155

  12,011

  54·2

  Humberside

  24,524

  17,484

  71·3

  Isle of Wight

  4,813

  2,982

  62·0

  Kent

  142,843

  94,124

  65·9

  Lancashire

  59,957

  26,352

  44·0

  Leicestershire

  25,195

  7,603

  10·2

  Lincolnshire

  13,678

  7,432

  54·3

  Norfolk

  32,912

  14,275

  43·4

  Northamptonshire

  18,120

  6,135

  33·9

  Northumberland

  19,461

  7,776

  40·0

  North Yorkshire

  33,166

  15,613

  47·1

  Nottinghamshire

  27,463

  10,715

  39·0

  Oxfordshire

  11,520

  5,967

  51·8

  Shropshire

  20,726

  5,081

  24·5

  Somerset

  20,982

  10,460

  49·9

  Staffordshire

  29,060

  14,416

  49·6

  Suffolk

  31,883

  9,387

  29·4

  Surrey

  52,645

  26,395

  50·1

  Warwickshire

  11,515

  4,504

  39·1

  West Sussex

  17,921

  7,012

  39·1

  Wiltshire

  9,491

  4,600

  48·5

  1,908,984

  937,334

  Marchioness Disaster
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport who was the inspector conducting the inquiry into the collision of the Bowbelle and Marchioness on the night of 20 August 1989; what was his period of service and what responsibilities he held in his Department; for what other inquiries before or since he has had prime or associated responsibility; what were his qualifications and professional experience, particularly in respect of navigation of the Thames above Greenwich; and if he will name any person having such knowledge, and their experience and qualification, who assisted the inspector.

  Mr. Norris
  The inspector who led the inquiry was the deputy chief inspector of marine accidents. Prior to his appointment as deputy chief inspector he had some 37½ years service in shipping and is a fully qualified and experienced master mariner. His service included eight years as principal nautical surveyor with particular responsibility for casualty investigation in the Department of Transport marine directorate; in that capacity he was concerned with numerous inquiries including those into the losses of the Herald of Free Enterprise and Marques. He was assisted by several inspectors with expertise appropriate to different aspects of the accident, including two officers closely concerned with navigation on the River Thames.

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport who was the inspector referred to in the letter he received from the chief inspector of marine accidents dated 5 June 1990; who conducted the inquiry into the Bowbelle-Marchioness collision; where and on what dates the inquiry took place; where the public or hon. Members can obtain a list of witnesses appearing at the inquiry; if he
  127
  intends to publish their written and oral evidence; by whom witnesses were subject to questioning in the course of the inquiry; and what interest was represented by each of those persons carrying out the questioning.

  Mr. Norris
  The inspector referred to is the deputy chief inspector of marine accidents who led the inquiry. Investigation began on the morning of the accident, 20 August 1989, and the inquiry was completed when the deputy chief inspector submitted his report to the chief inspector on 26 January 1990.

  The inquiry obtained evidence on many dates and at various places, including the office of the marine accident investigation branch, the Department of Transport district marine office, offices of the Port of London Authority and Tidal Cruises Ltd., on board my Bowbelle, at the yard where the Marchioness was slipped and afloat on the River Thames. Witnesses were questioned by one or more of the appointed inspectors whose interest, as laid down, was to determine the circumstances and causes of the accident with the aim of improving safety and avoiding recurrence. It is not the practice to give a list of witnesses nor to publish their evidence.

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list each matter taken into consideration by the inspector conducting the inquiry into the Bowbelle collision, which was not referred to by the report received in his Department from the chief inspector of marine accidents.

  Mr. Norris
  As in any thorough investigation, the inspectors considered many aspects which. subsequently proved not to be germane to the accident. It is therefore not practicable to list such matters.

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what evidence has been given in private or in public by the captain of the launch Hurlingham in respect of the collision between the Bowbelle and Marchioness; and if he will place copies of that evidence in the Library.

  Mr. Norris
  Apart from any evidence which he may have given either in the coroner's or the magistrates courts, the captain of the launch Hurlingham gave evidence to the marine accident investigation branch inspectors in the form of a declaration under section 27 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1979; such declarations are given in confidence and may not therefore be released.

  A66-A1 Intersection
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what consideration he has given to providing a full four-way motorway intersection between the A66 (M) and the Al (M); and when he will publish his conclusions.

  Mr. Key
  An assessment of this interchange has been undertaken as part of a study to provide information about the longer term requirements of the Al (M) motorway in the Northern region. From the work undertaken the need has not been established for increased capacity at this junction.

  Roads Programme
  Mr. Bendel
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he will publish the results of the review of the roads programme.
  128
  Mr. Key
  The current review of the road programme is intended to increase efficiency and speed of delivery by establishing clear priorities. The results will be published in good time to provide instructions to the chief executive of the new Highways Agency, which is being launched at the beginning of the new financial year.

  Marine Accident Investigation Branch
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport on what occasions since its inception he, or other Ministers of the Crown have visited the premises of his marine accident investigation branch at Southampton; and if he will list the occasions when any Minister in his Department has had formal meetings with the chief inspector of marine accidents since April 1992.

  Mr Norris
  Various Ministers with responsibility for shipping have visited MAIB. The most recent visit was by my right hon. and noble Friend the Minister of State for Aviation and Shipping on 1 May 1992. The chief inspector meets the Secretary of State and Ministers as required.

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what are the reference numbers and headings of each vote in the estimates relating to expenditure incurred directly, or otherwise ascertainable, defraying the expenses of the marine accident investigation branch.

  Mr. Norris
  The MAIB provision is contained within the 1993–94 supply estimates, class VI, vote 2, part II (section A), (section B) and section B1(6).

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what was the nature and extent of the accommodation occupied by his marine accident investigation branch at 57 Brunswick place, Southampton and any other premises occupied by them elsewhere; if he will list the number and description of each category of persons employed within the Department; and what principal variations have been executed or planned since its inception.

  Mr. Norris
  The sole accommodation occupied by MAIB is situated at 5–7 Brunswick place, Southampton, which consists of office space on two floors. The staff complement is 11 professional officers from the three main maritime disciplines and 10 administrative, executive and support grade staff. There has never been any change made in the accommodation. The original complement was 15—nine professional officers and six administrative staff. However, at the branch's inception the full complement was not in post and at that time its Staff numbered 11—five professional and six administrative. In April 1990 the complement was increased to the current number.

  MAIB
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list the titles and relevant dates of the printed reports of the marine accident investigation branch, together with the titles and expected dates of publication of any reports in hand, the number of each report printed, the cost to the general public and the method of distribution adopted by his Department.

  Mr. Norris
  The information on published reports will be found in appendix B of the periodic MAIB publication entitled "Summary of Investigations", a copy of which is
  129
  in the Library. It is anticipated that the chief inspector's report, "Engine failure and subsequent grounding of the Motor Tanker Braer at Garths Ness, Shetland" will be published in the new year. Distribution of all priced publications is carried out by HMSO, which makes a commercial decision on the number of copies printed.

  Zeebrugge and Marchioness (Inquiries)
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what are the main differences in terms of procedure, public access, conduct and report adopted between the inquiries into the Zeebrugge and Marchioness disasters.

  Preliminary inquiry (PI)

  Formal investigation(FI)

  Inspector's inquiry

  procedure

  Ordered under S.55 of MSA 1970 (now repealed).

  In 1987, as PI (now amended to S.56 of MSA 1970).

  Ordered under regulation 6 of MS (accident investigation) regulations, made under S.33 of MSA 1988.

  public access

  No provision.

  (Usually)1 held in public

  Public invitation to make representations. No other provisions before report stage.

  Conduct

  Peripatetic. No rules of con-duct laid down. Inspector's powers set out in S.27 of
  MSA 1979.

  Quasi-court procedures, laid down in MS (formal inves-tigation) rules 1985.

  Peripatetic. Governed by MS (accident investigation) regulations. Inspector's powers as for PI.

  Report

  No provisions laid down. Practice was for report to be regarded as confidential to Department.

  Report of court to Secretary of State, usually1 published.

  Report by chief inspector to Secretary of State, usually' published. Any parties who are criticised must see the report in draft and may make representations to the chief inspector.

  1 The usual procedure was followed with both the Zeebrugge and River Thames accidents.

  Thames Collision Inquiry
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what inquiries, or reports concerning the seven collisions on the Thames involving the Bowbelle, were taken into account by the inspector conducting the inquiry into the collision of that vessel with the Marchioness following his answer of 21 January 1992,Official Report, column 157; by whom any such inquiry in respect of each collision was conducted; to whom any report was sent; and if it is publicly available.

  Mr. Norris
  As section 15 of the chief inspector's report shows, the inquiry considered past accidents generally, not exclusively those concerning Bowbelle. Particular regard was given to those having points of similarity with the collision with Marchioness, which included one incident involving Bowbelle when she was in collision with the Pride of Greenwich. That, and the other River Thames incidents described in the report, were investigated by a surveyor of the Department of Transport, whose report was sent to the marine directorate. Such reports were not published, but a summary report of the Bowbelle/Pride of Greenwich collision was released in 1991.

  Mr. Dobson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport further to the Minister for Roads and Traffic's reply to the Consolidated Fund debate on 14 December about the Marchioness disaster, whether the transcript of the "Dispatches" television programme on which he relied portrayed the computer graphics included in the broadcast.

  Mr. Norris
  No. I have, however, now seen the video of the complete broadcast and I can confirm that I do not believe it adds anything material to that which is already known and recorded.
  130
  Mr Norris
  The capsize of the Herald of Free Enterprise off Zeebrugge was followed by a preliminary inquiry and a formal investigation both of which were held under section 55 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1970. The loss of the Marchioness was followed by an inspector's inquiry under section 33 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1988 and regulation 6 of the Merchant Shipping (Accident Investigation) Regulations 1989. A comparison between the three types of inquiry is set out in the table.

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what consideration was given by the marine accident investigation branch inquiry into the BowbelleMarchioness collision as to the health and capability of the helmsman of the Bowbelle and official documentation related thereto.

  Mr. Norris
  The helmsman was interviewed by an inspector who was fully satisfied of his capability. He held a valid medical certificate.

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what was the forward extent of deadwater viewed from the wheelhouse of the dredger Bowbelle by a person of average height when(a) loaded with a full cargo down to the marks at level trim, (b) unloaded with ballast tanks filled as per company practice for navigation above bridges on the Thames and (c) as ballasted to the extent it was at Southwark on the night of 20 August 1989; and what evidence was taken, and what tests were made, by the inspector conducting the inquiry into the collision.

  Mr. Norris
  A precise figure for the extent of deadwater cannot be given, irrespective of the state of loading, because it resulted not only from the vessel's trim but also from the presence of dredging gear, as is shown in the chief inspector's report: the effect of this is partly dependant on the observer's position. The significance of the poor visibility from the wheelhouse is given emphasis in the report; the inspector's opinion on this was based on close visual inspection including but not limited to a passage down river in conditions similar as far as possible to those on the night of the accident. As the report says, during this trial the launch taking the place of Marchioness could not be seen from the wheelhouse when she was in any position reasonably close ahead or on the starboard bow.

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what steps were taken by his Marine Accident Investigation Branch to contact the survivors and witnesses
  131
  of the Bowbelle collision with a view to its submission of written or oral evidence to the subsequent inquiry; and if lists of such persons were supplied to it by the Metropolitan police or other persons or bodies.

  Mr. Norris
  Lists of survivors from Marchioness were supplied by the Metropolitan police. Copies of their statements and those of other witnesses were also provided; all were examined. When it appeared that the witness was in a position to provide evidence as to the circumstances of the accident, an attempt was made to contact them and invite them to meet an inspector. In addition, press advertisements were placed inviting anyone who so wished to contribute to the inquiry.

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what public evidence has been given, orally or in writing, by the captain of the Bowbelle concerning his seeking or obtaining permission to navigate or anchor subsequent to the collision with the Marchioness on 20 August 1989.

  Mr. Norris
  Evidence was given by the master in the form of a declaration before the inspector as required under the Merchant Shipping Act 1979, and therefore not in public. He said that he was given permission to anchor in Long Reach but then told to go to Gravesend, which was later amended to Gallions reach. This is confirmed by the VHF transcript.

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) what test had been made, and what information had been requested by or made available to the inspector conducting the inquiry into the Bowbelle collision of 20 August 1989, concerning the nature of that vessel's bow light when navigating with foremast lowered at night above bridges; what was the strength of such a light used whilst so navigating; what requests had been made by the owners of the vessel in respect of these or related matters; what rule or regulation prevented installation of a stronger than normal bow light for such passages; and what evidence was given to the inspector conducting the inquiry on this matter;

  (2) what was the strength of the port and starboard navigation sidelights of the sand dredger Bowbelle on the night of 20 August 1989; what tests were made concerning the effect of any equipment carried on its deck or the trim of the vessel on forward visibility of such lights, particularly when viewed from near water level; and if the inspector conducting the inquiry into the collision took evidence on this matter.

  Mr. Norris
  Bowbelle carried approved port and starboard navigation lights, which have a luminous intensity of 12 candelas giving a range in ordinarily good visibility of least three miles. As explained in the chief inspector's report, she did not carry the usual forward masthead light being exempt from doing so under PLA bye-laws because the mast had to be lowered to pass under the bridges, but she carried in lieu of it a light about 4½ feet above the deck forward, of similar characteristics: that is having a luminous intensity of at least 94 candelas giving a six-mile range.

  A trial passage down river in conditions similar as far as possible to those on the night of the accident permitted a subjective assessment of the effectiveness of the lights from near water level by the inspector on board the launch.
  132
  As section 7 of the report says, the lights did not show up well: this, particularly in the case of the forward light, was due mainly to the effect of the background of shore lights.

  Representations were made by the owners of Bowbelle and other commercial craft regularly using the river above Tower bridge on the subject of distinguishing lights for their ships, both at meetings and in correspondence. The relevant papers were examined by the inspectors and are discussed in section 15 of the chief inspector's report. The various possibilities were rejected as the report says principally because the Department of Transport considered there would be conflict with the requirement of the International Collision Regulations.

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what evidence the inspector conducting the inquiry into the Bowbelle collision on the River Thames took concerning sets and turbulence in the water in the vicinity of Southwark bridge at the time of the collision there on 20 August 1989.

  Mr. Norris
  A research project was commissioned and evidence was taken from the Port of London Authority; the subject is covered in section 6 of the chief inspector's report.

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will name the vessel and person transmitting the radio messages, ascribed to an unknown vessel, contained in the radio-telephone transcript of the Port of London Authority Thames navigation service in the period immediately following the collision near Southwark bridge on 20 August 1989; if the name of that vessel and person were available to the inspector conducting the consequent inquiry; and what reference is made to it in the publicised report into that collision.

  Mr. Norris
  The vessel was the Hurlingham and the person making the broadcast was her skipper. Reference is at section 3.10 of the chief inspector's report.

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport on what date advice from his Department was given to the then Prime Minister concerning the merits of establishing a public inquiry into the Marchioness disaster of comparable scope to those conducted into disasters at King's Cross and Clapham.

  Mr. Norris
  The matter of a public inquiry was discussed on the day of the accident—20 August 1989. It was decided that the MAIB inquiry should proceed, with the option of a public inquiry—formal investigation—left open.

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what port or starboard effect the screw of the sand dredger Bowbelle unloaded with no, or little ballast had on its steering over the range of engine revolutions generally used and being used on the night of 20 August 1989; at what depths the boss and upper tip of its screw were below the surface when navigating King's reach that night; and what evidence was taken, or test made, in this regard by the inspector conducting the inquiry into the subsequent collision.

  Mr. Norris
  No significant effect was experienced at normal ahead revolutions or observed during the trial carried out in the inspector's presence. On going astern, the crew would be expected to cant the vessel but no astern movements took place on passage before the collision. The depths were about 5 ft and rather less than 2 ft respectively.
  133
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) where, and at what time, any representative or member of the management of South Coast Shipping boarded the Bowbelle in the early hours of 20 August 1989 and for what purpose; what such information was available to the inspector conducting the subsequent inquiry; if such a visit was referred to or discussed in evidence given to that inquiry by any member of the crew or management of the Bowbelle; and where it is referred to in the consequent report;

  (2) if he will describe the movements of the sand dredger Bowbelle subsequent to its collision on 20 August 1989 with the Marchioness prior to its mooring at Orchard wharf, Leamouth; which persons representing which interests boarded or left the vessel over that period; and if this information was known and considered by the inspector conducting the subsequent inquiry.

  Mr. Norris
  The movements of Bowbelle immediately after the collision are described in sections 3·11 and 17·1 of the chief inspector's report. Subsequently, she proceeded down river and on instruction from the Port of London Authority anchored in Gallions reach at 0325 hours. She weighed anchor at about 0445 hours and berthed at Orchard Wharf at 0540 hours.

  While at Gallions reach she was boarded by the operations manager of South Coast Shipping and by two officers of the Metropolitan police. This information was known to the inspector conducting the inquiry; it is not referred to in the report as it had no relevance to the accident.

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary 'of State for Transport what boats, lifebuoys, or other buoyant apparatus were thrown overboard, or otherwise used, after the Bowbelle-Marchioness collision on 20 August 1989(a) from the Hurlingham and (b) from the Bowbelle; if such information was secured by the inspector conducting the inquiry; and whether it was referred to therein (a) in general or (b) in quantifiable terms.

  Mr. Norris
  Buoyant apparatus and life buoys were thrown into the water from Hurlingham, but none from Bowbelle. Evidence as to this was obtained by the inspectors; section 12 of the chief inspector's report refers to that.

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what test or qualification was obtained by any officer of the sand dredger Bowbelle in respect of exemption from pilotage requirements for operation above bridges in the Port of London; for what period such exemption had been applied; from what date such exemption had been operative; and from what date it has not been necessary for a licensed Thames waterman to be in charge of sea-going vessels above Tower bridge.

  Mr. Norris
  As is explained in the chief inspector's report at section 9, there were at the time of the accident no requirements for pilotage in the Thames above London bridge; therefore equally there were no requirements for pilotage exemption in that area, although both officers on the bridge of Bowbelle at the time of the accident held valid exemptions for pilotage in the lower reaches. Following recommendation 16 in the report, pilotage or the possession of an exemption is now required. So far as is known, it has never been a requirement for a licensed waterman to have charge of a vessel above Tower bridge.
  134
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what record was made of the proceeding of the inquiry, by an inspector of his marine accident investigation branch, into the collision between the Bowbelle and the Marchioness in August 1989; where it is now held and by whom; how many copies have been made; to whom it has been sent; and if he will deposit a copy in the Library and make it publicly available.

  Mr. Norris
  The proceedings of the inquiry are recorded in the inspector's report the only copy of which was sent to, and continues to be held by, the chief inspector of the marine accident investigation branch. This procedure is in accordance with regulation 8(4) of the Merchant Shipping (Accident Investigation) Regulations 1989; there is no provision for an inspector's report to be released. However, regulation 9(1) provides for the publication of the chief inspector's report of the inspector's inquiry; the chief inspector's report on the collision between Marchioness and MV Bowbelle was published on 15 August 1991.

  Air and Maritime Disasters
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will summarise the salient distinctions and similarities in the procedures in respect of investigation and report into(a) air and (b) maritime disasters, including arrangements for (i) giving and receiving evidence, (ii) publicity or privacy of inquiry proceedings and (iii) publication of reports together with references to the relevant Acts and statutory instruments.

  Mr. Norris
  The procedures for investigation of major accidents by the air and marine accident investigation branches are, in respect of the matters referred to, as follows:

  Inspectors of both branches have power amoung other things to require the production of documents and the attendance of witnesses. Witnesses are required to answer the inspector's questions and sign a declaration of the truth of their answers. The full powers are set out in, respectively, the Civil Aviation (Investigation of Air Accidents) Regulations 1989, regulation 9 and the Merchant Shipping Act 1979, section 27.

  Under the Air Accident Regulations an inspector's investigation shall be held in private. Under the Merchant Shipping Act, a witness giving evidence may nominate a person to accompany him but no other person may be present except any person allowed by the inspector.

  The Air Accident Regulations (Reg 16) and the Merchant Shipping (Accident Investigation) Regulations 1989 (Reg 9) provide for the Secretary of State to publish a report, subject to specific requirements, unless in his opinion there is good reason not to do so. The report is that of, respectively, the inspector and the chief inspector.

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what plans he has to further Her Majesty's Governments objectives of open government by amending the terms of statutory instruments governing the conduct of current inquiries into marine accidents.

  Mr. Norris
  None. The existing regulations give sufficient discretion to appointed inspectors; adequately provides for those wishing to make representations; satisfactorily provides for consultation with criticised
  135
  parties; and, subject to certain safeguards, makes provision for the publication of reports of serious or important accidents.

  River Safety
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what meetings have taken place of the Thames district marine safety committee, established consequent to the recommendations of the Hayes report into river safety; what area that committee covers; who appoints, or recommends appointments to it; and which of its members represents the interests of(a) registered craft plying between Teddington and the Thames barrier and (b) their passengers.

  Mr. Norris
  Marine safety matters relating to the River Thames are considered by a sub-committee of the south east of England district marine safety committee, which has held four meetings since publication of the Hayes' report and which covers the Thames between Teddington lock and the Thames barrier. Appointments to the sub-committee are made on the recommendation of the chairman of the south east of England district committee. The interests of vessel owners are represented by the Thames Passenger Ship Federation and some individual owners. The interests of passengers are represented by the Department of Transport, the Port of London Authority, the Metropolitan police and the Port Health Authority.

  M5
  Mr. Luff
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what representations he has received from, or on behalf of, the residents of Whittington and Norton, adjacent to junction 7 of the M5, about noise levels following the widening of the motorway; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Key
  Four representations have been received about noise levels on this stretch of motorway, including two via my hon. Friend. I am having the levels investigated and will write to him further.

  Ml/A1 Link
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when the M1/A1 link will be open for traffic for its full length.

  Mr. Key
  The final section of the M1/A1 link between the M1 at Catthorpe and Rothwell is expected to open to traffic in June 1994.

  Motorway Lighting
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is the cost per mile of motorway lighting.

  Mr. Key
  The cost of installing lighting varies from one stretch of motorway to another, depending on such factors as the number of junctions and the costs of electrical cabling work at particular sites. A representative average figure at present is about £115,000 per mile.

  Rail Privatisation
  Ms Quin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what guidance his Department has given to OPRAF on rail closures under privatisation.
  136
  Mr. Freeman
  The franchising director's role in closure cases is set out in sections 37 to 50 of the Railways Act 1993. We have not issued any guidance on closures to the franchising director.

  Mrs. Dunwoody
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is his estimate of the total net cost to public funds of rail privatisation so far.

  Mr. Freeman
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to her on 13 December 1993 at column 466. At this stage there are no savings or benefits to net off the total expenditure fugure.

  Mrs. Dunwoody
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) how much of the consultancy costs for railway privatisation were spent on lawyers' fees in 1991–92 and 1992–93; and how much of the expected expenditure is expected to go to lawyers in 1993–94;

  (2) if he will give a detailed breakdown of his Department's expenditure on consultancy costs for rail privatisation.

  Mr. Freeman
  The breakdown of the Department's expenditure and estimated expenditure on consultancy costs for rail privatisation for 1991–92, 1992–93 and 1993–94 is as follows:

  £ million

  Financial year

  1991–92

  1992–93

  11993–94

  Legal issues

  0·0

  1·6

  4·0

  Merchant banking

  0·1

  0·3

  2·0

  Accountancy and actuarial

  0·0

  1·7

  2·3

  Access and access charges

  0·4

  1·1

  0·9

  Property matters

  0·0

  0·1

  0·3

  Marketing

  0·0

  0·0

  0·9

  Freight and franchising

  0·0

  0·6

  0·7

  Information systems

  0·0

  0·0

  0·7

  Insurance

  0·0

  0·0

  0·1

  Research

  0·0

  0·0

  0·1

  Recruitment

  0·0

  0·1

  0·0

  1 Estimate.

  M62
  Mr. Lewis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what origin, and destination surveys have been carried out of traffic using the M62 west of the M63/M602 junction, and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Key
  No recent origin and destination surveys have been carried out on this particular stretch of motorway. However, other surveys have been carried out to provide a comprehensive assessment of traffic movements along the M62 through the Greater Manchester conurbation.

  M6
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he intends to light that section of the M6 between junctions 1 and 2.

  Mr. Key
  There are no plans at present to light the M6 between junctions 1 and 2, but we will continue to keep the matter under review.

  M45
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when the M45 will be illuminated.

  Mr. Key
  We do not have any plans to provide road lighting on the M45 motorway.

  M1
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when the motorway widening works at the southern end of the M1 will be finished.

  Mr. Key
  We expect completion of the widening between junctions 9 and 10 in mid-January.

  Quangos
  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) if he will list the names of all former hon. Members who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment;

  (2) if he will list the names of all former British representative members in the European Parliament who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment;

  (3) if he will list the names of all individuals who are or were members of the House of Lords who since 1979 have been appointed to any quasi-autonomous nongovernmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. Norris
  Detailed information on past and present appointees to non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs—formerly known as quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations—is not held in the Department and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. However, from such limited information as is available on present members of NDPBs, there is no evidence that any of them falls within any of the categories specified, apart from one member of the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee who is a former Labour Member of Parliament, Mr. Lewis Carter-Jones. He was reappointed as a member of the committee in December 1992 for a three-year period to December 1995. Committee members are not paid a salary but the Department meets their travel and subsistence costs.

  Noise
  Mr. Butterfill
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what proposals he has for noise insulation for commercial premises in respect of noise from new railways; and what consideration he gave to including such premises or problems arising from ground-borne noise in the draft noise insulation regulations upon which consultation is now taking place.

  Mr. Freeman
  The purpose of the proposed regulations is to provide, for new railways, arrangements which relate 138
  equitably to those already applicable to the insulation of dwellings near new roads; commercial premises were not therefore considered for inclusion. The regulations provide for sound insulation; this would not be effective against ground-borne noise, which involves different technical factors and is therefore specifically excluded.

  Roads
  Mr. Robert Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is the amount of money provided by the Government for capital road expenditure schemes for North Yorkshire in each of the last 10 years.

  Mr. Key
  Central Government support for local authority schemes in North Yorkshire has been provided as follows:

  Year

  Transport supplementary grant (net) £ million

  Capital allocations (until 1989–90) or credit approvals £ million

  1985–86

  3·82

  8·500

  1986–87

  3·562

  9·050

  1987–88

  3·552

  8·870

  1988–89

  1·925

  6·440

  1989–90

  2·653

  7·330

  1990–91

  3·444

  4·909

  1991–92

  6·157

  9·321

  1992–93

  6·452

  8·607

  1993–94

  9·645

  12·463

  1994–94

  4·298

  8·904

  Motorcycles
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will place in the Library the research evidence on which he bases his Department's estimates on the effect of fitting leg protectors to all motorcycles on the incidence of death and serious injury to motorcylists.

  Mr. Key
  I refer the hon. Member to the Transport Research Laboratory's working paper WP/VS/213 entitled "TRRL Review of Research on Motorcycle Leg Protection —1991", a copy of which was placed in the Library in July 1992.

  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what plans exist for regulations applying to the United Kingdom requiring motorcycles to be fitted with leg protectors.

  Mr. Key
  None.

  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether the European Commission proposal, Com 264B final, action programme on road safety, which refers to leg protection devices for mopeds, applies only to mopeds or to all motorcycles; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Key
  The European Commission's action programme on road safety (COM 93 246 final) proposes, among other things, a new initiative in the field of "leg protection devices for mopeds", but translation inconsistencies in the document leave it unclear precisely what is intended. The United Kingdom proposes to clarify the matter in the Council working group to which consideration of the document has been remitted.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Videos
  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prosecutions were brought against those responsible for hiring video tapes of films with an 18 or 15 classification to those under age; and how many resulted in convictions, for the last year for which figures were available.

  Mr. Maclean
  The Video Recordings Act 1984 does not differentiate the supply of a video recording of classified work for hire from other forms of commercial supply, such as the supply of a classified video for sale. In 1989, there was a total of 47 prosecutions and 42 convictions under the Act, of which one was a successful prosecution under section 11 of the Act relating to supply of a video recording in breach of the classification awarded. Information collected centrally from 1990 onwards does not identify separately offences committed under this specific Act from other summary offences.

  Alexander Schweidler
  Mr. Winnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if immediate steps will now be taken to withdraw the United Kingdom citizenship of Alexander Schweidler; and if he will make it his policy in future to refuse him entry into the United Kingdom on the grounds that his presence will not be conducive to the public good.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  Where allegations of war crimes have been made against a British citizen or a person resident in the United Kingdom, they fall to be investigated by the police war crimes unit. Where a naturalised British citizen is involved, it would not be appropriate to consider deprivation of citizenship until those investigations had been completed. British citizens cannot be refused entry to the United Kingdom.

  Dorothy Nwokedi
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 14 December,Official Report, column 535, whether valium was administered to Dorothy Nwokedi during her deportation on 9 July; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  I understand that a port medical inspector at Gatwick airport made available to Mrs. Nwokedi a 5 milligram tablet of valium, which she took after take-off.

  Marchioness
  Mr. Dobson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many victims of the Marchioness disaster had their hands severed by the authorities; and for what purpose this was done;

  (2) who decided to sever the hands of some of the victims of the Marchioness disaster;

  (3) who decided which victims of the Marchioness disaster should have their hands severed.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  I understand from the Westminster coroner that hands were removed from the 140
  decomposed bodies of 25 victims of the Marchioness disaster, for the purpose of enabling fingerprinting to be carried out to assist in the process of identification. This was done on the coroner's authority, in the light of advice from the Metropolitan police and the pathologist on the best methods of establishing the identity of the bodies concerned. The question of which bodies needed to have the hands removed was a matter for decision by a Metropolitan police senior fingerprinting officer. Coroners are independent judicial officers and Ministers have no authority to comment upon the way in which a coroner conducts his inquiries in any individual case.

  Fire Authority Report
  Mr. O'Hara
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) for what reasons he has not delivered to the chairman of the Merseyside fire and civil defence authority, Her Majesty's inspectorate's report on the inspection of the authority made in the summer of 1993;

  (2) for how long he has had possession of the Her Majesty's inspectorate report on the inspection of the Merseyside fire and civil defence authority made in the summer of 1993;

  (3) if he will instruct that Her Majesty's inspectorate's report on the Merseyside fire and civil defence authority be delivered immediately to the chairman of the authority; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  The draft report was not completed and finalised until 17 November 1993. My right hon. and learned Friend approved publication of the report on 30 November and printing was completed on 20 December 1993.

  Copies of the report were sent to the chief fire officer and the clerk to the authority on 21 December 1993. Copies will be available in the Library of the House and to the public from 11 January 1994.

  Sentencing Policy
  Mr. Gapes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will place in the Library copies of the guidelines issued to magistrates with regard to sentencing policy in respect of guilty pleas; and why the question from the hon. Member for Ilford, South of 18 October received no answer.

  Mr. Maclean
  A copy of the sentencing guidelines issued by the Magistrates Association to its members on 17 September 1993 has been placed in the Library. I regret that the hon. Member's question of 18 October was not answered. As I explained when I wrote to him on 9 December, this was because of an administrative error that occurred when the question was transferred from the Lord Chancellor's Department to the Home Office. A copy of that letter has also been placed in the Library.

  Body Belts
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 14 December,Official Report, column 534, on what occasions in the last year a body belt has been used in a police station; and what were the circumstances surrounding that use.
  141
  Mr. Charles Wardle
  I am not aware of any occasion in the past year in which a body belt has been used in a police station.

  Quangos
  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the names of all individuals who are or were members of the House of Lords who since 1979 have been appointed to any quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as

  Position

  Dates

  Salary

  The advisory committee on animal experiments

  Lady Warnock

  Member

  1975–1979

  Non-Salaried

  Lady Warnock

  Chairman

  1979–1984

  Non-Salaried

  Lord Adrian

  Member

  1980–1985

  Non-Salaried

  Animal procedures committee (which replaced the advisory committee in 1987)

  Lord Soulsby

  Member

  1987–1991 (re appointed for a second four period in 1991)

  Non-Salaried

  Lord Nathan

  Chairman

  1990–1993

  Non-salaried

  Community development foundation

  Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede

  Chairman

  1978–1983

  Non-salaried

  Central fire brigades advisory council1

  Lord Boston

  Chairman

  January-April 1979

  —

  Lord Belstead

  Chairman

  May 1979-March 1982

  —

  Lord Elton

  Chairman

  April 1982-May 1985

  —

  Lord Glenarthur

  Chairman

  June 1985-August 1986

  —

  Lord Caithness

  Chairman

  September 1986-April 1988

  —

  Lord Ferrers

  Chairman

  May 1988-May 1993

  —

  Gaming Board of Great Britain

  Lord Allen of Abbeydale

  Chairman

  1980–1985

  Salary details unavailable

  Horserace Betting Levy Board

  Lord Plummer

  Chairman

  1980–1982

  Salary details unavailable

  Horserace Totalisator Board

  Duke of Devonshire

  Chairman

  1980–1986

  Salary details unavailable

  Lord Wyatt

  Chairman

  1987–1995

  Salary of £92,000

  Lord Chapple

  Member

  1986–1990

  Salary of £7,772

  Alcohol Education and Research Council

  Lord Windlesham

  Chairman

  1981–1984

  Non-salaried

  Viscount Colville of Culross

  Chairman

  1984–1990

  Non-salaried

  Parole Board

  Lord Henniker

  Independent member

  1979–1982

  Salary details unavailable

  Lord Harris of Greenwich

  Chairman

  1979–1982

  Salary details unavailable

  Lord Windlesham

  Chairman

  1982–1988

  Salary details unavailable

  Viscount Colville of Culross

  Chairman

  1988–1992

  Salary of £27,040

  Lord Belstead

  Chairman

  1992–1997

  Salary of £45,060

  Advisory Committee on Service Candidates

  Lady Birk

  Member

  1984-present

  Non-salaried

  Lord Renton

  Member

  1984-present

  Non-salaried

  Lord Wigoder

  Member

  1984-present

  Non-salaried

  Lord Ferrers

  Member

  1987-present

  Non-salaried

  Lord Barnett

  Member

  1987-present

  Non-salaried

  Lord Kilmarnock

  Member

  1987-present

  Non-salaried

  Criminal Injuries Compensation Board

  Member

  December 1988—March 1995

  Not salaried

  Lord Carlisle of Bucklow

  Lord Carlisle of Bucklow

  Chairman

  March 1989—March 1995

  Salary of £32,420

  Lord Macaulay of Bragar

  Member

  January 1989—March 1995

  Non salaried

  Firearms Consultative Committee

  Chairman

  August 1989—July 1994

  Non salaried

  Lord Kimball

  Lord Shrewsbury

  Member

  September 1993

  Non salaried

  1 Junior Ministers who have served, ex officio, as the Council's chairmen. No separate salary is payable for this post.

  142
  justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. Michael Howard
  Our records show that the following Members of the House of Lords have been appointed to Home Office non-departmental public bodies. Salary details where readily available have been provided. I will write to my hon. Friend concerning details of those salaries not included in the reply.
  143
  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the names of all former hon. Members who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Position

  Dates

  Salary

  Community development foundation

  Richard Luce

  Trustee

  1978–1979

  Non salaried

  Guy Barnett

  Trustee

  1979–1985

  Non salaried

  Roger Thomas

  Trustee

  1985–1988

  Non salaried

  Michael Meadowcroft

  Trustee

  1986–1994

  Non salaried

  David Belotti

  Trustee

  1992–1994

  Non salaried

  Sir David Lane

  Chairman

  1983–1985

  Non salaried

  Horserace betting levy board

  Anna McCurley

  Member

  1988–1997

  Salary of £12,000

  Alcohol education and research council

  Right Hon. Christopher Chataway

  Chairman

  1991–1994

  Non salaried

  Police complaints authority

  Right Hon. Roland Moyle

  Deputy Chairman

  1985–1991

  £28,369-£35,995

  John Cartwright

  Member

  October 1992

  £38,020

  John Cartwright

  Deputy Chairman

  August 1993

  £42,400

  Parole board

  Mrs. Sheila Faith

  Independent member

  Since 1991

  Non salaried

  Criminal injuries compensation board

  Norman Miscampbell

  Member

  March 1993–1995

  Non salaried

  Firearms consultative committee

  Ben Ford

  Member

  1989–1991

  Non salaried

  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the names of all former British representative members in the European Parliament who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. Howard
  The information requested is as follows:Parole Board
  Mrs. Sheila Faith, independent member since 1991, non-salaried.

  Bowbelle
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department where, and at what time, an officer of the Metropolitan police boarded the Bowbelle on 20 August 1989 for the purpose of taking any statement from any member of its crew; what statements were taken; if they were available to the inspector conducting the inquiry; whether they have been published; and if he will place them in the Library.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  I understand from the Commissioner that no Metropolitan police officers boarded the Bowbelle on 20 August 1989 with the purpose of taking a statement from any member of the crew.

  Deported Jamaicans
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the names of those passengers from Jamaica who were refused entry to the
  144
  Mr. Howard
  Our records show that the following former hon. Members have been appointed to Home Office non-departmental public bodies:

  United Kingdom when they arrived at Gatwick on 21 December 1993; if he will list the names of those passengers who were given temporary admission to the United Kingdom; if he will list the names of those passengers who were detained at Campsfield House immigration detention centre; and if he will give a summary as to why each passenger was refused entry to the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  It is not our practice to disclose personal details of individuals with whom the Department has contact. Most of the passengers were refused entry because the immigration officer was not satisfied that they were genuine visitors who would return to Jamaica at the end of their visit. A small number were refused entry because they were apparently coming for settlement without the required entry clearance.

  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the opportunity given, in the time between the refusal to grant entry to the United Kingdom as visitors to Jamaican nationals at Gatwick on 21 December 1993 and their deportation from the United Kingdom, for passengers and their legal representatives to apply for judicial review of the refusal to grant entry ; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  Removal is normally arranged as soon as practicable for passengers held in detention following refusal of leave to enter. Removal directions will normally be deferred for a short time if an application for judicial review is lodged.

  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when each passenger from Jamaica,
  145
  detained at Campsfield House from 21 December 1993, after being refused entry to the United Kingdom, was informed of their rights to legal advice and representation; on what dates written explanations of reasons to grant entry to the United Kingdom were passed to solicitors; for how many passengers such explanations were supplied.; and how many written explanations were outstanding when detainees were removed from the United Kingdom on 25 December 1993.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  Each passenger was given written reasons for refusal of entry and advised that they were free to contact their High Commission or anyone else that they wished. One firm of solicitors acting for an individual detainee sought written details of the refusal decision and these were provided on 23 December. Oral explanations were given to various firms of solicitors acting for a further 12 detainess between 23 and 24 December. No requests for explanations, either written or oral, were outstanding at the time of removal.

  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department why Michael Lennon (Ref.: GAT 14116) was refused entry to the United Kingdom as a visitor at Gatwick on 21 December 1993; why applications by the hon. Member for Bradford, West for Mr. Lennon to ge given temporary admission to the United Kingdom were refused; whether Mr. Lennon applied to settle in the United Kingdom; whether Mr. Lennon inidicated he intended to seek employment in the United Kingdom; whether Mr. Lennon was known to have any criminal convictions or known to have criminal associates in the United Kingdom; whether he was in possession of any illegal substance when personally searched; who was his sponsor in the United Kingdom; whether he had a return air ticket to Jamaica; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  I have written to the hon. Member.

  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many visitors on flight YULE 966 from Kingston, Jamaica, were detained at Gatwick airport on 21 December 1993; and what were the reasons for their detention.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  One hundred and seventy eight passengers were required to submit to further examination under the Immigration Act 1971 and were therefore detained at the airport while awaiting interview.

  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the decision to detain visitors from Kingston, Jamaica, at Gatwick airport on 21 December 1993 was a reflection of a change in policy by the Home Office.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  No. We continue to welcome genuine visitors from all countries. There has been no change in the criteria for visitor cases generally or Jamaican citizens in particular.

  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received from solicitors and others concerning entry procedures for those wishing to visit the United Kingdom following the deportation of Jamaicans on 25 December 1993; what action he has taken following such representations ; and what action he proposes to take.
  146
  Mr. Charles Wardle
  We had received on 7 January 44 letters from various individuals and organisations. They raised various issues but most were supportive of the action taken. Replies will be sent to individual correspondents as appropriate.

  EC Visas
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will place in the Library the provisional list of countries whose nationals will require visas to visit the EC from 1996; what plans he has to include(a) Barbados and (b) the Bahamas on the list; and what representations he has received from (i) these or (ii) other countries concerning their inclusion on any common visa list.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  We await receipt from the Council Secretariat of the European Commission's proposals in respect of the list of countries whose nationals must be in possession of a visa when crossing the external borders of the member states. As soon as these proposals are received, they will be made available to Parliament in accordance with the normal scrutiny arrangements. No representations of the kind mentioned have been received.

  Yardie Murderers
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is his estimate of the number of Yardie murderers entering the United Kingdom by absconding from temporary admission licences; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  I am not aware of any case in which a convicted Yardie murderer has been granted temporary admission to the United Kingdom.

  Immigration Documents
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will place in the Library a copy of current instructions issued to immigration officers relating to those seeking to visit the United Kingdom; and copies of documents given to those refused entry to the United Kingdom as visitors, including advice given about rights to legal advice and legal representation.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  No. It is not the normal practice to publish internal instructions. The written notice given to passengers refused entry as visitors informs them that they may contact their high commission or anyone else who they think may be able to help. I shall send a copy of the relevant notice to the hon. Member and arrange for one to be placed in the Library.

  Illegal Substances
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what illegal substances were found by(a) immigration officers and (b) police officers on passengers who arrived on charter or scheduled flights from the Caribbean arriving at Gatwick on 21 December 1993; if he will give details of the circumstances; and how many passengers were charged with drugs-related offences.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  No illegal substances were found by immigration officers. One passenger who had arrived on
  147
  flight JQ001, on being searched by police prior to detention, was found to have in his possession a small amount of herbal cannabis. No passenger was charged with a drugs-related offence.

  Immigration Controls (Gatwick)
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many(a) immigration officials and (b) police officers were on duty during the day at Gatwick South Terminal on 7 December 1993, 14 December 1993, 21 December 1993, 28 December 1993 and 4 January.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  The total numbers of immigration officers, chief immigration officers and immigration inspectors on duty at Gatwick South over the 24 hour periods in question were:

  Numbers

  7 December 1993

  86

  14 December 1993

  95

  21 December 1993

  114

  26 December 1993

  77

  4 January 1994

  91

  In addition, on 21 December an additional 20 officers from other Gatwick offices were deployed at Gatwick South on an ad hoc basis for varying periods throughout the day.

  For security reasons it is not the normal practice for the police to provide details of the numbers of officers on duty on particular days. However, the number of police officers involved in handling the consequences of flight JQ001 at Gatwick South on 21 December varied during the day up to a maximum of 15.

  Jamaican Citizens
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many Jamaican citizens were(a) granted entry to visit the United Kingdom and (b) refused entry to visit the United Kingdom during 1993; and how many of these Jamaican citizens were in possession of visas to visit the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  In the period January to September 1993, 12,000 Jamaican citizens were given leave to enter the United Kingdom as visitors and 418 were refused leave to enter, of whom six had an entry clearance or work permit. Correspondence data for the fourth quarter of 1993 are not yet available.

  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received from the Jamaican high commissioner concerning the treatment of Jamaican nationals who arrived at Gatwick on 21 December 1993 and were refused entry to the United Kingdom as visitors; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  No written representations have been received from the Jamaican high commission, which has nonetheless maintained a close interest in the treatment of Jamaican citizens refused entry at Gatwick on 21 December.

  Carrier Fines
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the names of carriers who have been fined under the Immigration (Carriers Liability)148
  Act 1987 in connection with charter or scheduled flights to Gatwick from the Caribbean since 1 January 1993 to date; if he will detail the total fine in each case; what information officials received from any carrier or others about passengers from Jamaica arriving at Gatwick on 21 December 1993; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  It is not the practice to disclose information about individual carriers. Payments of £2,000 each were demanded in three such cases between 1 January 1993 and 7 January 1994. One of the passengers had travelled from Jamaica but none was a Jamaican citizen. The immigration service received information, including a passenger list, from United Kingdom Leisure about its flight on 21 December.

  Legal Assistance Treaty
  Sir Ivan Lawrence
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the treaty between the United Kingdom and the United States of America on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters comes into force and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Howard
  I signed the treaty in Washington on 6 January 1994. The other co-signatory was the United States Attorney-General. The treaty will enter into force upon exchange of the instruments of ratification, which, in accordance with the terms of the treaty, will be as soon as possible. The treaty continues in force the drugs agreement entered into by the United Kingdom with the United States of America in 1988 and provides a binding framework within which the United Kingdom and the United States of America may provide a full range of mutual legal assistance covering all crimes. The United States of America is one of the United Kingdom's largest and most important mutual legal assistance partners. In the last two to three years, the United Kingdom and the United States of America have jointly handled more than two hundred requests for mutual legal assistance concerning fraud, drug trafficking and other serious offences. The treaty is a logical next step in the continuing process of collaboration between our two countries in the fight against serious and international crime.

  Criminal Injuries Compensation
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what amount of compensation Mr. James Bloomfield received under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board; and what amount of compensation a person with identical injuries would receive under the new system.

  Mr. Maclean
  The Criminal Injuries Compensation Board does not give details of awards in individual cases, nor will its successor body, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority.

  Deportation
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 14 December,Official Report, column 535, what plans he has to ensure that deportees are advised of the immunisations which the Department of Health recommended for the country to which they are travelling, and that they and any children accompanying them are entitled to such immunisations.
  149
  Mr. Charles Wardle
  The immigration service is considering the question of immunisation for those removed or deported under powers contained in the Immigration Act 1971, and their dependants, in consultation with other interested parties including the Department of Health. I will inform the hon. Member of the outcome.

  Asylum Seekers
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many(a) non-visa nationals, (b) asylum seekers and (c) others were refused entry to the United Kingdom, detained and deported, since the enactment of the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993; what was the minimum and maximum period in each case between an application to enter being lodged and deportation; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  Two hundred and twenty-one asylum seekers were refused leave to enter in the period 26 July to 31 December 1993 and have been removed from the United Kingdom. The majority were detained throughout their period of stay.

  The minimum and maximum time periods between arrival and removal, and corresponding information on persons other than asylum seekers, is not readily available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. The total number of persons removed in August and September as a result of being refused leave to enter was 2,973; some may have been refused leave to enter prior to August. Corresponding data for October 1993 onwards are not yet available.

  Post Office (Thefts)
  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many cases of(a) assaults in the pursuit of robbery on Post Office delivery personnel and (b) theft of money or registered mail from Post Office vehicles have occurred in each of the last five years.

  Mr. Maclean
  The information requested is not collected centrally.

  Squatters
  Mr. Livingstone
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the cost of the police operation to remove the squatters from Rutland Park mansions on the morning of Sunday 12 December; how many officers were involved; how many people were arrested; what led officers to believe that there would be violence; what acts of violence were committed; and whether the cost of the operation will be recovered from Brent council.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  I understand from the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police that approximate additional police costs, excluding the use of support services, for the operation were £11,000. A total of 373 Metropolitan police officers were present. The police role was to prevent a breach of the peace. Prior intelligence had indicated that stong resistance might be offered to the enforcement of the order. In the event, there were no arrests and no acts of violence were committed. The Metropolitan police regard the orderliness of the eviction as a measure 150
  of the effectiveness of the police operation. They do not intend to seek recovery of any of the costs of the operation from the London borough of Brent.

  Rutland Park Mansions
  Mr. Livingstone
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what consideration is being given to charging councillors in Brent with wasting police time, following the eviction of squatters from Rutland Park Mansions on 12 December.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  I understand from the Commissioner that no consideration is being given by the Metropolitan police to charging councillors in Brent with wasting police time.

  Press Officers
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many press officers his Department has employed in each year since 1983.

  Mr. Howard
  The number of press officers, including the director of information, is:

  Year

  Numbers

  1983

  15·75

  1984

  15·25

  1985

  14·00

  1986

  17·25

  1987

  18·00

  1988

  19·50

  1989

  22·00

  1990

  21·00

  1991

  20·00

  1992

  19·00

  1993

  16·00

  Special Advisers
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the names and job descriptions of each special ministerial adviser employed in his Department showing any particular outputs for which each adviser is responsible.

  Mr. Howard
  [holding answer 16 December 1993]: The special advisers employed by the Home Office are Mr. Patrick Rock and Mr. David Cameron. They provide advice on a range of departmental matters.

  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what arrangements are made to ensure that special advisers to Ministers in his Department do not have access to the kind of information, and are not involved in the type of business, that would be likely to create suspicion of impropriety in relation to subsequent employment.

  Mr. Howard
  [holding answer 16 December 1993]: Care is taken to ensure that special advisers do not have access to kinds of information likely to create suspicions of impropriety.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL

  Visas
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Attorney-General what arrangements he will make to allow any country placed on the provisional list of countries whose nationals will require from 1996 visas to visit the EC to appeal against the inclusion on the visa list.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  I have been asked to reply.

  There is no provision in article 100c of the treaty of Rome for appeals of this kind.

  1989–90 £

  1990–91 £

  1991–92 £

  1992–93 £

  61993–94 £

  London

  12 Downing Street

  1,182

  996

  946

  925

  1n.a.

  24 Whitehall

  5,850

  4,928

  4,680

  2,887

  22,243

  36 Whitehall

  4,608

  3,882

  3,686

  3,606

  22,801

  70 Whitehall

  8,253

  10,245

  9,683

  9,496

  27,391

  Government Offices, Great George Street

  10,871

  12,134

  11,437

  11,181

  28,698

  11 Belgrave Road

  5,250

  2,120

  6,000

  7,534

  3,230

  Hepburn House

  n.a.

  3,889

  7,290

  3,444

  4,356

  53 Parliament Street3

  n.a.

  6,336

  9,888

  7,153

  6,600

  Riverwalk House3

  82,004

  115,819

  133,585

  106,408

  47,193

  Murray House4

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Albany House4

  —

  n.a.

  n.a.

  —

  —

  Ascot

  Sunningdale Park5

  n.a.

  n.a.

  52,500

  62,502

  27,763

  Basingstoke

  Alencon Link

  n.a.

  14,240

  17,747

  11,863

  11,407

  Chessington

  Government Buildings, Leatherhead Road

  31,117

  27,037

  25,897

  23,354

  14,924

  Edinburgh

  Hill Street

  n.a.

  3,705

  3,141

  3,620

  3,365

  Norwich

  Gildengate House3

  27,278

  36,455

  35,360

  36,195

  12,080

  Birmingham

  Cumberland House4

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Cardiff

  Hayes House4

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Durham

  Elvet House4

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Manchester

  Boulton House4

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1 For the current year heat meters have been installed and charges have yet to be levied.

  2 Based on estimated annual charge.

  3 Includes lighting costs.

  4 Heating forms part of an overall charge and is not separately identifiable.

  5 Includes usage of gas for catering.

  6 To date.

  Bowbelle-Marchioness Report
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many copies of the marine accident investigation branch report into the Bowbelle-Marchioness collision were printed by Her Majesty's Stationery Office; how many copies are still in stock; how many have been used for official or parliamentary purposes; and how many sold at the named price.

  Mr. David Davis
  HMSO printed 1,842 copies of the marine accident investigation branch report into the

DUCHY OF LANCASTER

  Departmental Offices (Heating Bills)
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will list, by location the annual fuel heating bills for each of his Department's offices for the last four years, and for this year to date.

  Mr. David Davis
  The breakdown by location for the Cabinet Office and its agencies is as follows:

  Bowbelle-Marchioness collision and 920 are still in stock. The Department of Transport received 320 copies for official purposes and 23 copies were purchased by other Government Departments. A total of 579 copies have been sold to date, either on wholesale terms or at the named price.

  Quangos
  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will list the names of all individuals who are or were members of the House of Lords who since 1979
  153
  have been appointed to any quasi-autonomous nongovernmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. David Davis
  The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is responsible for making appointments to the following non-departmental public bodies:

  The Civil Service Appeal Board;

  Agricultural and Food Research Council;

  Economic and Social Research Council;

  Medical Research Council;

  Natural Environment Research Council; and the Science and Engineering Research Council.

  The Earl of Selborne was chairman of the Agricultural and Food Research Council from 1 January 1975 to 31 December 1989. His annual salary in the last year of his appointment was £10,065.

  Baroness Perry of Southwark was a member of the Economic and Social Research Council from 1 August 1988 to 31 July 1991. She received an annual honorarium, which in the last year of her appointment was £4,340.

  The right hon. the Lord Shepherd of Spalding was chairman of the Medical Research Council—MRC—from 1 August 1977 to 31 July 1982. He received an annual honorarium, which in the last year of his appointment was £2,675.

  The right hon. Lord Jellicoe was chairman of the MRC from 1 August 1982 to 31 July 1990. He received an annual honorarium, which in the last year of his appointment was £5,030.

  Lord Cranbrook was a member of the Natural Environment Research Council—NERC—from 1 October 1982 to 31 July 1988. He received an annual honorarium, which in the last year of his appointment was £3,410.

  Lord Chorley of Kendal has been a member of the NERC since 1 August 1988. His term is due to expire on 31 July 1994. He receives an annual honorarium of £4,730.

  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will list the names of all former British representative members in the European Parliament who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. David Davis
  The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is responsible for making appointments to the following non-departmental public bodies:

  The Civil Service Appeal Board;

  Agricultural and Food Research Council;

  Economic and Social Research Council;

  Medical Research Council;

  Natural Environment Research Council; and the

  Science and Engineering Research Council.

  James Provan, MEP for North East Scotland from 1979 to 1989, has been a member of the Agricultural and Food Research Council since 1 August 1990. His appointment expires on 31 March 1994. He receives an annual honorarium of £4,730.

  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will list the names of all former hon. Members who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations,154
  excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. David Davis
  The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is responsible for making appointments to the following non-departmental public bodies:

  The Civil Service Appeal Board;

  Agricultural and Food Research Council;

  Economic and Social Research Council;

  Medical Research Council;

  Natural Environment Research Council; and the

  Science and Engineering Research Council.

  Sir David Crouch, formerly Member of Parliament for Canterbury between 1966 and 1987, was an unpaid member of the Medical Research Council from 1 August 1983 to 31 July 1987.

  Scott Inquiry
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will place in the Library a copy of the Iraq document to which he referred in his evidence to the Scott inquiry.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  No. The Iraq note, along with many other highly classified documents, has been made available to the inquiry being conducted by Lord Justice Scott, who will in due course decide what is published in his report.

  Documents (Marginal Notes)
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will make it his policy to instruct all civil servants to ensure that marginal notes made on interdepartmental memoranda or other documents distributed for comment between Government Departments and executive agencies reporting to Government Departments always make comment directly on to the said documents and do not use detachable notes.

  Mr. David Davis
  There are no plans to issue such instructions.

DEFENCE

  Belize
  Sir Thomas Arnold
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement about the memorandum of understanding with the Government of Belize.

  Mr. Hanley
  We have advised the Belize Government that existing arrangements set out in memoranda of understanding, concerning the technical aspects of the British military presence in Belize need to be brought up to date to reflect the evolution of our military garrison into a jungle training team. The details of these arrangements are confidential between Governments.

  British Troops (Germany)
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what proposals he has for bringing home British troops from Germany.

  Mr. Hanley
  The current strength of the Army in Germany is about 33,000. On current plans this will fall to some 24,700 by April 1995.

  Defence Budget
  Sir Michael Neubert
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what percentage proportion of defence expenditure will now, following the Chancellor's Budget statement, be assigned respectively to the Army, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force in 1994–95.

  Mr. Rifkind
  Details of planned expenditure by each top level budget holder, together with provision for sea, land and air systems equipment will be contained in the 1994–95 Supply Estimates.

  Bosnia
  Sir Anthony Durant
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the volume of aid delivered by British troops in Bosnia in 1993; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Hanley
  In 1993 British troops in Bosnia escorted humanitarian aid convoys carrying a total of 77,739 tonnes of aid. In addition, the RAF humanitarian airlift into Sarajevo delivered a total of 10,354 tonnes of aid, and there have been over 1,000 such flights.

  Economies
  Mr. Dykes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment he has made of the extent to which his Department has achieved all possible economies and reductions in unnecessary expenditures in respect of administrative and other running costs.

  Mr. Hanley
  Since the launch of the Department's efficiency programme in 1988–89 the MOD has consistently met the challenging targets it has been set, making improvements worth some £1·8 billion a year by 31 March 1993. We will continue to search for ways of reducing to a minimum the administrative and other costs of supporting our front line forces. To this end, we have set in hand the defence costs study, known as "Front Line First", to look into all aspects of defence support.

  Mountain and Sea Rescue
  Mr. Canavan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence on how many occasions over the past 12 months MOD personnel or equipment have been used in mountain or sea rescue operations.

  Mr. Hanley
  Between 1 November 1992 and 31 October 1993 United Kingdom military search and rescue helicopter flights and mountain rescue teams were called out on 2,049 occasions. A total of 724 of these callouts involved rescue operations.

  Small Arms Ammunition
  Mrs. Ann Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment he has made of long-term procurement needs in connection with small arms ammunition.

  Mr. Aitken
  My hon. Friend, the Minister of State for the Armed Forces, announced the award of a long term contract to Royal Ordnance in the Defence debate on 19 October last year at column 176. This contract covers over 90 per cent. by value of our small arms ammunition requirements in the period up to 1998.

  European Fighter Aircraft
  Mr. Page
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the European fighter aircraft.

  Mr. Aitken
  Eurofighter 2000 will be the cornerstone of the RAF's future capability. The manufacturers are now forecasting first flight for April this year. This delay is disappointing but there is no evidence of any major design problem and it should not be of any great significance in overall programme terms. We and our collaborative partners plan to take a decision on a commitment to production in 1995, which will still allow production aircraft for the RAF to be delivered in 2000.

  Yugoslavia
  Dr. Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many service personnel are currently serving in the former Yugoslavia.

  Mr. Hanley
  There are at present approximately 2,330 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.

  Procurement Executive
  Mr. Ian Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the total estimated costs, including new computer systems, of moving the Procurement Executive to Abbey Wood, near Bristol, and report on current progress of the project.

  Mr. Aitken
  The estimated works cost of the new Procurement Executive headquarters at Abbey Wood, North Bristol, inclusive of site acquisition, construction, fitting out, professional works management and VAT is £255 million at current prices with an additional £90 million for the non-works elements of the move. No decision has yet been taken on the future information technology system for the site. The construction programme is proceeding within budget and to the planned timescale.

  Cyprus
  Mr. William O'Brien
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the United Nations presence in Cyprus.

  Mr. Hanley
  The United Nations force in Cyprus—UNFICYP—currently totals some 1,300 personnel from the United Kingdom, Argentina and Austria. The United Kingdom contingent of over 400 personnel comprises a contribution to the headquarters staff, two companies of a roulement regiment in the infantry role and various support elements, including a flight of Army Air Corps helicopters.

  NATO
  Mr. Duncan Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what issues he expects to be discussed at the NATO summit concerning the relationship between the European members of the Alliance and north America; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Hanley
  My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will be making a statement concerning the issues discussed
  157
  at the NATO summit. The summit will undoubtedly reaffirm the continuing importance of the relationship between the European and North American members of the Alliance.

  Mr. Jim Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he last met his Hungarian counterpart to discuss the possible enlargement of NATO.

  Mr. Hanley
  My right hon. and learned Friend has not had the opportunity to have discussions with the Hungarian Minister of Defence. However, I met Dr. Fur in Budapest on 13 October, when Hungary's relationship with NATO was amongst the topics discussed.

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the strengthening of links between NATO and the new democracies of eastern Europe.

  Mr. Hanley
  My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will be making a statement concerning the decisions taken at the NATO summit, including on the need to strengthen the links between NATO and the new democracies of eastern Europe.

  Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty
  Dr. Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make it his policy to argue for the introduction of sanctions for breaches of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty or withdrawal from the treaty.

  Mr. Hanley
  The United Kingdom's policy on the non-proliferation treaty is to work towards its unconditional and indefinite extension in 1995. Questions of the imposition of mandatory United Nations sanctions are for the Security Council to decide in accordance with the United Nations charter, on a case by case basis.

  Defence Establishments (Closure)
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment he has made of the extent to which Whitley Council agreed provisions have been observed in connection with the downgrading or closure of defence establishments; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Hanley
  Great importance is attached to Whitley Council procedures and, bearing in mind that proposals covering some 1,000 establishments have been put to the trades unions over the past two and half years, we have a good record on consultation.

  Hydrographic Office
  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what representations he has had on the risks to the Hydrographic Office's operational capability if companies receiving contracted-out work go out of business; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Hanley
  Other than in discussions between staff and management, no such representations have been received.

  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what targets for financial savings he envisages as a result of introducing market testing procedures into the Hydrographic Office.
  158
  Mr. Aitken
  The agency's market testing programme is at the feasibility stage; it is too early to predict the level of savings which may arise.

  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what representations he has had regarding the future of long-term planning at the Hydrographic Office if market-tested functions go to tender every three years; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Aitken
  No such representations have been received other than in discussions between management and staff. Long term planning will continue to be the responsibility of the HO management board, and will be necessary in the context of its role as an integrated Government agency and the national centre of hydrographic expertise.

  Porton Down
  Mr. Livingstone
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what was the nature of the nerve agent which was transported to Porton Down, referred to in his answer to the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) of 19 July,Official Report, column 81; and why this nerve agent was being transported;

  (2) what was the specific nature of the trials which were observed and participated in by the four US Army liaison officers stationed at Porton Down from 1963 to 1973; and which chemical and biological agents were involved in these trials;

  (3) in which year Porton Down stopped research on pyrroles; how many of each species of small animals were used; and when the United States of America was first informed of this research through the technical co-operation programme;

  (4) when Porton Down first researched into Q fever;

  (5) what was the nature of the information on binary chemical weapons passed between the United States of America and Britain to assist Britain in its evaluation of the potential hazards of binaries, referred to in his his answer to the hon. Member for Leyton of 20 July, Official Report, column 170; when this information was passed; and under which defence agreement this information was passed;

  (6) what tests and studies the chemical and biological establishment at Porton Down has carried out on the viral disease yellow fever; when these experiments took place; whether the experiments involved animals or service volunteers; what were the conclusions of these studies and tests; and under which defence agreement these results were exchanged with the United States of America;

  (7) on what dates quantities of VX were transferred from Nancekuke to Porton Down; how the quantities were transported; what safety precautions were taken; which safety authorities and local councils were warned before the transfer; and what was the nature of each of the trials in which the transferred VX was used;

  (8) how many scientific papers co-authored by scientists from Porton Down and their counterparts in the Australian military have been published since 1963; what were the dates of these papers; and in which scientific journal they were published;

  (9) what was the nature of the chemical agent transferred from Britain to Canada in the early 1970s mentioned in his answer to the hon. Member for Leyton of 20 July, Official Report, column 173; what was the

  159
  quantity of agent transferred; on what dates this agent was transferred; why the agent was transferred; how the agent was transferred; and what safety precautions were taken;

  (10) which United States military establishments and Government agencies took part in the information exchange and collaboration on VX other than those mentioned in his answer of 15 February, Official Report, column 63;

  (11) how many service volunteers have been used for tests at Porton Down in each year since 1979; what is the purpose of these tests; and which chemical and biological agents have been used in these tests since 1979;

  (12) which other nerve agents were involved in the research at Nancekuke referred to in his answer of 16 July, Official Report, columns 717–18, to determine whether they presented a hazard to British armed forces; and when research started and ended on each of the nerve agents involved;

  (13) under which defence agreement VX was transferred from the United Kingdom to the United States of America; and whether any transfer of VX was made from the United Kingdom to the United States of America other than that referred to in his answer to the hon. Member for Leyton of 29 July, Official Report, column 172;

  (14) when the experiments on B staphylococcal enterotoxin, referred to in his answer to the hon. Member for Brent, East on 16 July, Official Report, columns 718–19, began and ended; and if his Department has collaborated in experiments on this toxin with any other country;

  (15) what workd Porton Down has done on evaluating tremorine as an incapacitating agent; when this work was carried out; how many tests and studies were carried out on animals and service volunteers; what was the conclusion of these tests and studies; when the results were shared with the United States of America; and through which defence agreement this scientific information was exchanged;

  (16) what has been the nature of collaboration between Britain, Australia and the United States of America with regard to nerve gases, and CS gas and CR gas; when this work was started and finished; where the work was carried out; and under which defence agreement the work was arranged;

  (17) what information arising from the transesterification study referred to in his answer of 16 July, Official Report, column 712, on QL, was shared with the United States of America, Canada and Australia; when this information was exchanged; and under which defence agreement it was exchanged;

  (18) if he will list the dates, participating countries and locations of each of the 15 meetings of sub-group E on chemical and biological defence of the technical co-operation programme mentioned in his answer of 1 December 1992, Official Report, column 163; which branches of the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence have been attending these meetings; and if he will make a statement on the achievements of this sub-group;

  (19) when chemical and biological agents and materials have been exchanged between Britain and Australia; what was the nature of these agents and materials; in what quantities they were exchanged; for what purposes they were exchanged and under which defence agreement or memorandum of understanding they were exchanged.
  160
  Mr. Hanley
  These are matters for the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment—CBDE—under its framework document. I have asked the chief executive of CBDE to write to the hon. Member.

  Letters from Graham Pearson to Mr. Ken Livingstone, dated 11 January 1994:

  1. Your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Defence asking what was the nature of the nerve agent which was transported to Porton, referred to in his Answer to the honourable Member for Leyton on 19th July, Official Report, column 81; and why this nerve agent was being transported (Question 27, Order Paper 15 December 1993) has been passed to me to reply as Chief Executive of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment.

  2. The role of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment is to ensure that the United Kingdom Armed Forces have effective protective measures against the threat that chemical or biological weapons may be used against them. In order to carry out this work, it is necessary to have available small quantities of the materials which may be used as chemical or biological warfare agents by a potential aggressor.

  3. The nerve agent transported to Porton Down in May 1977 were small quantities of the iso-butyl and cyclopentyl analogues of VX. They were transported in order to be retained at CBDE as reference samples.

  1. Your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Defence asking what was the specific nature of the trials which were observed and participated in by the four United States Army liaison officers stationed at Porton Down from 1963 to 1973; and which chemical and biological agents were involved in these trials (Question 28, Order Paper 15 December 1993) has been passed to me to reply as Chief Executive of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment.

  2. Our records do not provide information about which trials the four US Army liaison officers stationed at Porton Down from 1963 to 1973 are likely to have observed nor about which agents were involved although these are likely to have been mustard and nerve agents.

  1. Your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Defence asking in which year Porton Down stopped research on pyrroles; how many of each species of small animals were used; and when the United States of America was first informed of this research through the Technical Co-operation Programme (Question 29, Order Paper 15 December 1993) has been passed to me to reply as Chief Executive of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment.

  2. The role of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment is to carry out research to ensure that the UK Armed Forces are provided with effective protective measures against the threat that chemical or biological weapons may be used against them. As part of this work the potential hazard of possible chemical and biological warfare agents is assessed and the effectiveness of British protective measures evaluated.

  3. Several classes of pyrroles were studied in the early 1960s to determine whether or not simple pyrrole derivatives might show pharmacological effects that might be used by an aggressor as an incapacitating agent and this area of research ceased round about 1963. Our records indicate that only rats were used for experimental purposes; they do not indicate the numbers involved which are likely to have been small.

  4. The information arising from these studies was part of the chemical and biological defence programme and would therefore be part of the technical database drawn upon in cooperation with the United States of America during the 1960s under the Technical Cooperation Programme and its predecessors.

  1. Your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Defence asking when Porton Down first researched into Q fever (Question 30, Order Paper 15 December 1993) has been passed to me to reply as Chief Executive of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment.

  2. The role of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment is to carry out research to ensure that the UK Armed Forces are provided with effective protective measures

  161
  against the threat that chemical or biological weapons may be used against them. As part of this work the potential hazard of possible chemical and biological warfare agents is assessed and the effectiveness of British protective measures evaluated.

  3. Research at Porton Down into coxiella bunietii started in 1989 in work aimed at identification techniques for the organism based on gene probe and antibody technologies.

  1. Your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Defence asking what was the nature of the information on binary chemical weapons passed between the United States of America and Britain to assist Britain in its evaluation of the potential hazard of binaries, referred to in his Answer to the honourable Member for Leyton on 20th July, Official Report, column 170; when this information was passed; and under which defence agreement this information was passed (Question 31, Order Paper 15 December 1993) has been passed to me to reply as Chief Executive of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment.

  2. Our records do not indicate the precise nature of the information on binary chemical weapons passed between the United States of America and Britain to assist Britain in its evaluation of the potential hazard to the UK Armed Forces from potential aggressors who may possess binary chemical weapons. The information gained would have been provided during information exchange and collaboration with the United States of America on a continuing basis. This information was exchange under the aegis of the Defence agreements referred to by the Rt Hon. Archie Hamilton, MP, in his reply of 21 May 1992, Official Report, columns 255–256.

  1. Your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Defence asking what tests and studies the chemical and biological establishment at Porton Down has carried out on the viral disease yellow fever; when these experiments took place; whether the experiments involved animals or service volunteers; what were the conclusions of these studies and tests; and under which defence agreement these results were exchanged with the United States of America (Question 34, Order Paper 15 December 1993) has been passed to me to reply as Chief Executive of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment.

  2. The role of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment is to carry out research to ensure that the UK Armed Forces are provided with effective protective measures against the threat that chemical or biological weapons may be used against them. As part of this work the potential hazard of possible chemical and biological warfare agents is assessed and the effectiveness of British protective measures evaluated.

  3. Work on yellow fever virus at Porton Down began in the early 1960s. Some work has been carried out to evaluate the vaccine strain as a simulant. Other work has addressed techniques for rapid identification. Some of the early work on antibodies for identification involved the use of mice and rabbits. No work has involved the use of service volunteers.

  4. Preliminary conclusions are that appropriate techniques can be developed for rapid identification. The information arising from these studies is part of the chemical and biological defence programme and is part of the technical database drawn on the cooperation with the United States of America under the Technical Cooperation Programme and the Memorandum of Understanding on chemical and biological defence with the US and Canada.

  1. Your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Defence asking on what dates quantities of VX were transferred from Nancekuke to Porton; how the quantities were transported; what safety precautions were taken; which safety authorities and local council were warned before the transfer; and what was the nature of each of the trials in which the transferred VX was used (Question 35, Order Paper 15 December 1993) has been passed to me to reply as Chief Executive of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment.

  2. Our records do not provide information on the precise dates when quantities of VX were transferred from Nancekuke to Porton Down nor the nature of each of the trials in which the transferred VX was used but the transfers are likely to have taken place between 1957–1976. The transfers were carried out in accordance with the Report of the Working Party on the Transport of Nerve Agents from Nancekuke to Porton
  162
  (Thompson Committee) published by HMSO in 1970. As indicated in the Report, the relevant police forces would have been notified and appropriate escorts and vehicles provided.

  1. Your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Defence asking how many scientific papers co-authored by scientists from Porton Down and their counterparts in the Australian military have been published since 1963; what were the dates of these papers; and in which scientific journal they were published (Question 36, Order Paper 15 December 1993) has been passed to me to reply as Chief Executive of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment.

  2. I regret that our records do not provide this information in a readily accessible form. Nevertheless, I have consulted my senior staff and one scientific paper co-authored by scientists from the then Chemical Defence Establishment at Porton Down and their counterparts in the Australia has been identified. This paper on heat stress in NBC protective clothing was published in 1987 and appeared in Volume 125, pages 554–556 of Military Medicine.

  1. Your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Defence asking what was the nature of the chemical agent transferred from Britain to Canada in the early 1970s mentioned in his Answer to the honourable Member for Leyton of 20th Ju]y, Official Report, column 173; what was the quantity of agent transferred; on what dates this agent was transferred; why the agent was transferred; how the agent was transferred; and what safety precautions were taken (Question 37, Order Paper 15 December 1993) has been passed to me to reply as Chief Executive of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment.

  2. The nature of the chemical agent transferred from Britain to Canada in the early 1970s was CR gas. Transfers took place in April 1970 (2 kg), August 1971 (10 kg), September 1972 (10 kg) and February 1976 (14·5 kg). Appropriate safety precautions were taken although as stated in the reply of 20th July (Official Report, column 173), our records do not indicate how the agent was used by Canada or on the precise defence agreement involved. The transfer of the agent probably took place under one of the agreements referred to by the Rt. Hon. Archie Hamilton, MP in his reply of 21 May 1992, Official Report, columns 255–6.

  1. Your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Defence asking which United States military establishment and government agencies took part in the information exchange and collaboration on VX other than those mentioned in his Answer of 15th February, Official Report, column 63 (Question 40, Order Paper 15 December 1993) has been passed to me to reply as Chief Executive of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment.

  2. Our records indicate that the only other United States military establishment or government agency that took part in the information exchange and collaboration on VX was the Newport Indiana factory which I referred to in my reply to the honourable member for Leyton of 20 July 1993, Official Report, columns 172–173.

  1. Your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Defence asking how many service volunteers have been used for tests at Porton Down in each year since 1979; what is the purpose of these tests; and which chemical and biological agents have been used in these tests since 1979 (Question 41, Order Paper 15 December 1993) has been passed to me to reply as Chief Executive of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment.

  2. The role of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment is to ensure that the United Kingdom Armed Forces have effective protective measures against the threat that chemical or biological weapons may be used against them. In order to carry out this work it is necessary to use service volunteers to:

  (a) assess the ability of service personnel to function with new equipment and procedures,

  (b) develop medical countermeasures to protect Service personnel and,

  (c) evaluate the effects of very low and medically safe concentrations of CW agents on the ability of unprotected personnel to operate normally.

  163
  No studies involving volunteers are carried out unless there is a clear military need and a detailed protocol has been reviewed and approved by an independent Ethics Committee in accordance with the guidelines laid down by the Royal College of Physicians.

  3. The number of Service volunteers used for studies in each year since 1979 has been as follows:

  Numbers

  1979

  153

  1980

  340

  1981

  303

  1982

  161

  1983

  177

  1984

  131

  1985

  181

  1986

  96

  1987

  93

  1988

  136

  1989

  110

  1990

  83

  1991

  50

  1992

  112

  1993

  64

  4. Only a proportion of these studies have involved the use of a chemical agent; the only chemical agent used in studies since 1979 has been GB (Sarin).

  1. Your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Defence asking which other nerve agents were involved in the research at Nancekuke referred to in his Answer of 16 July, Official Report, columns 717–8, to determine whether they presented a hazard to British armed forces; and when research started and ended on each of the nerve agents involved (Question 42, Order Paper 15 December 1993) has been passed to me to reply as Chief Executive of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment.

  2. The role of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment is to carry out research to ensure that the UK Armed Forces are provided with effective protective measures against the threat that chemical or biological weapons may be used against them. As part of this work the potential hazard of possible chemical and biological warfare agents is assessed and the effectiveness of British protective measures evaluated.

  3 The nerve agents involved in the research at Nancekuke and the approximate periods during which the research at Nancekuke was carried out were as follows:

  a.

  GB

  1951–1976

  b.

  GE

  1950s

  c.

  GF

  1957–1976

  d.

  GD

  1962–1980

  e.

  VX

  1957–1976

  f.

  Other V series

  1957–1980

  Research into these nerve agents is also carried out at Potion Down as required by the chemical defence programme.

  1. Your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Defence asking under which defence agreement VX was transferred from the United Kingdom to the United States of America; and whether any transfer of VX was made from the United Kingdom to the United States of America other than that referred to in his Answer to the honourable Member for Leyton of 20th July, Official Report, column 172 (Question 43, Order Paper 15 December 1993) has been passed to me to reply as Chief Executive of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment.

  2. The only transfer of VX from the United Kingdom to the United States of America was the one referred to in my answer to the honourable member for Leyton of 20th July 1993, Official Report, column 172.

  3. Our records do not reveal under which defence agreement VX was transferred from the United Kingdom to the United States of America. The transfer was probably under the Tripartite Toxicological Conferences which preceeded the Technical Cooperation Programme.
  164
  1. Your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Defence asking when the experiments on staphylococcal enterotoxin B, referred to in his Answer to the honourable Member for Brent East on 16th July, Official Report, columns 718–9, began and ended; and if his Department has collaborated in experiments on this toxin with any other country (Question 45, Order Paper 15 December 1993) has been passed to me to reply as Chief Executive of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment.

  2. The role of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment is to carry out research to ensure that the United Kingdom Armed Forces are provided with effective protective measures against the threat that chemical or biological weapons may be used against them. As part of this work the potential hazard of possible chemical and biological warfare agents is assessed and the effectiveness of British protective measures evaluated.

  3. The Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment has carried out studies on staphylococcal enterotoxin B since 1980 in order to assess the potential hazard to the United Kingdom Armed Forces and to provide appropriate protective measures. Experimental work on this toxin has not been carried out in collaboration with any other country although the results of this work form part of the technical database drawn on in cooperation with the United States, Canada and Australia under the Technical Cooperation Programme, with the United States and Canada under the Memorandum of Understanding on Chemical and Biological Defence and with France under the Anglo-French defence Memorandum of Understanding on Defence Research.

  1. Your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Defence asking what work Porton Down has done on evaluating tremorine as an incapacitating agent; when this work was carried out; how many tests and studies were carried out on animals and service volunteers; what was the conclusion of these tests and studies; when the results were shared with the United States of America; and through which defence agreement this scientific information was exchanged (Question 46, Order Paper 15 December 1993) has been passed to me to reply as Chief Executive of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment.

  2. The role of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment is to carry out research to ensure that the United Kingdom Armed Forces are provided with effective protective measures against the threat that chemical or biological weapons may be used against them. As part of this work the potential hazard of possible chemical and biological warfare agents is assessed and the effectiveness of British protective measures evaluated.

  3. Work has been carried out at the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment since the early 1960s using oxo-tremorine as a pharmacological tool in order to examine the mechanisms of nerve agent poisoning and thus evaluate new drugs to treat such poisoning. This work has involved the use of small laboratory animals such as rats, mice and guinea pigs. This research is to develop effective therapeutic and pretreatment drugs. No studies or tests were carried out with service volunteers.

  4. The information arising from these studies was part of the chemical and biological defence programme and would therefore be part of the technical database drawn upon in cooperation with the United States of America under the Technical Cooperation Programme and its predecessors.

  1. Your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Defence asking what has been the nature of collaboration between Britain, Australia and the United States of America with regard to nerve gases, and CS gas and CR gas; when this work was started and finished; where the work was carried out; and under which defence agreement the work was arranged (Question 47, Order Paper 15 December 1993) has been passed to me to reply as Chief Executive of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment.

  2. The role of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment is to carry out research to ensure that the UK Armed Forces are provided with effective protective measures against the threat that chemical or biological weapons may be used against them. As part of this work the potential hazard of possible chemical and biological warfare agents is assessed and the effectiveness of British protective measures evaluated.
  165
  3. As part of this work it has been necessary to evaluate the potential hazards from nerve gases, CS gas and CR gas. Studies into CR gas were carried out between 1971–1976 and CS gas between 1957-early 1980s. The studies on nerve gases started after World War II and are continuing. These address both the potential hazard as well as research into new and improved medical countermeasures to nerve agent poisoning. The results of this work have formed part of the chemical and biological defence programme and is part of the technical database drawn upon in collaboration with the United States, Australia and Canada under the Technical Cooperation Programme and its predecessors and with the United States and Canada under the Memorandum of Understanding on Chemical and Biological Defence.

  1. Your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Defence asking what information arising from the transesterfication study referred to his Answer of 16th July, Official Report, column 712, QL, was shared with the United States of America, Canada and Australia; when this information was exchanged; and under which defence agreement it was exchanged (Question 48, Order Paper 15 December 1993) has been passed to me to reply as Chief Executive of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment.

  2. Our records do not indicate what information arising from the transesterfication study was shared with the United States of

  Month

  Year

  Participating countries

  Location

  1

  Aug

  67

  UK, USA, Canada and Australia

  Edgewood USA

  2

  Nov

  67

  UK, USA, Canada and Australia

  CDE and MRE UK

  3

  May

  69

  UK, USA, Canada and Australia

  Pentagon USA

  4

  Mar

  73

  UK, USA, Canada and Australia

  DRE Ottawa Canada

  5

  Jan

  75

  UK, USA, Canada and Australia

  CDE UK

  6

  Jan

  77

  UK, USA, Canada and Australia

  Edgewood USA

  7

  Oct

  78

  UK, USA, Canada and Australia

  DRE Suffield Canada

  8

  Apr

  80

  UK, USA, Canada and Australia

  MRL Australia

  9

  Oct

  81

  UK, USA, Canada and Australia

  CDE UK

  10

  May

  83

  UK, USA, Canada and Australia

  CRDC and Fort McLellan USA

  11

  Oct

  84

  UK, USA, Canada and Australia

  NDHQ and DRE Ottawa Canada

  12

  Apr

  86

  UK, USA, Canada and Australia

  MRL Australia

  13

  Apr

  88

  UK, USA, Canada and Australia

  CDE UK

  14

  Apr

  89

  UK, USA, Canada and Australia

  CRDC USA

  15

  Apr

  90

  UK, USA, Canada and Australia

  DRE Suffield Canada

  16

  Apr

  91

  UK, USA, Canada and Australia

  MRL Australia

  17

  Jul

  92

  UK, USA, Canada and Australia

  CBDE UK

  18

  Jun

  93

  UK, USA, Canada and Australia

  Washington DC USA

  3. The main participant from the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence has been the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment augmented as appropriate by representatives from Ministry of Defence headquarters.

  4. The achievement of Sub-group E has been to promote successful collaboration in chemical and biological defence research between the UK, USA, Canada and Australia.

  1. Your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Defence asking when chemical and biological agents and materials have been exchanged between Britain and Australia; what was the nature of these agents and materials; in what quantities they were exchanged; for what purposes they were exchanged and under which defence agreement or memorandum of understanding they were exchanged (Question 54, Order Paper 15 December 1993) has been passed to me to reply as Chief Executive of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment.

  2. Our records indicate that the quantities of chemical and biological agents and materials provided for defence research collaboration by Britain to Australia are as follows:

  a. November 1959

  V agent intermediate

  12 lbs

  b. November 1972

  Charcoal cloth

  24 m roll

  c. August 1977

  G agent intermediate

  20 lbs

  CR

  3 lbs

  3. Our records do not include information on how the agent or material was used by Australia or on the precise defence
  166
  America, Canada and Australia. The information gained formed part of the chemical and biological defence programme and is part of the technical database drawn on in information exchange and collaboration with the United States of America, Canada and Australia under the aegis of the defence agreements referred to the Minister of State for the Armed Forces, the Rt. Hon. Archie Hamilton, MP in his reply of 21 May 1992, Official Report, columns 255–256.

  1. Your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Defence asking if he will list the dates, participating countries and locations of each of the 15 meetings of sub-group E on chemical and biological defence of the Technical Co-operation Programme mentioned in his Answer of 1st December 1993, Official Report, column 163; which branches of the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence have been attending these meetings; and if he will make a statement on the achievement of this sub-group (Question. 50, Order Paper 15 December 1993) has been passed to me to reply as Chief Executive of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment.

  2. Our records indicate that the dates, participating countries and locations of each of the meetintgs of Sub-group E on Chemical and Biological Defence of the Technical Co-operation Programme since 1967 have been as follows:

  agreement involved. The transfer was probably under one of the defence agreements referred to in my reply to you of 16 July 1993, Official Report, column 716.

  Mr. Livingstone
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many legal actions have been taken against the Ministry of Defence since 1963 by service volunteers who have been tested with chemical and biological agents at the chemical defence establishment at Porton Down; and how these legal cases were settled.

  Mr. Hanley
  Our records show no such legal actions.

  Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps
  Mr. Couchman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what fixed-wing tactical transport capability is required for the British contribution to the Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps.

  Mr. Hanley
  We would expect to make maximum use of all of our fixed-wing air transport aircraft—Tristar, VC10 and Hercules—in tactical and strategic roles, supplemented as necessary by civil aircraft, to deploy the British elements of the Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps.

  Air Misses
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many of the aircraft observed by Skyguard radar since June 1989 were flying at medium level within the meaning of his answer of 14 July,Official Report, column 560.

  Mr. Hanley
  In my answer of 14 July—Official Report, column 560—medium level was intended to refer to aircraft operating at heights above 2,000 ft above ground level. Reports on Skyguard deployments prior to November 1992, during which 1,175 military aircraft were observed, do not distinguish between aircraft operating at low and at medium level. Of the 627 aircraft observed by Skyguard since that time, 243 were operating at medium level.

  Knightsbridge Barracks
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has to change the ownership, administration and use of Knightsbridge barracks now or in the future; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Hanley
  The requirement for barracks in central London is being reviewed. Sites examined will include Knightsbridge barracks.

  Civil Servants (Re-employment)
  Mr. Frank Cook
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many(a) retired officers and (b) retired civil servants have been re-employed by his Department (i) directly and (ii) as consultants in each of the past five years; what are the arrangements for their remuneration and for treatment of their pension; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Aitken
  The number of retired civil servants directly re-employed and that of ex-service personnel recruited to the civil service as retired officers in each of the past five years is:

  1993

  1992

  1991

  1990

  1989

  Civil Servants

  282

  288

  415

  550

  552

  Retired Officers

  250

  205

  187

  189

  160

  There are no centrally maintained records for either retired service personnel or civil servants engaged as consultants and this information can be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Retired officers and re-employed civil servants are paid in accordance with nationally negotiated and agreed pay scales for the grade to which they are appointed.

  In accordance with the principle that civil servants, when re-employed should not receive more, by way of salary and pension together, than was being paid in salary immediately prior to retirement, the civil service pension may be subject to abatement. Pensions received by service personnel under the armed forces pension scheme are not subject to abatement on re-employment, unless retirement was under one of the early release schemes.

  The level of remuneration for conslutants is determined either by a set fee for employees of consultancy companies or by the personal worth of an individual consultant. This is constrained, overall, by the sponsors' available funds.

  Jordan
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when the British-Jordanian defence exports agreements were terminated; on what dates each of the agreements were suspended; and what were the reasons for each suspension and their termination.

  Mr. Aitken
  I presume that the hon. Member is referring to the memorandum of understanding between the Governments of the United Kingdom and Jordan, signed on 19 September 1985 and supplemented on 9 June 1987. While the line of export credit for Jordan was effectively terminated in 1991, neither of these memoranda has been terminated or suspended.

  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence who signed the defence sales agreements with Jordan on 19 September 1985 and 9 December 1987 on behalf of the British Government; and in what form Parliament was notified of the concluding of each agreement.

  Mr. Aitken
  Her Majesty's Ambassador to Jordan was the signatory for Her Majesty's Government. Under successive Governments it has not been general practice to inform Parliament of the signature of such memoranda. However, the memorandum of understanding signed on 19 September 1985 was referred to in written answer by the then Minister of State for Defence on 17 February 1986 at column 58.

  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if the British-Jordanian defence sales agreements contained a cap on total expenditure; and on what dates that cap was reached.

  Mr. Aitken
  The memorandum of understanding concerning the supply of defence equipment to Jordan, signed on 19 September 1985, covered contracts to a total estimated value of £270 million. The supplement signed on 9 June 1987 covered additional contracts to a total estimated value of £40 million. Expenditure did not in fact reach these figures.

  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what income was generated by International Military Services in respect of fees on brokerage for administering the British-Jordanian defence sales agreements of 19 September 1985 and 9 June 1987.

  Mr. Aitken
  International Military Services is a private limited company. The information requested relates to the trading operations of the company and is commercially confidential. IMS publishes its accounts for public scrutiny in accordance with company law.

  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will place in the Library the information the Scott inquiry was given as to the quantities of items listed under the 60 projects relating to Jordan in his answer of 3 November,Official Report, column 295–6.

  Mr. Aitken
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave him on 13 December 1993 at column 528.

  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what Government to Government defence exports agreements were made with Jordan since 1979 other than those listed by the Minister on 3 November,Official Report, column 296; and what British Government agency was responsible for administering them.
  169
  Mr. Aitken
  A memorandum of understanding with Jordan, covering the supply of Khalid main battle tanks, was signed on 28 November 1979. The contract which gave effect to the MOU was held by International Military Services. A further memorandum, covering a modification programme to the tank, was signed on 2 January 1989. This has been administered by my Department. We have no record of any other similar arrangements with Jordan being signed since 1979.

  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether information on the quantities and values of the items in the Jordan arms sales package have been supplied to Lord Justice Scott's inquiry.

  Mr. Aitken
  Details of information provided to Lord Justice Scott's inquiry are a matter between the inquiry and my Department.

  F3 Tornado
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 13 December,Official Report, column 529, what consultations he has had with the International Standards Organisation and the British Standards Institution concerning Airwork's ISO 9001 certification; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Aitken
  We have had no such consultations.

  Quangos
  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the names of all individuals who are or were members of the House of Lords who since 1979 have been appointed to any quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. Hanley
  The information requested is not held centrally and could not be compiled without disproportionate cost. However, on 1 August 1993 six members of the House of Lords were holding positions on MOD public boards. They are as follows:

  The Lord Bridges—Member of the Royal College of Defence Studies Advisory Board. Unsalaried.

  The Baroness Platt of Writtle—Member of the Meteorological Committee. An honorarium of £250 per annum is payable.

  The Earl of Swinton—Chairman of the Anglo American Community Relations Committee, Menwith Hill Station. Unsalaried.

  The Baroness O'Cathain—Member of the National Employers' Liaison Committee. Unsalaried.

  The Duke of Westminster—Member of the National Army Museum. Unsalaried.

  The Lord Gregson—Chairman of the Royal Military College of Science Advisory Council. Unsalaried.

  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the names of all former hon. Members who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. Hanley
  The information requested is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
  170
  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the names of all former British representative members in the European Parliament who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. Hanley
  The information requested is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Companies (Dealings)
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what dealings he, or any member of his Department, has had, whether for export promotion or for any other purposes, with(a) A.T.E. International Ltd., (b) Admincheck Ltd., (c) Advance Electronics Development Ltd., (d) Archin Centre I.C.E. Ltd., (e) Atlas Equipment Co. Ltd., (i) Atlas Air conditioning Co. Ltd., (g) Dominion International, (h) Endshire Export Marketing, (i) Falcon Systems, (j) Geodesigns, (k) Investacast Precision Castings Ltd., (l) Meed International Ltd., and (m) Rajbrook Ltd.; and what was the purpose of his dealings with each of these companies.

  Mr. Aitken
  My officials have found no record of arty dealings with the companies listed.

  Joint Analysis Centre, Molesworth
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many American citizens work at the joint analysis centre at Molesworth; how many British citizens work at the centre; whether GCHQ staff are employed at the centre; whether toxic chemicals are stored on or near the centre; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Hanley
  There are currently 463 US military and civilian personnel, and four United Kingdom military personnel assigned to the joint analysis centre—JAC—at RAF Molesworth. No United Kingdom civilians are employed at the JAC. Additionally, there are United Kingdom and United States staff located a t RAF Molesworth and RAF Alconbury who support the JAC. There is a hazardous waste storage facility at RAF Molesworth which stores items temporarily until they can be disposed of in accordance with regulations. Examples of hazardous items stored at this facility are petroleum, paint products and dry batteries.

  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what justification there is for the expansion of the joint analysis centre at Molesworth; what is the connection between this station and Menwith Hill station in North Yorkshire; how much the expansion of the joint analysis centre at Molesworth has cost; Who paid for the expansion of the centre; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Hanley
  No expansion of the joint analysis centre at RAF Molesworth is currently being undertaken. The decision to locate the JAC at RAF Molesworth, announced! by my predecessor on 11 January 1990 at columns 691–92, has entailed construction work at the station. Use has also been made of existing facilities at RAF Molesworth although some modification work has been necessary. This work is ongoing and has been subject to normal planning procedures. The role of the centre is to process and analyse military information from a variety of sources.

  Fire Precautions
  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will place in the Library copies of all letters from fire authorities relating to his Department's buildings and facilities received over the last 10 years following fires.

  Mr. Hanley
  As far as can be determined only five letters have been received from local fire authorities in the last 10 years. These relate to fires at MOD main building —27 April 1985—AWE Burghfield—2 December 1988 —RAF Coltishall—21 April 1990, Allenbrooke barracks, Larkhill—7 July 1991 and RAF Carlisle—23 March 1992. A copy of the letter of 3 May 1985 from the London fire brigade is already in the Library and copies of the others will now be placed therein.

  Fraud
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the level of reported fraud in the Ministry of Defence in 1990, 1991 and 1992.

  Mr. Hanley
  Latest estimated figures for loss to MOD arising from fraud for the financial years 1990–91 to 1992–93 were as follows:172

  1990–91

  53 cases valued at £984,000

  1991–92

  45 cases valued at £63,000

  1992–93

  54 cases valued at £205,000

  These figures exclude "procurement fraud"—fraud perpetrated by contractors including corruption of officials by contractors and collusion between officials and contractors.

  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is his Department's policy for dealing with employees found guilty of fraud.

  Mr. Aitken
  My Department's policy is that civilian staff who commit fraud are liable to be dismissed. Mitigating considerations may affect the penalty in individual circumstances.

  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many civilians were judged to be guilty of fraud in his Department in 1990, 1991 and 1992; and how many were dismissed.

  Mr. Aitken
  The number of civilian staff found guilty of fraud in the Ministry of Defence in 1990, 1991 and 1992 were 68, 140 and 88 respectively. The numbers dismissed in each of these years were 27, 52 and 44.

  Irregular Expenditure
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what action he has taken following the report by the Comptroller and Auditor General to the Commons Public Accounts Committee published on 15 March 1993 to cut irregular expenditure in his Department.

  Mr. Hanley
  I refer the hon. Member to the Treasury minute on the "28th Report from the Committee of Public Accounts 1992–93"—Cm 2199.

  Contracts
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how much money was set aside in(a) 1990, (b) 1991 and (c) 1992 to cover increased costs incurred through delay in producing contracts placed by his Department.

  Mr. Aitken
  None.

  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what percentage of contracts placed by his Department in the last five years show cost increases in excess of 25 per cent. by the time of completion.

  Mr. Aitken
  The information is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what measures his Department has taken to ensure that contracts with foreign companies do not cost more than originally planned.

  Mr. Aitken
  My Department's aim is to award contracts to United Kingdom and overseas suppliers at fixed or firm prices, against tight specifications.

  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the standard practice of his Department on indexing payments for inflation up until the scheduled delivery date only in contracts for the procurement of equipment.

  Mr. Aitken
  My Department would normally consider the indexing for inflation of payments to contractors in any contracts with a duration of over five years. Our standard practice is not to continue such indexing beyond the scheduled delivery date if contracts fail to achieve this.

  Project Management
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what steps he has taken to rationalise the definition of in-service dates on individual projects to enhance comparability;

  (2) what is his current definition for an in-service date in relation to the procurement of equipment;

  Mr. Aitken
  An equipment's in-service date is generally defined as the date by which the equipment, or a specified number of equipments will contribute to operational capability. The interpretation of this definition can vary because of the differing characteristics of equipment, and the ways in which they are used. My Department's current approval processes require that the basis for defining the in-service date should be explained at the start of procurement.

  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what procedures he has implemented to improve project management in the light of his Department's "Learning from Experience" report.
  174
  Mr. Aitken
  A directorate was established as a centre of expertise for project management to pursue the recommendations of the learning from experience report and provide support and guidance to all project office staff. The training available to project managers has been improved; structured risk management has been introduced for all projects and a help desk has been set up to which project managers can refer queries. A regular project managers newsletter is produced to disseminate new initiatives and best practices derived from the lessons learned from other projects.

  Computer Theft
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the estimated value of computer theft in his Department in 1990, 1991 and 1992.

  Mr. Hanley
  The estimated value of the theft of computer hardware during the period in question is £94,000, which occurred in financial year 1990–91.

  Government Car Service
  Mr. Alan Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the annual cost to the Department of the car service for Ministers in 1990–91; and how many vehicles were involved.

  Mr. Hanley
  [pursuant to his reply, 8 December 1993, column 741]: The answer I gave the right hon. Member on 15 December at column 741 contained an error. The cost to the Defence budget of providing five vehicles for Defence Department Ministers in 1990–91 was some £200,000.

  Defence Establishments (Shoeburyness)
  Sir Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the future of the defence establishments in the area of Shoeburyness, Essex.

  Mr. Aitken
  The proof and experimental establishment, Shoeburyness and the environment test centre, Foulness were included in my Department's recent review of test and evaluation facilities. I hope to be in a position to make an announcement on the outcome of this review shortly.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Laboratory Agencies
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what was the total sum expended on consultancy advice centrally as part of the review of the laboratory agencies in the financial year 1992–93; and what amount is projected for 1993–94.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The fees paid for consultancy advice for the review are confidential for commercial reasons.

  Energy Advisory Panel
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) of 26 November,Official Report, column 254, if he will now consider making public details of the discussions of his energy advisory panel.
  175
  Mr. Eggar
  No.

  Chemical Weapons Convention
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what progress his Department has made towards the ratification of the chemical weapons convention.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  The United Kingdom signed the chemical weapons convention in January 1993. The Government continue to take a leading role in the preparatory commission which is working towards the establishment of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, as envisaged by the chemical weapons convention—CWC. The DTI is working with the FCO and MoD to make preparations for the implementation of the CWC in the United Kingdom.

  Deregulation Task Force
  Mr. Nigel Evans
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will name the small business representatives on the task force looking into deregulation, and the businesses they operate.

  Financial Year

  Disqualification reports

  Disqualification orders

  Number of: Prosecution reports

  Prosecutions (convictions)

  Warning Letters

  1990–91

  4,508

  251

  518

  170

  23

  1991–92

  6,156

  326

  689

  203

  26

  1992–93

  6,713

  446

  689

  176

  18

  11993–94

  5,074

  302

  (not yet available)

  1 8 months.

  Konver Programme
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what bids have been made under the Konver programme and what allocations have been made; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett) on 10 December,Official Report, column 430.

  Textiles
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will list the bids made under the Retex programme and the allocations made; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  A list of all those Retex proposals which were put before the Retex programme monitoring committee, and those projects which have been approved, has been placed in the Library of the House.

  Education and Training Targets
  Dame Angela Rumbold
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what steps he has taken to ensure that his Department is fully committed to the national education and training targets; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  The Department of Trade and Industry is wholly committed to the national targets. The Department encourages the spread of the Investors in
  176
  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  The 14 task force members who represented small business and their businesses are:

  Mr. Michael Everard

  Everard & Son Ltd.

  Mr. G. W. (William) Cottham

  Yorkshire Rider Ltd.

  Mr. Maurice Denyer

  Fowler (Bros) Cowfold Ltd.

  Mr. J. Roger Humber

  House Builders Federation

  Mr. Chris Drew

  SORIS

  Mr. A. E. H. (Alistair) Salvesen

  Dawnfresh Seafoods Ltd.

  Mr. Robin Bloomfield

  Oakridge Farm Ltd.

  Mr. John Gardner

  VG Distributors Ltd.

  Mr. Jonathan Swift

  British Hardware Federation

  Mr. Michael Ann

  Drusilla's Park

  Miss Sonia Elkin

  former Small Firms Director, CBI

  Ms Clare Spottiswoode

  Euro Utility Systems Ltd.

  Mr. Derek Cavalier

  Eltham Group Ltd.

  Mr. John Simpson

  Kalme Prototype Ltd.

  Company Failures
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade in how many failures of limited liablity companies reports of unfit or criminal conduct have been made to him; and in how many cases disqualification orders or prosecutions have been undertaken.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  The information is as follows:

  People initiative in its "Winning in the '90s" business strategy roadshow. DTI Ministers also meet regularly with the National Advisory Council for Education and Training Targets to support their work in leading industry towards achieving the targets.

  Newspaper Distribution
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade when he intends to meet representatives of the National Federation of Retail Newsagents to discuss the Government's response to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission report on national newspaper distribution.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  Following publication on 9 December of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission (MMC) report on the supply of national newspapers I announced that the Secretary of State had decided to prohibit by order certain restrictions on wholesale supply which the MMC had found to be against the public interest. A notice of the Secretary of State's intention to lay an order before Parliament was published on 21 December.

  Written representations were invited from any persons whose interests are likely to be affected by the order. At this early stage of consultation no meetings with any individuals or organisations have been arranged.

  Post Office Privatisation
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what is the Government's policy on the privatisation of the Post Office, together with the timetable for its implementation.
  177
  Mr. McLoughlin
  The Government are conducting a review of the structure and organisation of the Post Office. Continued public sector ownership, as well as private sector options, are being considered. The review is still continuing, and no decisions have been taken. An announcement will be made in due course.

  Bank of Commerce and Credit International
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on the visit by Touche Ross the liquidators of BCCI to Abu Dhabi.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  No. This is a matter for the liquidators.

  Utility Regulators
  Mr. Nigel Griffiths
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will extend the power of the utility regulators to ensure that the rights of low-income consumers are protected.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  Each utility regulator already has a duty to protect the interests of all consumers in respect of prices and quality of service.

  Mr. Nigel Griffiths
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what response he has made to the citizens' advice bureaux report, "Out of Control", a copy of which has been sent to him; and if he will ask the utility regulators to investigate the CAB's findings.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  Ministers are considering the CAB report, as are the utility regulators, who also received copies.

  Utilities (Consumers)
  Mr. Nigel Griffiths
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will seek discussions with the utility chairmen about the rights of low-income consumers.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  This is a matter for the regulators, who have a duty to protect consumers' interests.

  Mr. Nigel Griffiths
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will ask the National Consumer Council and the utilities consumer committees to consider what improvements might be made in the rights of low-income consumers.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The National Consumer Council and the utilities consumer committees have a duty to consider the interests of all consumers.

  Expenditure to end of November 1993

  £'000

  NE

  NW

  EM

  WM

  YH

  SW

  SE

  Schemes covering England only (Regional)

  Regional Selective Assistance and RegionalDevelopment Grants

  23,570

  11,934

  798

  9,500

  11,533

  3,600

  —

  Regional Enterprise Grants

  946

  797

  446

  303

  1,739

  464

  18

  Aid for small and medium sized enterprises

  791

  199

  107

  —

  447

  —

  —

  Extended Warranty Schemes
  Mr. Nigel Griffiths
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade (1) if he will consider if the practice of other high street retailers of promoting their extended warranty schemes rather than the ones offered cheaper by manufacturers may breach the Restrictive Trade Practices Act 1976;

  (2) if he will refer extended warranty schemes operated by white goods retailers to the Director General of Fair Trading.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  Under the competition legislation responsibility for considering and, if appropriate, investigating allegations of restrictive trade practices, anti-competitive behaviour and abuse of market power lies with the Director General of Fair Trading, Sir Bryan Carsberg. I am asking Sir Bryan to consider whether the practice identified by the hon. Member warrants investigation and to write to the hon. Member.

  Vietnam
  Mr. Mullin
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade when Export Credits Guarantee Department cover for trade with Vietnam will be restored; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Needham
  Now that Vietnam has normalised its relationship with the International Monetary Fund and is making arrangements with its creditors to restructure its outstanding trade debts restoration of ECGD cover is under urgent consideration. I expect a decision to be taken in the next month or so.

  Business Support Schemes
  Mr. Tipping
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade how much money has been spent under each scheme available for supporting businesses from his Department in 1993–94 in each county of England, Wales and Northern Ireland and each region of Scotland; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. McLouglin
  A breakdown by county of the Department's schemes for business support is not available except at disproportionate cost. However, the table shows expenditure to the end of November 1993 for those schemes which give direct grant or support to business, broken down by region where that is possible. Schemes covering England often have counterparts funded by the territorial departments. A regional breakdown of expenditure on the Department's business support schemes under the Industrial Development Act 1982 is provided in the appendices to the Industrial Development Act 1982 annual reports.
  179

  £000

  England only (Regional breakdown not available)

  Locally delivered business services through Business Links and Training and Enterprise Councils

  7,997

  £000

  Schemes covering Great Britain (Regional breakdown not avoilable)

  Consultancy Initiatives

  35,659

  Locally delivered business services through Chambers of Commerce

  140

  £000

  Schemes covering United Kingdom (Regional breakdown not available)

  Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme

  11,511

  NE=North East Region, NW=North West Region

  EM=East Midland Region, WM=West Midland Region

  YH=Yorkshire and Humberside Region, SW=South West Region

  London United Investments
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what plans he has to take any civil or criminal action against KPMG Peat Marwick following the criticisms of the firm's auditing practices by the Department of Trade and Industry inspectors in their report on London United Investments.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  Copies of the inspector's report have been passed to the Serious Fraud Office and to the relevant supervisory bodies, the Institutes of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and in Scotland, for such further action as those bodies deem appropriate.

  Accountants
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what plans he has to investigate the electoral procedures of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  I have no such plans.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the accountancy firms preparing the compilation reports for small companies are to be exempt from the monitoring requirements of the Companies Act 1989.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  I shall be making a statement shortly on this and other details of the implementation of the proposed relaxation of the audit requirement for small companies.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade (1) what oral or written discussions he or his Department has had with any official of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants about its internal democracy ;

  (2) what discussions he or his Department has held with any representative of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants in respect of its democracy.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  My Department has been told by the association that electoral reform will be one of a180
  number of subjects which will feature in proposals for revisions to its bye-laws. These will be put to its council and members in a general meeting, in due course.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what is his Department's policy in relation to the award of contracts to accountancy firms(a) against whom legal proceedings are being taken and (b) who have been criticised in the DTI inspectors report.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Hartpool (Mr. Mandelson) on 27 October,Official Report, column 671.

  Professional Ethics
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he will provide a list of the reforms of professional ethics which he has urged recognised supervisory bodies to adopt.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  It is my duty to satisfy myself that the ethical guidance provided by the recognised supervisory bodies for company auditors meet the requirements of paragraph 7 of schedule 11 to the Companies Act 1989. This is one of the matters covered in my Department's routine monitoring of and discussions with the supervisory bodies.

  Defence Exports
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade (1) in which year a specific allocation of Export Credits Guarantee Department's cover was allocated for defence exports; what was the size of the provision; and how that decision was reported to Parliament;

  (2) on what date it was agreed to allocate a sum within the Export Credits Guarantee Department for the offering of insurance cover on defence exports; what that sum was; and on what dates that sum was subsequently revised.

  Mr. Needham
  On 28 June 1988 the then Minister for Trade announced, in a written answer, that £1 billion of export credit support would be made available by the Export Credits Guarantee Department to support large contracts for the sale of United Kingdom defence equipment.

  The sum of £1 billion was never revised and the unused balance was effectively withdrawn in August 1991.

  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will publish a table showing the size of the Export Credits Guarantee Department cover for defence exports in each year since 1985–86, the take-up of the cover and the year-end total of the contribution in respect of this cover to the Export Credits Guarantee Department's cumulative reserves and provisions.

  Mr. Needham
  ECGD's annual report includes a table detailing the breakdown of its capital goods business by industry sector including defence. A copy of ECGD's last annual report is in the Library of the House, the 1992–93 report will be laid before the House late this month. ECGD's accounts are not put together on a basis which enables the contribution of different industry sectors to its cumulative reserves and provisions to be detailed separately.

  Quangos
  Mr. Meale
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will list the names of all former hon. Members who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments

  Name

  Post

  Salary

  Duration

  Sir Julian Ridsdale

  Member of the Simpler Trade Procedure Board

  Unpaid

  27 October 1992–26 October 1994

  Charles Longbottom

  Non-executive director, of British Shipbuilders

  £5,000

  Since 1988 (renewed on a yearly basis)

  John Corrie

  Chairman of the Transport Users Consultative Committee for Scotland

  £6,310

  1 January 1989–31 December 1995

  Robin Hodgson

  Member of the West Midlands Industrial Development Board

  Unpaid

  1 January 1989–31 December 1994

  Mr. Meale
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will list the names of all former British representative members in the European Parliament who since 1979 have been appointed to quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, excluding appointments as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appointment.

  Mr. Eggar
  No such appointments have been made since 1979.

  Auditors
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade which auditing guidelines, issued by the Auditing Practices Committee while his Department was represented on it, urged auditors to be passive.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  I do not accept the premise on which the hon. Member's question is based.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on the kind of auditing firms who will be exempt from monitoring by the recognised supervisory bodies as a result of the small company audit exemption proposals contained in the Chancellor's statement.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  The announcement by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 30 November 1993,Official Report, columns 934–35 does not affect the monitoring requirements for company auditors. Any individual or firm who chooses to remain a member of a recognised supervisory body and retain eligibility for appointment as a company auditor under the rules of that body will remain subject to the monitoring arrangements of that body.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will provide a list of the minutes of meetings of the Auditing Practices Board received by his representatives on that board.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  My Department's representative has received minutes of the meetings of the Auditing Practices Board which he attended on the following dates:
  182
  as justices of the peace, giving in each case the title of the post, any salary payable and the duration of the appoinment.

  Mr. Eggar
  The table sets out the information available.

  1991

  1992

  1993

  3 July

  14 January

  12 January

  9 September

  11 February

  9 February

  15 October

  10 March

  9 March

  3 December

  13 April

  19 April

  19 May

  11 May

  30 June

  8 June

  28 July

  13 July

  8 September

  21 September

  25 September

  12 October

  15 October

  16 November

  24 November

  Minutes of the board's meetings may be obtained from the board's secretary.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he will seek to amend the regulation on non-audit fee disclosures so that companies will be required to give details of the non-audit services purchased from their auditors.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  I have no plans to do so. The regulations already require companies to disclose in their annual accounts the amount of fees paid to their auditors and their associates for non-audit work.

  Supervisory Bodies
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what action he takes upon receiving a complaint about the conduct of the bodies acting as recognised supervisory bodies under the Companies Act 1989.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  I would first consider whether the complaint concerned the statutory duties imposed on the supervisory bodies by the Companies Act 1989. If so, I would refer the complaint to the relevant supervisory body for it to consider. If the complaint concerned the complaints procedure established by the supervisory body to meet its statutory duty under the Companies Act 1989, I would consider whether the body had properly discharged that duty.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what plans he has to take powers to provide that the recognised supervisory bodies do not threaten academic freedoms.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  None. I have no evidence that the recognised supervisory bodies act in the way the hon. Member implies.
  183
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he will seek to introduce legislation under which auditors of public limited companies will be required to file audited information about their affairs with the appropriate recognised supervisory bodies.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  I have no plans to do so.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what assurances he has sought or will be seeking on democracy and openness from the organisations acting as recognised supervisory bodies under the Companies Act 1989.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  Each supervisory body for company auditors was required to satisfy the Secretary of State that it met the requirements for recognition set out under part II of the Companies Act 1989. Sections 35 and 36 of that Act, and the Companies Act 1989 (Register of Auditors and Information about Audit Firms) Regulations 1991 (SI 1991/1566), require those bodies to make certain information available to the public about those eligible for appointment as company auditor. Section 37 of the Companies Act 1989 requires them to submit an annual report on audit regulation to the Secretary of State, copies of which are placed in the Library of the House.

  Export Credits Guarantee Department
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will publish a table showing the year-end cumulative surplus or deficit and the year-end total of provisions for the Export Credits Guarantee Department in each year from 31 March 1986.

  Mr. Needham
  This information is reported in ECGD's annual trading accounts copies of which are in the Library of the House; the 1992–93 accounts will be laid before the House later this month.

  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what provision was made in the expenditure plans for 1993–94 of the Export Credits Guarantee Department for writing off irrecoverable debts from Iraq; and what provision was made for 1994–95 and 1995–96 in the public expenditure plans of November 1992 and those recently published.

  Mr. Needham
  ECGD's trading operations do not constitute a charge on public expenditure and as such there is no provision for any such costs in ECGD's public expenditure plans.

  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what is the total exposure of the Export Credits Guarantee Department in respect of exports to Iraq(a) up to the invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 and (b) subsequently; how much of this exposure has so far been written off as irrecoverable; and in which financial years this was done.

  Mr. Needham
  ECGD's total exposure on Iraq is now estimated at £652 million of which £521 million relates to claims paid outstanding for recovery. ECGD's 1991–92 accounts included a provision for loss equivalent to 93 per cent. of exposure on Iraq; the 1992–93 accounts are still being audited.

  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if Export Credits Guarantee cover was obtained to 184
  support the financing of the British-Jordanian defence sales agreements; and how payments insurances cover was provided for.

  Mr. Needham
  ECGD provided support for two defence equipment lines of credit to Jordan which were signed in 1986 and 1987 respectively.

  Companies (Exports)
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what dealings he or any member of his Department has had, whether for export promotion or for any other purpose with(a) A.T.E. International Ltd., (b) Admincheck Ltd., (c) Advance Electronics Development Ltd., (d) Arctic Centre I.C.E. Ltd., (e) Atlas Equipment Co. Ltd., (f) Atlas Air Conditioning Co. Ltd., (g) Dominion International, (h) Endshire Export Marketing, (i) Falcon Systems, (j) Geodesigns, (k) Investacast Precision Castings Ltd., (l) Meed International Ltd., and (m) Raj brook Ltd.; and if he will give the purpose of his dealings with each of these companies.

  Mr. Needham
  Some of the companies named have contacted the Department in connection with the publication by the United States treasury office of assets control of lists of specially designated nationals. Some have contacted the Department about export licences. It is not the practice of the Department to disclose details of such commercially confidential matters.

  British Coal (Pensions)
  Mr. Hardy
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what rates of growth net of contributions have been achieved by coal industry pension funds in each of the last 15 years; and in which of these a guarantee would have had to have been effected if his present proposals had been in operation.

  Mr. Eggar
  The performance of the British Coal pension funds and their record of deficiencies and surpluses are matters for the trustees of the pension schemes.

  Nuclear Material
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade, pursuant to his answer of 6 December,Official Report, column 38, if he will set out (a) those notifications of withdrawal of nuclear materials from safeguards that were temporary, giving the uses to which the material was put and (b) those notifications which were permanent.

  Mr. Eggar
  The majority of the withdrawal notifications referred to in my answer of 6 December,Official Report, column 38, concerned the permanent withdrawal from safeguards of depleted uranium for sources shielding or small amounts of other nuclear materials for research and development or analytical purposes.

  Safeguards Agreement
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade on how many occasions since the entering into force of tripartite safeguards agreement with EURATOM and the International Atomic Energy Agency, the safeguards authorities have been notified by Her Majesty's Government of intended withdrawals under clause 14 of the treaty.
  185
  Mr. Eggar
  In accordance with the provisions of article 14 of the United Kingdom/Euratotn/IAEA safeguards agreement, 571 advance notifications of the withdrawal of nuclear material from safeguards have been made since May 1979. The majority of these involved either the temporary withdrawal of material transferred to MOD sites for processing before being returned to safeguards at civil sites, or, in the case of permanent transfers to MOD sites, the withdrawal from safeguards of material such as depleted uranium for source shielding or small amounts of other nuclear materials for R & D or analytical purposes.

  External Trade
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what is the trade and commodity coverage of the 1980 weights given in table F2 of the "Monthly Review of External Trade Statistics"; and what were the corresponding weights in 1980, 1985 and 1990 in terms of United Kingdom exports and imports of manufactures.

  Mr. Needham
  The coverage of the weights is given in the footnote to table 'F2 in the" Monthly Review of External Trade Statistics".

  The other information requested is shown in the table.

  Weights based on total trade (exports plus imports) of manufactures with the United Kingdom

  1980

  1985

  1990

  Belgium-Luxembourg

  8·976

  7·498

  7·912

  Canada

  2·895

  2·457

  1·810

  France

  13·060

  11·990

  14·512

  Germany (Federal Republic)

  20·453

  23·049

  24·267

  Italy

  8·175

  7·946

  8·721

  Japan

  5·299

  6·485

  7·352

  Netherlands

  9·443

  9·224

  10·356

  Sweden

  5·373

  4·662

  4·371

  Switzerland

  8·628

  4·556

  3·821

  United States

  17·698

  22·134

  16·877

  Note: Manufactures defined as sections 5–8 of the Standard International Trade Classification.

  Magnox Reactors
  Mrs. Anne Campbell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will give the publication date for the nuclear installations inspectorate's examination of generic safety issues in Magnox reactors in the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Eggar
  I understand that the Health and Safety Executive is planning to publish the nuclear installations inspectorate's report reviewing the generic safety issues of the long term safety reviews of Magnox power plant by the end of April.

  Trade Balance
  Sir Teddy Taylor
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what was(a) the net balance of trade with the other EC countries in 1972 and (b) the total balance of trade in the period since the United Kingdom joined the EC; and what were the figures in respect of manufacturing trade.

  Mr. Needham
  The available information is given in the table.186

  United Kingdom crude balance of trade1 with the EC2

  (£ billion, current prices)

  Year

  Total

  3Manufactures

  1972

  -0·6

  1973

  -1·4

  1974

  -2·4

  1975

  -2·5

  -0·5

  1976

  -2·4

  -0·5

  1977

  -2·3

  -0·6

  1978

  -3·0

  -1·6

  1979

  -3·7

  -2·7

  1980

  -0·0

  -1·7

  1981

  -0·7

  -3·0

  1982

  -2·2

  -5·0

  1983

  -3·8

  -7·9

  1984

  -4·4

  -8·4

  1985

  -3·4

  -9·0

  1986

  -9·7

  -10·8

  1987

  -10·2

  -11·1

  1988

  -14·9

  -13·4

  1989

  -16·3

  -14·6

  1990

  -10·9

  -9·9

  1991

  -1·9

  -1·6

  1992

  -5·1

  -3·7

  1 The crude balance of trade is defined as exports (free on board) less imports (cost, insurance and freight).

  2 The EC is defined throughout as it was defined in 1992; that is, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Germany (including the former Democratic Republic), Italy, the Republic of Ireland, Denmark, Greece, Portugal and Spain.

  3 Manufactures are defined by sections 5 to 8 of the standard international trade classification.

  Sources:

  Total: Monthly Review of External Trade Statistics, CSO.

  Manufactures: Overseas Trade Statistics of the United Kingdom.

  Defence Sales
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what rescheduling of payments on outstanding debts occurred in course of the British-Jordanian defence sales agreements; on what dates this occurred; and how this was reflected in public accounts.

  Mr. Needham
  ECGD-insured debts of £170 million due from Jordan have been rescheduled. These debts relate to payments of principal and interest due between 1989 and early 1994; a substantial proportion relates to the defence sales agreements. The debts are covered by two bilateral rescheduling agreements, the first signed in August 1991 and the second in January 1993. The reschedulings were concluded as part of general agreements reached between Jordan and its creditors in the Paris Club. To date payments under these agreements have been made on time.

  The rescheduling of these debts is reflected in ECG D's annual trading accounts.

  Plutonium
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will give the quantities of plutonium material unaccounted for for each of the last 10 years of Magnox reprocessing at Sellafield, and details of projections of MUF quantities of plutonium once the thermal oxide reprocessing plant is in operation.

  Mr. Eggar
  Since 1977, British Nuclear Fuels plc (BNFL) and the AEA have issued annual press releases giving the difference between the book inventory of nuclear materials on each site and the measured physiical inventory. This difference, known as 'material unaccounted for'—MUF—indicates an apparent gain of material
  187
  when positive and an apparent loss when negative. It is not normally evidence of an actual loss or gain of material but often reflects measurement error.

  The figures published by BNFL and the AEA for the 10 years to 1991–92 were:

  Kg

  1982–83

  -0·5

  1983–84

  +4·2

  1984–85

  +9·1

  1985–86

  +4·0

  1986–87

  +2·2

  1987–88

  -1·5

  1988–89

  +4·0

  1989–90

  -1·0

  1990–91

  -11·5

  1991–92

  +9·8

  Once the thermal oxide reprocessing plant comes into operation, its contribution to Sellafield MUF will be reflected in the site figures in the normal way. The impact on the total will depend on the plant's performance.

  The safeguards system for THORP has been described in papers presented at the 15th European Safeguards Research and Development Association—ESARDA—symposium in Rome in May 1993 which make it clear that the tracking of nuclear material inventories is only part of an overall safeguards system covering a variety of arrangements.

  EURATOM
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade which United Kingdom representatives are members of the European Commission and EURATOM special 188
  scientists group on atomic energy questions; for how long they have been members of the group; and if he will set out the part played by Her Majesty's Government in the choice of United Kingdom members of the group.

  Mr. Eggar
  The last five-year mandate of EURATOM's Scientific and Technical Committee—STC —expired on 31 March 1993. A Council decision confirming the membership of the STC for the next period to March 1998 is expected shortly. Renewal of the mandate will be announced in the Official Journal of the European Communities.

  Radioactive Waste Storage
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will set out the proposed management strategy for the radioactive waste that will be stored at Sellafield following retention in the enhanced actinise removal plant, as referred to in paragraph 6 of his decision document on THORP, published on 15 December.

  Mr. Eggar
  I refer the hon. Member to my reply to him on 18 February 1993,Official Report, column 319.

  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what reliability calculations his Department had conducted, or contracted to consultants, to evaluate the safety of the high level radioactive waste storage tanks at Sellafield using the EC computer program PC Cosyma.

  Mr. Eggar
  This is a matter for British Nuclear Fuels plc, subject to the Health and Safety Executive's nuclear installations inspectorate's views as to safety.

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

Salmon Farming: Dumping Allegations
Lord Mackie of Benshie Lord Mackie of Benshie asked Her Majesty's Government:
What progress they are making in investigating and solving the difficulties of the Scottish salmon farming industry clue to alleged Norwegian dumping.
The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Lord Fraser of Carmyllie): My Lords, during 1993 Norwegian salmon production increased by 28 per cent. to 180,000 tonnes compared with an increase of 18 per cent. to 45,000 tonnes in Scotland. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has encouraged the salmon farming industry to update its 1991 dumping allegations for the benefit of the Commission, which should then be able to carry out an investigation. My right honourable friend has also welcomed the introduction of a reference price for farmed salmon.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. Has he fully explored the situation? The projection is that Norwegian salmon production will increase by 50,000 tonnes in 1994. The salmon fishing organisations estimate that during the three years from 1990 to 1992 nearly £300 million of government money was ploughed into the Norwegian industry and that it is losing between six and seven kroner on every pound that is sold. Would it not be wise to have an immediate rise in the reference price?
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, I shall deal first with the noble Lord's final point. The Scottish Office raised the reference price with the Commission, and as a result of those representations it was fixed at some 16 per cent. above the minimum import price. The noble Lord made a number of allegations about the volume and the price of production in Norway. Those allegations have been made by a number of people in the industry in Scotland. The Secretary of State and I urge the industry to put those allegations in the most precise form to the Commission in order that it can examine the true extent, if any, of the dumping.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, what are the Government doing to obtain the facts about whether dumping is taking place? It is especially difficult for individuals in a new industry, which is based in remote areas including the Highlands and Shetland, to discover precise figures relating to a foreign country.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, I appreciate that there are difficulties for the industry. Again, I stress that assertions appear to be made, as the noble Lord has just made, as regards the level of subsidy in Norway.
64
Those figures should be put to the Commission, which has a prime responsibility within the Community to decide what action should be taken if they are established to be correct.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: My Lords, the Minister suggested that his honourable friend Sir Hector Monro is to extend the import price embargo on Norwegian salmon. Is that correct? According to the Glasgow Herald, in January the Minister was looking only sympathetically at the possibility of extending the import price embargo on Norwegian salmon. Secondly, is the Minister suggesting that the Government do not believe that there is a dumping of Norwegian salmon or are they not sure of the extent and believe that the salmon fishers are exaggerating?
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, no. The price of farmed salmon has reduced. As I said in my original Answer, there has been a significant increase in production in Scotland as well as in Norway. One must be careful to determine the exact extent of the effect of the dumping on the reduction of that price. That must be analysed carefully for the Commission. My honourable friend Sir Hector Monro was at the Fisheries Council Meeting in December. At that meeting the Commission undertook to review during the course of this month the current minimum import prices for farmed salmon in order to ascertain whether they should continue beyond 31st January. He also spoke to the Commissioner, Mr. Paleokrassas, and I understand that the review is still underway.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, my noble and learned friend referred to the reference price. Is it tight that under the GATT rules it is probable that the salmon reference price will not achieve the figure that he: suggested it might? That is because countervailing duties against the Norwegians or anyone else cannot be applied by the EC unless effective means of supply management involving government are in place within producing countries of the EC.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, I am not sure that I suggested any function of the reference price. It will allow for a more effective monitoring of the EC salmon market and for the provision of a benchmark against which future safeguard action to support salmon farmers within the Community can be considered. I appreciate that the reference price is different from the minimum import price; but, as I indicated previously, it was as a result of Scottish representation set at some 16 per cent. higher than that minimum import price.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, is the noble and learned Lord further aware that the price to the producers, who employ 6,000 people in the west of Scotland and the Highlands generally, is £1.20 on average, and the break-even costs are £1.50? Other governments in North America have shut out altogether Norwegian salmon from their markets because of the extent of government subsidisation.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, I am certainly aware that in other markets outwith the United Kingdom, Scotch farmed salmon commands a

65
premium, and I hope that it continues to do so. However, I should indicate that at present within the United Kingdom the price for farmed salmon is above the minimum import price.

Procedure Committee: Working Group
2.44 p.m.
Baroness David Baroness David asked the Leader of the House:
Whether the working party proposed by the Procedure Committee at its meeting in July and discussed in the House on 13th October 1993 has yet been set up by him, and if so when it will report.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Wakeham): My Lords, the working group has not yet been established. I hope that it will be established in the relatively near future, and that any proposals it may make may be considered by the Procedure Committee and by the House before the end of the Session.
Baroness David: My Lords, I believe that the noble Lord said "the end of the Session". Does the Leader of the House really think that that is a good way to carry on? It seems to me quite extraordinary that the Procedure Committee should make a suggestion in July and yet nothing will be done about it until the end of the Session. Is the Leader of the House aware how much we suffered, particularly on the Education Bill, from extended sittings until two, three or four o'clock in the morning? We are about to reach the Committee stage of various Bills and we hope that there will be a more sensible policy so that the revising Chamber, which this House is, can do its work properly. I believe that this is an extraordinary state of affairs.
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, the noble Baroness is right that the original recommendation from the Procedure Committee was made in July, but it was not approved by the House until October. Since then I have had discussions with the House authorities and with the leaders of the other parties to find a clearer idea of what will be the most fruitful way to proceed. It is important that we should give proper consideration to the best way to proceed. We need to protect our flexible procedures and the good sense which is applied to them. It would be a mistake to rush into something too quickly. A little preparation would be valuable.
Baroness Serota: My Lords, have the terms of reference of the working group been decided and has the membership been agreed in the usual way?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, the terms of reference have been decided but the membership has not been. I wish to discuss the matter with the leaders of the other parties and with the Convener of the Cross Benches to find the way forward which is most acceptable to everybody.
Lord Barnett: My Lords, will the Leader of the House consider a degree of flexibility in our rules of procedure? The proposition should be put to the
66
Procedure Committee that there may be occasions when two short debates, which would otherwise finish extremely early, should be allowed to continue longer.
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I know that this matter exercises a number of your Lordships and the Procedure Committee has considered it before. It is certainly a matter which the Procedure Committee can consider again; and I shall see that it does so.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that it is the very consideration which the noble Lord has laid before the House that lies behind the idea of having a working party? Is it not wise that the working party should consider those matters to which the noble Lord referred at the earliest opportunity so that it may be in a position to accumulate the evidence and experience to put before the Procedure Committee? Surely there should be no undue delay in the working party commencing operation.
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I do not believe that there has been any undue delay. I agree with the noble Lord that those are important matters. However, it seemed to me—and in my discussions with the leaders of the other parties, I believe that it seemed to them—to be sensible to ask for a paper from the House authorities on some of the issues which have been discussed before so that we can identify those areas in which your Lordships feel that improvements could be made. Therefore, the working party would have a basis for its initial considerations. Any suggestions which noble Lords may wish to make to the group will be extremely welcome. We want ideas as to the best way forward. We certainly do not want delay, but we do not wish to rush these matters. We want to do a proper job.
Baroness David: My Lords, the Leader of the House said that the terms of reference had been decided, but they do not appear in the Procedure Committee's report which came before the House in July. Perhaps the noble Lord will tell us where we can find those terms of reference.
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I shall check as to whether I am correct about that. Whether or not the terms of reference have been formally agreed, I envisage them being as broad as any of your Lordships would wish them to be. There is no matter of procedure which would be outside the terms of reference as I envisage them. This matter should be considered in the light of lessons arising from the Jopling Committee report in another place. That report identified ways forward but they proved to be more difficult to put into practice than was thought at the time. I do not wish the committee to waste time producing a report which has no basis of acceptability for your Lordships. It is important that such matters are given proper consideration.
Baroness David: My Lords, am I right in understanding that the terms of reference will be sent to me in the form of a letter?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, it could be done within an hour. Would that suit the noble Baroness?
Baroness David: My Lords, perhaps it could be done later in the week.

Life Licence Release: Re-Offenders
2.50 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter Lord Boyd-Carpenter asked Her Majesty's Government:
How many serious offences including murder were committed in 1993 by persons formerly sentenced to imprisonment for life but later released either by way of home leave or otherwise.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, the figures for 1993 are not available in the way requested. However, during 1993 two people were convicted of murder who had previously been released on life licence. Figures for re-offending while on home leave are not collected, but we are considering how such statistics might be collated centrally.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that the two people to whom he referred had previously been convicted of and sentenced for murder and that they then committed a second murder after the Home Office had released them? Can he also tell the House how many murders a man can go on committing and still be released?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the first part of my noble friend's question is quite correct. Both the people to whom I referred had committed murder before. They were released. When they were released they committed murder again and were brought back into custody. The tariff is now being considered in both cases. I think that the second part of my noble friend's question is remark able and does not need a proper answer.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, when the figures are published for 1993 will it also be possible for the noble Earl to give figures for the number of serious offences, including murder, which were committed during the same year by persons who were originally sentenced to determinate sentences and were released on home leave, life licence or parole? Further, does the noble Earl agree with the Home Office in its research paper regarding taking offenders out of circulation, which was published some years ago, that it is almost impossible to predict the likelihood that a particular offender will commit an offence of the same kind on release?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, when one goes into the statistics of such matters it all becomes very involved. However, I can tell the noble Lord that between 1987 and 1991, 347 people were first released on life licence. Of those 347, three had been reconvicted of a violent offence by the end of 1991 and 16 others of a serious non-violent offence. I believe that that will put the noble Lord in the picture. Nevertheless, I shall certainly consider the point he made.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, can the noble Earl say what will be done to prevent a repetition of the two instances quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, in his very important supplementary question? The
68
Government seem to have admitted that such things have happened, but the vital question is. what will be done to prevent similar things happening again.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I understand the noble Lord's concern. When anyone re-offends, especially in the case of murder, it is a matter of enormous concern to the House, to the Home Office, to prison governors and, indeed, to everyone else. Before a murderer is released, he or she will have been very carefully tested in conditions of gradually decreasing security and the release will not be authorised unless all the indications are that it is safe to do so. On some occasions it would appear that the decision was wrong. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has set up a review to consider such matters. He has already received a summary of the review, which appeared just before Christmas. He will now have to consider what it says.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, my noble friend is right to be careful about the statistical problems. But does he recollect that on 19th November 1990 I was informed in a Written Answer (Hansard col. 72) in the other place that during the period 1963 to 1989. 59 people in England and Wales were killed by persons previously convicted of homicide? That seems to point to a run rate of two deaths a year at the hands of previously convicted killers. Is the run rate still as high? if so, that is an unacceptably high ratio of deaths to releases.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I had prepared myself for a number of aspects in regard to the Question but not for the Written Answer which was given to my noble friend in another place three years ago. His information comes as a slight surprise to me. I would not describe the process as the "run rate". But what is happening gives us cause for great concern. However, I can update my noble friend in the following respect. The number of convicted murderers who have killed again after having been released on life licence in the past seven years is eight. Therefore, in that respect, and to use my noble friend's disagreeable expression, the run rate is lower.
Lord Hunt: My Lords, in the light of the supplementary question of my noble friend Lord Avebury and the subsequent reply, does the noble Earl agree that the proportion of life prisoners released on conditional life licence—certainly during the 25 years in which I have been involved in such matters—is remarkably low? Does he further agree that it is essential to prison management and prison discipline that an element of hope should be retained in prisoners' minds that they will eventually (and under certain conditions) be released, however remote in time and likelihood that may be?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Lord makes an important point. If we are to be absolutely certain that people will not re-offend we must lock them up for ever. But if you do so there is no hope; and there must be hope. There must also be an opportunity for some people to try to live a better life again. The noble Lord is correct in saying that very few people re-offend;

69
indeed, only 2 per cent. of lifers are convicted of a further grave offence within two years of release and 4 per cent. within five years of release.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, do not the figures suggest that release in cases of serious crime is granted too frequently and, therefore, requires review?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, that is precisely what my right honourable friend has in mind. He has set up a review to look into such matters. As I said, a summary has been given to him and is now being considered.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, in response to admirably persistent questions from the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, the noble Earl has said that the Home Office is reviewing the procedures for life licence and home leave. In view of the case which was reported in the newspapers only this Sunday, does the noble Earl agree that a more urgent task might be to ensure that the existing rules are in fact adhered to? In the case reported in the Independent on Sunday, the prison governor concerned had not notified to the National Identification Bureau the fact that the prisoner had absconded; nor did it appear that the prisoner should have been released, as he was suffering from a mental disorder which appears to be contrary to Home Office review rules. Would the noble Earl further agree that a review of that situation is more urgent than a long-term review?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, when such instances occur great attention is paid to the circumstances. The noble Lord asked why a more urgent review is not in process and why the scheme has not been tightened up. It was tightened up in October 1992 and was tightened up again in July of last year. The working group was set up in June 1993 to review the operation of the home leave and temporary release scheme and to ensure that public safety is not compromised by offenders being allowed home on leave. That information has been reported and my right honourable friend is considering it at present.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, in view of the helpful indications as regards the progress of the review, can the Minister tell the House whether it will be published after it has been considered and agreed by the Home Secretary?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, my right honourable friend has seen only a summary of the report; he has not seen the whole detailed report. The decision will be taken in due course. But no decision has been taken at present.

Forestry Commission: New Planting
2.59 p.m.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe Lord Taylor of Gryfe asked Her Majesty's Government:
What are the latest figures for new planting by the Forestry Commission and the private sector; what is the anticipated programme for next year; and how these compare with their stated target of 33,000 hectares per annum.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, in the year to 31st March 1993, the total area of new planting by the Forestry Commission was 2,356 hectares, while the area of new planting by private woodland owners for which grants were paid was 15,295 hectares. The commission's planned new planting programme for the year to 31st March 1994 is 1,800 hectares, while the private sector is expected to plant some 16,700 hectares. The total area of new planting in the current year is therefore estimated to be about 18,500 hectares. In addition, it is estimated that there will be nearly 15,000 hectares of restocking totalling, in all, 33,500 hectares.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Does he recall that in a debate on this subject on 14th April he said, in summing up the debate:
"The most satisfying consensus reached during the debate is that we in Britain continue to need to plant more trees"?—[Official Report, 14/4/93; col. 1143.]
The figures that he has just quoted indicate a continuing commitment in that direction. Does the Minister recall that 20 years ago—a comparatively short time in forestry terms —we were planting 41,000 hectares, of which the Forestry Commission planted more than 20,000 hectares? The Minister has just told us that next year the Forestry Commission will plant around 2,000 hectares. Is he not alarmed at the substantial diminution in new planting and will he share that alarm with the people who have invested £215 million in new pulp plant in Scotland on the assumption that supplies will become available whereas there has, in fact, been a dramatic drop in supplies?
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, the Government are certainly disappointed at the level of new planting by private owners in recent years. That planting has been depressed by the market. However, if the noble Lord includes restocking—I know he might have some reservation about including that—he will see that there was a total of some 35,000 hectares planted last year. That figure is somewhat above the average of the previous 20 years. I can certainly reaffirm that the Government would hope that, as a result of the review now being undertaken, further planting can be encouraged.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, what has happened to the money gained from all the sales undertaken by the Forestry Commission? Are the Government still holding onto that money and not giving it to the commission to use for development?
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, I am sorry, I did not hear what the noble Lord said. I hope that he will repeat his question.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, I asked what the Government have done with all the money that has been earned from the sales of wood and other products on the part of the Forestry Commission over the past 10 years or so. I believe the Government have retained that money. Why do they not give it to the Forestry Commission to allow that body—along with private bodies —to develop itself?
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord for not hearing his question the first time round. The Government have made it clear that they believe that a substantial proportion of the new planting in the United Kingdom should be undertaken by the private sector. While there is and will continue to be new planting and restocking by the Forestry Commission, it is not the Government's view that the increase in the amount of forestry in the United Kingdom should be primarily led by the Forestry Commission.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, in view of the encouragement given to farmers for the first time to grow hardwoods, will the Government make it clear to them that it is an utter waste of money, time and land to grow hardwoods unless they are fully prepared for the cost of expensive management throughout the first 40 years' life of those trees? Would it not be better for the country if, instead of embarking upon growing hardwoods, which will probably turn out to be an absolute waste of time, farmers were encouraged to grow softwoods as we need that product to fill our mills?
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, while it is clearly desirable that we should have an increase in the planting of softwoods, I do not agree with my noble friend that we should encourage farmers to cease the planting of hardwoods. I consider the planting of hardwoods to be a highly desirable arrangement. The farm woodland premium scheme which replaced the farm woodland scheme has been widely welcomed. What I hope we might see in the future, following on the Government's policy of seeking to allow woodland to be grown on set-aside land—the European Commission is looking into this matter—is yet further planting on such land.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that the target of 33,000 hectares was for new planting and not for restocking and planting combined, and that that figure has not been reached? Does he not agree that a statement by the Government that they have dropped their foolish plan for the privatisation of the Forestry Commission would do more for the confidence of the industry than anything else?
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, if the noble Lord examines my first Answer he will see that I was at some pains to make it clear that while the total figure amounted to some 33,500 hectares, I accept of course that the original target of 33,000 hectares a year was in respect of new planting. The noble Lord will be aware that a review is under way at the present time—it is expected to report in the early part of this year—and I hope that the results of that review will be helpful to the Government, and indeed to this House, in terms of determining how forestry policy might be taken forward.
Lord Rees: My Lords, will my noble and learned friend tell the House the amount of tax revenue forgone per annum by way of tax reliefs in respect of planting
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under the last years of the old tax regime? What has been paid more recently per annum by way of grants to stimulate planting under the new regime? If we are given those figures we can assess whether the new policies are working by comparison with the tax reliefs given under the old regime, the ending of which most of us regret.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, I cannot give my noble friend precise figures on that matter but I would express the opinion that it would do the industry no good to be seen simply as a tax haven. The removal of tax reliefs was matched by a substantial rise in the grant levels under the woodland grant scheme. As I indicated in an earlier answer, some of those schemes, particularly as regards farm woodland, have been widely welcomed.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, does not the Minister agree that what is really necessary is an overall forest strategy? Does that strategy exist at the moment and does it include the conservation potential of any new planting?
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, as I previously indicated, we expect to receive the advice of the forestry review group early this year. Once we have considered it there will be full consultation with the general public and interested bodies on the options preferred by Ministers before we take the matter forward. The form and the timing of the consultation will obviously depend on the advice that the review group has to offer and the conclusions drawn by it. Following those comments I trust that the concern which the noble Baroness indicated will no longer exist.

Intelligence Services Bill [H.L.]
3.7 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Mackay of Clashfern): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to whom the Intelligence Services Bill [H.L.] has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order—

Clauses 1 to 9,

Schedules 1 and 2,

Clause 10,

Schedule 3,

Clause 11,

Schedule 4,

Clause 12.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Trade Marks Bill [H.L.]
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion on the Order Paper standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Strathclyde.
Moved, That it be an instruction to the Public Bill Committee to whom the Trade Marks Bill [H.L.] has been committed that they consider the Bill in the

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following order—

Clauses 1 to 45,

Schedule 1,

Clause 46,

Schedule 2,

Clauses 47 to 101,

Schedule 3,

Clause 102,

Schedules 4 and 5,

Clauses 103 to 106.—(Viscount Goschen.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House of Lords' Offices: Select Committee Report
3.9 p.m.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Ampthill): My Lords, I beg to move that the first report from the Select Committee be agreed to.
Moved, That the first report from the Select Committee be agreed to (HL Paper 16).—(The Chairman of Committees.)
Following is the report referred to:
1. Appointment of Sub-Committees
The Committee has appointed the following Sub-Committees and Panel—

Finance and Staff Sub-Committee
L. Ampthill (Chairman)

L. Bancroft

L. Dainton

L. Jenkin of Roding

L. Jenkins of Hillhead

L. Lane of Horsell

B. Nicol

L. Peston

L. Richard

L. Thomson of Monifieth

L. Wakeham (L. Privy Seal)

with the Clerk of the Parliaments.

Administration and Works Sub-Committee
L. Ampthill (Chairman)

L. Allen of Abbeydale

L. Dainton

L. Dean of Beswick

L. Gibson

L. Graham of Edmonton

B. Hylton-Foster

L. Peston

B. Seccombe

L. Tordoff

V. Ullswater

with the Clerk of the Parliaments and the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod.

Library and Computers Sub-Committee
L. Allen of Abbeydale

L. Avebury

B. Brigstocke

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L. Browne-Wilkinson

L. Dainton (Chairman)

L. Hollick

L. Lewis of Newnham

L. Macaulay of Bragar

L. McColl of Dulwich

L. McIntosh of Haringey

V. St Davids

with the Clerk of the Parliaments.

Refreshment Sub-Committee
V. Allenby of Megiddo

B. Birk

L. Denham

L. Graham of Edmonton

B. Hamwee

B. Hylton-Foster

L. Merlyn-Rees

V. Montgomery of Alamein

L. Peston (Chairman)

L. Tordoff

V. Ullswater

with the Clerk of the Parliaments.

Advisory Panel on Works of Art
B. Birk

L. Cavendish of Furness

L. Charteris of Amisfield

L. Crathorne

V. De L'Isle

L. Gibson (Chairman)

E. Gowrie

L. Morris of Castle Morris

Ly. Saltoun of Abernethy

B. Trumpington

with the Clerk of the Parliaments.
2. Accommodation
The Committee has agreed proposals to implement the accommodation strategy approved by the House in July 1993 (Sixth Report, session 1992–93). Additional accommodation can be provided by the relocation of some staff in the Lord Chancellor's Department and of the security control room and by a consolidation of the Parliamentary Works Directorate. This will enable the South East Return to be developed to provide new office accommodation mainly for peers; improved Library and computer facilities; new refreshment facilities for peers and their guests and for counsel; a counsel's Robing Room; and a new committee room. Detailed plans will be drawn up to allocate the new office accommodation and to make the best use of offices which are vacant temporarily, and the provision of a spouses' room will be considered further.
The Committee has approved sketch plans for a new vehicle entrance to the Palace of Westminster through Black Rod's Garden and for the construction there of a new Pass Office and vehicle security-check facilities. It is expected that this work will be done between July and October 1994. The Committee has agreed that certain demands for expenditure on security or aesthetic grounds should be subjected to further close scrutiny on the basis of fully costed proposals.
The Committee has approved plans to relocate and upgrade accommodation for police and firemen, to move the Sports and Social Club, and to consolidate the accommodation of the Parliamentary Works Directorate.
The Committee has endorsed a variation in the scheme for 6–7 Old Palace Yard so that the Susan Hamilton Secretarial Agency will be relocated elsewhere on the parliamentary estate.
3. Supply of stationery to peers
The Committee has considered the results of a review of the arrangements for the supply of stationery to peers. The Committee has agreed to proposals which will give better value for money in the supply of stationery.

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The Committee has agreed to the following guidelines for the use of House of Lords' stationery—
"House of Lords' stationery may be used for all correspondence relating to the work of the House, including the work of all-party committees;
House of Lords' stationery may be used for personal correspondence in modest quantities, but should not be used for circulars, correspondence of organisations (except those of an essentially parliamentary nature) or business letters.".
The Committee has agreed that the use of plain paper for speeches and notes should be encouraged.
4. Lords' office facilities
The Committee has considered proposals on how best to provide office facilities for peers. The Committee has agreed that office equipment should be primarily funded by the House, and should remain the property of the House, with the emphasis on shared facilities. The Committee has agreed that shared accommodation can provide significant cost savings and has invited the Whips and Convenor of the Cross Benches to take this into account when allocating accommodation to peers.
The Committee has agreed guidelines for the loan of personal computers (PCs) to peers and for the provision of photocopiers, fax and PCs for general use, with evaluation of how best to provide training, maintenance, monitoring and technical support, subject to further consideration by the Finance and Staff and Library and Computers Sub-Committees.
5. Shared Works: Memorandum of Understanding
The Memorandum of Understanding on works expenditure agreed between the Houses in June 1991 provides that "Unless otherwise agreed by the two Houses in relation to any particular item" maintenance of the Palace of Westminster and certain other works benefiting both Houses should be funded jointly by the commons and Lords in the proportions 60:40. The Committee has agreed that joint works could in exceptional cases be funded in the proportions 100:0 or 0:100. The Accounting Officers of the two Houses will exercise this power according to criteria which have been agreed by the Finance and Staff Sub-Committee.
6. Security-Complement and Expenditure
The Committee has agreed that the security complement for which the House of Lords will share responsibility with the Commons on a 40:60 basis is 367 persons (police, security, fire and communications officers, and administrators). The Committee has also agreed that this complement may not be varied without the authority of the Committee and that Lords expenditure on security in 1994–95 may not exceed £5,255,000 (net of VAT) without the Finance and Staff Sub-Committee's authority.
7. Staff of the House
(i) Counsel to the Chairman of Committees
The Committee has been informed of the retirement of Mr. Derek Rippengal CB QC as full-time Counsel to the Chairman of Committees and has expressed its thanks for his invaluable service to the House. The Committee has also been informed that Mr. Rippengal and Sir James Nursaw KCB will henceforward share the post on a part-time basis.
(ii) Yeoman Usher of the Black Rod
The Committee has also been informed of the appointment of Air Vice-Marshal D. R. Hawkins CB MBE to succeed Air Commodore Alan Curry OBE who is due to retire in January 1994.
The Committee has expressed its thanks to Air Commodore Curry for his services to the House, in particular as acting Black Rod and Agent of the Administration and Works Sub-Committee in the last five months during Black Rod's illness. Pending the return of Black Rod, the Committee has agreed to an addition to the complement for up to three months to enable Air Commodore Curry to remain in the service of the House if necessary.
Lord Finsberg: My Lords, I wish to make a few comments about this report because I believe it provides an ideal vehicle for some thoughts and suggestions. It deals with both accommodation and refreshments, but I suggest it is not comprehensive because it does not take full account of the changes that have taken place.
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I speak as a new Member of this House who spent 22 years in the other place. When I was first elected I shared a room with five colleagues, but at least I had a telephone with a number and I had a locker. When I retired I had a pleasant room of my own and other facilities. I should inform your Lordships that in July 1993, after I had been here a year, I actually had a locker and I no longer had to carry round masses of papers in a briefcase.
For the sake of accuracy I should make it clear that I pay the warmest possible tribute to Black Rod's staff, and indeed to all staff, who have always gone out of their way to be both helpful and courteous. But I suggest that the committee has not taken full account of the changes. I want briefly to develop the point, although I believe that some progress is being made.
It seems to me that this report, and some of its predecessors, tries to offer palliatives without accepting that the role and composition of the House have changed dramatically. I am sure that your Lordships will have read the editorial in The Times last week which said that the growth in the volume of public legislation this century has added greatly to the responsibilities of this House as the quality controller of the laws. That is a warm tribute from a newspaper whose proprietor is not always very friendly towards this place.
There is no criticism of the committee in what I say, but it seems to me that a full-blooded review is now essential, perhaps by an ad hoc committee. We need to assess what the needs are and to see whether it is possible to provide what is necessary within the fabric of this building. I can remember in the other place being told over and over again by those responsible that it was not possible to find more room. However, those of your Lordships who were once with me in the other place will remember the energies of the late Sir Robert Cooke, as a result of which many more rooms and facilities were found, to the surprise of the officials. When the assessment has been made, we then have to see whether what is necessary can be afforded. But that is stage three, not stage one.
There are now nearly 400 life Peers, almost a third of the entire membership of the Chamber. In my humble submission, this place is still geared largely to the situation prior to 1958. A growing number of us are now present during Recesses carrying out our parliamentary work. Yet, to give just one example, during the first summer I was here tape machines were turned off. There were no hygienic towels in the toilets. There is still no possibility when one is working of getting a cup of refreshment, whether it be coffee or tea, unless one is fortunate enough to have been a Member of the other place or one goes all the way down to that pretty ghastly Strangers' canteen in the other place.
Why is this happening? Perhaps I may give an example. I apologise for personalising the issue, but I hope that this will illustrate one of the reasons for my raising the matter. I have had the honour of leading the United Kingdom delegations to both the Council of Europe and the Western European Union for some seven years. I have found it highly embarrassing since I came to your Lordships' House to have to say to Foreign Ministers and others I meet on the Continent

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almost every fortnight when they ask whether they can telephone me that I have no dedicated telephone. That causes them the utmost shock. It makes one's work extremely difficult. That is why I believe that there is a need not merely for me but for others who are doing such work at least to have a telephone and a shared desk. Many organisations want to get in touch with one on parliamentary business. I believe that if we are to maintain our position as a vital part of Parliament we have to bring our facilities into the 21st century.
I apologise for disturbing the even tenor of what might have been a non-discussion of this report. All I ask is that my noble friend the Leader of the House will say that consideration will be given to what I have said and that the result of that consideration will be communicated to your Lordships in the not too distant future.
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, the noble Lord has no need to apologise for raising these matters because the whole House is sympathetic to his plight, which, alas, is shared by an enormous number of other noble Lords.
I am grateful for the noble Lord's remark that a little progress is being made. That is the case. He referred to the other place. It has to be faced that one of the reasons why this House is short of space is that the other place has over the decades encroached on what once upon a time was ours in happier days at the turn of the century, when this House sat for an average of 120 days a year for an average of two hours and many sessions were only of five minutes because their Lordships could not think of anything worth while to discuss that day. Things have unquestionably changed.
The assessment for which the noble Lord asks has been taking place for a great many years. It is agreeable to me to be able to report to the House that, as is indicated in the report, thanks to three main events the situation will ease greatly over the next year or two. The first item, for which the House will be truly grateful to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, is that by moving his department elsewhere he has made available another 11 rooms, which became available during the course of last autumn. A further five rooms came into our possession a year or so ago.
The second event is that we have at last won back the building across the road at 6–7 Old Palace Yard which was built 250 years ago for occupation by the Clerk of the Parliaments and the Clerk Assistant. That will become available to us towards the end of this year. The building will be vacated shortly. The accommodation for those presently occupying it is available and will be completely so within the next week or so. Work will begin on restoring what is an extremely pleasant building. Once that is completed at the end of the year the Establishment Office and the Accountant's Office will move into the ground floor and second floor respectively. The move of the Staff Superintendent's office, presently accommodated in the Palace of Westminster, into the top floor of that building will
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make available some 16 further rooms in the Palace of Westminster together with four very splendid rooms in 6–7 Old Palace Yard for the use of Peers.
With the third event, which is the consolidation under the new dispensation of the Parliamentary Works Directorate of considerable space which was occupied by the Property Services Agency over the years—much of which was extremely wastefully occupied if it was occupied at all—we are able to make all the moves which are detailed in the report. I am afraid that it will take another year before it all comes to pass, but major work will begin during the course of the next Summer Recess. If your Lordships will be a little patient the situation will improve.
Lord Strabolgi: My Lords, before the noble Lord concludes, perhaps I may ask him about the last sentence in paragraph 2 which refers to the Susan Hamilton Secretarial Agency. It is mentioned there rather vaguely that the agency will be relocated elsewhere on the parliamentary estate. Does that mean that it will be taken away from the Palace and put somewhere else over the road? For the convenience of your Lordships it would be a great advantage for the secretarial agency to be retained in this building.
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I am glad to be able to tell the noble Lord that it was originally planned to move the agency across into 6–7 Old Palace Yard, but that was not popular. A large deputation descended upon me to say that that would not be well received by your Lordships. Therefore, alternative accommodation has been found within the Palace of Westminster itself. I believe that it is intended that the agency should move into that new accommodation within a comparatively short space of time. It will not be moving outside the Palace.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, my noble friend's answer has relieved me of some of my apprehension.
I had thought that I should like to say a word of caution in relation to the point made by my noble friend Lord Finsberg. Everyone will accept that to have a telephone number on which one can be contacted direct and to have part of a desk is acceptable. However, I wonder how necessary it is to incur the expense that would be involved in going beyond that. I suggest that if there were a reallocation of the facilities which we already have it should be to people who are active in day-to-day work and who undertake research, as distinct from many of our noble friends who may have those facilities but do not need them to the same extent.
I was junior Minister of Works when we agreed in the other place to build the extra facilities which they have and which are applauded perhaps more than they deserve when considering the effect that those facilities have on Parliament. Since we have had those extra rooms—we were very proud of them at the time—people disappear into them and are not in the Chamber playing an active part in the real work of Parliament. Immediately after Prime Minister's Question Time the Chamber is empty; and the same could occur in this House. There is no need for that.

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I have attended at the Palace for 43 years. Apart from the period when I was a Minister, I never had a room. I found the facilities in the Library, and the services given by the Library, excellent. To commit oneself to lush improvements which are not absolutely necessary may well bring dangers which will undermine the real effectiveness of Parliament.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, perhaps I may leap briefly to the defence of the Chairman of Committees. Any suggestion that some people have desks when they should not have them, and some do not have them when they should, should not be laid at the door of the Chairman of Committees but at the door of the appropriate Chief Whip, whose job it is to allocate the desks which are within the purview of the various parties.
Lord Elton: My Lords, can my noble friend give us an approximate figure for the net number of additional telephones and/or desks which will result from the manoeuvres which he has so aptly described?
Lord Ampthill: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, for coming to my rescue. As he rightly states, allocation of desks in the rooms that are available to Peers is a matter for the Chief Whips. I think that all Whips must have spent a short while in a sardine canning factory in order to exercise the craft which they have of necessity to do: to pack people into rooms. Obviously, ideally Peers would not be so squeezed together.
I must give the same answer to the noble Lord, Lord Elton. It will be up to the Whips to decide how much they choose to push people into the rooms. I referred to the 11 rooms which we have acquired recently from the Lord Chancellor's Department, and the other five rooms, making 16 rooms. There will be four rooms for Peers across the way. In the provisional plans, the rooms have been laid out to accommodate 22 Peers. Of the 16 rooms that we shall acquire by the vacation of those spaces, some are big and some small. I had better stop at that point rather than seek to do sums which will prove to be inaccurate and are not mine to do. Those choices are for the usual channels to exercise.
I hope that I have answered as many questions as I can on behalf of the House. I apologise once again to the noble Lord, Lord Finsberg, for the fact that he is not able to spread his wings in the way that he would like to do. However, the Palace of Westminster is not expandable. I commend the report.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Statutory Sick Pay Bill
3.24 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Social Security (Viscount Astor): My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
Unlike much of the social security legislation which comes before this House, this is a very short Bill. It contains only four clauses, and the Bill's substantive provisions are all contained in Clause 1. The main purpose of the Bill is to remove the right of employers
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to recover, from their remittances of national insurance contributions, 80 per cent. of the statutory sick pay (SSP) they pay to their employees.
Clause 1 also makes consequential changes to Section 81(2) of the Social Security Administration Act 1992, and to paragraph 2 of Schedule 11 to the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992. It may be helpful to your Lordships if I give a brief explanation of the statutory sick pay scheme.
The scheme was first introduced in April 1983, more than 10 years ago. Its aims were, and still are, to provide a prescribed minimum amount of sick pay to employees unable to work because of short-term illness; to cut out duplication of cover between the state and industry by building on employers' occupational sick pay schemes; and to provide as simple a scheme as possible for employers to administer while at the same time protecting the interests of employees.
There was much opposition to the SSP scheme from the outset, but it has been a success. Employers quickly assimilated the scheme into their normal payroll arrangements and most employers now operate SSP successfully. Employees also prefer to receive their sick pay in their wage packet rather than to have to claim it from their local social security office.
There have been a number of changes to the structure of the scheme since 1983 but two changes in particular stand out. The first took place in April 1986 when employers' liability to pay SSP was extended from eight weeks of sickness in a tax year to 28 weeks.
The second of those changes—and one which some noble Lords may recall—was contained in the Statutory Sick Pay Act 1991. That was the reduction in the SSP reimbursement rate from 100 per cent. to 80 per cent. from April 1991. Concern was expressed during the passage of the Bill that it would affect smaller employers harshly.
That was the main reason why the Government, on your Lordships' advice, provided additional help for small employers—hence the introduction of the small employers' relief provisions—in addition to the broadly offsetting reductions in national insurance (NI) contributions.
That is the history of the SSP scheme. I now turn to the main provision in this Bill: the abolition of the 80 per cent. reimbursement arrangements.
I wish to make it clear at the outset that abolition of the 80 per cent. reimbursement in no way affects the rights of individual employees to SSP. They will continue to be entitled to a prescribed amount of sick pay for any absences from work lasting for at least four days in a row. In fact, the majority of employees will have their SSP entitlement topped up—to full pay in many cases—by occupational sick pay.
Abolishing 80 per cent. reimbursement will give employers an incentive to improve sick absence rates through better monitoring and control, and by taking more interest in the well-being of their employees. We have one of the worst rates of absenteeism in the EC. It is estimated that industry loses anything between £9 billion and £13 billion annually in days lost through sickness. Government cannot solve the problem alone. What we do want to do is to prompt business to do

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better. Reimbursing 80 per cent. of their SSP costs provides little incentive for employers to improve matters.
The Government believe that an improvement in sick absence rates is a matter which employers themselves can do something about. Recent research suggests that above average absenteeism rates are often a result of poor staff motivation, stressful staff relationships, poor working conditions and poor monitoring and control of sick absence by managers. This research has also shown that when employers take a keener interest in the health, attendance and well-being of their staff, they can and do substantially improve sick absence rates.
The Government believe that reimbursement of 80 per cent. of their SSP costs acts as a disincentive to employers to take positive action to improve the health, well-being and attendance records of their employees. It sends the wrong signal to employers that improving sick absence rates is not their responsibility nor within their control. But it is their responsibility and an improvement is within their grasp.
Large companies have a greater incentive to do so since their sick absence levels tend to be much higher than that of smaller companies. For example, a recent study showed that firms with over 5,000 employees have almost double the level of sick absence of companies with fewer than 100 employees. Abolishing reimbursement will give all employers an incentive to monitor and control sickness absence and to seek ways of improving the motivation and well-being of their employees.
At the same time the Government intend to reduce employers' national insurance contributions by more than their SSP costs. We propose to reduce the highest rate of employers' national insurance contributions by 0.2 per cent., from 10.4 per cent. to 10.2 per cent. But the lower national insurance contribution rates will be reduced by a full 1 per cent. These reductions will reduce the employers' share of their national insurance bills by about £800 million next year, rising to almost £1 billion by 1996–97.
Ending the 80 per cent. reimbursement arrangements will cost employers some £670 million in 1994–95. Employers as a whole, therefore, will be well over £100 million better off next year as a result of the SSP national insurance contributions changes. Indeed, employers with above average sickness levels will be better off still provided they improve their absence rates.
The national insurance contributions reductions are weighted towards employers of the less highly paid so that they will gain more. For example, a company employing staff earning £170 per week stands to gain over £88 a year for each employee from the national insurance contributions reduction. If that company has an average sick absence rate, the extra SSP costs will average around £43 a year, leaving the employer about £45 a year better off per employee. A company with the same wage structure but with double the national sick absence rate will break even as a result of the changes.
I turn now to small employers. Small employers tend to have below average sickness levels. Over a third of employers with fewer than 11 employees had no sick
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absences long enough to qualify for SSP during 1991–92. But the Government recognise that smaller employers may be hit harder by the prolonged absence of an employee. That is why we propose to improve the arrangements under which small employers can revert to 100 per cent. of the SSP paid out to a sick employee.
At present employers with national insurance contributions bills of £16,000 a year or less recover 100 per cent. of their SSP costs after six weeks. From next April, the help will be extended to firms with national insurance contributions bills of up to £20,000 and 100 per cent. reimbursement will be available after four weeks. This will enable an extra 50,000 to qualify for this additional help —about 750,000 employers in total, representing almost two-thirds of all employers. In addition, as I mentioned earlier, small employers will also benefit more from the full 1 per cent. reduction in national insurance contributions since they tend to employ proportionally more lower paid workers.
Employers and their representative organisations are concerned about the administrative burden placed on them by the SSP scheme. I am happy to say that abolition of the 80 per cent. reimbursement will help to reduce that burden. Employers, with the exception of small employers, will no longer have to calculate how much SSP to recover from their remittances of national insurance contributions. From April 1995, the Government propose further to reduce the administrative burden on employers by abolishing the lower rate of SSP, thus moving to a single rate equivalent to the existing higher rate. This will ease their calculations.
Overall the SSP/NICs changes will ensure that British companies continue to retain their relative advantage over their foreign counterparts since employers as a whole are being over-compensated for their extra SSP costs. Employers in other EC countries tend to bear a much greater share of the costs of sickness among their workforce. For example, in Germany employers have to pay full wages for the first six weeks of sickness with no reimbursement. And yet they pay higher social security contributions. Dutch employers pay 70 per cent. of average pay but have to bear five-sixths of the cost. Before remedial action was taken, three out of 10 workers in Sweden were absent from work on sick pay at any one time. Subsequent changes have reduced that figure to less than one in 10.
Clause 1 of the Bill contains two further measures arising from abolition of the SSP reimbursement rate. First, it extends the scope of the SSP scheme to working women who become sick and incapable of work before reaching their 65th birthday. This is necessary because abolishing reimbursement makes SSP a form of pay, rather than a social security benefit. It thus falls outside the scope of the pension age derogation provision—which allows different pension ages for men and women—of the EC Equal Treatment Directive.
Secondly, the Bill also repeals the existing provision under which the department recovers 80 per cent. of any SSP paid from damages awards or compensation payments exceeding £2,500 so as to prevent double payment from public funds. Now that the state will no

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longer be reimbursing 80 per cent. of the SSP costs, it will not be appropriate to recover any of the SSP due to be paid from 6th April this year.
The statutory sick pay scheme has been very successful in meeting its aims: to deliver a minimum amount of sick pay through the wage packet, to cut out wasteful duplication of work between employers and the state and it has produced a reduction in Civil Service manpower of around 3,700 staff. It has also ended the anomaly whereby certain employees received more money when sick than when at work. Hardly an incentive to return to employment.
But, as I have already explained, sick absence rates in this country are far too high and the Government need to act now to try to reduce these levels. Abolition of SSP reimbursement provides an incentive for employers to do so, while, at the same time, the reductions in national insurance contributions ensure that employers will gain overall from the SSP national insurance package.
I commend the Bill to the House.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Viscount Astor.)
3.37 p.m.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, this is another Bill which has been rushed through the other place without the usual scrutiny procedures. Again, that aroused considerable opposition because it was rightly felt that, although short, the Bill deserved detailed consideration.
It is interesting to look at the history of statutory sick pay and, in introducing the Bill this afternoon, the Minister has already covered the ground to some extent. I can well remember when SSP was first introduced in 1983. I was then a member of the Trades Union Congress General Council and a number of us felt rather apprehensive because until that time, of course, contributory sick pay had been paid through the then DHSS. But we were eventually reassured, to some extent. We recognised that there had been a growth in occupational sick pay schemes often introduced via trade union agreements. Some of those were generous, offering sometimes three months' full and three months' half pay and sometimes as much as six months' pay. The Government, however, persuaded employers to take on the responsibility by assuring them that they would be fully reimbursed their SSP costs. Later on, the duration of SSP was increased from eight to 28 weeks and employers were also reimbursed the cost of their national insurance contributions on SSP.
Then came the Statutory Sick Pay Act 1991. I can well recall the debate that we had in this House, because I participated in it, along with my noble friend Lord Carter who at that time led for the Opposition on the issue. The Act reduced the amount of SSP which employers could recover from 100 per cent. to 80 per cent. and also ended the arrangement whereby employers could recover national insurance contributions paid on SSP, although employers' NI contributions were reduced.
There were strong objections to that Bill, most notably because of the effect on small businesses. The then Secretary of State for Social Security claimed that
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the effect would be cost-neutral for employers. That was not, however, the view of a number of noble Lords in this House. It was felt very strange that a government who prided themselves on removing burdens from business should come along with a proposition which added very considerably to the burdens on small businesses in particular.
We had some success at that time. I well remember the contributions made then by the noble Lords, Lord Jenkin and Lord Boyd-Carpenter and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, all of whom I am glad to see are to speak in the debate this afternoon. We managed then to persuade the Government that something had to be done for small businesses. And it was done—although it was not enough. The Minister has explained this afternoon exactly what was involved in those amendments. I shall explain why on this side we did not think that what was done at that time went far enough. Much sickness anyway occurs in a period of less than six weeks, and therefore under the arrangements that were then made it would not rate for reimbursement. Moreover, we were impressed by the evidence that we then had from the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux (NACAB), which indicated that even then employees often had difficulty in getting sick pay to which they were entitled, and that these problems were more likely to afflict employees working for small employers than those working for large institutions and companies.
Now we have this Bill, which seeks to put the entire responsibility for the payment of SSP on employers with no entitlement to reimbursement. It is true that small employers' protection is retained, and as we have heard this afternoon the Government claim that it is being improved. But the Federation of Small Businesses still finds the proposition unacceptable.
Why are we so concerned about the Bill? First, the Government have completely reneged on their original commitment. Back in 1983 employers were persuaded to take on the responsibility for statutory sick pay on the basis that there was a reimbursement guarantee. I believe that that guarantee played some part in ensuring that opposition from trade unions would be muted, since, if there were arrangements to reimburse, it was logical to assume that sick employees would get the money anyway. That guarantee was first eroded with the 1991 Act and has now gone altogether.
Secondly, the Government claimed, with some justification, that occupational sick pay schemes were now widely operative; so from the employees' point of view there would be no change. It is true that there has been a welcome growth in such schemes. But simply to look at the number of schemes can be misleading. Not everyone in companies where there are schemes is covered by the schemes. There have been extensive changes in employment patterns, some of which have been actively encouraged by the Government. There is more flexibility, which in practice means many more people working on short-term contracts, more casualisation and more part-time employment. That means a smaller core employment force; and often it is only the "core" employee who is covered by occupational sick pay schemes. The others must rely on statutory sick pay.

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When we look at the small employers' protection promised by the Government, even with the new improved arrangements, there still remain four weeks for which there will be no reimbursement. As I said earlier, the majority of sickness claims are for short periods.
The Government seem to think that the proposals in this Bill will save money. After all, that is an element in the package which we were led to expect as part of the Government's review of social security spending. The sum of £750 million has been referred to as a possible saving. But if that is the case, the money has to come from somewhere. It will come either from the private firms, which will no longer be reimbursed, or from employees who may be entitled to sick pay which they do not get.
The Government also believe that the proposal will give employers the incentive to "manage" their sickness rates better than at present. Britain allegedly has a bad sickness record compared with other countries, and the Minister has said so this afternoon. It is difficult to produce anything other than anecdotal evidence, but I wonder just how much sickness absence is due to the changed industrial relations climate for which this Government are largely responsible.
I was talking quite recently to a personnel manager of my acquaintance who is not particularly happy. He acknowledges that the sickness record of his company is a matter for concern. But he also says that there is an increased level of workplace stress. There have been many redundancies. As a result, the pressure is on the remaining people to do additional work at a faster pace. The redundancies have resulted in less company loyalty: years of commitment have entailed no greater employment security, so if people feel under the weather they are more likely to take the odd day off here and there. A higher sickness rate could well be a symptom of a far deeper malaise which will not be remedied by the kind of medicine envisaged in this Bill.
Finally, so far as concerns the effect on employees, in 1991 we drew attention to the evidence provided by NACAB to the effect that even then there were employees who were not getting the sick pay to which they were entitled.
The new measure will be a positive incentive to employers not to employ people with a poor sickness record. That could well adversely affect disabled people, despite the Government's encouragement to give them work, and despite the disability working allowance scheme, the access to work scheme, and so on, that we have discussed in this House. Older workers who have been displaced may find it that much harder to find employment, since employers could well believe that they are more likely to take time off because of sickness. Employees with poor sickness records could well be dismissed, finding it difficult to be re-engaged elsewhere, and that will add to social security expenditure.
Meanwhile, the Federation of Small Businesses has been telling the Government to drop their proposals altogether. It is not impressed by the national insurance contributions "offset", believing that on past showing
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the Government could well drop that and leave employers in the future with the new liability and without even that compensation. It stresses, as we have, that there is no compensation for small employers for the first four weeks; and that is when most of the claims will be made. It stresses that businesses will be left with the administrative record-keeping despite the loss of reimbursement. It is also concerned with cash flow implications for small employers. The TUC and NACAB have both urged the Government not to proceed down this path. Even the Government's traditional supporters at the CBI and the Institute of Directors have not given the measure much of a welcome. Indeed, both have voiced some considerable doubts about it.
I have a briefing from the CBI in front of me today in which it seeks assurances that the transfer of sick pay to employers does not establish a precedent for moving other social benefits to companies. While employers can police sickness absence, they cannot, for example, control maternity leave. It is quite clear that they are concerned lest that responsibility is ultimately passed on to employers as well. They also ask for assurances that the reductions in employers' national insurance contributions which compensate employers for taking responsibility for sick pay will not be reversed in the future. It is quite clear from that that employers are generally concerned about the fact that previous assurances that they have had in this area have not been complied with by the Government. I do not suppose that there is much chance that the Government will take the advice that is being offered.
All that we on this side can say is that we are opposed to the Bill. We think that it is hastily cobbled together, and that the Government would do best to forget all about it. We did not like the 1991 Act all that much, even though we did manage to get some improvements for small businesses. In our view this Bill is very much worse than that one.
3.48 p.m.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot welcome this Bill, and I am therefore very glad that it is before us. Your Lordships may think that that savours of a level of paradox appropriate only to a 21st birthday. But some noble Lords may remember that the 1991 vehicle included a Henry VIII clause which allowed the Government to vary the rate of reimbursement of statutory sick pay without limit by regulation. Had this House not thrown that clause out, and had another place not acquiesced in that vote, we would have had no need of a Bill at all to introduce these changes. In that context, I should like to offer thanks to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, and to the noble Lord, Lord Rippon of Hexham, for the work that they have done to educate this House in the danger of the Henry VIII clause, for it is clear enough that this Bill introduces a far more important change than most of us would think proper to introduce by regulation. In fact, had this measure been introduced by regulation, as one cannot help suspecting might have been contemplated in 1991, it would have been a threat not only to statutory sick pay but also to parliamentary government.

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We have heard that the Bill has caused a certain amount of dispute about the timetable. I understand that the proceedings of another place are entirely their own affair and we have no authority over them. However, we are concerned to make sure that we shall not be in that position again. Therefore, it is worth giving some thought to the timetable arising from the unified Budget. On 1st December I said that I considered that the new procedure of the unified Budget had on the whole been a success. I do not withdraw that remark, but I am glad that I put in the qualification because I feel that this will not be the last time that the unified Budget will create a need for legislation to come into force before the beginning of the financial year.
That is a very tight timetable. I appreciate that we had a late Queen's Speech this year for reasons for which the Government cannot be held to blame. But in future I hope, subject of course to Her Majesty's convenience, that we shall try to bring the Queen's Speech a little forward and shorten the overspill in order to avoid that kind of pressure on our timetable in the future. That might save us all a great deal of heat.
As we heard, the Bill takes away from employers statutory sick pay reimbursement and gives them instead national insurance concessions. In fact it puts on employers a permanent liability in return for an impermanent concession. I hasten to say that I make no charge whatever of bad faith. But the noble Viscount said yesterday that national insurance rates cannot be set in stone. My noble friend Lord Jenkins of Hillhead recently said in this House that chancellors leave footprints in the sand. That is inevitably true. It only needs a treble-dip recession for all the concession on national insurance to disappear. Even leaving that aside, we know well that no Parliament can bind its successors. So employers are taking a temporary financial concession in return for a liability which will go on. That might be regarded as selling one's birthright for a mess of pottage.
The Secretary of State said on 1st December—the noble Viscount repeated it today—that employers "as a whole" will be no worse off. In the first place that is bookies' odds. We do not know the level of future sickness any more than we know the level of future national insurance rates. Bookies' odds can sometimes he right but every bookie knows that that is not always the case. Most employers—one might say all employers—are not employers as a whole. There is always the possibility of exceptional levels of sickness. That is not entirely confined to small businesses. For example, in the case of Camelford after the Lowermoor disaster there were very high levels of sickness everywhere. I know that Seveso and Bhopal are not in this country. But it is not unimaginable that such a thing could happen here. A firm in that position would be in a bad enough state already without having an enormous extra load of statutory sick pay on top.
In the case of small businesses such a situation is very much more likely because one is dealing here with the statistically insignificant sample. Those who follow the opinion polls know that a statistically insignificant sample may do anything. I remember when we were dealing with the last Bill that we were told that 92 per
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cent. of first-class letters were delivered the next day. My noble kinsman Lord Henley, when tabling a new government amendment, very kindly sent notifications to me by first-class post to three different places in order to make sure that I received them. I am grateful for the courtesy. However, not a single one of them arrived the next day. That was a statistically insignificant sample.
Just the same thing can happen to a small business if all of its employees have been caught in a crash in one minibus. That not only means a very large extra payment; it means an acute cash flow problem because all the payment comes at once. The national insurance reimbursement is spread over a considerable period. When money has to be borrowed and when the attitude of banks to small businesses is, shall I say, not always predictable, a sudden cash flow problem may create the risk of bankruptcy where no bankruptcy needs to be. Surely that is not in the public interest.
The four weeks' limit is surely mistaken. The vast majority of sickness is less than four weeks. So the small business itself will carry all the costs. Whether it will be able to do very much about it is a question on which there is room for a good deal more doubt than the noble Viscount thought.
Throughout the noble Viscount confused reducing sickness absence rates with reducing sickness. They are not the same. I query whether it is always sensible to try to reduce sickness absence rates. I should like to declare an interest in that view because twice last term I went down with flu which I caught from a pupil who had come in when he ought to have been in bed. There is also the case of people who have suffered an injury. Particularly with back injuries, immediate rest may be vital to recovery. Those people go in to work, exacerbate the injury and remain unfit for much longer than they otherwise need have done. I believe that the incentive to reduce sickness absence rates is a very blunt instrument indeed. It probably will not catch the real malingerers, who may be quite skilled people, but it will catch the genuinely sick. In fact it may have the long-term effect of increasing the national level of sickness. I am sure that we do not want to see that.
The intention to reduce the level of sick leave is clear enough. I do not think it is sensible. I accept that there is a problem about motivation as well as genuine illness. Like the noble Baroness, I ask the Government whether they recognise no responsibility for this situation in themselves. The Secretary of State in another place, when looking for his prime example of absence due to lack of motivation, selected employees of the London boroughs. It may have escaped the Government's notice, but they have done a great deal to create turmoil, dismay, extra workloads and, by standard spending assessments, reduce staffing in London boroughs. If there is lack of motivation in London boroughs, the Government might wonder whether they have done anything to create it. I say the same about the high level of absence because of sickness among teachers.
So deploying the argument about motivation is rather dangerous. We are now waiting for the report on the impact of the 1991 changes from the Centre for Social

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Policy Research. I do not understand why the Government could not have waited until that report was available before putting the Bill before us.
Let us consider the effect of the Bill on employees. I heard the noble Viscount say that they continue to be entitled to statutory sick pay. I recognise that and I am grateful to him for saying it. I should like to ask him to consider finding ways of making that entitlement more effective than it is at present. I should like to ask him to consider a number of cases offered by the citizens advice bureaux.
One CAB in South Wales reported that a local boss of a large retail group told employees that he did not pay statutory sick pay. Another had a client off sick for two weeks because of an accident. The employer would pay only for the first week. The CAB noted:
"She cannot get benefits".
The national insurance concession is a contractual concession. It is in return for paying statutory sick pay. Is it technically feasible to introduce an amendment whereby a firm which does not pay statutory sick pay does not get its national insurance concessions? That would be a perfectly fair bargain.
The Secretary of State tells us that he has not heard of any cases of employees being dismissed or threatened with dismissal because of sickness. I do not know exactly where the Secretary of State has been. I remember quoting a great many of those cases in 1991. It is not quite as bad as the time when I gave 130 examples of something to a Minister, whom I shall not name because I gave him no notice of it. He said two weeks later that he had never seen any such examples. I do not claim to have given the Secretary of State 130 but I think I have given him at least 13. I shall give him a few more examples of where there is a threat of dismissal.
A CAB in the West Midlands reports of a client whose employer's policy is to issue written warnings for certified absence due to sickness. Another report is of a client off work for two weeks. His employer told him that he would be dismissed if he took any more time off. The CAB reported:
"He has no choice. He either works, and exacerbates his injury, or he loses his job".
Another client was six months on a hospital waiting list waiting for a major operation. He was dismissed, although the doctors were confident that he could return to work after the operation. There may be more concealed costs in the growth of hospital waiting lists than we are aware of.
The Secretary of State is not aware that he is increasing the risk that people may be sacked. But how do he and the noble Viscount square this with their patent desire to reduce sickness rates? The noble Viscount said that the Bill was intended to prompt business to do better. They are using a blunt instrument here. The people against whom discipline is used may be the genuinely sick; and when they could have recovered and resumed work and been useful citizens and taxpayers, now they risk being thrust down into unemployment, from which, especially if they are over 50, they may never emerge. That is not in their interests;
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it is not in the employer's interests; and once it has counted the cost, I do not think it is in the state's interest.
The other two Front Benches may have noticed that I have not yet this year talked about dismantling the welfare state. There has been a great struggle in the Cabinet between the supporters and the opponents of the welfare state, a struggle which I think so far the supporters are winning on points. I heard what the Chancellor said in the Budget, repeated, I am glad to say, by the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal in this House on 1st December, and I welcomed it. But this Bill is one place where the welfare state is being dismantled. I remember it being said—I think by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, and since he is about to speak he will correct me if I have misremembered —that the central principle of insurance is spreading the risk. Therefore, there can be no better system of insurance than a system of national insurance. But what this is doing is concentrating the risk, and that is why I think it is going to do a great deal more harm than the Government perceive.
4.5 p.m.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: My Lords, perhaps it will not be altogether surprising to the House if I take a somewhat different view on the Bill from that of the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell. I unhesitatingly support the Bill. I do so because it is one more stage in the welcome process of putting responsibility onto employers and reducing their fiscal contributions. That process is to be welcomed and should be encouraged.
I accept the point made by the noble Earl that it is possible to exaggerate the motivational aspect of putting responsibility in this way on employers. But I think one has also to recognise how management both in the public sector and the private sector—I speak as a chairman of an NHS trust—is now devolving responsibility for budgets to managers down the line who are responsible for the labour costs of the people they employ. If they are able to save labour costs by reducing avoidable absence, they then have more resources to devote to the prime purpose which in the case of the NHS is the health and cure of patients. That can work, and I am seeing it working in my own trust. While no one is going to pretend that shifting the burden to employers in that way is the only motivation for reducing sickness benefit—on the contrary, there are many other budgetary and competitive pressures which would encourage employers to reduce avoidable absence—it is quite wrong to say that it is irrelevant.
British industry does not have a very good record, a point to which my noble friend referred. A joint study, carried out recently by the CBI and the consultancy Percom, concluded that industry loses some £13 billion a year through illness. An average of 3.5 per cent. working time, which is eight days a year, was lost through sickness in 1992. My noble friend made the point that large employers tend to have a much worse record of absence through illness among their employees than very small employers. The study found

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that management commitment and improved monitoring were important elements in reducing absence. The study concluded:
"A high level of absenteeism … is a problem which employers should monitor and control".
I totally endorse that conclusion. Good employers do it and do it very successfully, and there are a number of excellent examples. I have referred previously in the House to the Japanese companies which invest in Britain. Absenteeism among Japanese-owned firms in Britain is 2.3 per cent. against a national average of 4 per cent. That is another example of management which many of these firms, with British managers of course, do better.
The noble Earl took my right honourable friend in another place to task for mentioning the London boroughs. I entirely understood the point that he made. Perhaps, as president of the London Boroughs Association, I can reassure him. My right honourable friend was saying that this was a group which had a rather dismal record of absence through sickness. The Audit Commission study in 1993 discovered that since 1990, however, absenteeism had been reduced by a third, saving almost £11 million. It concluded that five principles are important: commitment by senior management, clear responsibilities, appropriate information, suitably trained managers and attention to staff welfare. Therefore, so far from being an example to support the noble Earl's case, the London boroughs have shown, by applying these principles, that they can significantly reduce sickness to the advantage of charge payers in London. I believe that the noble Earl missed the target on that matter.
I also welcome in the Bill the end, in 1995, of the two tiers of reimbursement. From April 1995 the statutory sick pay will be at one rate. I welcome that.
But the Bill still leaves a two-tier system in the sense that there are the statutory sick pay system and the employers' occupational sick pay schemes. I hope that my noble friend will be able, at some stage during the passage of the Bill, to give some indication whether the Government will be prepared to consider—perhaps it is not suitable for an amendment at this stage in this Bill—an opting-out system in the same way that pensions schemes can opt out of the earnings related part of the state scheme. If one can satisfy people that there is a decent occupational scheme which meets certain criteria, one can then opt out of the SSP altogether. I believe that many employers would welcome that. It is one of the points made by the CBI.
I find the anxiety expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, about employers, slightly strange coming from a party which introduced the national income surcharge and the selective employment tax. It also imposed substantial new income and profits taxes on companies. It falls a little strange from them; but I know from the noble Baroness that that concern is seriously intended. She made a great song and dance about the CBI's doubts about the Bill. I wish to quote one sentence from the brief which it sent me:
"In the context of the overall Budget package and the reassurance provided by the welcome proposals to reduce NI contributions to offset the cost of transferring SSP, the CBI does not wish to oppose the SSP Bill."
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One could read the noble Baroness's speech with some care and not actually derive that important proposition from it, which is perhaps the central proposition of the CBI's brief.
Earl Russell: My Lords, will the noble Lord quote the next sentence from the brief?
Lord Jenkin of Roding: I shall be happy to do so because the noble Baroness also made reference to it:
"There are real concerns that some employers will not be adequately compensated".
In a few moments I shall address that point because I am not here to give universal adulation to the Bill or to my noble friend, fond though I am of him. If possible, I wish to improve the Bill.
Perhaps I may take up one other point made by the noble Baroness. She said that the Bill was going to discourage employers from employing disabled people. It is now well established—there have been many studies to prove it—that disabled employees are, on average, substantially more reliable than average employees. One can understand why. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, is nodding. It is something which successive Secretaries of State have said to employers over and over again. Because disabled employees realise that they are perhaps more at risk because of their disabilities, they actually apply themselves with much greater assiduity and attention to their jobs. They are almost universally regarded as first-class employees.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, the noble Lord noticed me nodding. I am grateful to him for giving way. Does he recognise that there are now situations in which employers have made it quite clear that they are going to pay sick pay for a certain number of weeks only, take it or leave it? Does the noble Lord agree that for those people who are disabled and who may need sickness benefit, and sometimes more frequently, but not always, then that is a considerable deterrent for disabled people in getting employment with a firm which has taken up such a position?
Lord Jenkin of Roding: My Lords, I am not sure that I go along with the noble Lord on that. The question of the employment of disabled people is a complicated one. I take comfort from the fact that it is now widely regarded in employers' circles, and certainly in government circles, that disabled employees are, on average, more reliable in terms of attendance and assiduity than the average.
I have made it clear that I am not 100 per cent. happy that the Bill has the question of reimbursement absolutely right. My anxiety lies with the system for protecting small firms. My noble friend described the present system; namely, 80 per cent. reimbursement after the waiting days and 100 per cent. reimbursement after six weeks, with a threshold of £16,000 annual liability for national insurance contributions. He has quite rightly said that the Government have improved that in the Bill by raising the threshold to £20,000 and reducing the six weeks to four weeks before the 100 per cent. reimbursement comes in.
My concern (and there is some experience of this) is that the provision aims at the wrong target. The purpose

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must be not to protect small firms as such. After all, they are getting the benefit of the 1 per cent. reduction of the national insurance contribution in the same way as everybody else. The target is to protect companies of whatever size against abnormal sickness levels. That should be the target.
If one has relief which is based on arbitrary thresholds, whether it is £16,000 or £20,000 a year, that will always give rise to inequity at the margin. One can play around with tapering, and so on; but it makes the scheme a good deal more complex to administer. Any arbitrary threshold is going to give rise to inequity. In some cases, the way in which this relief works gives relief to firms which do not really need it. They end up with getting double relief. They get 100 per cent. and they also have the reduction in national insurance contributions. Even with the improvements which my noble friend talked about, I question whether that relief hits the target.
In my view, SSP relief should aim at three objectives. These have been referred to already in the debate. The primary aim should be to protect all employers against abnormal levels of sickness. Of course, it is much more likely to be the smaller firms which will be more affected. If a firm employs six people, it is not at all unusual that three of them may be off sick at the same time. But with a firm employing 6,000 people, it is inconceivable that 3,000 of them would be off work at the same time. Bhopal, or whatever, is a very unlikely exception.
Therefore any relief will tend to concentrate on the smaller firms because the larger ones, even if there is a period of flu, are likely to be able to cope and not to find themselves in financial difficulty. Second, arbitrary thresholds should be avoided. And third, as the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said, the aim should be to protect the firm's cash flow.
I believe that a better solution has been discussed at some length with my noble friend's officials. It has been put forward by the Forum for Private Business which is led by the redoubtable Stan Mendham. Any of us who have been involved in that department over the years have had experience of his acumen and determination. I have already advised my noble friend that I shall seek to table an amendment in Committee to reflect its view. That is this: the proposed small firms relief should actually be replaced by a different scheme that meets those three objectives—that is to say, protection for employers with abnormal levels of sickness; the avoidance of arbitrary thresholds; and protection for the cash flow.
Its proposal is that where the SSP payments in a particular month exceed a certain percentage of the monthly NIC payments—it suggests that perhaps a figure of 5 per cent. might be appropriate—then full reimbursement of all payments in excess of that level be made. The cost of the scheme depends on the percentage that is fixed for it. Obviously, the higher the percentage, the lower the cost because of the higher starting point. Today I have tabled a series of Questions for Written Answers which I am seeking from my noble friend's department. I seek the information which will enable me
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to quantify what the appropriate figure would be. But the aim is to produce disaster relief without presenting an unreasonable drain on public finances. We shall provide that the actual figure for the percentage contribution will be set by order so that the Minister will retain control of that.
There may well be some difficulties with that proposal which will need to be addressed. I agree with the noble Earl on the point about haste. As I have said to a number of people, the Autumn Budget was a bit too late. It did not leave enough time to allow for adequate consideration of legislation between Budget day and the beginning of the new financial year.
I hope that there will be an opportunity to discuss the details of the forum's proposals with officials and perhaps with my noble friend before Committee stage. I believe that the alternative system for giving relief hits what should be the real target—that is, firms which find themselves in difficulties because of abnormal sickness levels and not just because they happen to be small firms with national insurance contributions of less than £20,000 per year. Every employer is more than compensated for losing the 80 per cent. reimbursement. That is very welcome. Employers with abnormal sickness benefits under the Government's proposals could still be significantly out of pocket while others may well get the NIC reduction and the 100 per cent. reimbursement. I think that to link the two in the way in which the Forum of Private Business has suggested may be a better solution, but perhaps we can return to that at a later stage in our consideration of the Bill.
I should like to make it clear that I think that the main thrust of the Bill is absolutely right. The Bill moves in the right direction and certainly has my support.
4.21 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I very much agree with what my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding has just said. The Bill undoubtedly moves in the right direction, but whether it moves quite far enough or rapidly enough is an open question which your Lordships may wish to discuss at some length in Committee. In particular, I share my noble friend's doubts as to whether we have rushed into the Bill rather too quickly without having proper opportunity to consider, among other things, the views which the Confederation of British Industry has quite reasonably expressed. I have read the CBI's formal proposals and recommendations and there seems to be a certain amount in them.
Therefore, I hope that my noble friend Lord Astor will not think that I am being unhelpful when I say that although I hope that the Bill will go forward, I have some doubts as to whether it takes full advantage of the possibilities of legislation in this area. In particular, I am very sorry indeed that it does not include provision for opting out. Where a company has an adequate, good and proper scheme, I see no reason why, just as with other social benefits, it should not be able to seek the views and the permission of my right honourable friend to opt out and to substitute its own scheme for government intervention. Opting out is a matter that requires exploring. For my part, I do not see that there is any

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need to defer that, as has been suggested, until another opportunity for legislation arises. One knows only too well from experience in this area that one does not often have an opportunity for legislation. If one does not take the opportunity when a Bill is before us, one may be deferring for a good many years improvements that could be made.
Therefore, as I have said, I hope that we will go forward with this Bill, but without excessive speed and that we shall have an opportunity of considering not only the doubts which the noble Earl, Lord Russell, has put to us—I always listen to the noble Earl with great interest although not always with agreement—but also the points which my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding has put forward so that we shall be able to thrash this out properly because this is a matter of great importance to a very large number of our fellow countrymen. It is very important that we should get it right. I think that the general view which has been expressed in your Lordships' House this afternoon is the view of the country which is that we have not got it quite right yet and that further improvement is needed.
I have only one other point to make. It is a question for my noble friend Lord Astor. I notice that the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum states:
"The Bill is expected to have no effect on public sector manpower".
I find that very surprising. We are shifting from a system under which very large sums of public money were transferred towards the payment of benefits. We are talking of something in the nature of £700 million per year. Proper supervision of financial transactions of that kind surely demands considerable manpower. Therefore, when one goes forward, as we are doing, with removing that kind of payment altogether and cancelling it out, I should have thought that if the department made an effort there could be quite substantial reductions in manpower. I hope, therefore, that not only will my noble friend say something about that this afternoon, but that we shall pursue that aspect of the matter in Committee. I know only too well, as do those of us who have served in these departments, how easily they accumulate numbers and how they tend to over-elaborate various aspects and to recruit more and more staff for very detailed work. It is up to Ministers to stop them doing that. It seems to me that it is most unfortunate that the Bill states that there will be,
"no effect on public sector manpower".
That is giving the wrong signal to the department and it is certainly giving the wrong signal to the House.
4.26 p.m.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, I had the privilege of following the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, in our debate yesterday. I said that it was the first time that I had done so on this subject for many years, but here we are again and I am following him once more. I do not want to get into the habit of doing so. However, since I am following the noble Lord, I should like to say how very much I agree with almost everything that he said. I agree particularly that we have not yet got the Bill right. I am expressing my view now and the noble Lord does not have to agree. The other place was not given an
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opportunity for effective consultation. I believe that much more consultation is needed. That view was reflected in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding.
Before I get into that argument, as I very much want to, I should like to follow-up an argument that we had yesterday when my noble friends said that this Bill and in particular yesterday's Bill, the Social Security (Contributions) Bill, are parts of the taxation package, although technically this Bill relates to national insurance. I should have looked up yesterday—I did so overnight—the speech that was made by the Leader of the House of Commons, Mr. Tony Newton, on 14th December when he put forward the proposal, to which I strongly object, for guillotining Bills even before the Second Reading has taken place. Mr. Newton said:
"the two Bills represent two important elements in my right hon. and learned Friend's Budget, involving on the one hand significant amounts of revenue and, on the other, significant amounts of expenditure. They are therefore important elements in a policy—which is overwhelmingly supported, I think, by Conservative Members, if not by the Opposition—to improve public finances and to ensure that the recovery now taking place continues and is sustained".—[Official Report. Commons, 14/12/93; col. 845.]
In his view this is all part of the Budget strategy and it does not matter whether it is called taxation or national insurance. I do not suppose that I shall be able to persuade the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter of that—and I did not when we exchanged views on this yesterday—but the Minister in another place clearly takes the same view.
During our debate mention was made of the opposition to and the history of the Bill. I wish to remind the House of the opposition put forward to the 1990 Bill and to do so more extensively than did my noble friend Lady Turner. When changes to the legislation were made in 1990 there was opposition from a wide range of organisations representing employers and claimants. The CBI described the measure as a:
"fundamental breach of the partnership agreement between the State and employers delivering a vital social security benefit".
It called on the Government to withdraw the Bill which preceded this Bill. The National Federation of Self-Employed and Small Businesses, now known as the Federation of Small Businesses, was strongly opposed to what it saw as a break in the agreement with the Government that employers would not be asked to foot the Bill for SSP. It argued that the reduction in national insurance contributions for a small business could be rendered meaningless for a small employer faced with an employee suffering a prolonged bout of sickness. The National Farmers' Union argued that:
"the imposition of significant new costs on businesses struggling at this time of high inflation and interest rates, and a deepening recession, is most inappropriate (not to say politically surprising)".
The National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux was also anxious and I shall deal with that in more detail than did the noble Earl, Lord Russell. The Low Pay Unit pointed to difficulties which it said low-paid workers had in getting their SSP paid and pointed to cases where people had been refused SSP by their employers or had been dismissed. The Disability Alliance drew attention

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to similar cases and questioned the Government's confidence that greater discrimination by employers would not result from the changes.
Following a considerable amount of such pressure from those and other organisations two significant changes were introduced in this House. The first, which will be widely recalled, was the removal of the so-called "Henry VIII" clause, which would have allowed the new 80 per cent. rate of compensation for employers to be altered by order. Tribute has been paid to the noble Lords, Lord Boyd-Carpenter and Lord Jenkin of Roding, and to the noble Earl, Lord Russell. They played a part in that, but I cannot claim to have done so.
I suggest that the Bill before us owes something to the criticisms which were made public, first, by the Comptroller and Auditor General in January 1993. He complained about the inaccuracies in payment and about insufficient monitoring by the Department of Social Security. The National Audit Office also reported on the issue of employers refusing to pay employees the SSP to which they were entitled. The Low Pay Unit and the NACAB stated that employers were undermining the rights of employees.
Thus, it is not surprising that your Lordships believe that we must get it right this time. I was glad to hear that sentiment expressed by my noble friend Lady Turner and repeated by noble Lords opposite. Your Lordships will not be surprised to hear that I should prefer the Bill to be dropped at this stage or that there should be a considerable period of time before its Committee and Report stages so as to enable a great deal of consultation in order to get it right, as was said by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter.
I wish to add to the comments made by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, about the anxieties of the citizens advice bureaux. The noble Earl gave several examples and I believe that it may be useful to have some others. The CAB view with considerable concern the proposals in the Bill and state:
"We are concerned that by abolishing the right of employers to recover 80 per cent. of statutory sick pay paid to employees, the proposals will provide employers with a positive incentive to dismiss workers who become sick".
I shall repeat that sentence because it lies at the nub of the debate:
"the proposals will provide employers with a positive incentive to dismiss workers who become sick".
The CAB continue:
"CAB experience already shows that some employees are dismissed when they are off sick".
The noble Earl gave some examples and it is worthwhile giving one or two more. A citizens advice bureau in Cumbria was consulted by a client who had been given a contract of employment stating that she would be paid 80 per cent. of statutory sick pay for the first six weeks of illness as that was all the employer could claim from the Department of Social Security. A citizens advice bureau in south Wales reported a local boss of a large retail group who told his employees that he did not pay statutory sick pay. Another CAB in south Wales reported a client who due to an accident at work was off sick for two weeks. Her employer would pay her only for the first week. The CAB noted:
"She cannot get benefits".
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I could continue with such examples and in quoting them I wish to pay tribute to the work carried out by the CAB in large cities and towns throughout the country. They enable the victims of inadequate legislation which is passed by this House to find their way through the morass of Acts which are passed; they help individually with the difficulties of those whom they advise; and they carry out research in briefing Members of your Lordships' House for debates such as this. They comprise a magnificent organisation and deserve congratulations and as much money as we can afford.
I wish to take up the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding. They referred to the document issued by the Forum of Private Businesses, which expressed concern about the impact of the statutory sick pay changes announced in the Budget and now contained in the Bill. It went so far as to urge Members in another place to vote against the Bill. Members in another place did so, but what difference did it make? They had only a few hours to debate the Bill on Second Reading, Report and Third Reading. I was glad to see in the note, which was confirmed by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, that an amendment to the Bill will be tabled. It remains to be seen whether the amendment is one that we can support, but it is healthy that the noble Lord is prepared to table it.
The Federation of Small Businesses totally rejects the Bill. It stated:
"The FSB is concerned that this far reaching measure is being taken under a time order leaving Members of Parliament with inadequate time to consider its full implication on employers and their employees. We urge Members of Parliament to oppose this restrictive procedure".
The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, expressed surprise that Members on this side of the House should have any interest in small businesses. As a result of the way in which his party has run the economy there are more small businesses because there are fewer big businesses. We are told that the basis for the present growth in our economy—thank heavens that there is any growth at all—is the small businesses. Of course we are interested in the same way as we are interested in the attitude of the TUC. It has expressed its views most strongly. One is not surprised that the TUC's attitude to the Statutory Sick Pay Bill is that it is the first step towards the Right-wing Tories' objective of a two-tier welfare state. That is a fear that I share. The workers and employers are being forced into paying for sickness while others will be left in means-tested poverty. I share the anxieties of the TUC, small businesses and the CAB.
We have heard also some of the depth of the opposition of the CBI. It says that it is not opposing the Bill, but it has expressed its anxieties about it and this House would be extremely foolish not to take seriously the advice of the CBI. Therefore, although we must give the Bill a Second Reading today, I hope that the Government will take seriously the wide representations that have been made. I hope that they will either drop the Bill or give proper time for consultation so that your Lordships' House can deal properly with the legislation. We shall then be able to improve the Bill to the benefit of those who have expressed anxieties about it.
4.40 p.m.
Lord Reay: My Lords, I support the broad thrust of the Bill. As other noble Lords have mentioned, days lost through sickness have been estimated to cost the national economy directly £13 billion per year and the percentage of days lost is currently the second highest in the Community, after the Netherlands. I believe that it is as much as 50 per cent. higher than it is in the United States.
As the Minister for Social Security said in another place on Second Reading, it is a problem which thrives in conditions of managerial neglect and diminishes with managerial attention. This Bill is designed to stimulate managerial attention. There is little doubt that employers have a great influence on many of the factors determining sick leave rates.
A survey of absence from work published in May of last year by the CBI, which was quoted by my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding, found that poor motivation was found to be the principal cause of absence from work in the case of manual workers and the second major cause after work-related stress in the case of non-manual workers. The same survey concluded that management commitment, improved monitoring and the provision of absence statistics to line management —all of those being managerial tasks—are the main factors helping to reduce absenteeism. The survey revealed that there had been a recent improvement in sickness absence trends among full-time manual workers starting in 1989 and among all employees since 1991. Nevertheless, despite that development, I believe that the Government are justified in seeking to obtain further improvements by transferring onto industry the cost of statutory sick pay—fully for large companies and substantially in the case of small companies.
At the same time, I applaud the Government's wise decision to reduce employers' national insurance contributions to an extent which more than compensates in aggregate for the cost of transferring the responsibility for statutory sick pay. The Government have thus shown that they are not seeking to burden industry with additional costs and have also thereby secured a muted resistance from industry.
There is a wide acknowledgement that the Government's case has merit. The CBI has advised me—and I declare an interest in that I hold a brief on behalf of the CBI—as it has advised other noble Lords, that it does not wish to oppose the Bill. At the same time, it has expressed reasonable anxieties about some aspects of the Bill, and I should like to follow other noble Lords in mentioning them.
First, it is worth making the point that the compensation is somewhat rough and ready in nature and some industries will benefit more from or be hit harder by the changes than others. Some industries where sickness rates are abnormally high and where arguably the employer cannot do much to remedy the situation—construction and heavy engineering may be examples—will be affected adversely by the changes. That may be the case also as regards small companies which find themselves deprived for several days or
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weeks of key personnel during, for example, a flu epidemic. I hope that the Government will monitor the, effect of the legislation on such cases. Meanwhile, I shall be interested to see the amendments to be tabled by my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding.
There is also considerable anxiety lest the changes relating directly to statutory sick pay prove more permanent than the compensating reduction in national insurance contributions. No government can or should give binding long-term commitments on rates of tax, but I emphasise to the Government the importance of their continuing to be seen as the party which exacts relatively low national insurance contributions from industry. The employer's national insurance contribution for a low-paid worker today is 3.6 per cent. compared with 13.5 per cent. in 1979. The Government have now also made an implicit bargain which it will be important from the point of view of government-industry relations to keep.
A most legitimate anxiety and fear of industry is that what the Government now propose to do as regards statutory sick pay will set a precedent for the transfer onto the back of industry of other social costs which should be borne properly by government alone. I have in mind in particular statutory maternity pay, the provisions of which are due to be expanded later this year so that we can comply with the terms of the pregnant worker's directive. Under the terms of a consultative document circulated by the Government, they are obviously thinking of passing some of the additional costs onto industry by reducing industry's entitlement to reimbursement.
Those are social costs. There is no scope for involving industry in order to reduce their incidence as there is with sick pay. I submit that those costs should be met in full by the Government. I hope that they will announce soon that they have decided to withdraw that consultative document. I suggest that to do otherwise would be to fly wholly in the face of the campaign which they have waged to keep industry competitive by protecting it fully from the effects of social legislation emanating from Brussels.
I am grateful to the Government for the announcement by the Minister for Social Security in the winding-up of the Second Reading debate in another place that they are prepared to mount a fundamental review of the SSP scheme's compliance burden on business, and in particular to consider whether firms offering generous occupational sick pay schemes could opt out of the SSP scheme. After this legislation, that scheme will still represent quite an onerous bureaucratic imposition on industry to little obvious benefit if sick pay is no longer to be reimbursed. I hope that the Government will conclude that they can go further along the road of cutting the red tape in that case and, if possible, in time to include their conclusions in this Bill if necessary.
If the Bill helps to improve sickness leave rates in this country it will have been worth-while. Industry would benefit from such an effect. Therefore, the Bill could be said to be setting out to help industry to help itself and the taxpayer at the same time. I am willing to look at it in that way. When Sweden passed the costs of

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the first two weeks' sick pay onto employers, as the Minister told another place, that country's supply of flu vaccine ran out as employers rushed to protect their interests and their workforce. In Japanese companies in this country sickness leave rates are typically half the national average, as my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding pointed out. Other firms have also done as well. The Bill has considerable scope for continuing those recent improvements, and subject to the anxieties which I have expressed I welcome its introduction this afternoon.
4.48 p.m.
Lord Dean of Harptree: My Lords, the background to the Bill, as I see it, is the ever-increasing cost of social security benefits which have to be paid for by the working population and taxpayers. Consequently, it is right to look for savings when they can be made without hardship or where alternative arrangements are available. I believe that it is reasonable to ask larger employers to meet the full costs of statutory sick pay in return for reduced contributions. I agree with my noble friend Lord Astor, who introduced the Bill, that that should help to focus attention on our poor record of working days lost through sickness. We appear to lose more days than almost any other comparable country in the European Community. We cannot say that we are less healthy than they are. I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Russell, that one has to be somewhat careful when interpreting such figures. Nonetheless, there can be no doubt that there is a big drain on our resources and one which is very much bigger than that of most other comparable industrial countries.
The relationship between the statutory sick pay scheme and occupational sick pay schemes was mentioned especially by the noble Baroness, Lady Turner. I wonder increasingly whether there is now a duplication between the two schemes and, therefore, unnecessary administrative expense. I notice that the Minister of State for Social Security in another place on 2nd November 1988 gave information about occupational sick pay schemes which was taken from a survey carried out in February of the same year. The survey found that 91 per cent. of the workforce is covered by occupational schemes, which often give a higher level of payment and for a longer period than statutory sick pay. I wonder whether my noble friend the Minister will be able to update those figures and tell us what progress, if any, has been made since that survey was conducted in 1988.
I very much concur with my noble friends Lord Jenkin of Roding and Lord Boyd-Carpenter in the disappointment they expressed that there is no provision for opting out. Now that we are getting rid of the reimbursement for the larger employers, it seems to me that it should be possible for them to contract out of the statutory sick pay scheme completely, so long as they can show that they are providing benefits through their own arrangements which are at least as good as those provided by the statutory scheme. After all, there are
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highly respectable precedents for that in the contracting-out of occupational pension schemes which achieve a satisfactory level of benefit.
So far as concerns small employers, I welcome the additional help which is offered by the Bill, especially the increase of the small employers' relief to those paying less than £20,000 in national insurance contributions and the full reimbursement after four instead of six weeks. That, together with the measures announced in the Budget, should give a real boost to small employers. But, as has already been mentioned in the debate, there are serious disadvantages with cut-off points and thresholds. They can cause difficulty and resentment for those who are on the wrong side of the line. For example, a firm paying, say, £22,000 in national insurance contributions may be competing for markets with a firm paying, say, £18,000. The former has to pay the lot, while the latter obtains full reimbursement. That is bound to lead to feelings of unfairness and unfair competition.
When you have a cut-off point at whatever level, there must always be the temptation for an employer who is just above the threshold to lay off labour so that he can reduce his liability. There are difficulties inevitably inherent in thresholds or cut-offs. I wonder whether it would be possible to have a taper rather than an all-or-nothing situation, so that firms paying between, say, £20,000 and £30,000 would obtain relief on a declining scale. It is possible that my noble friend will tell me that that is far too complicated and that there is already enough bureaucracy in the scheme. However, there are precedents for relief or benefit on a declining scale in the national insurance scheme.
My final point with regard to small employers is to ask why there should be a period of four weeks. Of course, it is an improvement on six weeks and is very much to be welcomed. But I should like to see a period of two weeks for small employers. When he replies, perhaps my noble friend can tell the House what the additional cost would be of starting the reimbursement after two weeks' sickness rather than four. With those reservations, I support the Bill as a sensible and reasonable measure.
4.55 p.m.
Lord Rea: My Lords, I believe that noble Lords from all sides of the House will accept that governments have to take unpopular measures from time to time for the greater good in the long term. However, for whose greater good will, of course, be debatable, with—to be simplistic—Conservative governments tending to back measures protecting employers and property owners (but always in the name of the economy as a whole) and with Labour governments tending to introduce measures to protect the employee and to decrease differentials between the richest and the poorest members of society.
However, the Bill seems calculated to please no one. Even the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, that eloquent and doughty defender of the Government through thick and thin, has some doubts. Moreover, even his noble friends Lord Jenkin, my namesake, the noble Lord, Lord Reay, and the noble Lord, Lord Dean

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of Harptree, have some caveats and, in the case of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, are even thinking of introducing some amendments.
The Bill is heavily criticised by business, especially small businesses, as has been mentioned by all speakers. It is also criticised by employees and those who act as their advocates, such as the TUC and the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux. According to the noble Viscount, and the briefing from Conservative Central Office, the main justification for the Bill is:
"to encourage such companies"—
that is, those with higher than average sickness levels—
"to ensure that staff are motivated better, health is promoted better and absences monitored better".
The Bill seems a tortuous and complex way to do that. According to the CBI in its much-quoted brief:
"Incentives to reduce the costs of sickness absence are not necessary in the private sector where lost productivity provides sufficient incentive".
Bang goes the main point of the Bill. The CBI goes on to say:
"Better controls are needed in the public services where sickness absence rates are a quarter higher than the private sector sector average".
In my view, it is very questionable whether the proposals in the Bill will have any such effect on public services or, for that matter, on other large employers. The reduced employer national insurance contributions will, as the noble Viscount said, more than compensate for the ending of statutory sick pay reimbursement. For a large organisation, it is a mere accounting exercise to make the adjustment. There will not even be much reduction in clerical and paperwork, as in both small and large companies medical certificates for sickness will still have to be produced by employees and processed so as to entitle them to SSP, even if that is not going to be reimbursed to them.
I have been impressed—as have other noble Lords—by the comments on the Bill by organisations representing small business, all of which are highly critical of the Bill. As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, pointed out in an eloquent description of the working of statistics, there is a great variation in the amount of sickness related to different types of work. Some work, for example construction, necessarily has a higher injury and wear and tear rate than a sedentary job, however much care is taken. I agree there is tremendous scope for safety measures to be observed properly. Minor impairments of physical health have a much greater impact when a job is physically demanding. As I believe noble Lords opposite have all said, the system should be more flexible to allow for this sort of variation.
Variation in levels of sickness due to flu epidemics, as has been pointed out by a number of speakers, can have much greater impact on firms with small numbers of employees. Apart from difficulties keeping the business going at all due to lack of staff, there may be serious short-term cash flow problems. With many businesses just keeping their heads above water in the present economic situation, lack of reimbursement of SSP could be the straw that breaks the camel's back. If this Bill goes through as it is now, we are likely to see more firms going into receivership.
The Federation of Small Businesses totally rejects the Bill. The Forum of Private Business, in a well
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argued brief, puts forward suggestions to amend the Bill quite drastically to protect small businesses. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, has described the principles behind some amendments which he will put forward. The poverty trap where a business loses its right to reimbursement when its national insurance annual liability is over £20,000 has been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Harptree. Clearly this is an anomaly which should have been anticipated. As we are sadly lumbered with the Bill, we will have to amend it here, as well as in other aspects, to introduce—as the noble Lord said—some form of sliding scale or taper.
However, having touched on the opposition to the Bill by employers, my main concern is the effect it will have on employees. We have heard about the reaction to the Bill from responsible employer organisations who represent on the whole good employers, many of whom operate occupational sick pay schemes. However, there are a sizeable number of unscrupulous employers who already avoid their obligations as employers to pay SSP, and avoid other regulations whenever they can. There is no doubt that this type of penny pinching employer often is the employer of part-time, low paid, non-unionised workers who have few people to back them. This type of employer will try every trick to avoid paying statutory sick pay when he cannot claim it back.
When I work as a GP I come across cases of many small employers who have failed to operate the SSP scheme properly. Sometimes this has been because they had no clerical back-up—the firm being too small—and sometimes it has been due to simple ignorance. Sometimes, less commonly, they have failed to operate the scheme properly for less worthy reasons. The noble Earl, Lord Russell, referred to the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux, as did my noble friend Lord Ennals who mentioned it several times. That body can give evidence of many examples of this type of behaviour by firms and of firms who even now make workers redundant when the latter are off sick for quite genuine reasons, sometimes after having worked loyally for the firm for years. There can be little doubt that, when small firms have to foot the entire bill for the first four weeks of each episode of sickness, more workers will get the sack if they are ill, usually through no fault of their own.
As my noble friend Lord Ennals said, prospective employers will be less ready to take on workers who have a chronic or recurrent health problem. I take the point that disabled people are good workers—I do not deny that—but some people have an unfortunate tendency for a condition to recur and afflict them from time to time and make them temporarily unable to work. An example is asthmatics, who, when they are not having an asthma attack, may be extremely good workers. It was to prevent this kind of problem, among other hardships, where sick people are more likely to lose their job and where it will be more difficult for them to obtain jobs, that William Beveridge drew up the basic principles of our welfare system to abolish the evils of squalor, want, ignorance, and idleness. This mean and unnecessary little Bill seems to have few friends. It is part of a package of measures which this Government are pushing through which are gradually undermining

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the system of social protection which makes this country a tolerable place in which ordinary people can live and work.
5.6 p.m.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, claimed, as she did yesterday, that this Bill was rushed through another place without proper debate. We have an opportunity in this House to have proper debate and that is what we have had today. After listening to the noble Baroness I must say that I have detected nothing from the Labour Party other than that it is against the Bill. The party fails to explain adequately the reasons why it is against the Bill, let alone offer an alternative policy.
The noble Earl, Lord Russell, once described a Minister, during the passage of the previous statutory sick pay Bill, as standing at the burning Dispatch Box from whence all but he had fled. I hope he noticed today that there was genuine support from this side of the House for the principles of the Bill. Of course I recognise the concerns that have been raised, in particular those that relate to small business. The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, said we had been urged to drop the Bill. I do not believe that is the case. Neither the CBI, as my noble friend Lord Reay said, nor the Forum of Private Business have suggested that. They have highlighted reasonable concerns and I shall seek to address those.
The noble Earl, Lord Russell, also suggested that this measure was dismantling the welfare state. That is absolutely untrue. I only have to remind the noble Earl of the uprating statement that he and I discussed. There have been increases in benefits in line with inflation and some benefits have been increased over and above inflation. The noble Earl was also concerned about the Government's future plans. He fears that we may increase employers' national insurance contribution rates in future years. While no government can give guarantees about the future levels of those rates, we can point to an impressive record from which employers can draw great consolation.
Baroness Turner of Camden: Really!
Viscount Astor: Yes, my Lords. The noble Baroness might take note that in 1979 contribution rates were 13.5 per cent. They now range from 4.6 per cent. to 10.4 per cent. and these will be reduced to 3.6 per cent. and 10.2 per cent. respectively from next April. Part of those reductions were made in 1991 when the SSP reimbursement rate was reduced to 80 per cent. That reduction has held and the process of reduction will continue next April.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, the noble Viscount surely recollects that when SSP was first introduced it was against the background that we should guarantee employers full reimbursement. That is what I meant when I said that the Government had reneged on their previous promises.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, we are reducing national insurance contribution rates. Therefore, business overall
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will be better off. It will be more than £100 million better off. When the party of the noble Baroness was in power all it did was to clobber business.
It has been claimed that ending the SSP reimbursement will result in the sacking of sick workers. Reference has also been made to the anxieties expressed recently by the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux that the removal of SSP reimbursement will affect the rights of employees. I should stress that the abolition of the 80 per cent. reimbursement in no way affects the rights of individual employees to SSP. They will continue to be entitled to a prescribed minimum amount of sick pay provided they are sick, absent from work for at least four days in a row and satisfy other qualifying conditions. In fact, the vast majority of employees will have their SSP topped up—to full pay in many cases—by occupational sick pay.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, can the Minister say whether in preparing the Bill there has been consultation with the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, we are certainly aware of its anxieties. I am about to turn to that matter, if the noble Lord will allow me.
Similar charges were made when the SSP scheme was first introduced more than 10 years ago and on subsequent occasions when changes were made. The most recent charge was made three years ago when the reimbursement rate was reduced from 100 per cent. to 80 per cent. They were and remain largely unfounded.
The CAB has recently highlighted some instances where employers have failed to pay SSP when it appears to have been due or have threatened to sack sick employees. The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, gave some examples. Those cases need to be viewed in perspective.
The CAB has identified a handful of cases in which it appears that the SSP scheme has not been implemented as intended. There are some 1.2 million employers in this country who are potentially liable to pay SSP and some 330,000 employees receive SSP at any given time during the year. It is hardly surprising, I am afraid, that there may be a few renegade employers who will try to avoid their legal responsibilities. Of course, I deprecate those practices, but we believe that safeguards are built into the legislation to protect employees' rights. They specifically prevent an employer from ending an employee's contract of service solely or mainly to avoid SSP liability. I would urge the CAB—and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Ennals and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, or any organisation to which malpractices are reported—to let my department know immediately of any such instances.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for what he said. Having confirmed that he did not consult with the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux will he say what other organisations the department consulted before bringing the Bill before the House?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, we consult many organisations about government policy. However, we

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do not necessarily go to any particular organisation with what we propose in a Bill. That would not be normal practice. However, we are in close touch with organisations and are well aware of their anxieties.
Where an employer fails to comply with an adjudication officer's decision that SSP is due within the prescribed time, responsibility for payment passes to the department. The employee's SSP rights are therefore fully protected if the matter is brought to our attention.
The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, and my noble friend Lord Jenkin were concerned about sick and disabled employees and the effect that abolishing reimbursement might have on the existing jobs of disabled people and the prospective employment prospects of those who are seeking work. They have claimed that it will lead employers to sack employees, particularly the disabled and those less healthy employees who are more prone to absence due to sickness. As I have already mentioned, that charge has been levelled ever since the SSP scheme was first introduced more then 10 years ago, but no evidence has ever been proffered to justify that charge.
We do not expect there to be any changes in the pattern of employment of people with disabilities as a result of the abolition of SSP reimbursement. People with the right attitude, the necessary skills, and with the right kind of help will always be able to find work because those attributes are more important than their past health record.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for being kind enough to give way. He inadvertently associated me with the criticisms that have been made by parties opposite. I should like to make it absolutely clear that I am 100 per cent. in agreement with what he has just said.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, I am very grateful for my noble friend's support. I meant to say that my noble friend mentioned in his speech that there was some anxiety.
I was going to say, as my noble friend reminded the House, that the sick absence record of workers with disabilities is no worse, and is often better, than that of their able-bodied counterparts.
Lord Rea: My Lords, since the matter has arisen on a number of occasions, I believe that the Government, and many large employers, are fully aware of the fact that disabled people often have a very good work record. Unfortunately, that is not fully appreciated and understood by a large number of employers in the country.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, the noble Lord mentioned large employers. Employees of small employers have much better sickness records.
Research carried out by the Centre for Research in Social Policy shows that the reduction in SSP reimbursement from 100 per cent. to 80 per cent. in April 1991 had no impact whatsoever on the willingness of employers to recruit workers with disabilities. It confirmed our earlier research findings that employees with disabilities tend to take less time off sick than able-bodied colleagues. The conclusion is that there is
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no evidence to back up the scaremongering that the job prospects of those with disabilities have been affected by the introduction of and subsequent changes to the SSP scheme. In the Government's view, there are many other factors of far greater importance in determining job opportunities for people with disabilities. The Government will continue to promote job opportunities for such people.
Your Lordships may recall that my right honourable friend, in his social security up-rating Statement, said that disability working allowance is to be made more attractive. From April 1995, DWA beneficiaries will be entitled to free prescriptions, free dental treatment and other National Health Service benefits. That will help to make finding a job more attractive.
I should remind the House that nine out of 10 employees work for employers with occupational sick pay schemes which usually pay more than the SSP due. Occupational sick pay costs are far greater than SSP costs. Therefore, if financial costs were a factor, employers would already have let those employees go.
The recent CBI/Percom survey on absence from work reports that over 90 per cent. of organisations had either made no changes to their occupational sick pay arrangements or had improved the benefits for their employees in the past five years despite the recession and the reduction to 80 per cent. SSP reimbursement.
Anxiety has been expressed by many noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding and my noble friend Lord Dean of Harptree, about small employers. They mentioned the position of small businesses unexpectedly hit by illness among a large proportion of their workforce. Such an event, while rare, would undoubtedly be a severe blow. However, the real problem in such cases is the loss of production allied to the difficulty and expense of finding a temporary replacement for sick workers. The extra costs of SSP—nothing for the first three days arid about £10 a day per employee thereafter—will be marginal. Businesses need to plan for such an eventuality and do so, for example, by taking out insurance. Firms with low sick absence rates—and many small companies fit into that category—will have extra cash in future years to meet the cost of that insurance because of the reduction in their national insurance contributions liability.
As I mentioned earlier, small companies tend to have a lower instance of sickness absence than larger firms and therefore are likely to benefit more from the overall SSP national insurance contributions reductions package. Indeed the national insurance contributions reductions are slanted towards smaller employers who tend to employ the less highly paid worker.
Nevertheless, the Government accept that small employers faced with a large number of lengthy sick absences—those stretching beyond four weeks—are more in need of special help. That is why we intend to make generous improvements in the existing small employers' relief provisions by increasing the number of employers who will be eligible to benefit from that concession. We shall also be reducing the period after which full reimbursement is available from the present six weeks to four weeks.

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We believe that those enhancements to small employers' relief provisions, allied to the reductions in national insurance contributions, will ensure that no business with average sickness levels will lose financially as a result of the abolition of the 80 per cent. rate.
My noble friend Lord Dean asked how much it would cost to give help for small employers after two weeks' sickness instead of four. Allowing for full reimbursement to small employers after two weeks instead of four would cost about £20 million extra. We believe that four weeks is a better point at which to offer 100 per cent. reimbursement. If full reimbursement were offered at too early a stage there would be less incentive for employers to tackle poor attendance records.
My noble friend also asked about introducing a taper. A tapered system of help for small employers would be difficult to operate and to police by the Contributions Agency. Different small employers would be due different levels of help. We are anxious to simplify the scheme, not to complicate it.
My noble friend Lord Jenkin and others spoke about the proposals of the Forum of Private Business. I have listened carefully to the proposals of the forum. They have been clearly expressed today by my noble friend. However, I have to say that they have serious drawbacks.
For example, the proposals would replace rather than augment the existing help for small employers, which, as your Lordships know, the Government intend to improve in the way already described. Some employers would be worse off as a result of their proposed change. Such a change would increase the scope for abuse in that unscrupulous employers could increase the amount of SSP due for payment in any particular month by deliberately delaying payments due for an earlier period so as to qualify for full reimbursement. This would inevitably lead to the keeping of more complicated records and more intense policing of the scheme by the Contributions Agency's inspectors. We do not wish to place an increased administrative burden on either employers or the Contributions Agency.
Furthermore, finding the right level at which to pitch the threshold for reimbursement is not an easy task. Considerable analysis and possibly consultation with industry would be necessary before a fair level could be found which offered the protection sought by the Forum of Private Business while safeguarding the scheme against excessive compensation payments. While it is perhaps unlikely that a large employer would have sick absence levels high enough to qualify, there is nothing in the proposal to prevent large or medium-sized companies from benefiting. That would seriously inhibit the incentive of industry to tackle high sickness absence rates.
We believe that the simplest and fairest method of fully reimbursing small employers for the SSP costs of lengthy absences is to stick by the tried and tested existing provisions, with the enhancements which I have already described. However, no doubt we shall have further opportunity to discuss those points in detail
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in Committee. I shall, of course, be happy to meet my noble friend and representatives of the Forum of Private Business to discuss their proposals.
My noble friends Lord Reay, Lord Dean and Lord Boyd-Carpenter were concerned about opting out and the administrative burden placed on employers by the scheme. I have already explained why the Government believe that the abolition of the rate will help to reduce the burden. The Government are concerned to reduce and, wherever possible, remove unnecessary burdens on employers. That is precisely why we have announced in another place during the debate on the Bill that we shall be conducting a fundamental review of the compliance burden on business of the SSP scheme.
I am glad to say that a working group consisting of officials, employers and employers' organisations has already been considering how administrative burdens of the scheme might be removed or eased without it affecting employees' rights. However, the proposed abolition of the 80 per cent. reimbursement rate provides further scope for reviewing the provisions of the scheme. The working group will also be considering whether firms with occupational sick pay schemes which pay at least the equivalent of SSP entitlement could stop paying SSP. That is a considerable task which inevitably will take some time and may involve changes in primary legislation. If that is so, your Lordships will have the opportunity to debate any such changes arising from the working group's deliberations.
My noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter referred to Civil Service manpower. We are always concerned that manpower should be kept under control and that the Government should operate an efficient service. We shall be reviewing the effects of the Bill on Civil Service manpower once the changes are made to see whether there is scope for saving. However, during the first year we expect that the Contributions Agency will have to make additional efforts to ensure that all employers are aware of the new rules and implement them properly. Therefore, we do not envisage any reductions in that first year.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, when we come to the next stage of the Bill, will my noble friend modify the blunt statement on the face of the memorandum that there will be no saving in public service manpower? I understand that he now says that there may well be a saving after the first year. That is quite a different matter.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, there may well be a saving, but I should not like to guarantee it. Obviously the proposal is a quite radical change. It will take some time to be fully implemented. It is important that we use the manpower that we have to ensure that all employers realise not only their responsibilities to their employees but also how to carry out the new system to ensure that their employees are treated in a proper way.
My noble friend Lord Reay asked whether the Government will monitor the effects of the Bill. We shall be considering the effects. We shall consider whether research should be mounted to augment our normal sources of information on SSP.

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My noble friend was also concerned about the cost of improving maternity pay. We hope to announce our final decisions on implementing the maternity pay aspect of the Pregnant Workers Directive. I am sure your Lordships will understand if I do not anticipate those decisions today. However, I can give an assurance that there will be an opportunity to debate the proposals when they come before your Lordships.
My noble friend Lord Dean asked about the research on the 1988 sick pay report. The recent research by the Centre for Research in Social Policy which we intend to publish shortly indicates that occupational sick pay coverage is now broadly in line with the findings of the 1988 IFF study. The 1991 reduction in the SSP reimbursement rate has had little or no effect on employers' sick pay schemes.
We have had an interesting debate. The Government's proposals on SSP and employers' national insurance contributions will help industry and job creation. I should remind your Lordships that, in
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addition to the very helpful reductions in employers' national insurance contributions which will more than compensate employers as a whole for their extra SSP costs, the Chancellor's Budget included other measures to help business. Those have been widely welcomed.
The CBI accepts that the Budget proposals overall are good for business. In particular, it has welcomed the reductions in employers' national insurance contributions and has made it clear that it does not oppose the Bill. The Institute of Directors has also given an overall welcome to the SSP/employers' national insurance contributions package. That surely is a good indication that the fears expressed by some noble Lords are not shared by the representatives of industry. It is a good Bill. I commend it to the House.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
House adjourned at twenty-eight minutes past five o'clock.

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  SICK STUDENTS: FINANCING
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  TAX INCREASES: EFFECT OF BUDGET
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