Sitting of 28 March 1994

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

    Child Care Allowance
    Dr. Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement on the effectiveness of the child care allowance for those in receipt of family credit.
    The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. peter Lilley): We expect the child care allowance to be very effective in helping low-income families back into work and improving their living standards.
    Dr. Jones: Will the Secretary of State make it clear that that allowance is not a cash benefit and that, although some people will gain provided that they are not paying much more than £1.50 an hour for child care, the poorest—those receiving maximum family credit—and those who use relatives to look after their children will gain nothing? What will the Secretary of State do to help them?
    Mr. Lilley: I will not make those things clear because they are not correct. I am sorry that the hon. Lady greets this welcome reform so sourly, as it has been welcomed by everyone else in the sphere. Far from its helping only a few, we estimate that it will help 150,000 people, of whom 50,000 will be encouraged back to work. The people who are already on maximum family credit are usually those who work the shortest hours, many of whom will be able to increase their hours if they become eligible for child care costs. The allowance will enable them to put their children in care while they are working.

    Pensioners' Incomes
    Mr. Bates: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the latest estimate of the value of the average pensioner's income from savings and occupational pensions; and what were the comparable figures in 1979.
    Mr. Lilley: In 1990–91—the latest year for which information is available—the estimated average value of pensioners' income from savings and occupational pensions was £63.20, which is an increase of more than 125 per cent. in real terms on the comparable figure of £27.80 in 1979.
    Mr. Bates: But is not it also the case that pensioner living standards and incomes are up on the 1979 figures and that the only figures that are going down are the
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    number of pensioner couples in the lowest income band and the amount of press coverage that such excellent news receives?
    Mr. Lilley: My hon. Friend makes a good point. I have found that the most telling evidence of good news is the lack of reporting that it receives in the press. The fact that the income standards of pensioners are rising so strongly is extremely good news, and they are set to continue rising as more pensioners have occupational and private pensions.
    Mr. Corbyn: Does the Secretary of State accept that the figures that he gave are utter nonsense? The real increase in the level of the state old-age pension since 1979 is 3.6 per cent., as he has admitted. Will he stop bandying about figures that include investment income for a very small number of elderly people and instead consider the real levels of poverty among the elderly, the number of old people who die from hypothermia and the number of single women pensioners over the age of 75 who have no access to occupational pensions, savings or anything else and are living in poverty? Will the right hon. Gentleman restore the link with earnings, which the Conservative Government broke in 1980, and give people a decent pension?
    Mr. Lilley: Apart from state provision, occupational pensions are the biggest single factor. It is true that in 1979—the year to which the hon. Member harks back—only 43 per cent. of retired people had occupational pensions. In the latest year for which we have figures, 61 per cent. of retired people had such pensions; among the newly retired the figure is 70 per cent., which is excellent news. I simply remind the hon. Gentleman that, in every year since 1979, pensioners' incomes have increased on average by more than they did in all five years under Labour.
    Dr. Spink: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that 10.7 million employees are members of occupational schemes? Will he also confirm that the Government will continue to provide an environment in which such schemes can flourish?
    Mr. Lilley: I can certainly confirm that for my hon. Friend; he is absolutely right. More than 10 million people in work are building up occupational pensions—apart from those retired people who are enjoying them—and 5 million additional people are building up private pensions for the future. That is good news, as is the additional provision that the Government have made for the least well-off—£1 billion a year since 1988.

    Community Care
    Mr. Frank Field: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement regarding community care grants.
    The Minister for Social Security and Disabled People (Mr. Nicholas Scott): Community care grants play an important part in support of the Government's wider initiatives to promote care in the community.
    As in previous years, we have identified from our routine monitoring scope for some minor improvements to the Secretary of State's directions and guidance. Details of amendments taking effect from April 1994 are being placed in the Library today.
    Mr. Field: As the Minister is talking about minor improvements, does he think that it is satisfactory that people living in hostels are deemed not to be living in the community and so qualify for community care grants, whereas people living rough on the streets are deemed to be living in the community and do not qualify for those grants? When the right hon. Gentleman makes what he calls minor amendments, will he include the latter group so that such people qualify for the grants?
    Mr. Scott: Amendments have been placed in the Library today. The hon. Gentleman should bear in mind the fact that whether or not people are enabled to resettle in the community will depend on the care that they have been receiving hitherto. Many hostels provide such care and those who move from them into the wider community certainly have an entitlement to community care grants, subject, of course, to the flexibility of the fund.

    Pensioners (Home Ownership)
    Mr. Richards: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what representations he has received about the proportion of pensioners who own their own homes; and what estimate he has made of how this is likely to change over the next 20 years.
    Mr. Congdon: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what representations he has received about the proportion of pensioners who are owner-occupiers and have paid off their mortgages.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. William Hague): Information for the year 1990–91—the latest available—shows that an estimated 48 per cent. of all pensioners own their own homes and have paid off their mortgages. The comparable figure in 1979 was 37 per cent. We expect the rising trend in home ownership among pensioners to continue during the next 20 years.
    Mr. Richards: Will my hon. Friend confirm that, even among pensioners on lower incomes, around a quarter own a home valued at about £25,000? Does he agree that that is evidence that home ownership among pensioners is spreading, thanks to the policies of the Government?
    Mr. Hague: My hon. Friend is right. Home ownership among pensioners has spread and will continue to do so because of the factors already described by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State—the growth of occupational pension provision and income from savings. Those developments have occurred because we have had a Government who have encouraged diversity of pension provision and ensured low inflation so that savings are actually worth something.
    Mr. Congdon: Does my hon. Friend agree that the figures that he has given demonstrate the spread of ownership among pensioners and the extent to which they are better off than their predecessors? Will he also confirm that almost all pensioners now have a television, most have a telephone and a large majority have washing machines? Is not that a tribute to the success of the Government's policies?
    Mr. Hague: Again, my hon. Friend is right. Pensioner households now have a great many more of the things that matter to quality of life—for example, 90 per cent. have a
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    telephone, whereas in 1979 barely half of pensioner households owned one. The number of pensioner households with cars has nearly doubled since 1979 and the percentage in the bottom decile of income distribution has fallen from 31 to 11 per cent. Those dramatic improvements seem to have escaped Opposition Members' notice.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: Does the Minister accept that a real measure of prosperity would be how many pensioners bought their houses after they became pensioners; how many had their houses bought for them by members of their family for investment purposes; and how many houses were bought by members of the Tory party looking for a fast buck, such as the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan)?
    Mr. Hague: What matters to pensioners is living in homes where they do not have a mortgage to pay. What matters to them is having all the household durables and other goods that we have mentioned, which make a big difference to their living standards. We have seen tremendous improvements in those standards.
    Mr. Foulkes: Is the Minister aware that about 390,000 pensioners in Strathclyde—including my mother, incidentally—voted no in the referendum on the future of water services in Strathclyde? Many of those pensioners own their own houses and are being ignored by the Government. Why?
    Mr. Hague: We would not dare to ignore the hon. Gentleman's mother; I can assure him of that. Pensioners in Strathclyde will have shared with pensioners in the rest of the country the improvements in living standards to which we have already referred, with more owning their homes, more having cars, more having telephones and many having much greater incomes.

    Housing Benefit
    Mr. Miller: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security whether he plans to cap housing benefit; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Scott: As the House knows, the Department is conducting a fundamental review of all social security expenditure. No decisions have been made and the Government will consult widely as and when proposals are ready. We have no plans to cap housing benefit.
    Mr. Miller: I hope that that is a stronger promise than we had from the Ministers on VAT, and that they do not renege on commitments in that area. [HON. MEMBERS: "Reading."] I am not reading. The Minister should realise that the Government's own policies have allowed the benefit to increase; the deregulation of private sector rents has been the cause of that. The Minister should ensure, in liaison with his colleagues, that that is taken into account in the review and that there is no capping and no cuts whatever in the benefit.
    Mr. Scott: Far from anticipating cuts, we expect that, by the end of the decade, expenditure on housing benefit is likely to increase from £7.3 billion to between £10 billion and £12 billion, so one can see growth in that area. I do, however, think that there is merit in concentrating subsidy for housing on individuals and their circumstances rather than entirely on bricks and mortar.
    Mr. Willetts: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the Government's figures show spending on rent allowance increasing by 7.1 per cent. a year and spending on rent rebates increasing by 5.5 per cent. a year until the year 2000, and that that shows the need for tight control over housing benefit spending?
    Mr. Scott: I am sure that that is true, and we have taken steps to enable local authorities to take action to prevent the meeting of very high rents where luxurious accommodation or over-generous provision of space is currently being subsidised by the taxpayer.

    Family Poverty
    Mr. Winnick: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what recent representations he has received over social security provision to deal with family poverty.
    Mr. Lilley: From time to time, I receive copies of reports and studies from various institutes and other organisations about low-income families.
    Mr. Winnick: But is not it a disgrace that, whereas in 1979, 9 per cent. of households had incomes below half the national average, the figure is now 25 per cent.—nearly a threefold increase in poverty? Does not that show that, for many people, the Tory Government since 1979 have been a curse?
    Mr. Lilley: That is nonsense, as the hon. Gentleman knows. There has been a rise in living standards across the country. The average increase in income is about 35 per cent. in real terms. The figures that the hon. Gentleman cites do not reveal any worsening of people's real position—simply a change in the distribution of income, which is occurring in many other countries, too. I urge him to look closely at the figures; he will find that, in the bottom 10 per cent. of households, there are 500,000 reporting zero or negative incomes, mainly consisting of self-employed people, who are none the less able to consume, on average, more than the average person in the population as a whole.
    Mr. Dicks: With regard to those benefits, can my right hon. Friend confirm whether it is true that a certain Mr. Gerry Adams is receiving social security benefits while he is able to fly halfway round the world to decry the Government? Will he examine that situation and ensure that he is taken off those benefits immediately?
    Mr. Lilley: I cannot comment on individual cases, but I will refer the question to my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who has responsibility for social security in the Province. I am sure that if there is any evidence of wrongdoing by anyone in that area it will be inquired into.
    Mr. Ingram: Has the Minister had an opportunity to study in detail the report produced last week by his Department, which showed that £2 billion in benefits remain unclaimed in 1991? Is he prepared to accept that such a shortfall in take-up increases the extent of family poverty in this country? Instead of treating the problem with complacency, as his Department did last week, is he now prepared to accept that the Department has a responsibility and a duty to seek out those many claimants who do not take up the benefits and assist them in so doing?
    Mr. Lilley: We do not deal with that matter complacently. We are pleased that some 90 per cent. of benefit available is taken up. We want to ensure that those who, for any reason, are less able, knowledgeable or well equipped to claim benefit have the relevant knowledge to enable them to claim. We have been encouraging an increased uptake, particularly in family credit, with some success. That benefit helps people back into work, which means that, ultimately, they draw less benefit from the state but are better off because they are in work. Thus, everybody is better off: the person concerned, the taxpayer and the economy as a whole. We are encouraging that process further.
    Mr. Evennett: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the Government intend to target benefit towards those in genuine need and that that policy is widely supported throughout the country? Will he further confirm that, since the Government have been in office, low-income families have benefited from family credit, income support and other benefits, and have done quite well within society because of what the Government have done to help them?
    Mr. Lilley: My hon. Friend is right. We must try to ensure that the benefit goes to those in need. That objective must be shared by all hon. Members. We have targeted benefits towards low-income families, to whom the extra benefit since 1988 is now worth £1 billion a year. For a typical low-income household, that is worth £13 a week more than it received under the previous regime.

    Child Support Agency
    Mr. Norman Hogg: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans he has to introduce an independent appeal procedure to the Child Support Agency system; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Lilley: The Child Support Agency was introduced to ensure that parents meet their responsibility for the financial maintenance of their children where they can afford to do so. It replaced an inconsistent, often unreliable system that resulted in a drastic decline in maintenance payments over the last decade.
    There is already the right of appeal, on the basis of an incorrect application of the formula, against a decision of a child support officer, to an independent tribunal.
    Mr. Hogg: Is the Secretary of State prepared to accept that the changes to the Child Support Act 1991 implemented in February have totally failed to deal with the extensive criticism of the Act? Does he accept that there must be further fundamental changes if public confidence in the Act is to be restored?
    Mr. Lilley: The changes that we introduced in February have already benefited some 30,000 or 40,000 people as a result of a direct reduction in the amount that they were required to pay. Many more people who receive assessments in the future will benefit. Extra help will also be provided in the form of phasing, for which people are now applying. That will be welcomed by those with second families who already have maintenance agreements.
    If the hon. Gentleman seriously believes that such a measure can be introduced with no criticism whatever, he is mistaken. In every other country where such a system has been introduced—Australia, New Zealand and various states of America—it has met with criticism. I remind the

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    hon. Gentleman that, since we introduced those changes, there has been criticism from lone parents who naturally receive less when absent parents pay less.
    Mr. Ward: My hon. Friend will be aware that I support the principle of the Child Support Agency. Is he aware that, in a small number of cases, people may be better off unemployed than in employment if they pay what the Child Support Agency asks for? Will he look at that aspect?
    Mr. Lilley: That was an aspect with which we tried to deal when we introduced changes in February. We nearly quadrupled the amount above income support level below which the income of an absent parent's second family cannot fall. We have increased the increment above that level which they can keep. That makes it difficult for people to find themselves in the position to which my hon. Friend refers. But, as I have made clear previously, we are keeping the matter under continual review as we want to ensure that we are aware of any continuing problems.
    Mr. Kirkwood: The Secretary of State is right that there is a limited appeal system that will allow people to take cases to tribunals, but there is no appeal system for hardship. If the Government allowed a hardship tribunal for people who were asked to pay more than they could possibly afford, people would be given a chance to argue their case before an independent body. That would also provide the Government with better evidence of how badly the Act is turning out in practice for people with second families who are being blown apart by the sums of money that they are being asked to pay.
    Mr. Lilley: We hope that, as a result of our changes and of the original proposals, endorsed by all parties represented in the House, people will have enough income left, after paying their child maintenance, to meet their other commitments. I am, however, keeping that matter under continual review. We must beware of going back to the discretionary system under which, in effect, the whole burden of child maintenance was transferred to the taxpayer. Indeed, we cannot go back to it: it betrayed the children, the parents caring for them and the taxpayer.
    Mr. Brazier: I support my right hon. Friend's robust stance on this matter, but may I draw his attention to one anomaly that needs a fresh look—the problem of parents who are paying yet who believe that the money is not being spent on the children? At present, no avenue is open to such parents; I know of two constituency cases. Will my right hon. Friend look again at a system for dealing with such cases so that people can be sure that the money is being spent on the children?
    Mr. Lilley: This is a difficult issue and the problem applied under the old system, too. Essentially, a court awards the primary responsibility of caring for a child to one parent, and the money transferred in maintenance, under a court order or under a Child Support Agency order, has then to be allocated for the child by that parent. But I take my hon. Friend's point and I will look at it further.
    Mr. Dewar: Does the Minister realise that the growing public anger, dismay and despair are undermining confidence in the Child Support Agency system and putting at risk the very principles of responsible parenting that that system was brought into being to buttress? Does
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    he accept that there is, in the name of justice, a need for a system of redress for people who find that maintenance demands are out of line with their ability to pay?
    The Minister referred to the criticism that greeted the Australian system. Does he recall that, two or three years into the operation of that system, the Australians successfully introduced a review officer procedure to deal with some of the injustices and difficulties that we are encountering? If there is a review, when will we see its outcome?
    Mr. Lilley: We discussed that issue in a full day's debate in the House a month ago. It became clear then that the hon. Gentleman's idea of a review system was very different from that practised in Australia, which is extremely limited, and which in some ways means a lesser alleviation of the burden on absent parents than is provided under our present system.
    Mrs. Roe: Has my right hon. Friend seen the article by Liz Lightfoot in The Sunday Times yesterday, headed
    "Child Support Agency cleared of suicides blame"?
    Does he share my regret that misleading and sensational reporting by the tabloid press has distracted attention from the excellent work that the Child Support Agency is doing to ensure that maintenance is paid to thousands of mothers and their children?
    Mr. Lilley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing the attention of the House to that article. I read it, and I think that it would be well worth many people's time to read it. Suicide is always a terrible tragedy and a terrible shock for the family and friends left behind. But it is monstrous to try to use it as a weapon in a political campaign against an agency—which, incidentally, had the wholehearted support of the House—especially when it emerges that the evidence for some of the claims is, to say the least, flimsy.
    We in the Government do not comment on particular cases; we will continue not to do so. I hope that others will be more responsible in their treatment of areas in which bereavement is involved.
    Mr. Frank Cook: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many assessment forms for the Child Support Agency have been completed.
    Mr. Scott: In the period 5 April 1993 to 31 January 1994, the Child Support Agency issued more than 755,000 maintenance application forms to parents with care, of which more than 548,000 had been returned to the agency by 31 January 1994.
    Mr. Cook: I am grateful to the Minister for that information. Does he realise that he is only just beginning to get into the water on this issue? He is barely up to his ankles. By the time the legislation really bites in 1996 he will definitely be "dans la mer jusqu' au cou" and will find it exceedingly difficult. Conservative Members are already feeling the anger and resentment of people who have been wrongly targeted. The Opposition agree that the legislation is right in principle, but it is very wrong in practice. The wrong people are being targeted and it is about time that the Government quickly withdrew from the mire into which they have led their supporters and made adjustments to the legislation before the tidal wave of resentment overcomes them completely.
    Mr. Scott: That was a fair old polemical outburst from the hon. Gentleman. It is in all our interests to get this policy right. As the hon. Gentleman has said, the legislation had widespread support in principle in the House. We have already made some changes to improve the shape of the system. We are continuing to keep it under review, but I do not think that anybody can challenge the principle that those who have care of children, particularly women, should be guaranteed a regular amount of money to enable them to discharge their responsibilities.
    Sir Donald Thompson: Will my right hon. Friend make sure that people working in the Child Support Agency are trained to deal with matters more thoroughly, more sympathetically and more speedily?
    Mr. Scott: If my hon. Friend has any examples of cases in which he feels that individuals have not been so treated by the Child Support Agency, I hope that he will communicate them to me. The agency's aim is to deliver a speedy but sympathetic service to those who need its help.
    Mr. Wicks: Does the Minister accept that those of us who genuinely believe in the principle of parental responsibility find it more difficult now to defend the Act against bad practice? Does he agree that among the reforms that we need are reforms to ensure that lone parents on income support actually receive some child support in terms of extra money so that the legislation truly becomes a Child Support Act and not, as it is now, a Treasury support Act?
    Mr. Scott: I believe that it is right and to the benefit of, normally, the woman concerned who has care of children to receive a regular and guaranteed amount whether she remains at home looking after the children or takes on some employment, as many lone parents wish to do. People who started to earn money would have their benefits reduced. However, if they receive maintenance from a guaranteed source, manifestly they can use their earnings to enhance their living standards.
    Mr. Waterson: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that about two thirds of the cases taken on this year by the Child Support Agency will be those in which no maintenance at all is being paid? Does not that fly in the face of the current misconception that the agency is going after only absent parents who have already faced their responsibilities?
    Mr. Scott: My hon. Friend is right. One of the agency's great successes is that it has managed to obtain that maintenance for many women with care. It is all too easy for the Opposition to prate on about believing in the principle while seeking to undermine the practice of the agency every time they have the chance.

    Personal Pensions
    Mr. Flynn: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the total of incentive paid to those opting out of the state earnings-related pension scheme into personal pensions at the current date; and what he expects the total to be five years hence.
    Mr. Hague: The cost to date of the 2 per cent. incentive paid to those opting out of SERPS into personal pensions for the period 1988–1993 is estimated at £3.1 billion. The
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    incentive is not payable for periods after April 1993 and the total cost five years hence is therefore expected to be unchanged.
    Mr. Flynn: Is not this the biggest financial deception since the South Sea Bubble—the equivalent of 100 Maxwell pension scandals? Some 3.2 million people have been bribed and conned by the Government to their financial detriment, and the Government have been aided and abetted by wickedly deceitful advertising and pressure salesmanship from the pension industry. What has the Minister to say that will help those 3.2 million future pensioners and protect others from the salesmen, the muggers in smart suits from the pension industry?
    Mr. Hague: The introduction of personal pensions has given millions of people the opportunity, which they did not enjoy before, to build up a fund to add to the income available in their retirement. That is not a scandal. Personal pensions have given people greater flexibility and pension provision than ever before. If there has been mis-selling and people have taken decisions on bad advice, the Government expect the Securities and Investments Board to present acceptable, workable and effective remedies—and it is now working on them.
    Mr. John Greenway: Does my hon. Friend agree that if there is any deception or scandal to concern the country, it is that successive Governments have taken national insurance contributions and spent that money, but did not use it to make provision for people in their old age? Will my hon. Friend ensure that the Government give people every incentive to make their own pension provisions? Does he further agree that had that been done 40 or 50 years ago, there would be far fewer elderly poor today?
    Mr. Hague: I am not sure that the national insurance fund is a scandal either, but my hon. Friend is right to say that things would be better in future if people built up a fund of their own, rather than rely on a pay-as-you-go state system. The increased diversity and provision of occupational and personal provisions is about that, and the Government will continue to encourage them.

    Family Credit
    Mr. Rooker: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many working mothers in receipt of family credit have had a reduction in financial support from an absent father following the intervention of the Child Support Agency which they have been unable to replace with increased family credit.
    Mr. Scott: We estimate that fewer than 1,000 families have temporarily lost income because of the combined effects of the child support changes and the fixed award rule in family credit. Those families entitled to housing benefit or council tax benefit, or who become so entitled following the reduction in maintenance, could recover up to 85 per cent. of their loss.
    Mr. Rooker: I am grateful to the Minister for at least showing that the Department has counted the number of working women affected. Will he take it from me that the rigidity of family credit rules mean that working mothers such as one of my own constituents, Miss A—about whom I have written to the Minister—lose about £30 a week maintenance once the Child Support Agency becomes

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    involved? Miss A is unable to have her family credit readjusted so, as far as she is concerned, the agency and the Minister do not care a damn about her circumstances. It is no answer for her to be told by Ministers, "If you lose your job, you can claim income support." Miss A does not want to lose her job—she wants to maintain her income. It is wholly unfair that she loses £40 maintenance weekly and receives only £10 through the Child Support Agency.
    Mr. Scott: The success of the family credit 26-week rule has been widely welcomed. I am reluctant to interfere with that rule because of the impact on child support matters. Of course there will be gainers as well as losers under the present arrangement.
    Mr. John Marshall: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that family credit is one of the Government's great successes? Can he say how many families receive that benefit and how many received assistance under the old family income supplement?
    Mr. Scott: There has been a tremendous increase in the number of recipients over the old family income supplement. Some 500,000 families now benefit from the certainty that they will, for a 26-week period, receive a given amount of family credit support.
    Mr. Hardy: How is it that the Minister can give my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) a detailed response when scores or hundreds of Members of Parliament have been waiting for detailed responses from the Child Support Agency since 1993? In many cases, injustice is matched with outrageous incompetence, which causes great concern and anxiety.
    Mr. Scott: The agency's performance has steadily improved in recent months and it is intending to improve further in the weeks and months ahead. The job that the agency is doing is right, and it is doing that job increasingly well.

    Social Security Reform
    Mr. Rowe: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what measures to reform social security benefits are being taken in other European countries; and what comparison he has made with his own approach to welfare reforms.
    Mr. Scott: Most European countries are having to take immediate steps to contain social security costs, and balance budgets, because of rising unemployment and changes in social and demographic trends.
    Mr. Rowe: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that, since 1979, our social security budget has risen two thirds? Is not that in remarkable contrast to the panic action by many of our European Union partners, with which we have traditionally been unfavourably compared?
    Mr. Scott: I certainly agree. As all the countries of Europe and developing countries face pressures on their social security budgets, it is right that we should plan to meet those pressures sooner than many of our neighbours have been able to do, and not be compelled to adopt the short-term, panicky measures to which some of them have been driven.
    Mr. Trimble: Will the Minister consult the authorities in Italy on whether it is the practice there to pay social
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    security to the leaders of the Mafia and the heads of Mafia organisations? If it is not, perhaps he would follow their example and so ensure that the leaders of Sinn Fein/IRA, including Mr. Gerard Adams, do not draw income support and thus become entitled to legal aid to challenge Government decisions?
    Mr. Scott: I am not sure that I would like to delve too far into practices in Italy in respect of the Mafia, but I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the remarks made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State earlier in these exchanges, in which he promised to draw a certain gentleman's position to the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

  DUCHY OF LANCASTER

    Science Investment
    Mr. Flynn: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what new proposals he has to increase investment by Government and industry in British science.
    The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. William Waldegrave): The Government's plans were set out in the White Paper "Realising our Potential".
    Mr. Flynn: How will investment in science be aided by the Government's frantic review of 53 science institutions in 90 days? Does the Minister agree with Michael Atiyah, the president of the Royal Society, who said that scientific considerations had been totally disregarded in the panic to privatise and that there was no chance of any sensible outcome of the review? Will the Government's neglect of science mean that British workers become the coolies of the Atlantic rim countries?
    Mr. Waldegrave: The president of the Royal Society did not quite say that. The scrutiny study of the ownership and future of Government research establishments is, like any other scrutiny study, rightly ensuring that we get the best value for money. That must be vital for science, as for anything else.
    Mrs. Gillan: Will my right hon. Friend accept the congratulations of the House on the Government's investment in British science week last week, which was so successful, and on retaining the size of the science budget? Is not the commitment being shown by the Government the very commitment to British science that we require?
    Mr. Waldegrave: My hon. Friend is right. As The Daily Telegraph said today, the £150,000 spent on science week was well invested. On my hon. Friend's second point, Save British Science, a pressure group, agrees that I have kept my promise to protect the science budget last year and next year. We intend to ensure that there is proper investment in the science base.

    Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council
    Mr. Alan W. Williams: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what is the budget for the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council for 1994–95; and what proportion of this is devoted to CERN.
    The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of Public Service and Science (Mr. David Davis): My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

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    announced on 2 February that the allocation for the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council was £184.9 million in 1994–95. In that year, we expect the CERN contribution to be about £56 million. That is some 30 per cent. of that funding.
    Mr. Williams: Does the Minister agree that research in particle physics is extremely expensive for relatively low spin-off or industrial application and that, looking to the future, we really must make every effort to persuade the United States and possibly Japan to become involved in the work of CERN?
    Mr. Davis: The hon. Gentleman is right. Indeed, the British Government are doing everything possible to assist the director-general of CERN to encourage as many non-member states, including those that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, to join in the funding of the large hadron collider project, which is the biggest and perhaps most important super-physics project of this decade.
    Mr. Ian Bruce: What part of the budget is likely to be spent with AEA Technology and the new company that will come out of AEA Technology? Can my hon. Friend give any good news to my constituents at Winfrith about new projects that they may be able to win in their new privatised stake?
    Mr. Davis: I cannot tell my hon. Friend the exact figures for any contracts about to be won by AEA Technology. One thing I will say, however, is that there is a great deal of spin-off from CERN in practical as well as theoretical science in cryogenics, magnetic science and computers. We do the most possible to ensure that British firms get the best possible slice of that action.

    Open Government
    Mr. Wareing: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what discussions he has recently initiated with governmental colleagues on the issue of open government.
    Mr. Waldegrave: I am engaged in final discussions with colleagues on the code of practice, which will come into effect on 4 April 1994.
    Mr. Wareing: In view of the Chancellor's recent statement about the correctness of the telling of lies by Ministers, will the code of practice be entitled "If You Believe This, You Will Believe Anything"? May I suggest the provision of guidelines to let people know the sort of questions that may or may not be answered correctly by Ministers—or might a reprint of the Tory party's election manifesto suffice?
    Mr. Waldegrave: I shall seek authority from a former Member of Parliament for Bristol, South-East. I refer to Sir Stafford Cripps, whose words on those matters were, I think, definitive.
    Mr. Jacques Arnold: Will my right hon. Friend have a word about open government with the leader of Tameside borough council who, when asked for an inquiry into the Tameside Enterprises Ltd. scandal involving old people's homes, responded to the seven councillors concerned by suspending the lot of them?
    Mr. Waldegrave: That would be rather drastic action—even for you, Madam Speaker, when you are faced with some of the problems that occasionally occur.
    Mr. Matthew Taylor: The ombudsman's current remit in regard to the code of practice does not include personnel matters. That is understandable in relation to individual cases, but may we have an assurance that, on freedom of information principles, it will cover information relating to any material about the political backgrounds of individuals who may be subject to appointment or approval by Ministers in Departments?
    Mr. Waldegrave: I should need to examine the code closely, but I think that, if the information were collected and available, it would probably be covered.
    Mr. Meacher: How can the Government pretend that they support open government when five years ago—as we now know—they allowed three men to go to prison for engaging in illegal arms deals with Iran, rather than reveal that they had fully colluded in those men's activities? Furthermore, three years later they would have allowed three Matrix Churchill executives to go to prison for engaging in arms deals with Iraq, rather than reveal that they had fully colluded in those activities as well.
    As Minister with responsibility for open government, the right hon. Gentleman has said that he believes that it is right, in exceptional circumstances, to lie to Parliament. Does he also think it right—even in exceptional circumstances—to allow innocent men to go to prison to protect a Government cover-up? If he does not, how can he remain a member of a Government who clearly do?
    Mr. Waldegrave: I now understand why Hugo Young said, in a recent article, that the peak of the hon. Gentleman's career occurred when he was junior Minister for garbage in the last Labour Government. I think that he would be wise at least to read the evidence about public immunity that is being presented to Scott. He will find that public immunity was, quite correctly, claimed on various occasions by Labour Ministers as well.

    Science And Technology
    Mr. Dickens: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what measures are being adopted to promote science and technology; and if he will make a statement.
    Dr. Liam Fox: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what initiatives he is taking to improve public understanding of science in the year ahead.
    Mr. Waldegrave: Following the resounding success of the first national science week, which ended yesterday, the Government are already in discussion with the British Association for the Advancement of Science about funding for a second week in 1995.
    Mr. Dickens: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the initiative that produced national science, technology and engineering week, which was a great and unqualified successes. Does he agree that it was brain power that made ours one of the great industrial nations of the world and led to many inventions—radar, television and the jet engine, to mention but a few? Will he now build on the great success of his initiative by ensuring that he maintains a good budget for science, technology and engineering and makes this country once more a forerunner in the industrial world?
    Mr. Waldegrave: I whole-heartedly agree with my hon. Friend. I believe that the week was a success: more

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    than 1 million people took part in events up and down the country. My hon. Friend is right, however; we need to become better at applying the ideas that we invent, so that we can earn our living by them.
    Dr. Fox: I am probably the last person from whom my right hon. Friend would expect to hear the question that I am about to put to him. Will he recognise the impressive contribution that the BBC has made to national science week? Was not it a pleasant surprise to get up in the morning and see on "Breakfast News" something positive, in terms of science, about Britain, instead of Mr. Witchell's usual niggling questioning? Would not it be nice if the BBC were to do this on a regular basis?
    Mr. Waldegrave: I congratulate the BBC on its contribution to science week. It has by far the most impressive science unit of all broadcasting organisations in the world. Its commitment to broadcasting on science and engineering is perhaps one example of what happens when a large arts-based organisation is run by an engineer.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Why have we allowed flat screen television technology to disappear to Japan and other countries in the far east although it was invented in the United Kingdom? Why did not we, with all the commercial resources that are available to us, develop the technology? What has the right hon. Gentleman been doing about this?
    Mr. Waldegrave: I sympathise with the hon. Gentleman's frustration. Flat screen television technology was indeed partly, although not wholly, invented here. The objectives of the Technology Foresight exercise and of all our reforms of the research councils are to bring industry and the science base closer together so that such things happen less often.
    Mrs. Anne Campbell: Following the publication of the report "The Rising Tide", which is aimed at promoting opportunities for women in science, engineering and technology, can the Secretary of State tell us how he intends to implement the recommendations that it contains?
    Mr. Waldegrave: It is a good report. Some of its recommendations go much wider than my Department, but I hope shortly to respond positively to some of them.

    Citizens Charter
    Mr. Riddick: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will make a statement about how the privatised companies have responded to the citizens charter initiative.
    Mr. David Davis: The privatised utilities have an enviable record in implementing the principles of the citizens charter. Some of their many achievements include a fall in real prices for domestic customers of 6 per cent. for electricity, 21 per cent. for gas and 35 per cent. for British Telecom. In addition, they have raised many quality initiatives, and they are excellent flag carriers for the citizens charter movement.
    Mr. Riddick: I thank my hon. Friend for his first-rate reply. Is he aware that privatisation has not only brought prices down but led to a dramatic improvement in the quality of service to customers? For example, public
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    telephones now work, and it takes five days to have a telephone installed in one's home, instead of the six months of the bad old nationalised days. Is not it the case that privatisation has been a massive winner, not only for the Government but for consumers?
    Mr. Davis: My hon. Friend is entirely right. He has long been an advocate of privatisation, freedom and competition in the interests of the consumer. The competition, quality and charter initiatives are all Government policies in which these are used to the full.
    Mr. Enright: I thank the Chancellor for his letter of apology for telling me an untruth the last time he was at the Dispatch Box. I should like to pursue the matter, which concerns Yorkshire Water. Why on earth was Diane Scott sacked from the chair of Ofwat in Yorkshire—the only person to be sacked—with no justification whatsoever? Three people resigned from Ofwat in protest. Is not that scandalous, and does it not deserve whatever is the opposite of a citizens chartermark?
    Mr. Davis: Frankly, that is a matter for the director-general of Ofwat. The activities of the regulator have worked very much in the public interest in the past decade. At this point, I cannot comment on the activities of an individual chairman.
    Mr. Mans: In relation to the citizens charter initiative, will my hon. Friend take particular note of NORWEB, which has cut its electricity prices to such an extent that, despite the imposition of VAT, pensioners in my constituency of Wyre will pay less for electricity this year than they paid last year?
    Mr. Davis: I am happy to commend the activities of NORWEB, which is not alone in this matter. In fact, most electricity boards have done the same and it is reflected in the fact that gas and electricity disconnections have been more than halved and are now at the lowest level ever. That is also a reflection of the charter initiative in the utilities.
    Mr. Garrett: Surely the most obvious response of privatised industries has been to increase prices, boost their directors' salaries and fire their workers? Why does not the citizens charter apply to citizens who are employees?
    Mr. Davis: I wonder where the hon. Gentleman has been for the past five minutes while I have been telling the House about the reduction in prices in most of the privatised utilities. He clearly has no idea what he is talking about.

    Government Information
    Mr. Alan Howarth: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will make an annual report to Parliament on the operation of the code of practice on Government information due to come into operation on 4 April.
    Mr. Waldegrave: Yes.
    Mr. Howarth: Does my right hon. Friend accept that his reply will be extensively welcomed, but is he yet in a position to say what the scope of his report will be? Will it, for example, include an account of the progress of the revised security classification system announced last week

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    and the extent of his success in ensuring that only those documents are restricted that genuinely need to be so classified?
    Mr. Waldegrave: I had thought that the essential report would be one that gave an account of requests under the code, applications to the ombudsman and so on, but I will consider with care why my hon. Friend said.
    Mr. Gunnell: Does that mean that on 4 April the permanent secretaries' handbook will be placed in the Library so that hon. Members can read the advice given to the permanent secretaries on their behaviour? Can the right hon. Gentleman assure us that the whole of the permanent secretaries' handbook has been passed to Lord Justice Scott for his consideration?
    Mr. Waldegrave: All the papers for which Sir Richard Scott has asked have been passed to him. The code of practice, which comes into play on 4 April, will mean a major freeing of public information. The Campaign for Freedom of Information which, of course, wants to go further, described the new role for the ombudsman as "a valuable step forward".

    Research Councils
    Mr. Simon Coombs: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will make a statement on the progress in setting up the new research councils.
    Mr. Waldegrave: I am pleased to confirm to the House that the new research councils will come into being on 1 April this year, as planned.
    Mr. Coombs: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the fact that the timetable for the reorganisation of the research councils set out in the White Paper last summer has been met. Are not congratulations also due to the staff of the research councils in my constituency who are enabling that to happen? Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as a result of the reorganisation of the structure of the research councils, the opportunity is now offered for encouragement and for a boost to industrial competitiveness through the work of the research councils in helping industry?
    Mr. Waldegrave: I agree with my hon. Friend and join him in paying warm tribute to the staff of the research councils who have enabled the timetable to be met and especially, although not only, to the staff of the former Science and Engineering Research Council out of which two completely new research councils have been formed. I believe that the policy and intention set out in the White Paper will now be achieved for the good of the country.
    Dr. Bray: Would not it be a poor start for the new research councils if, as a first step, some of their key
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    laboratories were taken from them and grouped under a civil research agency, which would remove them from application and from the science base?
    Mr. Waldegrave: As the hon. Gentleman knows very well, there is a wide range of different research establishments and research stations belonging either to Departments or to research councils. From time to time, it is right to examine them across the board to ascertain the best form of ownership for them, but nothing will be done to damage the long-term commitment of the research councils to basic science.
    Mr. David Shaw: Will my right hon. Friend comment on the fact that it is often believed that there is far too much pure research in this country and not enough emphasis on getting research products into the marketplace? What is being done to enable British products to be marketed around the world?
    Mr. Waldegrave: It is essential to maintain Britain's contribution to basic science, but in the area of generic and strategic research where applications are in mind, my hon. Friend is entirely right; we should bring our academic base closer to industry. That is the whole purpose of the White Paper policy.

    Charterline
    Mr. Barnes: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what discussions he has had with local authorities concerning the east midlands pilot scheme, charterline.
    Mr. David Davis: Officials have had discussions with representatives from all public services in the pilot area, including local authorities.
    Mr. Barnes: Is not the east midlands pilot scheme, charterline, costly and unused? It costs £400 to deal with a call, partly because only 10 calls are dealt with every four hours. Would not it be better if the resources were made available to the local authorities in the area, such as the North East Derbyshire council, where few phone calls are made to the charterline, which is 275th out of 295 councils in terms of resources per head made available by the Government? Is not it time to scrap that experiment?
    Mr. Davis: The hon. Gentleman got one thing right in that little speech—it was an experiment or a pilot scheme. However, what he got wrong was that he added all the start-up costs to get the number that he reached. If I were in charge of the allocation of money to local authorities, I certainly would not give any more money to Derbyshire county council, which, at the previous count, according to the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, was owed £34 million in uncollected community charge. The interest on that alone would more than pay for charterline.

European Union
3.30 pm
Dr. John Cunningham(by private notice): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the European Union Foreign Ministers' meeting over the past weekend in Greece.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Douglas Hurd): I welcome the opportunity to answer the private notice question of the right hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham). The new presidency proposal, which I brought back last night, is for a transitional arrangement for a root-and-branch review of qualified majority voting in the 1996 intergovernmental conference. In that transitional period, the presidency and all members of the Council will be legally bound to work for an agreement on the basis of a 23 vote minority. No specified time limit is set, although the Council will be required to do all in its power to reach a decision on the basis of a 23 vote blocking minority in a reasonable time.
Perhaps I can spell that out more fully. [Interruption.] With pleasure—with growing pleasure. There was a constructive discussion at that informal meeting of Foreign Ministers at Ioannina at the weekend. As a result of the discussion, the presidency has circulated the compromise proposal to which I referred and a copy of that text has been placed in the Library of the House. The presidency has asked all member states to tell it by tomorrow evening whether they can accept the proposal.
I am sometimes asked whether qualified majority voting is more or less important than the enlargement of the Union to include Austria, Finland, Sweden and Norway. The answer is that there are major British interests at stake in both areas. We want enlargement to go ahead, while adequately protecting our interests on qualified majority voting. The Cabinet will discuss the question at its meeting tomorrow morning. Let me explain not what the Cabinet will decide, because I cannot predict that, but the nature of the compromise which has been proposed and on which we shall have to take a decision tomorrow. The original—[Interruption.] I am sure that Opposition Members are following this answer with the care that it deserves.
The original presidency proposal was for a blocking minority of 27 to apply from 1 January next year and to last indefinitely, without any restriction or any qualification. After discussion, what the presidency now proposes—after, I must accept, some argument—is as follows. First, there will be a transitional arrangement between the date of accession of Austria, Finland, Norway and Sweden and the end of the 1996 intergovernmental conference. At that conference, there will be a root-and-branch review of the system of qualified majority voting, including not only the weighting of votes between countries, which had already been agreed at the Brussels summit last December, but—and this is new—the threshold for agreement; that is, the definition of majority and minority.
Secondly, the proposal is contained in a legally binding decision of the Council which requires the presidency, with the help of the Commission, to do all in its power to reach agreement on the basis of a 23 vote minority, taking "any initiative necessary" to achieve that objective. Thirdly,
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there is no time limit for that procedure, although, if all initiatives are exhausted, the Council will be able to take a decision on the basis of a blocking minority of 27.
There have been three misconceptions, which I should like to correct. First—because of the Opposition's policy, they would be well advised to listen to this next point—we are not talking here about any threat to the veto of the United Kingdom. The only threat to the veto of the United Kingdom comes from the Opposition. The most important decisions in the European Union can be taken only by unanimity. These include the powers of the Commission and the European Parliament, the amount of money available to the European Union, and foreign and security policy initiatives.
Mr. Giles Radice: That has always been so.
Mr. Hurd: The hon. Gentleman says that that has always been so. It would not be so if the Leader of the Opposition carried out the policy that he has proclaimed. That is, as the hon. Gentleman said, and remains the position. Even where the treaty specifies qualified majority voting—for single market legislation, for example—the United Kingdom retains the right to continue discussions indefinitely when our vital national interests are at stake. That right—the so-called Luxembourg compromise—is not affected by the debate over QMV any more than is the British veto.
Secondly, the Community needs qualified majority voting to carry business forward. QMV has, for example, been important in achieving the decisions needed for the completion of the single market and pursuing reform of the common agricultural policy.
Thirdly, some have asked why the issue has been addressed only recently, and why the QMV issue could not have been left alone. I should like to answer that. The present treaty specifies the level of the qualified majority at 54 votes out of 76. If the question had been left on one side—left untackled—the qualified majority, under an unamended treaty, would have been 54 votes out of 90, which is a blocking minority of 37. I am not sure that many in the House would have supported that. That means that the question had to be tackled. [Interruption.] No, those are the facts.
I cannot prejudge the view that the Cabinet will take tomorrow, because there are still matters under this heading that deeply concern us, particularly in the social area. They do not concern Opposition Members, because they seem careless of the effect on jobs of some of the measures proposed. It deeply concerns us that measures have been tabled against our interests, sometimes on a questionable legal basis. That is a different issue from the one that was discussed yesterday, but it is crucial under this same heading. The presidency proposal, which I have sketched to the House, is a compromise and one which the Cabinet will need to weigh—and will weigh—carefully tomorrow.
Dr. Cunningham: The House has rarely, if ever, heard such a squalid and dubious statement from the right hon. Gentleman. Is not the reality that it was always the case that the intergovernmental conference in 1996 would review the whole question of qualified majority voting? The answer is yes. For the right hon. Gentleman to say that he has won some concession on that point in the past three weeks is, frankly, just not true.

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Is not it clear to all except the anti-European bigots on the Conservative Benches that Britain's overriding priority and the best interests of our country will be served by the accession of Austria, Finland, Norway and Sweden to the European Union, bringing net contributions to the Union budget and assisting British taxpayers in so doing?
Does not the right hon. Gentleman recognise that it would have been difficult to devise a sequence of events that did more damage to Britain's interests and reputation in Europe than the confused and contradictory behaviour of the Government in the past three weeks? Is not it the truth that the Foreign Secretary's negotiating stance has been one of weakness and vacillation masquerading as strength? If this issue is so important, why was it that on every previous enlargement of the Community under the Government not a single voice was raised when the appropriate adjustment to qualified majority voting took place? Why is it so important now? Is not the honest answer that this is all to do with the deep and irreconcilable divisions in the Conservative party and nothing to do with Britain's best interests?
How can Conservative Members feel pleased with the performance of the Government, which has angered our existing European Union partners and infuriated our friends in Austria, Finland, Norway and Sweden? Will the right hon. Gentleman explain what his position will be if, tomorrow, the Cabinet does not accept his recommendation—whatever it is; he has not made that clear to the House? If the Cabinet throws out this dubious mish-mash and sleight of hand tomorrow, will not Britain's position in Europe be deeply damaged and will not the right hon. Gentleman's position in the Cabinet be untenable?
Mr. Hurd: The right hon. Gentleman has been hard at work, as I have, over the weekend, but perhaps not to such good effect. He was repetitive in his adjectives, and there was not a great deal of heat and certainly no light in what he said. He was wrong and inaccurate on his first point. The difference between what was proposed by the presidency yesterday and what was there previously on the question of 1996 is that the threshold, as well as the weighting, is to be examined. That means that contrary—
Mr. Allan Rogers: Big deal.
Mr. Hurd: It is a big deal, because it means that what we are talking about now is not a change that will last for ever, but a change to a system that will be examined root and branch, as I said, from the beginning in 1996. That is a very important point.
The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that in previous enlargements there has been, as it were, a mechanical uprating preserving the 70:30 proportion. The differences this time are, first, that there is more qualified majority voting than there used to be and, secondly, and perhaps more important, that the proportion of the peoples of Europe whose representatives could be outvoted in qualified majority voting has increased from something like 30 per cent. to 40 per cent. That means that the issue is more important than before. That is why we and other countries have felt bound to raise it. If we had not raised it—if we had followed the advice of the right hon. Gentleman—we would not have gained the two proposals that I have sketched today. I do not know whether the Cabinet will consider those to be adequate and I will certainly keep my counsel on the recommendation that I
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shall make to the Cabinet tomorrow, but I have tried to sketch the proposal on which the Cabinet will reach a conclusion.
The right hon. Gentleman represents a party which has very recently pledged itself, through the mouth of its leader, to a change of policy by which majority voting in the Council would be the norm. Which bits of the British veto and the unanimity rule would be sacrificed by the Labour party in order to make majority voting the norm?
Mr. David Howell: Does my right hon. Friend accept that the compromise, with its emphasis on the arrangements being of a transitional nature and putting off crucial decisions until 1996–which is when many of us have argued they should be taken—is a compromise worth fighting for? Does he also agree that it will be even better if he can set before us some of the areas where there will cease to be majority voting and where the powers of the Commission and the Community will be unwound so that the QMV issue becomes less important, rather than more central, as it would under the policies of the Labour party? Does he agree that if we can set out our strategy for 1996–
Madam Speaker: Order. On occasions such as this, it is important that one or two brisk questions are put to the Minister so that the many hon. Members who wish to speak have a chance of being called.
Mr. Howell: If we can set out our strategy for 1996, we shall be greatly reassured about the way that we are going towards a looser and non-federal European Union.
Mr. Hurd: Certainly it is now clear that in 1996 we shall have a fundamental review of the relationship between the weighting of votes and the threshold—that is the new point—
Dr. John Cunningham: It is not a new point.
Mr. Hurd: No, the right hon. Gentleman is mistaken about that. It will be important to get it exactly right, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell) said. We also hope to see continuously, throughout the period, subsidiarity working in practice and the reduction in the load of legislation from the Community, which has already halved in the past 18 months. As the trends develop, they will counter the centralising trend that has worried so many of us in the past and is the rallying call of the Labour party.
Mr. Charles Kennedy: Given that, in the run-up to the meeting in Greece, the Foreign Secretary and, in the House last week, the Prime Minister were insistent that fundamental and vital national interests were at stake, is it not utterly incomprehensible and beyond belief that a British Foreign Secretary should come to the Dispatch Box of the House of Commons and say that on a matter of vital national interest—as he defined it—he will keep his own counsel about the deal that he brokered over the weekend? Who is in charge of foreign policy in the Government? It is clearly not the Foreign Secretary.
Mr. Hurd: I am puzzled by the hon. Gentleman. He grins, but he knows that he is well astray. The right hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham), using his undoubted powers of prerogative, has tabled a private notice question, which I welcome. The hon. Member for

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Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy) and the House know perfectly well that the Cabinet will consider the matter tomorrow—[Interruption.] I do not know whether he will ever know one day, but we live under a system of collective decision taking. When the Cabinet has reflected on and analysed the matters, it will take a decision. I shall certainly not prejudge that decision today. I will prejudge the view of the leader of the Liberal Democrat party who wants Ministers to make decisions in public—there, at least, he is in line with the hon. Gentleman—without single national vetoes.
Mr. Ray Whitney: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the sour and embittered reaction from the Opposition spokesman on foreign affairs, the right hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham), to the proposal on the agreement for qualified majority voting that my right hon. Friend has brought back from Greece—which demonstrates that the proposition based on a 23 vote is legally binding and transitional—shows that the right hon. Gentleman and the Labour party have no interest in promoting Britain's interest in Europe?
Mr. Hurd: They do not. The Labour and the Liberal Democrat parties propose, in their European manifestos, to make concessions and give away British rights that no one is asking us to give away. I am baffled by their attitude.
We have two British objectives: enlargement and the protection of the legitimate rights of minorities. We have had to work hard and, I must say, painfully to achieve a reconciliation between them. The Cabinet will decide tomorrow whether this set of proposals is adequate for that purpose. I would add an area of concern that was not covered yesterday—concern over social policy and our belief that the proposals on that front go beyond the base of the existing treaty.
Mr. Peter Shore: While the roots of the problem are the transfer of powers from this country to Europe and the extension of qualified majority voting on the Council of Ministers, surely it is absurd for our continental friends to insist on a final solution now and on the adoption of a formula of 27 when they do not even know whether four, three, two or one of the applicant countries will be allowed by their people to join, following a referendum. Is not it equally absurd that they should insist on that when they know perfectly well that, under the Maastricht treaty, there will be a further intergovernmental conference in 1996?
Mr. Hurd: Precisely. We are talking about the regime during the transition and whether the voting structure should be mechanically uprated, as it has been, or there should be restrictions and qualifications on uprating, which is what we and the Spaniards have proposed.
Mr. Tim Renton (Mid-Sussex): Without prejudicing Cabinet discussions and the decision tomorrow, may I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the difficult compromise—the transitional arrangements—that he brought back? In developing the single market, will not it be in British interests, from time to time, to ensure that legislation is passed after enlargement with a 70 per cent. majority, rather than requiring a 75 per cent. majority?
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Would he not like legislation on more freedom and competition in telecommunications throughout Europe? We would not want that to be blocked by three countries.
Mr. Hurd: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, but congratulations are a shade premature. I am grateful for his having grasped the essence of the problem. He is right in his second question. A great deal needs to be done on some matters—those connected with liberalisation, of which he gave an example, and with the common agricultural policy, before we can say that that makes common sense. On both those issues we need, and will continue to need, qualified majority voting.
We may find ourselves in the minority on other issues and it is those on which the dispute centres. I would home in on our concern about social issues, which is why my right hon. Friend's congratulations are a little premature.
Mr. James Molyneaux: Given that the British and Irish Governments are bound together in what they like to call an absolutely unique relationship, deriving from various treaties, agreements and declarations, does the Foreign Secretary feel that he is now entitled to the whole-hearted support of Irish Government representatives in the remaining negotiations?
Mr. Hurd: I have kept in close touch with Mr. Spring on this. A week ago I was in Dublin and we discussed those matters. Expectation is putting it a bit high, but I think that we can expect friendly understanding.
Sir Peter Hordern: Does my right hon. Friend accept that, after the successful conclusion of the GATT round, the greatest threat to the European Union comes from increased competition from the United States and the far east? It would be folly to burden industry throughout the Union with the extra costs that would be imposed by social legislation. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that France and Germany were originally in favour of a 23 blocking vote? Will he further confirm that the transitional arrangement will last until 1996, when all the voting procedures can be reviewed?
Mr. Hurd: My right hon. Friend is correct on both points. Countries are entirely entitled to take a view and then alter it. That is what has happened.
Mr. Gerald Kaufman: If it is only a transitional arrangement to last two years, what on earth is all the turmoil in which the Government have got themselves involved about? As, in 1996, the Government are liable to be in a minority of 15 to one rather than 11 to one, is it not a fact that the humiliating antics that the right hon. Gentleman has been required to perform have nothing to do with European union and everything to do with Conservative disunion?
Mr. Hurd: I rather miss the right hon. Gentleman's style and that question was a little souvenir of happy times in the past. He has not grasped the essential point, because when we started on the discussion it was by no means clear that we were talking about a transitional arrangement. It is clear now. It is clear in the presidency document that was issued yesterday that not only the weighting, but the thresholds—that is the definition of majority and minority—will be up for discussion in 1996. That was not clear before and it would not have been made clear unless I had done a bit of arguing meanwhile.
Mr. William Cash: Does my right hon. Friend agree that a mere examination of the issue of the blocking minority at the intergovernmental conference in 1996 would be inadequate, because what should be done is to include those arrangements in the accession treaty so that when we come to 1996 we can guarantee that we would be able to unravel any decision arrived at in the meantime?
Mr. Hurd: My hon. Friend makes a perfectly reasonable point, but I do not think that it would have been sensible in the context of the enlargement negotiations to reopen the question and try to reach a definitive conclusion on it. That would simply have meant that there was no enlargement for many years to come. It is now agreed that the basic issue—my hon. Friend is quite right about its importance—will have to be examined, root and branch, from the beginning, in 1996. We are therefore talking about a transitional regime to allow four countries, for whose entry we have worked under different Prime Ministers for many years, to come in and take part in the negotiations and discussions in 1996.
Mr. Giles Radice: Will the Foreign Secretary confirm that, under the proposals on offer, the blocking minority on qualified majority issues will be 27?
Mr. Hurd: It will be 27, constrained, as I have explained to the House, by the fact that we are talking about a transitional period and by the legal obligation that all concerned will enter into to reach an agreement that is satisfactory to the minority in cases where there is a minority of 23 to 27.
Mr. Michael Jopling: Will the Foreign Secretary be careful to emphasise to the Cabinet tomorrow that qualified majority voting is basically to do with minor issues? Will he also remind his colleagues that when the blocking minority went up from 18 to 23, there was virtually no dissent? Is not it true that his Spanish colleague yesterday regarded the compromise that my right hon. Friend has announced today as a major triumph?
Mr. Hurd: Yes, the Spaniards argued very long and hard, as we did, and the Spanish Minister came to the conclusion yesterday that the result was satisfactory. I was not in a position to do that and I am not in a position to do so today, because there are concerns that the Spaniards do not share, which are not common to them, which are of considerable concern to us.
My right hon. Friend spoke about QMV relating to minor issues, but there is no doubt that some of those issues are important. They are not, however, the really big issues such as the amount of resources available to the Community, the powers of the Commission or the Parliament or foreign policy initiatives, which, under the present system, which we intend to maintain, require unanimity. Some of the issues relating to QMV are important, however, which is why we spent so much time discussing the matter.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Is the Foreign Secretary aware that one thing is certain—he is a well-groomed poodle at least? I suppose that the Duke of York was the same; when he was up he was up, and when he was down he was down., and when he was halfway up
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the hill he was neither up nor down. Thank God that the Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister and this Cabinet rabble were not around in 1940.
Mr. Hurd: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for his usual courtesy.
Dr. Michael Clark: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, during the past half hour or so, he has, on a number of occasions, referred to a decision that will be taken in Cabinet tomorrow? Will the House have any say on what the blocking minority might be for affairs in Europe that will affect this country?
Mr. Hurd: The House will be asked to approve legislation later to enable the Government to ratify the treaty of accession.
Mr. George Foulkes: As the Foreign Secretary knows better than any of his Cabinet colleagues the pros and cons of the compromise as it affects the United Kingdom, why is he not prepared to tell this elected House of Commons what recommendation he will make to the Cabinet?
Mr. Hurd: Because we operate a system of collective decision taking and responsibility.
Mr. Bill Walker: When my right hon. Friend meets the members of the Cabinet tomorrow, will he remind them, as he has reminded the House, that we still retain the veto, and that experience under General de Gaulle demonstrated very clearly that when he used the veto in the best interests of France he was never accused of being disloyal to Europe and France was never accused of being disloyal to Europe? It is important that, when members of the Cabinet make their decision, they remember that it is not only being at the centre of Europe that is important and that the outcome is vital to Britain's best interests.
Mr. Hurd: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. That is why it is important to make it clear in this discussion that the veto—the unanimity rule—is not at stake, is not in jeopardy, except to the extent that the Opposition parties propose to give it away.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: What, for the Foreign Secretary, is the single most important element in what he sees as the British national interest?
Mr. Hurd: We need to preserve the role of national states and national Parliaments in making a success of the European Union. It was much easier in the old days, when to be a good European one was almost automatically a centraliser; when one believed that gradually power should be moved step by step to the centre. We now know—
Dr. John Cunningham: Answer the question.
Mr. Hurd: I am answering the hon. Gentleman's thoughtful question in what I hope is a thoughtful way.
Now we have to devise a new model, because the centralising model has run aground. It obviously does not correspond to what most people in Europe want. The new model is a more difficult one to construct because it is unique. It will not be like the United States, Canada or Australia. That is what Conservative Members are trying to do—to construct and make persuasive a distinctive, positive, European model of the type of Europe with which this country can feel at home.
Sir Giles Shaw: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that, in pursuit of that objective, his stance, in trying to secure that the larger populations do not suffer a disbenefit in relation to small populations coming into the Community in relatively large numbers, is an absolutely key factor in determining proper equality in the European democracies? Should not he be congratulated on standing on that issue?
Mr. Hurd: We have ensured, I think, that in 1996 there will be, as I have said, a root-and-branch examination of that point. I think that there is a general feeling that the present structure needs to be examined fundamentally, and that will happen.
Mr. Geoffrey Hoon: The Foreign Secretary stated that the Luxembourg compromise was not affected by this scheme. Most people assumed that the Luxembourg compromise had been abandoned at the signing of the Single European Act. If that is not the case and the Luxembourg compromise remains in force, why is the latest scheme necessary?
Mr. Hurd: We certainly believe that the Luxembourg compromise remains in place, but the hon. Gentleman knows that it concerns only the vital interests of the country. The importance of this provision is that it extends to all matters that could be covered by qualified majority voting.
Sir Peter Tapsell: Will my right hon. Friend clarify the meaning of the words in the declaration:
"within a reasonable time and without prejudicing obligatory time limits"?
What do those words mean in practice?
Mr. Hurd: There will be an obligation on all members of the Council, whether they are in a majority or a minority in the situation envisaged, to work for an acceptable agreement within a reasonable time. I resisted efforts by some delegations to define that in terms of two or three months because it seemed to be unnecessarily restrictive. The obligation set out under paragraph c) of the proposed decision is not defined in time, so the obligation to seek a satisfactory agreement is unlimited.
On the second part of my hon. Friend's question, the words "obligatory time limits" refer to those parts of the treaty which, once the Council has taken a decision, go to the Parliament and the Parliament comes back with amendments which the Council must discuss within specified time limits. What is not time limited is the time within which the Council takes its initial view. That is the crucial point from our point of view.
Mr. Bruce Grocott: Has not the Foreign Secretary set a constitutional precedent in telling the House that there will be a Cabinet meeting tomorrow on a crucial foreign policy issue, giving us the details of the agenda and saying that there will be a vote? Should he not take us a little further on such a crucial matter and say which way he will vote? As the whole argument is not about Europe but about the Tory leadership election, will he report to the House on how each of the Tory leadership contenders voted?
Mr. Hurd: Would the hon. Gentleman really have been content if I had taken the line, "No, I can't answer a PNQ today" and had given the House no indication of what had happened? Of course not. I have answered the private
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notice question of the right hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham). Obviously, as I have said before several times, decisions are taken in this country collectively by the Cabinet, and the Cabinet is accountable to the House.
Sir Ivan Lawrence: Is my right hon. Friend giving us this assurance: that by this compromise, and provided that all four of those countries join in the next year or so, Britain will concede no power or control over any item of European legislation, which it does not already have, between now and the conference in 1996?
Mr. Hurd: There is no proposal to extend the range of qualified majority voting. I cannot be certain what proposals coming forward in the next two or three years will fall within the QMV. If—and it is still an "if'—this compromise were thought to be acceptable, I would know that we were talking about a transitional period and that we had a legally binding protection. It is for the Cabinet to decide, on our behalf, whether that is thought to be adequate. Those were the terms of my remit, so I cannot give my hon. and learned Friend an assurance covering all kinds of legislation that there may be in the future.
The volume of legislation is falling rather fast. We are gradually and increasingly applying subsidiarity and we are confident that, in many of those matters, including the areas that I have outlined, we shall be in the majority and not the minority.
Mr. Robert Hughes: As the negotiations on enlargement have been going on for many months and as the Government agreed to the accession of the four countries, when did the Foreign Secretary suddenly discover that the Prime Minister had signed away such vital British interests as to cause great offence to those countries, which we have been trying to get into the European Union?
Mr. Hurd: I am not following the hon. Member. We have been taking this stance consistently since the enlargement negotiations began.
Sir Trevor Skeet: Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that if a vital interest of the United Kingdom should arise in the interim period, he will use what is known as the Luxembourg compromise to safeguard our interests? Bearing in mind the fact that my right hon. Friend wants a root-and-branch review by 1996, would it not be a good idea to argue that the review should be brought forward, and discussed now?
Mr. Hurd: Yes, I can give my hon. Friend the first assurance that he seeks. We believe, as I have already made clear, that the Luxembourg compromise continues and is an important safeguard for member states.
To answer my hon. Friend's second question, we have just had a long and, I would say, bruising discussion across Europe about the treaty of Maastricht. It has just entered into force, with its different pillars, its intergovernmental co-operation and its powers for the Community. We thought—indeed, everybody agreed—that it would not be sensible at this stage to try to define for ever the relationship between votes and population. We therefore did not want to hold up the enlargement to include Finland, Austria, Norway and Sweden while that was done; but it is now clear that it has to be done, and it has to be tackled in 1996.
Mr. Nigel Spearing: Is not the root of the problem the fact that the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary have consistently tried to be pretend that we can be a community of nation states while the treaties, especially the last one, expressly forbid that? Why does the Foreign Secretary keep on talking about the Luxembourg compromise when he knows it is not in the treaty? Surely the Community is authoritarian, centralist and barely democratic—and more people in the country and in the Conservative party are beginning to learn that. It is when the Government try to do something about it that they run into trouble.
Mr. Hurd: I do not want to make this point again, but I have to when such criticism is levelled at me. The hon. Gentleman must sort this out with his own Front-Bench spokesmen. If a Labour Government were elected, this sort of discussion would become wholly secondary to the great, extra concessions, out of the unanimity rule, which the Labour party proposes.
The hon. Gentleman and I have crossed swords on the issue over and over again. He should look at what is happening—look at the sort of proposal that the Home Secretary made last week on fraud, not intergovernmentally but under the treaty. He should look at how we are tackling questions such as South Africa, the middle east and Bosnia. He will see that it is not right to say that these matters are being sucked into a centralising machine. On the contrary, for the first time they are being tackled under the new treaty, on the basis of co-operation between Governments.
Mr. Bowen Wells: Is it not typically honest, courageous and responsible of my right hon. Friend to have brought this difficult matter to the forefront of the negotiations in Brussels before the four countries that have applied to join have joined? Has he not, in his negotiations, enhanced Britain's and every country's powers to safeguard itself against unwelcome decisions taken under qualified majority voting?
Mr. Hurd: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's epithets. I find that I lurch from being the subject of excessive praise to being the subject of excessive criticism—I am in the middle of such a lurch now.
Once my hon. Friend got his compliments, for which I am grateful, out of the way, his underlying point was right. The issue could not be left entirely on one side in the enlargement negotiations, because the result would have been a blocking minority of 37; it therefore had to be tackled. On the other hand, we did not feel—nobody felt—that this was the occasion to try to tackle it outright, because that would have meant, and will mean eventually, a discussion lasting a long time. But the issue is now quite clearly and fundamentally on the agenda for 1996.
Dr. John Cunningham: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that he looks increasingly ridiculous presenting a climbdown as a success? Do not he and his right hon. Friends recall that the last time there was an
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extension of qualified majority voting in Europe the Bill in question was guillotined through the House by him and his right hon. Friends? The Single European Act was guillotined, and he and all his right hon. Friends voted for that extension of QMV without a murmur.
Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that in December of last year he and the Prime Minister signed a declaration in Brussels, as follows:
"As well as examining the legislative role of the European Parliament and the other matters envisaged in the Treaty of European Union, the intergovernmental conference to be convened in 1996 will consider the questions relating to the number of members of the Commission and the weighting of the votes of the Member States in the Council. It will also consider any measures deemed necessary to facilitate the work of the institutions and guarantee their effective operation."
The right hon. Gentleman agreed to that statement in December last year. Why does he pretend to the House that he is saying something different and new now? Will he also make clear that the question of Britain's so-called veto, the need for unanimity on those decisions that require it is not, and has never been, in question during the discussions? Will he withdraw the false accusation that the Labour party has agreed to give up its power of veto in those matters? It is completely dishonest for the right hon. Gentleman to say that. Is not it also clear—[Interruption.]—as this fiasco behind him continues, that the Conservative party—
Madam Speaker: Order. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman knows that it is at my discretion whether he has a couple of minutes for a winding-up speech. I hope that he will now use those two minutes briskly.
Dr. Cunningham: If Conservative Members stop shouting, I will be able to do that.
Is not it clear that the divisions in the Conservative party and the Cabinet divide not only the Tory Government but Britain from Europe and from our best interests in the European Union?
Mr. Hurd: Thanks in part to the right hon. Gentleman, as sometimes happens in the House, an occasion that is certainly important and difficult and might have been more difficult has become rather a pleasure. The right hon. Gentleman is so busy polishing his questions that he does not listen to the answers that they receive. He correctly quotes last December's declaration in Brussels, but was not listening to the answer that I gave to an identical question by one of his hon. Friends: the proposal coming back from the presidency also refers to the crucial question of the threshold—the definition of the majority and minority. If, even on the second time, the right hon. Gentleman cannot understand the importance of that addition, he should go back to his homework. The right hon. Gentleman's leader signed a paper on 6 November which stated:
"For the first time we are fighting the European elections as the party of European Socialists …We want … majority voting within the Council to be the norm."
What on earth does that mean if it does not mean giving up unanimity?

Points of Order
4.17 pm
Mr. Max Madden: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. It relates to guidelines which have been issued by the Charity Commissioners and which make two disturbing points.
The first is that charities must not conduct publicity campaigns indicating how individual Members of Parliament or parties have voted on a particular issue as a means of applying public pressure on those Members or on the Government. The second is that charities must not distribute pro-forma letters for people to sign and send to Members or Ministers.
It seems intolerable that a public body that is funded by the taxpayer should seek to limit the right of members of the public, including taxpayers, to know how Members of Parliament vote, not least on the distribution of moneys that have been contributed by taxpayers. Secondly, it must be equally worrying that a public body funded by the taxpayer is seeking to restrict the democratic right of taxpayers and other members of the public to influence Members of Parliament.
The guidelines have been issued with immediate effect and the Charity Commissioners, rather unusually I understand, are asking for comments after the guidelines have been implemented. I ask you, Madam Speaker, to reflect on those guidelines and the points that I made, with a view to making a statement on whether you deprecate the implications of the guidelines for the general public and a large number of charitable organisations.
Madam Speaker: As I understand it, the hon. Gentleman is complaining about legal advice given to charities by the Charity Commissioners. That matter is not for me, and it would be most unwise for me to comment from the Chair. The hon. Gentleman must find another way to pursue the issue.
Mr. Nigel Spearing: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I refer to a matter that may be of precedence, in relation to powers and privileges of the House. This morning, the Secretary of State for the Environment opened a new railway in the docklands that passes through my constituency. That event was well known and I believe that the right hon. Gentleman was well received.
However, the Secretary of State proceeded to a second event relating to the inauguration of a housing project ultimately designed to accommodate 5,000 people in 1,500 dwellings. It is known as an urban village, and is controversial. Unfortunately, the mayor of the borough was not informed of, or invited to, the inauguration of that large scheme, and neither was the Member of Parliament concerned.
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I hope and expect that no such action by the Executive in relation to the people of this country represented in the House will recur, with such short notice or no notice at all being given.
Madam Speaker: It is a convention of the House that all Members of Parliament, including Ministers, inform other hon. Members when they are to attend a public function in a constituency other than their own. As it happens, my office always notifies a right hon. or hon. Member if I am to attend a function in his or her constituency. It is incumbent on Ministers to do likewise.
Mr. David Winnick: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. You heard the Foreign Secretary say that the Cabinet will deal with the European Union voting issue tomorrow morning and that the result will be communicated to the Council of Ministers.
The House will rise for the recess on Thursday, and Wednesday will be the last day to consider matters not related to Adjournment debates. Is it not essential that a statement on the Cabinet's decision is made to the House, not merely referred to during Prime Minister's Question Time?
If it was right and proper—and it was—for the House to hear from the Foreign Secretary, how much more important it is that the House should know of the Cabinet's decision. Apart from anything else, it will be communicated immediately to the media, so why not to the House? I trust that the Prime Minister or the Foreign Secretary will make a statement tomorrow.
Madam Speaker: I make it clear that it was I who granted today's private notice question and that the Foreign Secretary appeared at the Dispatch Box in response to that. As the hon. Gentleman must know, I have no authority to summon a Minister to the Dispatch Box to make a statement. I see that there is a collection of senior Ministers on the Treasury Bench, and no doubt they have noted the hon. Gentleman's remarks.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND PUBLIC ORDER BILL [MONEY] (No.2)
Queen's recommendation having been signified—
Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any sums required by the Secretary of State—

(a) for making payments in connection with measures intended to prevent crime or reduce the fear of crime;

(b) for defraying or contributing to the costs incurred by local authorities in providing, or arranging for the provision of, accommodation for restricting the liberty of children; and

(c) for making payments in respect of the costs incurred by local authorities or probation committees in providing supervision for offenders subject to secure training orders.—[Mr. Wood.]

Orders of the Day
  Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill
  As amended (in Committee and in the Standing Committee), considered.
  Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill
    New Clause 73

      DISPLAYING, PUBLISHING, SELLING OR DISTRIBUTING ETC. OBSCENE MATERIAL IN SCOTLAND: SENTENCE OF IMPRISONMENT
      '. In section 51(3) of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 (which makes persons convicted in summary proceedings in Scotland of certain offences relating to obscene material liable, among other penalties, to imprisonment for a period not exceeding 3 months and persons convicted there on indictment of such offences liable, among other penalties, to imprisonment for a period not exceeding 2 years), for the words "3 months" there shall be substituted the words "6 months" and for the words "two years" there shall be substituted the words "3 years".'.—[Lord James Douglas-Hamilton.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton): I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      In Committee, hon. Members on both sides—including the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman), who for many years has pursued the interests of safeguarding children—rightly expressed the view that the maximum penalties for certain offences of obscenity and indecency are inadequate. The Scottish Office has sympathy with that view and neither it nor the Government opposed an amendment to double to six months the maximum duration of the new custodial penalty for possession of child pornography.
      Unfortunately, whether by accident or design, that amendment neglected to address the position in Scotland, with the result that the Bill introduces a three-month custodial penalty in Scotland and a six-month custodial penalty south of the border. The first reason for the new clause is that the Government intend to remove that discrepancy with an appropriate amendment to be debated later on Report. New clause 73 is, to a limited extent, consequential on that amendment relating to possession.
      Dr. Norman A. Godman: Will the Minister confirm that all such cases—let us hope that there are very few—will be heard in a sheriff court?
      Lord James Douglas Hamilton: That is a probability. I shall have to check up on that point. I will write to the hon. Member when I have done so.
      The new clause is consequential because, in our view, it would be wrong to leave the maximum summary penalty for trading in obscene material at three months' imprisonment under section 51 of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982, when we are introducing a maximum summary penalty for simple possession of child pornography of six months' imprisonment under section 52A of that Act. So new clause 73 raises the maximum summary penalty for an offence under section 51 from three months' to six months' imprisonment. At the same time, it raises the maximum penalty on conviction on indictment from two to three years' imprisonment.
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      Whether a case is in the sheriff court or a higher court will depend on the severity of the circumstances. Were the law officers to consider that a case merited an indictment, of course it would go to a higher court.
      The new penalties are in line with the penalties that already exist in England and Wales for similar offences under the Obscene Publications Act 1959. The equalisation of penalties for such offences north and south of the border is, in our view, sensible. It provides the second reason for new clause 73. We do not want to provide any incentive to set up this sort of business north of the border. Such an incentive might be provided if Scotland continued to have lower penalties than England and Wales.
      The third reason for the new clause rests simply on its merits. We believe that the trade in obscene material is loathsome. I know that that view is shared by Opposition Members and the House as a whole. Children must not be exploited. They must be suitably protected in the interests of the well-being of our country. We believe that the new penalties will signal Parliament's revulsion, deter some who might otherwise be tempted to engage in that trade, and enable the courts in Scotland to deal appropriately with the worst offenders. So I strongly commend the new clause to the House.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

    New Clause 74

      COST OF SECURE ACCOMMODATION
      '. After section 61 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991 there shall be inserted the following section—"Cost of secure accommodation. 61A.—(1) The Secretary of State may, in relation to any costs incurred by a local authority in discharging their duty under section 61(1) above—

      (a) defray such costs to such extent as he considers appropriate in any particular case;

      (b) defray a proportion to be determined by him from time to time of such costs; and

      (c) defray or contribute to such costs in accordance with a tariff to be determined by him from time to time.

      (2) The Secretary of State may require any person providing secure accommodation to transmit to him, at such times and in such form as he may direct, such particulars as he may require with respect to any costs to which this section applies.
      (3) Payments under this section shall be made out of money provided by Parliament.".'.—[Mr. Maclean.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr Geoffrey Lofthouse): With this it will be convenient to take the following:
      Amendment (a), in line 3, leave out 'may' and insert 'shall'.
      Amendment (b), in line 6, leave out
      'such costs to such extent as he considers appropriate' and insert 'all reasonable costs'.
      Amendment (c), leave out lines 8 to 11. Government new clause 79 and Government amendments Nos. 53, 54, 52 and 57.
      The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. David Maclean): I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      I hope that new clause 74 will command considerable support on both sides of the House. It demonstrates the Government's commitment to the proper financing of our policies. We are concerned that the normal methods of

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      local government finance are not necessarily the best way of distributing resources required to fund the revenue costs of local authority secure accommodation for remands.
      The local authority associations have pointed out that the revenue support grant mechanism is not necessarily sensitive enough to reflect the differences between local authorities in terms of the potential numbers of young people who may in future be remanded to secure accommodation. Some local authorities might have large numbers of young people remanded in secure accommodation and others might have none. As hon. Members know, the costs of secure accommodation are high; while the Government will be taking steps to contain them, it is important that the system of financing is as effective as possible.
      The purpose of new clause 74 is to give central Government a power to reimburse costs incurred by local authorities in accommodating juveniles subject to court-ordered secure remands. The Government have not yet determined how the powers will be used in practice. A decision will be made after full consultation with the local authority associations. The Government have felt it important to use this opportunity to take the necessary powers. We expect the annual cost to be about £16 million per annum.
      Therefore, new clause 74 is drafted in a way which gives central Government a degree of flexibility. There may be arguments in favour of meeting the full costs or the Government may consider it more appropriate to make a contribution. A tariff may be needed to reflect different costs in different parts of the country. As I have said, we will discuss the use of the powers in detail with the local authority associations.
      As hon. Members know, the Government have embarked upon a substantial expansion of the secure accommodation estate in order not only to provide sufficient places for 15 and 16-year-old boys on remand who are currently sent to prison but to accommodate 12 to 14-year-olds who will be subject to secure remands. In all, we currently intend to create an additional 170 places. The Department of Health will shortly publish a plan explaining how the places will be supplied.
      I expect the new clause to be welcomed both by potential purchasers and by potential providers of additional places, as it creates a framework in which revenue costs can be provided centrally. It also creates a framework in which the mechanism for providing payments can be amended in the light of experience gained in the operation of the system—hence the need for maximum flexibility.
      4.30 pm
      I will try to anticipate what Opposition Members will say and comment briefly on their amendments to the new clause. Those amendments seek to restrict the degree of flexibility available to the Government in defraying the costs incurred by local authorities in complying with court-ordered remands of 12 to 16-year-olds to local authority accommodation with a security requirement. Amendment (a) would remove the Secretary of State's discretion to defray those costs, and replace it with a duty to do so. Amendment (b) would require the Secretary of State to defray all reasonable costs, instead of
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      "costs to such extent as he considers appropriate".
      Amendment (c) would remove the provision for the costs to be defrayed on the basis—determined by the Secretary of State from time to time—of either a fixed proportion of the costs or a tariff.
      I recognise the concern that lies behind the amendments—concern that local authorities should not be put under undue financial strain in complying with court-ordered secure remands of 12 to 16-year-olds to local authority accommodation with a security requirement. The Government are sympathetic to the need, in the case of such remands, for direct central revenue support by fee payment to individual authorities: that is why we tabled new clause 74.
      The Government will discuss in detail with local authority associations the use of the powers provided in new clause 74 before they come into operation. There may be arguments in favour of meeting the full costs, or the Government may consider it more appropriate to make a contribution. As I have said, a tariff may be needed to reflect different costs in different parts of the country. What is certain is that there can be no advantage in seeking to restrict the scope of our discussions with local authorities in the way sought by the Opposition amendments, and I urge the House not to support them.
      Amendment No. 52 is a technical measure to extend the scope of the expenses that could be provided for under the Bill to include those required by the Secretary of State to make payments under contracts entered into for the purpose of placing youngsters subject to secure training orders in accommodation other than secure training centres—that will be in section 2—or of the supervision by a designated person of youngsters under secure training orders after their release.
      Amendment No. 53 inserts a new subsection (5A), which makes express provision for the reimbursement by the Secretary of State of the expenses of the probation committee—or, as the case may be, the local authority—in meeting its obligation to supervise an offender in accordance with clause 3 and any rules made under that clause. Amendment No. 54 adds a new subsection providing for payments to be defrayed out of money provided by Parliament. Amendment No. 57 makes an alteration to schedule 10, which amends the Probation Service Act 1993, to exclude the expenses of the probation committee incurred under clause 3 from the definition of qualifying expenses in section 17(2) of that Act. That prevents the Home Office from, in effect, paying for the supervision of offenders twice. I hope that the House will welcome the amendments as sensible measures to allow the probation service and local authorities to be paid directly by the Secretary of State.
      New clause 79 is important. It would permit local authorities to contract out the management of secure accommodation in local authority and local authority controlled community homes. If he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health will respond to any substantive points that hon. Members may raise about the new clause.
      Mr. Alun Michael: I welcome the Minister's statement that he intends to provide a commitment to proper financing of the Government's policies. That makes him almost unique among Ministers. I hope that he will develop the principle

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      that he has enunciated when we debate crime prevention, drugs policy and many of the other important issues that the Opposition will wish to raise.
      I should like to express some concern on my own behalf and on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe), the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman on these issues, in the context of health and social services. While welcoming some elements of the provisions that the Minister has introduced, we are concerned about the lateness of their introduction. It would have been beneficial if the discussions to which the Minister referred had taken place well in advance. That would have enabled the nature of the provisions to be worked out better.
      The Minister is anxious to gain flexibility for central Government. That sounds to me like an attempt to secure the ability to stay within cost limits. The hon. Gentleman said that there would be detailed discussion of the means of reimbursement. What we want, and what our amendments seek to achieve, is that the Minister should honour his commitment to the provision of proper financing of Government policies and that he should be constrained to do so fairly.
      The Minister says that the Government have embarked on an expansion of secure accommodation, but there has been no proper consultation about what is needed or of what would be effective and the Government have taken a long time to get around to this action. The cost of secure accommodation is certainly a problem for local authorities—it may be more than £1,700 a week and even sometimes over £2,000—but availability is also a problem, as illustrated by the scandalous case reported in the press and other media over the weekend. This is a day-to-day problem for those dealing with the most difficult youngsters.
      I was a member of the Select Committee on Home Affairs which dealt with the criminal justice legislation of 1991. In February that year the Committee was promised by the then Minister that secure places would be made available for the purpose of ending the scandal of youngsters aged 16 and 17 being held in adult accommodation. That promise has not yet been fulfilled, lack of cash being the main problem. My own local authority experienced a lack of capital from the Welsh Office for this purpose.
      The Select Committee, in its report of last July on juvenile offenders, said:
      "While capital costs and part of the cost of commissioning of the building are met by central Government, revenue funding is met by local authorities, with authorities which do not have secure accommodation having to buy places from those who do … this puts a particularly heavy burden on local authorities in the start-up phase of a new unit, while the high cost of accommodation makes authorities very wary of planning secure accommodation unless they can ensure it will be filled."
      At the conclusion of its comments the Committee said:
      "We do not believe that it is appropriate for local authorities to bear the security costs of accommodating youngsters committed by the courts. We recommend that the costs of holding juveniles committed by the courts to local authority accommodation should be met from central funds."
      The Committee did not say that those costs should be partly met from central funds. While I welcome the action that the Minister has taken, I have to say that it is only a partial step. The new clause is a step in the right direction, but we need a commitment that the Minister will seriously consider the possibility of meeting all costs.
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      Government new clause 79 appears to be designed to extend privatisation of parts of homes and contractorisation of whole and of parts of places in which young people are held. We argued in Committee that clause 19 is wrong in principle and that it is not appropriate for the private sector to run secure accommodation for this most difficult group of children, who require the highest degree of expertise.
      In view of the very important debates ahead of us, we do not wish to prolong this one. I therefore ask the Minister to provide in detail the information that is available. Perhaps we might be given something like notes on clauses of the kind that would have been supplied had these provisions been included at an earlier stage. Hon. Members need to be fully informed about what the Government are seeking to do. Members of another place should also be informed of the full import of the Government's intentions so that they may debate the matter properly.
      It would be nice if the Government would indicate acceptance of our amendments, as they would help to meet the high principles expressed in the first sentence of the Minister's introductory speech. I do not suppose that that will happen, but I hope that the Government will proceed further down this path.
      Mr. Michael Shersby: I wish to declare an interest because, as the House knows, I am a parliamentary adviser to the Police Federation of England and Wales.
      New clause 74 is important because it deals with the provision of secure accommodation. The hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) referred to the discussions which have taken place over the past two years or so on the need to provide additional secure accommodation, and I confirm what he said. About two years ago, I led a deputation from the Police Federation to see the then Minister of State for Health on this very matter. The then Minister, now the Secretary of State for Health, was sympathetic to what we had to say but it was clear to me that she was considering the need to provide secure places mainly as an alternative to sending juveniles to prison. As the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth pointed out, we have not made the progress that we should have liked to make in providing the places that are so desperately needed.
      I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Home Office, for what he said today about the Government's commitment to funding part of the substantial cost of providing secure accommodation. It is not right to leave it all to local authorities, and it is absolutely right that the Government should bear a share of what must be a fairly substantial expenditure item.
      Additional secure accommodation is desperately needed. The thrust of the Bill is to ensure that it is provided to deal with juveniles, but I believe that the only way we shall get it is if local authorities across the country know that they can provide it in partnership with the Government. These are hard times for local authorities, for all the reasons with which we are familiar. I should like local authorities and the Government to work in partnership to fund and provide the accommodation as quickly as possible. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating and, knowing my hon. Friend the Minister as I do, I am sure that he will use his considerable energy to ensure that the programme is driven through. I therefore support the new clause.
      The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. John Bowis): I shall certainly take on board the points made by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) and my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby). Financing is something that the Government will be discussing with local authorities to ascertain how the best progress can be made.
      The hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth asked a number of specific questions about new clause 79. As the House and he will be aware, the Bill already incorporates powers of de-monopolisation of the provision of secure residential children's homes. Those powers were introduced after full consultation with local government and the voluntary and private sectors. The new clause is simply a logical extension of that provision and will enable local authorities, if they so wish, to consider contracting out the management of secure accommodation in local authority community homes and with the consent of the board of managers of local authority controlled community homes. They would, if they so wish—I stress the discretionary nature of the new clause—be able to bring to bear the philosophy and experience of the voluntary sector, or the particular skills of the private sector, on the management of these homes; the range of options would thus be extended in the search by local authorities for the most efficient and effective ways of providing the services.
      As my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Home Office, said, we are currently discussing with local authorities the need to provide an additional 170 places nation wide to enable the Government to meet their commitment under the Criminal Justice Act 1991 to abolish penal remand for 15 and 16-year-old boys and to meet additional accommodation requirements arising from the provisions of this Bill. The discussions are going well, and we welcome the local authorities' co-operation and willingness to help to meet the Government's target. I stress that there is nothing in the new clause to frustrate the efforts of local authorities to provide additional accommodation. The choice of whether existing and new accommodation should be managed directly by local authorities or other contractors will of course be a matter entirely for the local authorities.
      Ms Ann Coffey: I am interested to hear what the Minister said about negotiations with local authorities going well, but may I press him on what he means? In Stockport, my local authority last year had to pay a considerable amount of money for secure accommodation for which no provision was made in the standard spending assessment. I should not have thought that local authorities would believe that things were going well unless they had received a substantive commitment from the Government about the funding of secure training orders.
      Mr. Bowis: What I said is what I meant. We have a commitment to create an additional 170 places nation wide; we are in discussion with local authorities in various parts of the country and our discussions are going well. I am not able to announce today the conclusion of those discussions, but I expect the hon. Lady to be pleased with us when we are able to do so.
      4.45 pm
      Mr. Michael: The Minister has responded positively to some of the points that I made, but will he give an undertaking to put in writing the information that I requested? In view of the three-year delay since the promise was made to provide secure places, will he give an undertaking to set a time scale for concluding discussions with local authorities?
      Mr. Bowis: We are not in the business of holding guns to heads but I can genuinely tell the hon. Gentleman that he should just wait and see. Good progress is being made with local authorities and I think that he will be pleased when we are able to make our announcement. In response to his request for notes on clauses or briefing, I am happy to give a commitment that they will be made available.
      I can also give two further assurances. First, there is nothing in our proposals to weaken the existing safeguards covering the inspection and approval of secure accommodation. Secondly, local authorities will continue to be responsible for decisions about the placement of children in their care and they will have to have proper regard for the rights and welfare of those young people.
      I also make it clear that it is the Government's policy intention at some future date to enable local authorities—again, if they so wish—to contract out the management of non-secure accommodation in local authority community homes.
      The new clause is a useful option for local authorities and brings with it all the safeguards that the hon. Gentleman and I seek. Homes will continue to be subject to the the regulations relating to children's homes, with all that that implies for adequate staffing levels, the provision of suitable accommodation for each child, adequate facilities, food and clothing and record keeping. The secure accommodation regulations on procedural safeguards will also apply. Social services inspections will apply, as will the Secretary of State's power to order the closure of a home that had unsuitable premises or where the conduct was in breach of the children's homes regulations. The safeguards will continue as of now. It is a discretion—and only a discretion—that we offer as a half-way house to de-monopolisation under clause 19. I am confident that the House will support it.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Clause read a Second Time, and added to the Bill.

    New Clause 75

      POWER TO APPLY SECTIONS 29 TO 33 TO ARMED FORCES
      '.—(1) The Secretary of State may by order direct that any provision of sections 29 to 33 of this Act shall apply, subject to such modifications as he may specify, to any proceedings to which this section applies.
      (2) This section applies—

      (a) to proceedings whereby a charge is dealt with summarily under Part II of the Army Act 1955;

      (b) to proceedings whereby a charge is dealt with summarily under Part II of the Air Force Act 1955;

      (c) to proceedings whereby a charge is summarily tried under Part II of he Naval Discipline Act 1957;

      (d) to proceedings before a court martial constituted under the Army Act 1955;

      (e) to proceedings before a court martial constituted under the Air Force Act 1955;

      (f) to proceedings before a court martial constituted under the Naval Discipline Act 1957;

      (g) to proceedings before a disciplinary court constituted under section 50 of the Naval Discipline Act 1957;

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      (h) to proceedings before the Courts-Martial Appeal Court;

      (i) to proceedings before a Standing Civilian Court; and it applies wherever the proceedings take place.

      (3) An order under this section shall be made by statutory instrument and shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.'.[Mr. Maclean.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Mr. Maclean: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      The Ministry of Defence wishes the new rules in criminal proceedings concerning inferences to be drawn from silence in clauses 29 to 33 to apply as closely as possible to disciplinary proceedings under the service discipline Acts in order to avoid a disparity between civilian and service law. The new clause gives the Secretary of State power to apply those rules to service disciplinary proceedings and to specify whatever modifications he deems appropriate. Such modifications will be required because of the ways in which service disciplinary proceedings differ from those in the civilian courts. Those investigating offences and hearing proceedings under the service discipline Acts follow different procedures from their civilian counterparts and the application of the provisions will need to reflect that.
      The disciplinary proceedings to which the clauses may be applied are summary proceedings and courts martial, constituted in accordance with the service discipline Acts: the Army Act 1955, the Air Force Act 1955 and the Naval Discipline Act 1957. Those proceedings may take place anywhere in the world where the armed forces are situated and the rules will apply wherever they take place.
      I commend the clause to the House as providing a means to ensure that service personnel are treated on a similar basis to civilians in regard to the effects of clauses 29 to 33, whether they are dealt with under service law or under the civilian criminal law.
      Mr. Michael: Clearly, it would be wrong for there to be major disparities between the criminal law and the law applying to the armed forces. Having said that, it is also clear that there are major and grave deficiencies in clauses 29 to 33, which we shall highlight when we debate the clauses. It seems that it is not helpful or appropriate to pre-empt that debate. We shall seek to amend clauses 29 to 33 in due course and to delete parts of those provisions. If we are successful in those endeavours, our improvement of the Bill will also apply to new clause 75. That makes our position clear.
      Having made clear our distaste for much of what is in clauses 29 to 33, I do not intend to detain the House to debate those points this afternoon.
      Mr. Robert Maclennan: I am surprised that the Minister should have brought forward such a measure at this stage in the proceedings without any prior discussion. I am unhappy about a measure which is highly controversial in civil proceedings and which runs against the recommendations of the Royal Commission, under the chairmanship of Lord Runciman, being imported on the say-so of the Ministry of Defence into courts martials, which operate under different rules. The rules about the inferences to be drawn from silence are controversial enough in the civilian courts and, as the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) has said, we shall come to that issue in due course.
      It should not be thought that the new proposal is necessarily appropriate—even if clauses 29 to 33 go
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      through—in the different circumstances of disciplinary proceedings before a court martial. So far as I am aware, questions of convincing juries do not arise in such circumstances and, if there is any case for modifying the right to silence, it is because of the effect that it may have on the attitude of juries. I do not accept that that has sufficient weight to change the long-standing law of the country and, for courts martial, no such comparable consideration would seem to arise.
      Dr. Godman: I listened carefully to what my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) said, but I wish to ask the Minister a couple of questions. Following the comments of the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan), the proposal is at best controversial and at a worst dodgy. The new clause seeks to bring clauses 29 to 33 into Scottish law by way of a military back door. It would appear that much of United Kingdom military law slavishly follows English criminal law and criminal procedures. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I see that there is some agreement.
      Military law in the United Kingdom need not inevitably be completely compliant with one jurisdictional system, since there are marked differences between military law, Scottish criminal law and English criminal law. May I quote from Professor D. M. Walker's book, with which the Minister should be familiar, as he has some sort of degree in Scots law. In the book "The Scottish Legal System", published in 1992, Professor Walker said:
      "While it is no doubt desirable to have a common code of service law for all personnel, it is unfortunate that the code adopted is based entirely on English criminal law, which may cause difficulties for Scottish counsel or solicitors defending and may give rise to problems of great difficulty on appeal, since Scottish judges do not profess to know English criminal law."
      I suspect that officials and the Minister have not thought about the case of an appeal made by a Scottish soldier who is convicted by a court martial sitting in Edinburgh castle. Due to the divergences between the two systems, such a soldier would have a powerful case to argue against the inadequacy and, I would say, the rottenness of that law.
      Scottish soldiers serving, for example, with a Scottish regiment in Scotland would be subjected to an entirely different regime than is the case for their pals in civvy street. Since the Minister said in Committee that the Government have no intention of taking away from the Scottish legal system the right to silence, what we have is bad law. It is bad law to treat military law as the merest appendage of English criminal law. It is utterly illogical in relation to Scottish personnel who are serving in Scotland and those, for example, serving with a Scottish regiment overseas. If the proposal were to go through, what would happen to a Scottish service man or woman who seeks to appeal against the decision of a court martial, given that a court martial is entirely different from a jury trial at the sheriff court or in the High Court? I remind the Minister that Professor Walker said:
      "The Courts-Martial (Appeals) Act of 1951 (now the Courts-Martial (Appeals) Act 1968) constituted a Courts-Martial Appeal Court consisting in Scotland of such Lords Commissioners of Justiciary as the Lord Justice-General may nominate, being uneven in number and not less than three."
      Incidentally, Professor Walker is the emeritus professor of law at Glasgow university. He goes on to say:
      "A person convicted by court-martial in any of the services may, with the leave of the Appeal Court, and subject to certain conditions, appeal against his conviction."

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      Does that mean that, if the measure goes through, the Scottish soldier of whom I spoke would have to appeal to the English Court of Appeal? It is as absurd as that.
      Mr. Maclennan: I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, who is making a number of good points, but does he find it as objectionable as I do that no Scottish Minister is present to listen to the arguments? In Committee, there were no Scottish Ministers present, despite the fact that major parts of the Scottish criminal law were being amended. Is not that worse than discourtesy? Is not it an abuse?
      Dr. Godman: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. With him, as the other Scots Member of the Committee, I have complained loud and long over the Government's failure to put a Scottish Office Minister on the Front Bench. There was a Scottish Office Minister present—the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton)—who moved new clause 73 and disappeared in a cloud of dust. It is a disgrace, as I have said all along. Those measures should not be introduced in Scotland by means of this useless, clumsy piece of legislation.
      It is important to consider the right of a soldier, a sailor or an airman to appeal when he or she has been convicted of a military offence at a court martial set up, for example, in Edinburgh or Inverness. Professor Walker says:
      "The practice at the High Court of Justiciary sitting as Court of Criminal Appeal is followed"—
      in such a case—
      "and the powers of the court are similar. The court will allow an appeal if it thinks that the finding of the court-martial under all the circumstances of the case is unsafe or unsatisfactory, or involves a wrong decision on a point of law, or that there was a material irregularity in the course of the trial, but the court may dismiss an appeal on a technical point if it considers that in the circumstances no miscarriage of justice has occurred."
      Will that Scottish soldier have to appeal to an English Court of Appeal, given that the military law under which he is being tried at the court martial in Edinburgh is based on English law, or will such an appeal, as is the case now, be heard by members of the High Court of Justiciary? By that one example, we can show the illogicality of the proposal and its irredeemable unfairness to service personnel serving in Scotland, where we have an entirely different legal system.
      Will the matter be pushed to one side, like everything else, by the odd-job lot in government? I fear that that may be the case. I should like to hear an answer from the Minister about a convicted service man's appeal rights under the new clause.
      5 pm
      Mr. David Trimble: I apologise for intervening in this part of the debate as I did not hear the opening speeches. I do so to react to what I did hear, especially the comments of the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan). He said that clauses 29 to 33 were being introduced primarily with regard to jury trials. I disagree because the truth is quite the reverse. As everyone knows, juries have always taken silence into account. We need clauses 29 to 33 precisely to ensure that non-jury courts take silence into account. That is part of the reason why similar provisions were introduced in Northern Ireland almost six years ago. We knew that the judges in
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      single-judge courts were not taking into account matters that common sense said that they should. The clauses are especially useful in this context.
      The hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) referred to clauses 29 to 33 as affecting or abolishing the right to silence. They do not. If hon. Members want to see a new clause that would affect the right to silence, they should look at my new clause 63. New clause 76 does not affect the right to silence. It concerns merely the question of inference from silence, which does not abridge the right to silence.
      Mr. Maclean: In answer to the points made by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael), we robustly reject any suggestion that clauses 29 to 33 are improper, inadequate or badly drafted. As we said in Committee, they have received widespread support and we look forward to a robust debate on them.
      It is clear that service law needs to mirror and closely to follow the changes that we have made in civilian law. I do not know when military law was invented. There is no point in raking over the historical coals that decided that the manual of military law would be based initially on principles of English law rather than Scots law. That is clearly a fait accompli. It is, therefore, incumbent on us to ensure that the manual of military law keeps pace with the civilian law on which that manual was based. All hon. Members will agree that the military must operate by the same code of practice and by the same manual of military law throughout the United Kingdom. Unique and distinctive as is the contribution of the Scots to the British armed forces, it would be absolutely impossible and impractical to try now to operate a separate code of military law based on Scottish principles of law.
      Dr. Godman: I seek an assurance from the Minister that, in the example I gave, someone convicted by a court martial in Scotland would have the right, as is the case now, to appeal to an Appeal Court in Edinburgh.
      Mr. Maclean: I can absolutely give that assurance. The point is that the Appeal Court in Edinburgh will implement whatever law it is deciding on at the time. The Appeal Court in Edinburgh may implement much mercantile law; much world mercantile law is based on principles of English law. The Appeal Court may implement European Community laws, and is perfectly able to do that. At the moment, the Appeal Court is making an appeal decision based on the manual of military law, which the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) says is based on English principles. As an Englishman, he does not like that. As a Scot, I am happy to accept that state of affairs.
      The Appeal Court in Edinburgh is perfectly capable of coming to judgments based on the manual of military law, whoever invented it and whichever principles it contains. The fact that the manual may be amended and adapted to take in the principles enshrined in clauses 29 to 33 does not invalidate the case for the Appeal Court in Edinburgh to hear any appeals from any soldiers tried in courts martial in Scotland. Of course the Appeal Court in Edinburgh can do so just as excellently as it does now.
      The hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) was absolutely right in his brief contribution because he mentioned the Diplock courts. That has pulled the rug from under the argument advanced by the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan). It is possible

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      to proceed with new clause 75 now, as my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Ministry of Defence wish, because it will merely implement the sensible changes in the manual of military law which are included in clauses 29 to 33. No discourtesy was intended. The House would take it amiss if I told it that the Ministry of Defence had noticed that the change would be necessary for military law, but that we intended to do nothing about it. Of course it was right to so something about it. I commend the new clause to the House.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

    New Clause 76

      POLICE DETENTION AFTER CHARGE
      '.—ion 38 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (which requires an arrested person charged with an offence to be released except in specified circumstances) shall be amended as follows.
      (2) In subsection (1)(a), for sub-paragraphs (ii) and (iii) there shall be substituted the following sub-paragraphs—

      "(ii) the custody officer has reasonable grounds for believing that the person arrested will fail to appear in court to answer to bail;

      (iii) in the case of a person arrested for an imprisonable offence, the custody officer has reasonable grounds for believing that the detention of the person arrested is necessary to prevent him from committing an offence;

      (iv) in the case of a person arrested for an offence which is not an imprisonable offence, the custody officer has reasonable grounds for believing that the detention of the person arrested is necessary to prevent him from causing physical injury to any other person or from causing loss of or damage to property;

      (v) the custody officer has reasonable grounds for believing that the detention of the person arrested is necessary to prevent him from interfering with the administration of justice or with the investigation of offences or of a particular offence; or

      (vi) the custody officer has reasonable grounds for believing that the detention of the person arrested is necessary for his own protection;".

      (3) After subsection (2), there shall be inserted the following subsection2014;
      "(2A) The custody officer, in taking the decisions required by subsection (1)(a) and (b) above (except (a)(i) and (vi) and (b)(ii)), shall have regard to the same considerations as those which a court is required to have regard to in taking the corresponding decisions under paragraph 2 of Part I of Schedule 1 to the Bail Act 1976."
      (4) After subsection (7), there shall be inserted the following subsection—
      "(7A) In this section "imprisonable offence", has the same meaning as in Schedule 1 to the Bail Act 1976.".'.—[Mr. Maclean.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Mr. Maclean: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we may discuss the following: Amendment No. 29, in page 13, line 32, at end insert—
      '() infanticide
      () attempted infanticide'.
      Government amendments Nos. 105 to 107.
      Mr. Maclean: The Government gave an undertaking in Committee to consider amending the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 to enable a custody officer to detain a person after charge to prevent him from committing an
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      offence. New clause 76 is a result of that consideration. We believe that it achieves what the police service seeks, which is to have set out in legislation in the clearest terms the powers of a police custody officer to detain when he believes such detention is necessary to prevent offending.
      The new clause does more. It would be irresponsible not to think about the considerations that it might be appropriate to add to ensure the proper use of the new power. In Committee, the Opposition tabled an amendment in which they sought to give the police the power to detain a person charged with any offence to prevent offending. In our view, that power would be far too wide ranging as it would apply to people charged with a minor offence. We believe that it is sensible to make the same sort of distinctions as are made in the Bail Act 1976 and to require a custody officer to have regard to wider considerations when he decides whether to detain or to release a person.
      At present, the police can detain an individual after charge to prevent him from causing physical injury, or loss of or damage to property. There are offences, such as those involving drug dealing, which do not sit easily within that definition but which can cause considerable harm. The police need to be certain that they have the power to detain people who are likely to commit such offences; at the moment they are uncertain.
      We propose to give the police the power to detain an individual to prevent any type of offending. However, the new power will apply only when a person has been charged with an imprisonable offence. The Bail Act, which governs court bail, also makes a careful distinction between individuals charged with imprisonable offences and individuals charged with non-imprisonable offences. The Government want the police to be certain of the basis on which they make decisions to detain or to release. To that end, we propose that they be required to have regard to a number of relevant considerations, as the courts are required to do under the Bail Act. Those considerations are the nature and seriousness of the offence, the person's character, antecedents and community ties, the person's record under previous grants of bail and the strength of the evidence against him.
      I do not propose to alter the grounds for detention where a person has been charged with a non-imprisonable offence. It is essential that police keep their power to detain a person to prevent physical injury, loss or damage to deal with those who represent a threat to persons or property. In taking that and other decisions under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, the custody officer will also be required to have regard to the wider considerations that I have mentioned. I hope that the House will accept the new clause, which confirms the Government's determination to tackle reoffending, while recognising that there might be circumstances in which detention is not appropriate or justified.
      On amendments Nos. 105 and 106, the Government believe that bail hostels offer the courts an important option when taking the decision to remand. If the courts are unwilling to release a person unconditionally back into the community, the requirement to reside at a bail hostel and observe its rules may be enough to ensure that the defendant keeps to his bail and out of trouble. But bail to a bail hostel is very much a last alternative to custody and ranks close behind a remand to prison in terms of level of restriction. In coming to such a decision, the court will draw on advice and its understanding of bail hostel provision. The views of the probation service, the

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      prosecution and the defence will be sought. The magistrates will probably have visited a bail hostel and will be aware of the regime operated there. The nature of that decision-making process and the fact that bail hostels are one step down from a remand prison has caused the Government to consider whether it would be appropriate to allow the police the power to impose the condition as part of police bail.
      The workings of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act require custody officers to make a bail decision very early on, hours after an arrest, with little information and without the benefit of the advice that is available to the courts. The Government are taking steps to improve the information available to custody officers—for example, information about previous behaviour on bail. But there is a world of difference between the deliberations of the courtroom and the decision made in a custody suite of an inner-city police station at 1 o'clock in the morning. As I said, remand to a bail hostel is a fairly serious step. It is not in the same category of restriction as having to keep away from prosecution witness "x" or address "y".
      As the House will know, the Government have moved quickly to implement the recommendation of the royal commission that the police be allowed to attach conditions to bail once a person has been charged. We believe that the police will impose sensible conditions to ensure that individuals do not abscond, commit an offence on bail, interfere with witnesses or obstruct the course of justice. We do not think that the power to impose, as a condition of bail, residency at a bail hostel is an appropriate one for the police. That does not mean that remand to a bail hostel is ruled out entirely when the custody officer believes it to be an appropriate condition. The officer can detain the person overnight if he has reasonable grounds under PACE and pass on his view on the suitability of a bail hostel condition to the prosecution to put before the court. In such cases, I have little doubt that courts will incline towards such a condition, but it remains a decision that the court alone should take, not the police.
      I shall say a word or two about amendment No. 107, in response to a discussion in Committee on clause 26, which relates to amendment No. 107. My hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Evans) asked for the removal of the phrase
      "in the hands of the prosecutor"
      which in his view was ambiguous and unnecessary. We undertook to reflect further on that. Having considered the wording again, we are prepared to make the amendments sought in Committee by my hon. Friend. It is clear from subsection (1) that it is the prosecutor who makes an application. It is implicit in that the prosecutor will decide whether an application is justified and, if so, what information he requires to support the application. I know that my hon. Friend will regard that as one less constitutional outrage that he has encountered in the Bill. I hope that he is content with the amendment, which removes the ambiguity that gave him concern. I commend the amendments and the Government new clause to the House.
      5.15 pm
      Mr. Michael: I am sure that the Minister was disappointed that the hon. Member for Monmouth (Mr. Evans) was not here to applaud his final comments, but at least I am able to welcome the Minister's response to the arguments advanced by the Opposition in Committee.
      I do not wish to delay the House, but the Minister has made it clear that there have been detailed considerations.
      Mr. Oliver Heald: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, as he did very generously in Committee. Does he agree that a number of Conservative Members adavanced the same arguments in Committee, including myself?
      Mr. Michael: I noticed the hon. Gentleman's presence in Committee from time to time, and indeed members on both sides of the Committee commented on the issue. However, I speak for the Opposition, not for the hon. Gentleman.
      I shall not delay the House on a point of detail, but the Minister acknowledged the fact that there had been detailed consideration and that there are complexities in the proposals that he has advanced following consideration of the points that we made. Therefore, will the Minister agree to provide information on the way in which the new clause will affect the position—in effect, the note on the new clause that would have been available had the proposal been included in the Bill before it went into Committee? Will he at least do so for Committee members who have taken an interest in the issue?
      I gained some knowledge of bail hostels during my period as a member of a probation committee. I understand the sensitivity with which the Minister approaches the matter. I recognise that there are difficulties, but there may be circumstances, for instance when a person has been resident in a bail hostel, when consultation with the probation service is immediately available. I recognise, however, that the Minister's suggestion that the matter should be decided by a court has merit. After today's deliberations, could he provide information on the reasoning that led him to introduce the new clause? That would assist us in considering the matter further. It is a delicate matter, but it would be a good thing if conditions could be imposed to allow for those rare circumstances in which someone should not be held in custody. I do not seek, however, to divide the House on that matter or to delay the Minister further in the debate.
      Mr. Shersby: I warmly welcome the new clause. It is very important that a custody officer has at his disposal the clearest possible guidance on the grounds on which a person can be detained. The new clause will be extremely valuable in making that possible.
      Most hon. Members know that the job of the custody officer is one of the most difficult and responsible jobs carried out by a member of the police service. As my hon. Friend the Minister said, decisions often have to be made in the middle of the night and those decisions have to be the right ones. It is essential that the custody officer is absolutely clear about the decisions that he makes and is fully informed about how the law is intended to operate. The new clause is a great improvement and I welcome it without reservation.
      The new clause is a major step forward. I hope that it will bring to an end the reoffending on bail which has been

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      the cause of such great concern to hon. Members on both sides of the House. I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary on ensuring that the matter has been dealt with in the new clause.
      Mr. John Greenway: I endorse all that my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) has said. The measure is long overdue. There is nothing more disheartening for our policemen and policewomen than to arrest criminals, only to see them released on bail hours later and then to discover that they have interfered with witnesses or committed further offences. The new clause provides a much better balance than has existed under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. When the matter is considered in another place, I hope that the warm support for the new clause will be noted.
      Mr. Maclean: I thank my hon. Friends for their warm welcome for the new clause. Of course, I am willing to write to the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) with some of the details that he requested.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

    New Clause 79

      MANAGEMENT OF SECURE ACCOMMODATION
      '.—(1) The Children Act 1989 shall be amended as follows.
      (2) In section 53 (provision and management of community homes)—

      (a) in subsection (3) (homes which may be community homes)—

      (i) in paragraph (a), for the words "managed, equipped and maintained" there shall be substituted the words "equipped, maintained and (subject to subsection (3A)) managed"; and

      in paragraph (b)(i), for the words "management, equipment and maintenance" there shall be substituted the words "equipment, maintenance and (subject to subsection (3B)) management"; and

      (b) after subsection (3) there shall be inserted the following subsections—

      "(3A) A local authority may make arrangements for the management by another person of accommodation provided by the local authority for the purpose of restricting the liberty of children.

      (3B) Where a local authority are to be responsible for the management of a community home provided by a voluntary organisation, the local authority may, with the consent of the body of managers constituted by the instrument of management for the home, make arrangements for the management by another person of accommodation provided for the purpose of restricting the liberty of children.".

      (3) In Part H of Schedule 4 (management of controlled and assisted community homes)—

      (a) in paragraph 3(4), after the word "managers" there shall be inserted the words ", except in so far as, under section 53(3B), any of the accommodation is to be managed by another person."; and

      (b) in paragraph 3(5), after the word "body" there shall be inserted the words "; and similarly, to the extent that a contract so provides, as respects anything done, liability incurred or property acquired by a person by whom, under section 53(3B), any of the accommodation is to be managed".'.—[Mr. Howard.]

      Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

    New Clause 1

      CRIMINAL INJURIES COMPENSATION
      'Her Majesty's Government shall not bring into effect a new Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme unless and until the
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      relevant provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 shall have been repealed and a new scheme introduced not by executive order pursuant to the Royal Prerogative but by Act of Parliament.'.—[Mr. Blair.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Mr. Tony Blair: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to take the following: amendment (a) to the new clause, after 'Compensation Scheme', insert
      'in any part of the United Kingdom and based upon any system of fixed levels of award for particular types of injury.'.
      New clause 48—Criminal Injuries Compensation Board—
      '. In section 171 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, for subsection (2) there is substituted the following subsection— "Sections 108 to 117 of and Schedules 6 and 7 to this Act (as amended by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994) shall come into force six months after that Act is passed.".'
      New clause 49—Factors to be considered in determining compensation—
      '. Schedule 7 to the Criminal Justice Act 1988 is amended as follows:—

      (a) in paragraph 4(3), after "cases", there shall be inserted the words

      "but may not determine particular amounts for particular cases"; and

      (b) the following new paragraph is inserted after paragraph 10—

      "10(A) In determining the amount of compensation available under this Part of this Act, the Board may take into account any factors which appear to it to be appropriate.".'.

      Mr. Blair: The new clause deals with the new criminal injuries compensation scheme. Nothing so completely exposes the hollowness of the Government's claims on law and order than scrapping the existing system of compensation for criminal injuries.
      We have one of the finest systems in the world for the individual compensation of victims. It is a model that other countries have agreed to and followed. That system is to be replaced by a wholly different one, based on a crude tariff drawn up by the Government, which will ignore the circumstances of victims when compensating them for their injury.
      The new scheme was introduced after a sham consultation, and was denounced by Victim Support, the police and organisations representing the criminally injured. The chairman of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board—a distinguished former Cabinet Minister—described it as "fundamentally flawed" and "manifestly unfair", and two former Law Lords said that it was illegal. It was also introduced with a deplorable lack of candour about its true motivation. Even for this Government and their legislation, that is quite a record.
      Of the people whose views were sought, I know no one who supported the new scheme, and it is the subject of a case for judicial review in the courts, which is to be heard in May.
      The present scheme was introduced in 1964, and compensates victims of violent crime on roughly the same basis as the civil law—compensation is based on the loss to the individual, which is the very nature of the criminal injuries compensation scheme. The present scheme therefore takes into account any future loss of earnings, as well as loss of amenity. In the case of a fatal injury,

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      compensation is assessed on the same basis as that provided by the Fatal Accidents Act 1976—with some measure for the dead person's loss of income.
      When the present scheme was introduced, payments were made on an ex gratia, non-statutory basis, but from a very early stage in its development it was anticipated that it would be given a proper statutory basis. That anticipation became firmer following a royal commission report in 1979; and in 1988, during proceedings on the Criminal Justice Bill, the intention to make the scheme statutory so that payments were no longer ex gratia but of right was reaffirmed.
      Section 171 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 thus placed a specific duty on the Home Secretary to introduce the scheme in a statutory form. Discretion was allowed as to when the scheme should come into effect on a statutory basis, but not whether it should do so. For various reasons, that duty was not carried out, and the Government used that fact to try to introduce the new scheme, using prerogative powers rather than by seeking the proper consent of Parliament.
      It is true that, under the new tariff system, awards will often be roughly the same as under the present scheme. However, thousands of people every year—a significant number—will lose, and, according to parliamentary answers given by Ministers, about 25 per cent. will lose substantially. The victims of violent crime who lose will often be those with the worst injuries. The new scheme, therefore, hits hardest those people who are most in need.
      There are four principal objections to the new scheme. First, it fails to take proper account of any loss of future earnings, although that is often the major element of any award. For example, 18-year-olds may suffer criminal injuries identical to those of 80-year-olds, but because the former would go out to work and would hopefully have a lifetime of earnings in front of them, their circumstances are plainly entirely different from those of elderly people. Yet they will receive the same awards, irrespective of their circumstances.
      Recently, a nurse was badly injured and received about £126,000 as compensation, of which £17,000 only was for loss of amenity. If her case came up under the new scheme, she would receive only £5,000. The police officer who was criminally injured while carrying out his duties and received £120,000 would, in similar circumstances under the new scheme, receive only £7,500.
      Although civil law will still compensate for negligence on the basis of loss, where criminal injuries occur, the connection between injury and loss—based on the future earnings capacity of the injured person—will be broken as a result of the Government's changes.
      The same will apply to fatal awards. Dependency awards will go. For example—to take another recent case—in the Slater case in June last year, a woman who witnessed her husband's fatal stabbing, which took place in front of her children, received £170,000. Under the new system, she would receive only £17,000.
      The examples that I have given are of real cases of loss suffered by some of the most needy people and by the victims of the most serious and violent crimes. The Government cannot expect us to take their protestations
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      about victims of crime seriously while they are undermining the basis of compensation for those victims—the money they desperately need to rebuild their lives.
      Secondly, as the noble Lord Carlisle pointed out in another place, the new system will often be unworkable. For example, the psychological effects of rape or armed robbery on the criminally injured will vary enormously, yet they are effectively to be treated as the same in many cases. The scheme is not merely wrong in principle, but unworkable in practice.
      Thirdly, some of the judgments under the tariff system are extraordinary. Details of the system were issued in a White Paper at the end of the parliamentary Session last year. One suspects that it was announced then for news management purposes rather than for any other reason. As far as I can see, the system outlined in that White Paper has changed very little.
      I shall give the House some examples of the tariffs in the system that the Government intend to drive through. Sexual abuse of a child is apparently to be worth about £1,000, and loss of a front tooth about £1,500. Heaven only knows how any sensible person could reach such a conclusion. Rape or buggery will be worth £7,500, as will a fractured kneecap. A fatality might result in an award of about £10,000 to the dependants of the deceased, which will be the same as compensation for the loss of an ear.
      The new tariff system is not merely unworkable and wrong in principle because it fails to take future earnings into account; in some circumstances, it will be entirely unfair and arbitrary.
      Finally, the basis for the introduction of the new scheme has changed completely, and the House is entitled to feel some anger at the way in which that has been done. When the then Home Secretary announced the new criminal injuries compensation scheme on 23 November 1992, it was said to be necessary, not to cut costs but because it offered the
      "best prospect of providing quicker payments to claimants through a means that is fair, straightforward and understandable."
      That deception, which is what it was, was carried on until the White Paper was issued in December last year, when the Government claimed that the purpose of the new scheme was to offer a "better service to victims". No mention was made of the fact that the purpose of the proposal was to cut the costs of the scheme; rather, the Government claimed that it would make the scheme more administratively efficient, fairer and more easily understandable. One would have thought that the primary purpose of introducing the new proposal was merely to provide a better type of service to victims.
      5.30 pm
      A few weeks ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Simpson) had an Adjournment debate on the issue, when the Minister dismissed as cynical those who said that the Government's proposal was about cost cutting. He said that those people did not understand the true basis of the Government's thinking. It was Ministry of Truth stuff, because it is now absolutely clear that the basis of the new scheme has nothing to do with providing a better service for victims.
      The Home Secretary may frown, but that suggestion cannot seriously be maintained, since not a single organisation that supports victims has come out in favour of his new scheme. Perhaps the right hon. and learned Gentleman would care to mention one. I may be wrong,

      669
      and I do not want to overstate the case, but I think that I am right to suggest that not a single organisation of any nature has come out in favour of the new scheme.
      The way in which the scheme has been driven through is quite extraordinary. It has been done on the basis of providing a better system for victims, but the fact that victim organisations have contradicted that claim and that no one has stepped forward to support it simply exposes the entirely sham nature of the consultation exercise.
      The original reason for the Government's proposal, which was first given in another place and will no doubt be repeated here tonight, is that costs are spiralling out of control. That reason has never been part of the consultation process. The Government have never attempted to spell out why those costs will spiral out of control. On what basis do they suggest that costs will rise from between £170 million and £200 million to £500 million? The reason for the Government's assertion has never been published in any consultation paper so that we can assess whether it is right or wrong. That figure was simply plucked out of the air to justify a decision taken once the original justification was blown apart.
      Upon what putative crime figures is the suggested cost based? If it is the case that the cost of the scheme is set to double in the next few years, I assume that that is because the Government take a rather less than sanguine view of how crime and violence are set to develop. Whether the figure is genuine or not we simply do not know, but it is quite wrong for it to be dragged out of the Government under duress, without any proper consultation. They have made no attempt to consult people properly to reach the best and fairest solution.
      This is a necessarily short debate, and I know that a number of my hon. Friends, and perhaps one or two Conservative Members would like to speak. The introduction of the new scheme exemplifies the sorry mixture of incompetence and arrogance that sometimes cover the conduct of the Government. If they were serious in their protestations of support for victims of crime, it is contradictory to introduce the scheme, without proper consultation, when it will damage the interests of many thousands of victims a year.
      The Government should withdraw their proposal until they have a proper scheme, subject to proper consultation, which protects the interests of the victim in a way that the British people wish to see.
      Mr. Maclennan: The Home Secretary, by proposing a tariff-based scheme of compensation for victims, departs from the clear statutory duty that was placed upon him by Parliament in the Criminal Justice Act 1988. In doing so, he follows the lead of his predecessor, his right hon. and learned Friend who is now Chancellor of the Exchequer. He would have been wise mostly to ignore that lead in matters concerning his right hon. and learned Friend's conduct of the criminal justice system, because his White Papers have led to extensive criticism by all those who must deal with the criminal justice system.
      The manner in which the Government have brought forward the proposals for compensation for the victims of crime is an example of how not to proceed. In a debate in another place, the chairman of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, Lord Carlisle of Bucklow, made it plain that neither he nor his colleagues on the board had been consulted about the principles that underlay the Government's proposals before they were announced.
      670
      That seems to me to be not merely a discourtesy, but a serious abuse, for no one better than that board could know of the practicality—or, as it believes, the impracticality—of the scheme that the Home Secretary has proposed. No one could know better than that board the practical consequences and injustices that will be wrought by a tariff scheme along the lines that the Home Secretary has proposed to introduce as at 1 April—originally without any parliamentary discussion.
      Mrs. Cheryl Gillan: On the hon. Gentleman's introductory remarks, perhaps he should take into account the reply given by Lord Elwyn-Jones to a parliamentary question about the Road Traffic Act 1974:
      "if the Act states that it shall come into force on a date to be fixed by order made by the Minister, and provides no more than that, it is within the discretion of the Minister as to when he brings the Act into force. Parliament may, of course, bring pressure to bear on him and require him to justify any inactivity. But, short of another Act, there is no way in which the Minister can be compelled by Parliament to bring that Act into operation."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 29 June 1977; Vol. 384, c. 1110.]
      Does the hon. Gentleman agree?
      Mr. Maclennan: No doubt it is open to a Minister to decide at what date he may discharge an obligation imposed upon him by Act of Parliament, but this is a very different matter. This is not a proposal to discharge an obligation imposed upon the Home Secretary by Act of Parliament; it is an announced proposal to repeal the very Act that imposed that duty upon him. The case that the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) had in mind is not in pari materia with what the Home Secretary is doing.
      The proposal is the more remarkable because, in the past, the Conservative Government have felt it appropriate to praise the criminal injuries compensation scheme and to draw to people's attention its exemplary work. Previous Home Secretaries have repeatedly undertaken to put it on a statutory basis. If one goes back to when the Government took office, when the Pearson commission on civil liability reported, indications were given then that the scheme would be put on a statutory basis.
      That was not done originally, when the scheme was introduced by a Conservative Government—that led by Sir Alec Douglas-Home—because the consequences of the scheme could not be known. It was thought that it would be sensible to try it out to see if it worked fairly and in a manner which should be rendered firm in statute. In 1983 and 1988, following the Pearson commission, progress reports were given by Home Secretaries. Candidly, the Minister, in proposing to proceed in the way he has, has acted high-handedly, and, I believe, possibly illegally. That matter will be tested at a later date.
      The contents of what is proposed must also raise questions about whether the Government have violated the provisions of the European convention on the compensation of victims of violent crimes. Article 4 of that convention requires us to provide compensation which covers
      "according to the case under consideration"—
      that is, according to the specific circumstances of the individual case—
      "at least … loss of earnings … and, as regards dependants, loss of maintenance."
      If the Government intend to derogate from provisions of

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      international conventions to which they have subscribed, they would do well to inform the House of their intentions. That has been normal in other spheres.
      The hardship it is proposed to seek to dismiss is undoubted. The Government gave no sign of their true purpose in making the proposal. As Lord Ackner, an experienced former Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, said:
      "This is a cost-cutting exercise."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 March 1994; Vol. 552, c. 1072.]
      He also regarded it as "an abuse of power", as did a number of other learned Lords in the debate which, thankfully, was held in another place—thankfully, because they turned a spotlight on what the Government were planning to do. In a debate in which there were, I believe, 16 participants, I do not think that a single one who was not a member of the Government thought it right to support the Government.
      The nature of the compensation at present available under the scheme is closely related to the circumstances of the individuals who are adversely affected by crimes of violence. Principles of the common law, and of the statute law in the case of the Fatal Accidents Act 1976, are imported into the individual deliberations to ensure that the reality of the consequence of the sufferings by the victims of crime is reflected. It is there that the Government seem most disingenuous, for they have suggested in their White Paper that all that is necessary is for society to give some token of its concern about the consequence of violence on victims.
      Hitherto, a genuine attempt has been made by the distinguished lawyers—40 of them—who sit as part-time servants of the public in determining those cases, to measure the reality of the suffering and the losses that it is to be anticipated will flow from it. The trouble with the new scheme is that the standard tariff leaves wholly out of account many of the matters that are most burdensome on the victims.
      The people who suffer serious injury will be hardest hit—those who have to alter their homes and their way of life as a result of injury, those who have to confront the prospect of years of medical treatment, those who face loss of earnings, the dependants of those who have been murdered, or those who have suffered through manslaughter of their spouse. Their maintenance will not be taken into consideration. Those are serious changes that are proposed. Although it is possible, by averaging out to say that some people may prove better off, it is incontrovertibly true that those who suffer most will be the hardest hit.
      New clause 1 and the related amendments give the Government an opportunity to reconsider their position. I hope that they will take it, for, if they do not, they will stand accused of paying no attention to the victims of violent crimes and controvert allegations that they have made that the victims are more in their mind than the criminals in the criminal justice system.
      5.45 pm
      I appeal to the Minister to reconsider, to listen to the wise advice of the people who have administered the scheme as it operates and, if it is thought necessary to modify the statutory scheme for Treasury reasons, to enter into genuine consultations before abandoning the operative scheme.
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      The Government appear to speak with two voices on the subject, for the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has announced consultations. If he were to proceed on different lines from the Home Secretary, we could find ourselves in the strangely anomalous position in which the victims of violent crimes in Northern Ireland were treated according to a system that operated common law principles or statutory principles, but not the victims of comparable offences in Great Britain.
      Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: Why in Northern Ireland?
      Mr. Maclennan: Because there is already a scheme there, as I understand it, which is statutory and which the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland apparently has it in mind to modify. Those are grave matters, and the present proposals of the Government will wreak great injustice.
      May I recall to the Home Secretary the fate of the wife of one of the former members of the Conservative Government, Lady Tebbit, who was gravely injured for life, in circumstances that must come very close to his memory? That type of case is the type that will be adversely affected by what he has proposed. I do not think that it is defensible and I hope that he will not try to defend it.
      Mrs. Gillan: I am pleased to have an opportunity to contribute to the debate on new clause 1.
      The scheme that we operate in the United Kingdom not only was the first of its type in Europe, but has remained—
      Mr. Trimble: I heard the hon. Lady refer to the scheme that we operate being the first in the United Kingdom, but the scheme that operates in Great Britain was not the first. Schemes operated in Ireland and Northern Ireland on a statutory basis for decades, if not centuries. I give the hon. Lady the opportunity to correct herself.
      Mrs. Gillan: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, but Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom; this was one of the first schemes to operate in Europe and it certainly remains the most generous.
      Even in the United States of America, in the most recent year for which figures were available the amount paid under compensation schemes was only marginally more than the total paid out in the United Kingdom. It is somewhat disingenuous for Opposition Members to say that we may be in contravention of European legislation because, as I understand it, Italy does not even have a compensation scheme. Indeed, during 1992 and 1993 the compensation scheme in the United Kingdom paid out more than those in all the other countries of the European Union put together.
      The changes being made to move to a tariff-based scheme are necessary. There are inherent disadvantages in a scheme which operates under common law. Moreover, as everyone will agree, the number of claimants has, sadly, greatly increased. The projected figure for next year is some 70,000 claims.
      Mr. Gerald Bermingham: If I were working on a building site and dropped a sledgehammer on the hon. Lady's leg and broke it, she would get the necessary civil compensation. She would receive compensation if she could no longer dance and for any drop in earnings. But if I became so angry that I smashed the sledgehammer into your leg in a criminal way, you would not get all that compensation. Is there any justification in that?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not saying that he would get angry with me.
      Mrs. Gillan: The thought of the hon. Member wielding a hammer on a building site leaves me speechless.
      There have been great and unacceptable delays in awarding compensation to victims of crime. In December 1993 Roger Pannone, president of the Law Society, admitted that the average claim turnaround was 18 months. Most reasonable people would agree that that is far too long to wait for compensation.
      Mr. Maclennan: Will i he hon. Lady give way?
      Mrs. Gillan: No, I wish to make some progress now.
      Mr. Maclennan: Will the hon. Lady give way on that point?
      Mrs. Gillan: Very well.
      Mr. Maclennan: She must know that the chairman of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board has made it plain that 80 per cent. of cases are dealt with within nine months.
      Mrs. Gillan: I made it clear that I was quoting the president of the Law Society.
      Mr. Campbell-Savours: Central Office brief.
      Mrs. Gillan: For the hon. Gentleman's information, I have no Central Office brief in my hand.
      The hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) also underestimated the current position when he referred to approximately £500 million being available as it was made clear in a House of Lords reply that over the next three years £558 million will be available for the scheme.
      People who claim against the scheme do not have to identify their attackers, consider their prospects for success or run the risk of having costs awarded, as they would under a civil scheme. That will continue. Moreover, 94 per cent. of all claims are for less than £10,000; 59 per cent. are for less than £3,000; and 48 per cent. are for less than £2,000. The new tariff-based scheme has been arrived at by taking the median figure, not the mean figure, which reflects more closely the value of pain and suffering as an element of the award.
      Some of the objections voiced by people such as the president of the Law Society may reflect the fact that, under the new scheme, the costly skills of specialist lawyers will no longer be needed.
      I welcome the tariff-based scheme. It will produce awards reasonably quickly and in an understandable and predictable manner, which will be much better for victims of crime.
      Mr. Campbell-Savours: I am sponsored by Unison, which means that I, personally, receive no moneys from Unison; they are paid to my constituency party.
      Unison is extremely angry with this proposal because its members—mainly nurses—are often the subject of attacks at the workplace. Public sector workers such as Unison members risk suffering criminal assaults at work. The tariff scheme is therefore likely to lead to considerable injustice to Unison members in the amount of payment. No weight can be given to the effect that an incident will have on an individual victim. Individuals will receive "the average award" for their injuries, irrespective of the consequences that the injury has had on them.
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      One Unison member received compensation by presenting evidence of her physiological discomfort following a modest physical injury sustained while on duty in a locked psychiatric ward. The award was initially rejected on the basis that it was below the £1,000 threshold for compensation. On appeal, under the present scheme, however, evidence was heard that the individual had experienced enormous psychological suffering on her return to work in the same closed environment and on having to deal with her assailant. Under the new system, that evidence would be discounted and the member would not qualify for compensation.
      I will give a little more detail about the case to which my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) referred. The exclusion of financial loss from the scheme will have a dramatic effect on the value of awards. For instance, compensation received by a Unison nursing sister who had to retire in her early thirties as a result of criminal injury was made up largely of financial loss. Of a total award of £126,943, £11,000 related to loss of wages up to the date of the hearing, £20,000 related to loss of pension rights and £63,162 related to future loss of earnings. Under the new arrangement, the nursing sister could recover no compensation for financial loss.
      Unison members, especially nurses, will be placed at a grave disadvantage. I therefore place on record, on behalf of the union, its members' strong resentment of the fact that the policy was developed in a forum where the unions had almost no input and that they are now faced with the framing of poor legislation.
      Mr. Shersby: As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and my hon. Friend the Minister of State will know, I am not an enthusiast of the tariff-based scheme. I made my views on the matter extremely clear in an Adjournment debate on 18 March 1993, when I covered many of the points mentioned today. It so happens that, among my many interests, I am president of the Uxbridge victim support scheme and therefore take a special interest in victim compensation and the terrible injuries sustained by members of the public.
      Some 90 per cent. of victims of crime are innocent. When the Government announced about 12 months ago that they intended to introduce this tariff-based scheme, they argued that it would provide the best prospect of quicker payment to claimants by clear, straightforward and understandable means. Following their announcement, I decided to raise the matter in an Adjournment debate because I believe that compensation by the state for criminal injustice is a vital part of our British way of life and that we should take care before moving away from the present satisfactory scheme. Although the proposed scheme may be quicker, it may provide claimants with what I can only describe, and what has been described to me, as rough justice.
      Mr. Michael Stephen: Is my hon. Friend aware that about 8.5 per cent. of all the money that the Government put into the criminal injuries compensation scheme goes on lawyers' fees and administrative costs? Would he not be in favour of a system which ensured that most, if not all, of the money went to the victims themselves?
      Mr. Shersby: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but I suggest that there are good reasons why that 8.5 per cent. is deployed on lawyers' fees. Under the present scheme,

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      each case is carefully considered by a highly competent lawyer to determine the exact compensation that ought to be paid.
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      It is worth considering why the criminal injuries compensation scheme was brought into existence by a Conservative Government in 1964. It was realised that most of the victims of crime could not bring civil proceedings for compensation against their assailants because those assailants would be without funds. The Government of the day recognised that there was an increasing number of crimes, and the scheme was a recognition of how society had failed the victim by allowing him or her to be assaulted. That being so, it was only right that Governments should ensure that victims received compensation, and they have done so ever since the scheme was introduced.
      Compensation is treated by victims as an important part of their recovery, fulfilling their desire for some sort of justice. The payment of compensation, coupled with successful prosecution of the offender, is usually a large factor in a person's recovery.
      One important feature of the tariff-based scheme is the fact that it prohibits the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board from making awards for the loss of past or future earnings. I hope that I am wrong, but if not, that means that 90 per cent. of civilian applicants who suffer injuries so serious that they are unable to earn their livelihood will be obliged to rely on social security benefits, which would not usually make up the shortfall in their income. It would not be right for any new scheme to deprive the innocent victims of crime of the right to recover income lost due to violent crime. Indeed, that is one of the cardinal reasons why the current scheme has been well regarded throughout the country.
      The essence of the tariff-based scheme is that it identifies types of injury, giving standard figures for damages for each injury—rather like the Northern Ireland model, which was mentioned earlier and which has been in existence for some time.
      Mr. Trimble in indicated dissent.
      Mr. Shersby: That is certainly the advice that I have received from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board. My concern, therefore, is that if we move to a tariff-based scheme a number of anomalies will appear.
      In the guidance given to the CICB by the Judicial Studies Board, types of injury are identified and, according the seriousness of the injury, given a bracket within which compensation would be appropriate. Those brackets are often wide, because it is recognised that each individual experiences a different type of injury, and the compensation received should take account of that. One broken arm can be quite different from another, depending on the circumstances in which it was broken—as the hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) was at pains to point out to my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Ms Gillan). The present scheme allows experienced lawyers to study all aspects of a case. That is the job that they are paid for and they do it very well. The scheme over which they have presided is fair and puts the victim of a criminal in roughly the same position as a civil claimant.
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      It must be remembered that there can be no duplication of state benefits. All benefits paid by the state, all private pensions and much private insurance are counted as credit against damages, to reduce the state's outlay under the present system. If a victim is injured by a motor car used as a weapon—in other words, the person is deliberately run down—he can apply to the Motor Insurers Bureau for compensation under common law. But if a victim is injured by a very different piece of metal such as a crowbar—we would all deplore that, but it happens all too frequently these days—he would have to apply to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board and he would obtain much less by way of damages. Can that be justified? We should at the very least be concerned about it.
      My other worry derives form the fact that it would be impossible to provide any meaningful tariff for many of the types of injury that people incur. Let us take, for instance, the horrible experiences of facial and bodily scarring, post-traumatic stress disorder, or sexual abuse, including rape—these are all obvious examples of what I am talking about. How can any standard figure be set for such injuries? Why should not the present system continue, under which the damages are assessed by one of the lawyers to whom my hon. Friend the Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen) referred? I remind the House that the lawyers concerned are usually Queen's Counsel and very experienced in their jobs.
      What is the basic reason for the tariff-based scheme that my right hon. and learned Friend wishes to introduce? It is to save money, a perfectly respectable objective for any Home Secretary. There is no doubt that the cost of compensating victims for criminal injuries has been rising inexorably in the past few years, and is set to continue rising. A tariff-based scheme will ensure that the costs of compensation gradually flatten out and do not increase in line with the projections made for the present scheme. Obviously any Cabinet Minister has to take account of these matters and must listen to what the Treasury says about them. I have no objection to that. My right hon. and learned Friend has given many fine demonstrations of standing up to the Treasury, and I believe that on this occasion it is important that he do so again and say, "I am sorry, but we cannot go down this path."
      If the Treasury wants to save money, I invite Treasury Ministers to come to any meeting of the Public Accounts Committee, on which the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) and I have the pleasure of serving. We could have offered my right hon. and learned Friend £48 million a couple of weeks ago from the Department of Employment's Field system, £43 million from the Wessex health authority, or a few hundred thousand pounds from the Development Board for Rural Wales. The list is endless. The PAC has identified savings of about £208 million a year; that is not chicken feed, and it would go quite a long way towards keeping the present scheme going.
      All hon. Members who have spoken today have approached this difficult issue on what I would call a House of Commons basis. What we are considering is fundamental to the way in which victims are compensated and we should be very careful before we move away from the scheme that we have.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham spoke of delays in settling claims. I have been reading the reports of the CICB; The figures for the year ending 31 March 1992 show that the board received about

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      61,400 applications, as against 50,820 in 1990ߝ91. As the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland pointed out, 80 per cent. of those claims were settled within nine months. That is a fine record.
      I do not for a moment accept that the argument that a tariff-based scheme will lead to much quicker settlement of claims is sufficient to justify the diminution of available benefits. A parent came to see me in my constituency the other night whose son had lost the sight of his eye because he had been stabbed by a youth. He received £18,000 compensation. Would he have got that much under the tariff-based scheme? I think not.
      I am sorry to have to disagree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary. On many occasions recently I have given him my full and unqualified support for just about every feature of the Bill, but I regret that I am unable to be enthusiastic about his proposed scheme and I shall find it difficult to support it.
      Mr. Bermingham: I start by posing again the question that I put to the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) in whose speech I intervened. I asked why the compensation paid to a person for criminal injury should be different from that paid to someone who suffers a civil injury.
      I declare two interests. First, I am sponsored by the GMB which merely contributes towards my election expenses and pays a small sum per year towards constituency costs. Secondly, I am a practising lawyer.
      Many members of the union that sponsors me work in jobs in which assaults take place. Members of the union that sponsors my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) are also regularly assaulted.
      Sometimes one cannot immediately assess or "tarrify"—whatever word one wants to use—an injury because some injuries are stress related, and how can one assess continuing damage? For some people who are injured as a result of criminal assaults there is no recovery. That is sad, but it shows the sort of world in which we live. The Government are dedicated to the fight against—or rather the fight for law and order and against crime.
      Mr. Graham Allen: My hon. Friend was right first time.
      Mr. Bermingham: I know. It was a Freudian slip.
      The Government say that they are dedicated to defeating crime, but their proposals make it appear that they are dedicated to penalising the victim. The hon. Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen) said that 8.5 per cent. of compensation scheme money went to lawyers. If the hon. Gentleman had any knowledge of what has to be done in the preparation of a criminal injuries compensation claim he would not make such a statement. Sometimes the forms are complicated and a great deal of information is required. There is no legal aid and costs are not paid. Therefore, the victims often pay the cost of assembling the evidence to substantiate their claims.
      Injuries may be complex. I shall give an example of many years ago from my own knowledge. A young lady was struck with an iron bar outside a night club. On the face of it, there appeared to be a tiny fracture to her skull. No doubt on the tariff system a small sum would have been paid. But it was later discovered that she also had a fracture to the base of the skull and brain fluid was leaking down into the spinal column, causing infection. The ultimate injury to her was massive. Her loss of amenity was
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      effectively the destruction of her life, because she could no longer work, dance or look after her family. Under the proposals, a straight tariff would be paid. Under the present system, such loss of amenities is added to the claim and covered.
      Can the Government justifiably say that, although someone injured in a civil accident should be properly compensated, a person injured in a criminal attack should not? I know from the report some years ago on the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board by the Select Committee on Home Affairs, on which I sat, that most of the claims are for small amounts. Most are settled rapidly because the injuries are readily identifiable. However, for the small proportion of claims that cannot be readily identified or readily quantified, delay is not a problem. There are interim payments.
      I can tell the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham that, unless one wishes to be negligent, a motor accident claim is never settled until the full extent of the loss is known. Hon. Members should not pray in aid delay as a reason for destroying the rights of citizens to proper compensation when they have been criminally injured. A civilised society tends to look after the victim. The Home Secretary's proposal is not in aid of the victim but against him. It is a disgrace and it ought to be stopped.
      Sir Ivan Lawrence: I had not intended to speak, but, as the debate seems to be one sided, for the sake of fairness something should be said about the Government's justifiable reasons for taking this step. We are debating victims, and no Government have ever done as much for victims as this one. Not only have we paid out and helped in numerous ways more victims than ever before, but, compared with other countries, our help for victims is outstanding. We provide 20 times the rate provided by the Germans and about seven times as much as that provided by the French. The Italians do not even have a scheme.
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      We should not get too worked up on the premise that nothing is being done for victims. Not only do we give them money and support, but there is a victims charter to make sure that they are much better cared for than ever before. We have advice and counselling systems and we give substantial sums for victim support. I think that the figure this year approaches £10 million. Victim support agencies are not wholly opposed to the proposal because they see that there is an advantage in speeding up delivery of the system.
      One result of all that the Government are doing for victims is showing forth. It is that more people than ever are reporting crime, for the simple reason that we have a much better attitude towards victims than has ever been displayed by any previous Government. I now come to the main point of contention.
      Mr. Harry Barnes: If we are doing so well and if the compensation is so honourable and decent, why are we making changes?
      Sir Ivan Lawrence: I am about to deal with the system. I said that I would do that and the hon. Gentleman, who has not been here for most of the debate, suddenly got up and asked questions [Interruption.]
      Mr. Barnes rose—
      Sir Ivan Lawrence: Very well, I concede that the hon. Gentleman has been here from beginning to end.
      If hon. Members listen, perhaps they will hear the answers to their questions. The principal attack is that the tariff system which is to be imposed will somehow cause an injustice. The hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) conceded that most victims will be as well, or perhaps even better, off, but he said that thousands would lose. There are two ways in which one can lose. There is a loss if the amount of money a victim is to receive now is cut. There is also a loss if a victim has to wait indefinitely for a payment that is due. The hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) shakes his head and winces. I am delighted that he is here to take part in the debate, because I know, as he knows, that one of the greatest complaints from both of us over the years is about the slowness of the payment of legal aid fees. He and I would much rather go to a cash delivery desk immediately we have finished a case and say, "Pay out £100" than wait for 12 or 18 months for £150 [Interruption.] I assure the hon. Gentleman that under that system that was all I got.
      People would rather have the money in their hands now than have to wait indefinitely for perhaps a larger sum. I agree that having to wait for 18 months for the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board to pay out is a disgrace. Even if 80 per cent. is paid out in nine months, it is still a disgrace. That disgrace comes about because there is a backlog of 81,000 people waiting for some payment. The system has become overweight and inefficient. It is not delivering justice because people have to wait too long for payment.
      Opposition Members say that there is something horrible, unpleasant and unacceptable about a tariff system but all these payments are made according to a tariff system. That is how it works. The courts use a tariff system, as does the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board. We are not substituting a tariff for a non-tariff system but a statutory tariff system for a judicial tariff system, which is not the same objection. If a statutory tariff system delivers more money, more quickly to more people, that will be the justification for my right hon. and learned Friend's plan.
      The proposal will not cut the money paid out. My right hon. and learned Friend has already given an undertaking that the new scheme will pay out £500 million more over the next three years. It will make payment quicker and more certain. Recipients will be able to make disposition as to how they will spend the money because they will know months, sometimes years, in advance how much it will be.
      Ms Jean Corston: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman, as a respected lawyer, saying that he does not see the relevance to applicants under the CICB scheme of damages for handicap in the labour market?
      Sir Ivan Lawrence: I have not mentioned handicap in the labour market. I was arguing that if we can devise a tariff system that will deliver more benefit to more people more quickly, that is its justification. The judicial way of making assessments is not necessarily the best, because it is the slower way and does not necessarily deliver more ultimately.
      The hon. Member for Sedgefield made a specific complaint about loss of earnings not being taken into account, but it will, indirectly, because the new tariffs will be assessed—there is a mathematical calculation—
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      according to what the tariffs have been over a period. Those tariffs take into account awards that were made, including loss of earnings. As the new assessment will be based on the old assessment, which included loss of earnings, that element will be included. I agree that the new system may not be perfect. I do not like it—I like more work for lawyers. At the end of the day, however, more work for lawyers is less important than providing a benefit to victims.
      After a year or two, there may be a few pounds more in loss of earnings, but that accounts for a small proportion of total awards made. Loss of earnings have not accounted for half the value of an award, but only a minute proportion—some of which, perhaps the larger part, will indirectly be taken into account by the new tariff.
      It is easy for lawyers, pressure groups and Opposition Members, who always have an axe to grind—I do not blame them—to oppose the scheme. In a perfect world, such a scheme would not be needed. In a perfect world, more lawyers could do more work and earn more money, and awards could be tailored to the needs of the individual. But it is not a perfect world. What is most imperfect is that victims do not receive their payments for months and months. Almost anything that we can do in a reasonable system to speed the delivery of more money to more people is justified. All those who agree with that proposition will support my right hon. and learned Friend in the Lobby.
      Mr. Trimble: The hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) tried to defend the Government's proposal, partly on the ground that it will cut delay—but that is often caused by the need to ascertain the extent of the injury and to be certain of an injured person's prognosis. Consequently, an element of delay is inevitable. If one compares delay in the payment of criminal injuries compensation with the delay that occurs in civil actions, it is clear that the latter is greater. While it is desirable to reduce delay, it is an inevitable element, so that point is overdone.
      The hon. and learned Gentleman stated accurately that courts operate a tariff system with regard to loss of amenity, pain and suffering—but there is no tariff system with regard to loss of earnings. The hon. and learned Gentleman said that it played only a small part in criminal injury compensation in the past. That must be because the injuries were largely non-incapacitating. Where there is serious injury leading to loss of earnings, the need for fair compensation is greatest.
      While some elements of the scheme must be conventional and have a tariff element, with other aspects of it a tariff is totally inappropriate. Justice demands that individual circumstances are properly taken into account. It must be obvious from my remarks that I consider the Government's proposals to be retrograde.
      I am almost entirely in agreement with the criticisms and remarks of the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair), except when he said that the scheme operating in England and Scotland is the best in the world. It is not as good as that which operates in Northern Ireland. I must point out to the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) that the Northern Ireland scheme is quite different. It is a statutory scheme and has a tariff element—
      Sir Ivan Lawrence: Does it?
      Mr. Trimble: Of course it does, but it also offers compensation for loss of earnings. As a statutory scheme, it also offers the right to compensation. It has always been a statutory scheme, dating back to the 18th century. It offers a right of appeal to the courts. On all three counts, and certainly the last two, it is preferable to the English and Scottish scheme.
      While I appreciate that the Home Secretary's scheme would operate only in Great Britain and would not immediately be applicable to Northern Ireland, the scheme's announcement and nature are causing considerable alarm in Northern Ireland. I use the word "alarm" consciously and without exaggeration. As far as I am aware, all relevant bodies in Northern Ireland are worried in case the new scheme is introduced there. They are anxious to ensure that that does not happen. Among those most concerned are members of the security forces, police, Royal Irish Regiment, prison service and so on—many of whom have suffered severe incapacitating injuries over the past few decades. They are anxious that if the new scheme comes to Northern Ireland, they will be left with wholly inadequate compensation to cover their financial loss.
      I was interested to note that the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) referred to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland going out to consultation. My memory must be at fault, because I cannot recall the Secretary of State saying anything on that matter, and nor can the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon). That might reflect the way that the Northern Ireland Office habitually works. I wrote to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland nearly two months ago, but have not yet received a reply.
      Mr. Barnes: In response to my written question to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the right hon. Member for Westminster, North (Sir J. Wheeler) replied that the Government are
      "currently considering what lessons might be learnt for Northern Ireland from the forthcoming changes in the criminal injuries compensation scheme in Great Britain."—[Official Report, 17 March 1994; Vol. 239, c. 844.]
      So it is likely that the scheme is under serious consideration. The right hon. Gentleman said that, prior to the scheme being introduced in Northern Ireland, it will go out for consultation—which did not happen in Great Britain.
      Mr. Trimble: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that information, which reflects on the way in which the Northern Ireland Office works. Things often happen without Northern Ireland Members being informed. It is interesting to know the identity of the Minister who replied to the hon. Gentleman's question, because it confirms the suspicions of those who have to deal with the Northern Ireland Office about who is the villain of the piece in attempts to cut compensation in Northern Ireland.
      I think that I have said enough to show the anxiety that exists and to make it clear to the Home Secretary that there is real worry about changes to the Northern Ireland system. There will be substantial opposition among members of the Ulster Unionist party and all Northern Ireland Members to any attempt to degrade the system that operates in Northern Ireland by reducing it even to the level of the existing system in England and Wales, let alone to the level of the system that he now proposes.
      The best thing that the Home Secretary can do is extend the statutory Northern Ireland scheme to the rest of the
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      United Kingdom. It would benefit everyone. If the Home Secretary wishes to cut costs—as the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) said, it is perfectly legitimate to wish to cut costs—the first thing that he should consider is recovering more from criminals by way of reparation. Not enough is done in that respect.
      Many criminals are able to compensate. Many criminals' gains from their criminal activities could be recovered by the state. It is not appropriate or fair to leave it to the victim to pursue the criminal by civil actions. The state can and should do much more. It could recover sums that would go a long way toward defraying the compensation bill. Such a system would probably save as much as, if not more than, the proposed scheme.
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      Sir Nicholas Fairbairn: Can the hon. Gentleman tell me of a single case in which someone involved in a diamond robbery, a bank robbery or any other major robbery who is convicted has been made to pay compensation to anyone?
      Mr. Trimble: I thank the hon. and learned Member for that intervention. I am not in a position to answer his question. I am sure that the Home Secretary has heard it and will give him an answer when he replies to the debate.
      Mr. Mike O'Brien: I declare an interest as a parliamentary adviser to the Police Federation. Police officers are among the people who will be most affected by the changes. One in 12 applicants to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board are police officers who have often suffered from the rising toll of assaults with which police officers have to cope.
      Criminal injuries compensation is a permanent and substantial programme of public expenditure. Therefore, as a matter of parliamentary propriety, it ought to have statutory authority. The Royal Commission on civil liability and compensation for personal injury and the Public Accounts Committee have made that point. The Criminal Justice Act 1988 made an attempt to put compensation on a statutory basis. The view of Parliament was clear: it wanted a statutory basis. That was expressed in the 1988 Act. The Government have failed for various reasons to implement that provision. Yet Parliament's view is clear. The Government's neglect of the clear view expressed by Parliament, and their attempt to introduce instead an administrative scheme when an Act of Parliament is still on the statute book to deal with the matter, amounts to contemptuous disregard of Parliament and parliamentary propriety.
      We are changing the system from one that is commonly regarded, although it has some delays, as attaining a standard of fairness. Parliament should give the full consideration that it gives to a statute to such important changes that would lead to unfairness. Fairness in dealing with the widely differing circumstances of victims is important if victims are not also to see themselves as victims of the unfairness of the system of compensation.
      Each case is different; it has its own factors. A 24-year-old person blinded in a criminal attack, who has a family and two children to support, and is unlikely to be able to carry on his livelihood is in a different position from that of an 80-year-old in an old folks' home who has been injured. The injury may be the same, but the impact on the people injured is different. The law recognises that

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      difference and seeks to regard it with fairness. The system of varying tariffs in the common law system recognises the different circumstances of assaults.
      Mr. Alan Simpson: Does my hon. Friend agree with the representations made by the CICB to Ministers that the intention throughout the history of the criminal injuries compensation scheme has been to compensate a victim of a crime of violence in exactly the same way as he would have been compensated if he had sued his assailant in the civil courts? It suggested that, instead of moving towards a scratch-card system of compensation payments, it would be much better to tailor the payment on a structured settlement basis which took precisely the account that my hon. Friend suggested of differences in the impact of injuries throughout a person's life and according to the stage in a person's life at which the injuries occurred.
      Mr. O'Brien: That is a much fairer system than that proposed by the Government. When the Home Secretary replies to the debate, will he explain why a person who has been injured by a hit-and-run driver and is entitled to claim against the Motor Insurers Bureau should receive compensation under common law principles that would be denied to a victim of a criminal attack with an iron bar? What is the moral difference? The system that the Home Secretary intends to create would result in those two victims receiving different amounts of compensation.
      The Government's proposed scheme is about the Treasury saying that it wants money at the expense of the victims of crime. It is about compensation without compassion for victims.
      Ms Corston: Does my hon. Friend agree that the game was given away in a letter written on 31 March 1993 by the Minister of State's predecessor, the hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), to the chairman of the CICB, Lord Carlisle, in which he said:
      "The tariff scheme will not therefore aim to 'compensate' people in the same way as before. It will however maintain the underlying purpose of the scheme which is to provide a tangible recognition of Society's sympathy and concern for the victim"?
      Does my hon. Friend agree that "sympathy and concern" do not pay the mortgage? Is he aware that a Conservative Member who saw me reading a brief from the CICB expressed the view that the new scheme would have the same effect on the Government as the Child Support Agency—the new scheme would go through and the Government would live to regret it?
      Mr. O'Brien: I hope that the Government do regret it. The proposals are a betrayal of the people about whom the Government have trumpeted their concern for so many months. They will rob those who have suffered the worst and most serious injuries of the fair compensation that was part of a criminal justice system which otherwise does little or nothing for victims.
      Although speed of delivery is important, it should not be bought at the price of unfairness and injustice in the quality of what is delivered. Speeding up the process can be done without arbitrary tariffs. The Government say that the new scheme will be much quicker, but that is not necessarily the case. The main cause of delay is often the receipt of medical reports, police reports and certificates.
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      The Government's scheme will do little or nothing about that. The very small savings in time will not be sufficient to justify the increased unfairness that the system creates.
      I shall give a few examples of unfairness. I have many examples, but I shall give only a few because I do not want to delay the House. In the case of Storier, a 34-year-old police constable was assaulted in April 1988 and suffered permanent damage to the base of his spine. He lost his job in December 1990 and was unable to work again. He received damages of £21,000 under the old scheme, but would receive £7,500 under the Government's new scheme.
      In the case of Parslow, a Birmingham security officer was assaulted by robbers and received severe leg injuries. His compensation under the old scheme was £74,500. Under the new scheme, it would be £5,000. In the case of Burleigh, a man received a brain injury after being hit with a snooker cue. The compensation under the old scheme was £500,000. Under the new scheme, it would be less than half that.
      A recent analysis of the case of Colin Hickman, a solicitor who was recently stabbed to death, shows that under the old scheme his compensation would have amounted, because of his earnings and circumstances, to about £100,000. Under the new scheme, a fatality amounts to £10,000. The new scheme is a betrayal of victims and victims' families.
      The tariffs were arrived at by studying the median award for each case. The median was used because it did not, in the words of the White Paper,
      "distort by factors such as loss of earnings".
      In other words, the scheme will say to future victims of crime who are unable to work for lengthy periods—perhaps never again—"Tough luck, mate". In a sense, that is precisely the message that the Home Secretary is sending victims: "Tough luck—my mates down at the Treasury want some more money, and you are going to have to pay the price".
      The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Michael Howard): The new clauses have a common theme: in one way or another, they are designed to prevent the introduction of our new tariff scheme for criminal injuries compensation on 1 April.
      I remind the House that the present scheme for compensating victims of crime was designed no fewer than 30 years ago. In 1965–66, the first full year of the scheme, 2,452 applications were made to the board, and the amount of compensation paid totalled £400,000. Since then, there has been a staggering increase in both the number of new applications and the compensation paid.
      For example, by 1987–88—when the Criminal Justice Bill that included provisions to make the present scheme statutory was passing through Parliament—there were 43,000 applications to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, and the amount of compensation paid had risen from £400,000 to £52 million. By 1992–93, the number of applications had increased by a further 50 per cent. to 66,000, and the amount of compensation had increased threefold from the 1987–88 figure to £152 million. In 1993–94, that figure will be around £170 million—a further increase of 12 per cent.
      The current scheme was not intended to cope with that volume of business. Change is, therefore, needed to provide a simpler, faster and more transparent service for victims.

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      If we are talking of the speed with which claims are settled, we should at least proceed on an accurate basis. I do not know the origin of the figure introduced into the debate by, I think, the hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham), who suggested that 80 per cent. of claims were settled within nine months. I have the board's latest report in front of me: it gives the percentage of cases resolved within three, six and nine months. The figure given for claims settled within nine months is 30.6 per cent. That is an improvement on the 1991–92 figure, which was only 26.8 per cent., but it falls far short of the 80 per cent. cited, for some reason, by the hon. Gentleman. Clearly, it leaves considerable room for further improvement.
      Mr. John Gunnell rose—
      Mr. Howard: I am happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman, while the hon. Member for St. Helens, South is thinking about what I have said.
      Mr. Gunnell: The Home Secretary has complained about the increase in volume and cost. Would he say that that was out of proportion to the increase in crime that has occurred over the same period, along with an increase in inflation?
      Mr. Howard: It is hugely out of proportion to the increase in crime. Between 1965–66 and 1992–93, violent crime increased fivefold—an appalling statistic. The number of applications to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board increased by a multiple of 27, and the amount of compensation from the board increased by a multiple of 378.
      Mr. Blair: As far as I know, the authority for the statistic that a decision is given within nine months in 80 per cent. of cases can be found in a speech made by Lord Carlisle in the other place. He is, after all, chairman of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, and that is precisely what he said.
      Mr. Howard: If the hon. Gentleman consults paragraph 6.2 of the board's 29th report, entitled "Accounts for the year ended 31 March 1993", he will see a table, very clearly set out, showing the time taken to process applications to the relevant stage for each year that is given. I hope that he will then see that my arithmetic—the calculation that I have made during the debate—is accurate.
      Mr. Maclennan: Perhaps the Home Secretary will tell us what period is covered by that report. Lord Carlisle was absolutely clear about the matter when he said:
      "I remind the Minister that that has now dramatically changed and that in 80 per cent. of all our applications a decision is now given to the victim within a nine-month period."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 March 1994; Vol. 552, c. 1083.]
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      Mr. Howard: The year that I quoted was 1992–93, the latest for which full figures are available. The calculation that I made was accurate for that year.
      Mr. Bermingham: Given that I caused all this discussion, let me remind the Home Secretary that figures in reports are often misleading. It is a question of the decision that is made, rather than the sum paid. The decision that someone is entitled to an award is crucial, rather than the date on which the sum is paid. I think that
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      Lord Carlisle would agree. I merely suggest that the Home Secretary should be wary of figures, which can often cause problems even for Home Secretaries.
      Mr. Howard: With respect to the hon. Gentleman, they have not done so on this occasion. Paragraph 6.1 provides the following definition of the time involved:
      "A case is considered to have been resolved either when the applicant accepts the Board's assessment or, in the case of applications which have been disallowed and no application for a hearing has been lodged, three months after the date of notification of the decision."
      There is no question of taking the date of payment as the relevant decision, as the hon. Gentleman suggested.
      Mr. Bermingham: That is not what I am saying. I am saying, very simply, that it is a case of the decision. The decision may be to refuse, which is non-appealed; a decision to grant compensation may be further delayed because of assessment. Those are the dates that I am taking into account, not the date of payment.
      Mr. Howard: As I have made plain to the hon. Gentleman, the date of payment does not enter into the matter; it is not part of the definition set out in paragraph 6.1 of the report, which is the definition that I am using. The reference to payment is a complete irrelevance, as it was never part of the figures that I cited.
      I make no bones about the fact that change is also needed to control the costs of compensation, which are becoming unsustainable. We estimate that, without reform, the annual cost of the present arrangements could be in the region of £500 million by the end of the decade. Under the new tariff scheme, the cost is likely to be about £250 million—still a very large sum by the standards of any other state scheme. My hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) gave the figures for some other countries; my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) pointed out that Italy has no scheme at all.
      Our scheme will remain the most generous state scheme anywhere, as it is now. We pay more compensation than all the other European Union countries put together—and that will continue under our proposed new arrangements.
      We all know that, in the real world, resources are not unlimited. If we retained the present arrangements, the amount spent on compensation between now and the year 2001 would be about £2.5 billion. That level of expenditure is simply not sustainable, which is one of the reasons why we need a radically different approach—and why we need it quickly. The tariff scheme will achieve that.
      Under the tariff scheme, about £1.4 billion is expected to be spent on compensation between now and the year 2001—over £1 billion less than under the current scheme. I make no apologies for stating that bluntly. It is vital to secure the best value for what is, after all, still a huge amount of taxpayers' money. That is an objective which any prudent and responsible Government should always bear in mind.
      If the current scheme continued, the taxpayer would have to provide an extra £250 million a year by the end of the century. Is the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) committing the Labour party to that extra expenditure? He should choose his words with care. He should remember that under the Dunfermline doctrine, which was laid down by the shadow Chancellor, even though nothing said outside this Chamber counts, anything that is said here does count. The hon. Gentleman and his colleagues can

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      traipse around the broadcasting studios making pledge after pledge, but they will not count for a bean under the Dunfermline doctrine. On the other hand, anything that is said here will be used in evidence, as even the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) concedes.
      The Government want a scheme that is generous, as ours is and will continue to be, while ensuring that it offers victims an effective service. That means an efficient scheme that will remain affordable in the future. A scheme based on common law damages, which is time consuming and complex to administer, and under which the average award has risen each year by 5 per cent. more than the rate of inflation, can no longer provide that service. The time has come for a simpler, more straightforward scheme that is easier to administer, gets awards to claimants more quickly, and does all that within a realistic and controllable budget. That is exactly what our tariff scheme aims to do.
      In future, as hon. Members know, payments will be made from a tariff of awards for injuries of comparable severity. All eligible applicants with the same injury will receive the same award. They will be able to see from the tariff how much that award is likely to be, and they will receive their compensation more quickly and with less fuss. It is inevitable that some people will get less under the new scheme than under the present one, but most claimants will receive as much as, or more than, they would under the current arrangements. At least 54 per cent. will be in that position when the tariff scheme is introduced. A further 16 per cent. will lose £500 or less, and—an important consideration to many victims—they will get their awards more quickly.
      Much has been made of the few cases in which applicants will not receive large sums for loss of earnings and future medical care, which might have been payable under the existing scheme.
      Sir Nicholas Fairbairn: There are two matters that I should like my right hon. and learned Friend to address. First, what burden of proof is required to establish that injuries are genuine and claims are not false? Secondly, would not a system of appeal—by the Crown in the case of the effects of injury becoming less severe, and by the victim in the case of the effects of injury worsening—get over the difficulty caused by payments being made too quickly?
      Mr. Howard: I do not quite follow the logic of my hon. and learned Friend's second point. With regard to the first, the burden of proof is the balance of probabilities.
      I was explaining that we have set a generous upper limit of £250,000 for awards. In the past three years, out of a total of 180,000 applications, just seven awards a year have, on average, exceeded that sum. Nor should it be forgotten that the criminal injuries compensation scheme is not the only source of state aid for those who have suffered criminal injuries. Such people also receive generous and long-term support from the national health service and from the Department of Social Security, and many occupational groups benefit from generous sick pay and pension schemes. Nor should we forget that there are many other kinds of injury or misfortune for which there is not and never has been a special state scheme of help.
      From what I have said, it will be clear that we do not accept the thrust of the amendments. Nor do we accept the
      688
      argument that, in seeking to change the basis of the criminal injuries compensation scheme while the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 1980 remain unimplemented, we have in some way acted improperly or unlawfully. As that matter is currently before the courts, it would not be proper for me to comment further on it.
      I do not say that the tariff scheme may not be capable of improvement. We have already made it clear that we shall monitor very closely the way it works and will be ready to listen to the views of responsible bodies and practitioners about how it might be improved. If we need to make changes or refinements, we will. Once the new scheme has settled down and can be seen to be working effectively, we shall be better placed to consider giving statutory force to the new arrangements. But the new arrangements constitute a framework within which claims will be quantified more simply, settled more speedily, ensure that more than 50 per cent. of claimants get at least as much as they do under the present scheme and yet cost the taxpayer substantially less than would have been the case had the present arrangements continued.
      On that basis, I ask the House to reject the new clauses.
      Mr. Blair: My reply will be very brief. The Home Secretary has given only two reasons for proceeding with the new scheme. The first is that it will be simpler, faster and more transparent for victims. That argument has been rejected by every victims' organisation. It is absurd to pretend that the scheme is being introduced for the benefit of victims, when the organisations that deal with victims unanimously decry its nature.
      The second reason is that this is all about cutting costs. If that is the real reason—and I suggest that it is—the wretchedly deceptive White Paper should never have been issued, and we should have had proper consultation with the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board and others to work out some better type of scheme.
      The introduction of the scheme in this way is, in our view, wholly reprehensible. If the number of applications for criminal injuries compensation has soared, the answer is not to cut support for victims but to take measures to cut the crime that gives rise to the applications. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has entirely failed to answer our case. We shall press the new clause to a Division, and I ask my hon. Friends and others who believe in the case of victims to support it.
      Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—
      The House divided: Ayes 269, Noes 296.

      Division No. 181]

      [6.56 pm

      AYES

      Abbott, Ms Diane

      Benton, Joe

      Adams, Mrs Irene

      Bermingham, Gerald

      Ainger, Nick

      Berry, Roger

      Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

      Betts, Clive

      Allen, Graham

      Blair, Tony

      Alton, David

      Blunkett, David

      Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)

      Boateng, Paul

      Armstrong, Hilary

      Boyes, Roland

      Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

      Bray, Dr Jeremy

      Ashton, Joe

      Brown, Gordon (Dunfermline E)

      Austin-Walker, John

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

      Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

      Burden, Richard

      Barnes, Harry

      Byers, Stephen

      Barron, Kevin

      Caborn, Richard

      Battle, John

      Callaghan, Jim

      Bayley, Hugh

      Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

      Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret

      Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

      Beith, Rt Hon A. J.

      Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

      Bennett, Andrew F.

      Campbell-Savours, D. N.

      689

      Canavan, Dennis

      Hoyle, Doug

      Cann, Jamie

      Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

      Chisholm, Malcolm

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

      Clapham, Michael

      Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

      Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

      Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

      Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

      Hutton, John

      Clwyd, Mrs Ann

      Illsley, Eric

      Coffey, Ann

      Ingram, Adam

      Cohen, Harry

      Jackson, Glenda (H'stead)

      Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

      Jackson, Helen (Shef'ld, H)

      Cook, Robin (Livingston)

      Jamieson, David

      Corbett, Robin

      Janner, Greville

      Corbyn, Jeremy

      Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side)

      Corston, Ms Jean

      Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

      Cousins, Jim

      Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O)

      Cox, Tom

      Jones, Martyn (Clwyd, SW)

      Cryer, Bob

      Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

      Cunliffe, Lawrence

      Jowell, Tessa

      Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)

      Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

      Dalyell, Tarn

      Keen, Alan

      Darling, Alistair

      Kennedy, Charles (Ross, C&S)

      Davidson, Ian

      Kennedy, Jane (Lpool Brdgn)

      Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)

      Khabra, Piara S.

      Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

      Kilfedder, Sir James

      Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

      Kilfoyle, Peter

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

      Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil (Islwyn)

      Denham, John

      Kirkwood, Archy

      Dewar, Donald

      Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

      Dixon, Don

      Lewis, Terry

      Dobson, Frank

      Litherland, Robert

      Donohoe, Brian H.

      Livingstone, Ken

      Dunnachie, Jimmy

      Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

      Eagle, Ms Angela

      Llwyd, Elfyn

      Eastham, Ken

      Loyden, Eddie

      Enright, Derek

      Lynne, Ms Liz

      Etherington, Bill

      McAllion, John

      Evans, John (St Helens N)

      McAvoy, Thomas

      Ewing, Mrs Margaret

      McCartney, Ian

      Fatchett, Derek

      Macdonald, Calum

      Faulds, Andrew

      McFall, John

      Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

      McKelvey, William

      Fisher, Mark

      Mackinlay, Andrew

      Flynn, Paul

      McLeish, Henry

      Foster, Rt Hon Derek

      Maclennan, Robert

      Foster, Don (Bath)

      McMaster, Gordon

      Foulkes, George

      McNamara, Kevin

      Fraser, John

      McWilliam, John

      Fyfe, Maria

      Madden, Max

      Galloway, George

      Maginnis, Ken

      Gapes, Mike

      Mahon, Alice

      Garrett, John

      Mallon, Seamus

      George, Bruce

      Mandelson, Peter

      Gerrard, Neil

      Marek, Dr John

      Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

      Marshall, David (Shettleston)

      Godman, Dr Norman A.

      Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)

      Godsiff, Roger

      Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

      Golding, Mrs Llin

      Martlew, Eric

      Gordon, Mildred

      Maxton, John

      Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

      Meacher, Michael

      Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

      Meale, Alan

      Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

      Michael, Alun

      Grocott, Bruce

      Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

      Gunnell, John

      Milburn, Alan

      Hain, Peter

      Miller, Andrew

      Hall, Mike

      Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

      Hanson, David

      Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

      Hardy, Peter

      Morgan, Rhodri

      Harvey, Nick

      Morley, Elliot

      Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

      Morris, Rt Hon A. (Wy'nshawe)

      Henderson, Doug

      Morris, Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

      Heppell, John

      Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

      Hill, Keith (Streatham)

      Mowlam, Marjorie

      Hinchliffe, David

      Mudie, George

      Hoey, Kate

      Mullin, Chris

      Hogg, Norman (Cumbernauld)

      Murphy, Paul

      Home Robertson, John

      Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

      Hood, Jimmy

      O'Brien, Michael (N W'kshire)

      Hoon, Geoffrey

      O'Hara, Edward

      Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

      Olner, William

      Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

      O'Neill, Martin

      690

      Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

      Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

      Paisley, Rev Ian

      Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

      Parry, Robert

      Snape, Peter

      Patchett, Terry

      Soley, Clive

      Pendry, Tom

      Spearing, Nigel

      Pickthall, Colin

      Spellar, John

      Pike, Peter L.

      Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)

      Pope, Greg

      Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

      Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

      Steinberg, Gerry

      Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lew'm E)

      Stevenson, George

      Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

      Stott, Roger

      Prescott, John

      Strang, Dr. Gavin

      Primarolo, Dawn

      Straw, Jack

      Purchase, Ken

      Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

      Quin, Ms Joyce

      Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

      Radice, Giles

      Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

      Randall, Stuart

      Trimble, David

      Raynsford, Nick

      Vaz, Keith

      Redmond, Martin

      Walker, A. Cecil (Belfast N)

      Robertson, George (Hamilton)

      Walker, Rt Hon Sir Harold

      Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

      Walley, Joan

      Roche, Mrs. Barbara

      Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

      Rogers, Allan

      Wareing, Robert N

      Rooker, Jeff

      Welsh, Andrew

      Rooney, Terry

      Wicks, Malcolm

      Ross, William (E Londonderry)

      Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Sw'n W)

      Rowlands, Ted

      Williams, Alan W (Carmarthen)

      Ruddock, Joan

      Winnick, David

      Salmond, Alex

      Wise, Audrey

      Sedgemore, Brian

      Worthington, Tony

      Sheerman, Barry

      Wray, Jimmy

      Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

      Wright, Dr Tony

      Shore, Rt Hon Peter

      Young, David (Bolton SE)

      Simpson, Alan

      Skinner, Dennis

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

      Mr. John Cummings and

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

      Mr. Dennis Turner.

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

      NOES

      Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

      Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

      Aitken, Jonathan

      Budgen, Nicholas

      Alexander, Richard

      Burns, Simon

      Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)

      Butcher, John

      Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

      Butterfill, John

      Amess, David

      Carlisle, John (Luton North)

      Arbuthnot, James

      Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

      Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

      Carrington, Matthew

      Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)

      Carttiss, Michael

      Ashby, David

      Cash, William

      Aspinwall, Jack

      Chapman, Sydney

      Atkins, Robert

      Churchill, Mr

      Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)

      Clappison, James

      Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

      Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

      Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

      Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

      Baker, Nicholas (Dorset North)

      Coe, Sebastian

      Baldry, Tony

      Colvin, Michael

      Banks, Matthew (Southport)

      Congdon, David

      Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

      Conway, Derek

      Bates, Michael

      Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)

      Batiste, Spencer

      Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

      Bellingham, Henry

      Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

      Bendall, Vivian

      Couchman, James

      Beresford, Sir Paul

      Cran, James

      Biffen, Rt Hon John

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

      Blackburn, Dr John G.

      Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)

      Body, Sir Richard

      Davies, Quentin (Stamford)

      Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

      Davis, David (Boothferry)

      Booth, Hartley

      Day, Stephen

      Boswell, Tim

      Deva, Nirj Joseph

      Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

      Dickens, Geoffrey

      Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia

      Dicks, Terry

      Bowden, Andrew

      Dorrell, Stephen

      Bowis, John

      Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

      Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes

      Dover, Den

      Brandreth, Gyles

      Duncan, Alan

      Brazier, Julian

      Duncan-Smith, Iain

      Bright, Graham

      Dunn, Bob

      Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

      Durant, Sir Anthony

      Browning, Mrs. Angela

      Dykes, Hugh

      691

      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

      Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas

      Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

      Fenner, Dame Peggy

      Lidington, David

      Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

      Lightbown, David

      Forman, Nigel

      Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

      Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

      Lord, Michael

      Forth, Eric

      Luff, Peter

      Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

      Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

      Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)

      MacGregor, Rt Hon John

      Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley)

      MacKay, Andrew

      Freeman, Rt Hon Roger

      Maclean, David

      French, Douglas

      McLoughlin, Patrick

      Fry, Sir Peter

      McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

      Gale, Roger

      Madel, Sir David

      Gallie, Phil

      Maitland, Lady Olga

      Gardiner, Sir George

      Malone, Gerald

      Garnier, Edward

      Mans, Keith

      Gill, Christopher

      Marland, Paul

      Gillan, Cheryl

      Marlow, Tony

      Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair

      Marshall, John (Hendon S)

      Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

      Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

      Gorman, Mrs Teresa

      Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

      Gorst, John

      Mawhinney, Rt Hon Dr Brian

      Grant, Sir A. (Cambs SW)

      Mellor, Rt Hon David

      Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

      Merchant, Piers

      Greenway, John (Ryedale)

      Mills, Iain

      Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

      Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

      Grylls, Sir Michael

      Mitchell, Sir David (Hants NW)

      Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

      Moate, Sir Roger

      Hague, William

      Monro, Sir Hector

      Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

      Montgomery, Sir Fergus

      Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

      Moss, Malcolm

      Hampson, Dr Keith

      Nelson, Anthony

      Hanley, Jeremy

      Neubert, Sir Michael

      Hannam, Sir John

      Newton, Rt Hon Tony

      Hargreaves, Andrew

      Nicholls, Patrick

      Harris, David

      Nicholson, David (Taunton)

      Haselhurst, Alan

      Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

      Hawkins, Nick

      Norris, Steve

      Hawksley, Warren

      Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley

      Hayes, Jerry

      Ottaway, Richard

      Heald, Oliver

      Paice, James

      Hendry, Charles

      Patnick, Irvine

      Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

      Patten, Rt Hon John

      Higgins, Rt Hon Sir Terence L.

      Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

      Hill, James (Southampton Test)

      Pawsey, James

      Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas (G'tham)

      Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

      Horam, John

      Pickles, Eric

      Hordem, Rt Hon Sir Peter

      Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

      Howard, Rt Hon Michael

      Porter, David (Waveney)

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

      Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

      Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

      Rathbone, Tim

      Howell, Sir Ralph (N Norfolk)

      Renton, Rt Hon Tim

      Hughes Robert G. (Harrow W)

      Richards, Rod

      Hunt, Rt Hon David (Wirral W)

      Riddick, Graham

      Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

      Rifkind, Rt Hon. Malcolm

      Hunter, Andrew

      Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

      Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

      Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)

      Jack, Michael

      Robinson, Mark (Somerton)

      Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

      Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

      Jenkin, Bernard

      Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)

      Jessel, Toby

      Rumbold, Rt Hon Dame Angela

      Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

      Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

      Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

      Sackville, Tom

      Jones, Robert B. (W Hertfdshr)

      Sainsbury, Rt Hon Tim

      Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

      Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas

      Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

      Shaw, David (Dover)

      Key, Robert

      Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

      King, Rt Hon Tom

      Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

      Knapman, Roger

      Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

      Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

      Sims, Roger

      Knight, Greg (Derby N)

      Skeet, Sir Trevor

      692

      Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

      Trend, Michael

      Soames, Nicholas

      Trotter, Neville

      Speed, Sir Keith

      Twinn, Dr Ian

      Spencer, Sir Derek

      Vaughan, Sir Gerard

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

      viggers, Peter

      Spink, Dr Robert

      Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

      Spring, Richard

      Walden, George

      Sproat, Iain

      Walker, Bill (N Tayside)

      Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)

      Waller, Gary

      Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

      Ward, John

      Steen, Anthony

      Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

      Stephen, Michael

      Waterson, Nigel

      Stern, Michael

      Watts, John

      Stewart, Allan

      Wells, Bowen

      Streeter, Gary

      Wheeler, Rt Hon Sir John

      Sumberg, David

      Whitney, Ray

      Sweeney, Walter

      Whittingdale, John

      Sykes, John

      Widdecombe, Ann

      Tapsell, Sir Peter

      Wiggin, Sir Jerry

      Taylor, Ian (Esher)

      Wilkinson, John

      Taylor, John M. (Solihull)

      Willetts, David

      Temple-Morris, Peter

      Wilshire, David

      Thomason, Roy

      Wolfson, Mark

      Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V)

      Wood, Timothy

      Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

      Yeo, Tim

      Thornton, Sir Malcolm

      Young, Rt Hon Sir George

      Thurnham, Peter

      Townend, John (Bridlington)

      Tellers for the Noes:

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

      Mr. Timothy Kirkhope and

      Tracey, Richard

      Mr. Michael Brown.

      Question accordingly negatived.

    New Clause 4

      PREVENTION OF MISUSE OF DRUGS BY YOUNG PEOPLE
      '.—(1) It shall be the duty of each authority, in co-operation with the police, probation service and such other agencies as it thinks fit, to assess the need for education to prevent the misuse of drugs and other drug-related crime among persons under the age of 18 years in its area.
      (2) The Secretary of State may make grants to authorities in order for them—

      (a) to fulfil their duty under subsection (1) above, and

      (b) to provide the education which, having made the assessment under subsection (1) above, they deem necessary.

      (3) In this section, "authority" means—

      (a) the council of any county so far as they are the council for an area for which there are no district councils,

      (b) the council of any district comprised in an area for which there is no district council,

      (c) a London borough council,

      (d) the Common Council of the City of London, or

      (e)the Council of the Isles of Scilly.'.—[Mr. Michael.]

      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Mr. Michael: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): With this we may discuss the following: new clause 5—National drug prevention strategy—
      '.—(1) The Secretary of State shall publish a national strategy for drug prevention.
      (2) In drawing up the strategy under subsection (1) above, the Secretary of State shall have regard to the needs of

      (a)persons who are detained in prisons, young offender institutions, remand centres and secure training centres, and

      (b)children in the care of local authorities.'.

      New Clause 51—Misuse of drugs—
      'The third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh columns of Schedule 4 to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (which prescribes the maximum punishment by way of a fine or imprisonment for offences under the Act) shall be amended as follows—

      (1) In the entries prescribing the punishment for offences under section 4(2) (production, or being concerned in the production, of a controlled drug) the words "(a) Summary" in column three, "6

      693
      months or the prescribed sum; or both" in column four, "6 months or the prescribed sum; or both" in column 5 and "3 months or £500; or both" in column six shall be omitted; and for the words "Life or a fine; or both" in column four shall be substituted the words "50 years" and for the words "14 years or a fine; or both" in column five shall be substituted the words "25 years"; and for the words "5 years of a fine; or both" in column six there shall be substituted the words "10 years".

      (2) In the entries prescribing the punishment for offences under section 4(3) (supplying or offering to supply a controlled drug or being concerned in the doing of either activity by another) the words "(a) Summary" in column three, the words "6 months or the prescribed sum; or both" in column four, "six months or the prescribed sum; or both" in column five and "3 months or £500; or both" in column six shall be omitted; and for the words "Life or a fine or both" in column four shall be substituted the words "50 years", for the words "14 years or a fine; or both" in column five shall be substituted the words "25 years", and for the words "5 years or a fine; or both" in column six shall be substituted the words "10 years".

      (3) In the entries prescribing the punishment for offences under section 5(2) (having possession of a controlled drug) for the words "6 months or the prescribed sum; or both" and "7 years and a fine; or both" in column four shall be substituted the words "Detention in a rehabilitation centre for a term at the court's discretion"; for the words "3 months or £500; or both" and "5 years or a fine; of both" in column five shall be substituted the words "Detention in a rehabilitation centre for a term at the court's discretion"; and for the words "3 months or £200; or both" and "2 years or a fine; or both" in column six shall be substituted the words "Detention in a rehabilitation centre for a term at the court's discretion'".

      (4) In the entries prescribing the punishment for offences under section 5(3) (having possession of a controlled drug with intent to supply it to another) the words "(a) Summary" in column three, the words "6 months or the prescribed sum; or both" in column four, "6 months or the prescribed sum; or both" in column five, and "3 months or £500; or both" in column six shall be omitted; and for the words "Life or a fine; or both" in column four shall be substituted the words "50 years", for the words "14 years or a fine; or both" in column five shall be substituted the words "25 years", and for the words "5 years or a fine; or both" in column six shall be substituted the words "10 years".

      (5) In the entries prescribing the punishment for offences under section 6(2) (cultivation of cannabis plant) the words "(a) Summary" in column three and the words "6 months or the prescribed sum; or both" shall be omitted. For the words "14 years or a fine; or both" in column seven shall be substituted the words "25 years".

      (6) In the entries prescribing the punishment for offences under section 8 (being the occupier, or concerned in the management, of premises and permitting or suffering certain activities to take place there) the words "(a) Summary" in column three, the words "6 months or the prescribed sum; or both" in column four, the words "6 months or the prescribed sum; or both" in column five, and "3 months or £500; or both" in column six shall be omitted; and for the words "14 years or a fine; or both" in column four shall be substituted the words "25 years", for the words "14 years or a fine; or both" in column five shall be substituted the words "25 years", and for the words "5 years or a fine; or both" in column six shall be substituted the words "10 years".

      (7) In the entries prescribing the punishment for offences under section 9 (offences relating to opium) the words "6 months or the prescribed sum; or both" in column seven shall be omitted; and for the words "14 years or a fine or both" in column seven shall be substituted the words "25 years".

      (8) In the entries prescribing the punishment for offences under section 9A (Prohibition of supply etc. of articles for administering or preparing controlled drugs) for the word "Summary" in column three there shall be substituted the words "On indictment" and for the words "6 months or level 5 on the standard scale; or both" shall be substituted the words "5 years".

      (9) In the entries prescribing the punishment for offences under section 11(2) (contravention of direction relating to safe custody of controlled drugs) the words "(a) Summary" in column three and the words "6 months or level 5 on the standard scale; or both" shall be omitted; and for the words "2 years or a fine; or both" shall be substituted the words "10 years".

      (10) In the entries prescribing the punishment for offences under section 12(6) (contravention of direction prohibiting
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      practitioner etc from possessing supply etc controlled drugs) the words "(a) Summary" in column three, the words "6 months or the prescribed sum; or both" in column four, the words "6 months or the prescribed sum; or both" in column five, and the words "3 months or £500; or both" in column six shall be omitted; and for the words "14 years or a fine; or both" in column four shall be substituted the words "25 years"; for the words "14 years or a fine; of both" in column five shall be substituted the words "25 years" and for the words "5 years or a fine; or both" in column six shall be substituted the words "10 years".

      (11) In the entries prescribing the punishment for offences under section 13(3) (contravention of direction prohibiting practitioner etc from prescribing supply etc controlled drugs) the words "(a) Summary" in column three, the words "6 months or the prescribed sum; or both" in column four, the words "6 months or the prescribed sum; or both" in column five, and the words "3 months or £500; or both" in column six shall be omitted; and for the words "14 years or a fine; or both" in column four shall be substituted the words "25 years", for the words "14 years or a fine or both" in column five shall be substituted the words "25 years" and for the words "5 years or a fine; or both" in column six shall be substituted the words "10 years".

      (12) In the entries prescribing the punishment for offences under section 17(3) (failure to comply with notice requiring information relating to prescribing supply etc of drugs) for the word "Summary" in column three shall be substituted the words "On indictment" and for the words "level 3 on the standard scale" in column seven shall be substituted the words "6 months".

      (13) In the entries prescribing the punishment for offences under section 17(4) (giving false information in purported compliance with notice requiring information relating to prescribing supply etc drugs) the words "(a) Summary" in column three and the words "6 months or the prescribed sum; or both" in column seven shall be omitted; and for the words "2 years or a fine; or both; in column seven shall be substituted the words "4 years".

      (14) In the entries prescribing the punishment for offences under section 18(1) (contravention of regulations (other than regulations relating to addicts)) the words "(a) Summary" in column three and the words "6 months or the prescribed sum; or both" shall be omitted. For the words "2 years or a fine; or both" in column seven shall be substituted the words "4 years".

      (15) In the entries prescribing the punishment for offences under section 18(2) (contravention of terms of licence or other authority (other than licence issued under regulations relating to addicts)) the words "(a) Summary" in column three and the words "6 months or the prescribed sum; or both" in column seven shall be omitted; and for the words "2 years or a fine; or both" in column seven shall be substituted the words "4 years".

      (16) In the entries prescribing the punishment for offences under section 18(3) (giving false evidence in purported compliance with obligation to give information imposed under or by virtues of regulations) the words "(a) Summary" in column three and the words "6 months or the prescribed sum; or both" in column seven shall be omitted; and for the words "2 years or a fine; or both" in column seven shall be substituted the words "4 years".

      (17) In the entries prescribing the punishment for offences under section 18(4) (giving false information, or producing documents etc containing false statement etc, for purpose of obtaining issue or renewal of a licence or other authority) the words "(a) Summary" in column three and the words "6 months or the prescribed sum; or both" in column seven shall be omitted; and for the words "2 years or a fine, or both" shall be substituted the words "4 years".

      (18) In the entries prescribing the punishment for offences under section 20 (assisting in or inducing commission outside United Kingdom of an offence punishable under a corresponding law) the words "(a) Summary" in column three and the words "6 months or the prescribed sum; or both" in column seven shall be omitted; and for the words "14 years or a fine; or both" in column seven shall be substituted the words "25 years".

      (19) In the entries prescribing the punishment for offences under section 23(4) (obstructing exercise of powers of search etc or concealing books, drugs etc) the words "(a) Summary" in column three and "6 months or the prescribed sum; or both" in column seven shall be omitted; and for the words "2 years or a fine; or both" shall be substituted the words "15 years.".'

      New Clause 52—Detention in a rehabilitation centre—

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      -'In section 5 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Restrictions of possession of controlled drugs), after subsection (5) shall be inserted the following subsection:

      "(5A) Anyone convicted of an offence under this section either on indictment or summarily shall be detained in a rehabilitation centre for a term at the court's discretion.".'.

      New Clause 64—Drug dependence and rehabilitation programmes in prison—

      '(1) It shall be the duty of every prison to provide drug dependence rehabilitation programmes to any prisoner who has need of them.

      (2) The duty under this section shall be met if such programmes are provided by voluntary organisations.'.

      New Clause 65—Reduction in sentences for offenders willing to attend drug rehabilitation programmes—

      '(1) If a court is satisfied that misuse of drugs contributed to the offence of which an offender has been found guilty, in determining what sentence to pass on that offender, a court shall take into account his willingness to undergo a drug dependence or drug rehabilitation programme of a type specified by the Secretary of State by regulations made by Statutory Instrument.

      (2) If, as a result of taking into account any matter referred to in subsection (1) above, the court imposes a punishment on the offender which is less severe than it would otherwise have done, it shall state in open court that it has done so.

      (3) If a person fails to complete, or fails to complete successfully, a programme under subsection (1) when a court has reduced a sentence under subsection (2), he shall be guilty of an offence.

      (4) An offence under subsection (3) shall be punishable in like manner as the offence under what that person was originally sentenced under subsection (1).'.

      New Clause 67—Decriminalisation of cannabis possession and use>—
      '.—(1) The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 shall be amended in accordance with subsections (2), (3) and (4) of this section.
      (2) In section 2 (controlled drugs and their classification for the purposes of this Act)—

      (a) in paragraph (a) of subsection (1) for the words "Part I, II or III" there shall be substituted the words "Part I, II, III or IIIA";

      (b) for paragraph (b) of subsection (1) there shall be substituted the following paragraph—

      "(b) the expressions 'Class A drug', 'Class B drug', 'Class C drug' and 'Class D drug' mean any of the substances and products for the time being specified respectively in Part I, Part II, Part HI, and Part MA of that Schedule;"

      (3) Section 6 (restriction of cultivation of cannabis plant) is hereby repealed.
      (4) In Schedule 2 (which lists controlled drugs for the purposes of section 2 of that Act)—

      (a)in paragraph 1(a) of Part I the words "Cannabinol, except where contained in cannabis or cannabis resin" and "Cannabinol derivatives" shall be omitted;

      (b)in paragraph 1(a) of Part II the words "Cannabis" and Cannabis resin" shall be omitted; and

      (c)after paragraph 4 of Part III, there shall be inserted—"Part III A

      Class D Drugs

      1. The following substances, namely:—

      Cannabinol

      Cannabis

      Cannabis resin

      2. Any preparation or other product containing a substance or product for the time being specified in paragraph 1 above.".

      (5) The Secretary of State shall by Order made by statutory instrument make rules for the administration, use and distribution of any Class D drug and such amendments and exceptions to the Misuse of Drug Regulations 1985 as will make lawful the production, possession and supply of any Class D drug.
      (6) No Order shall be made under subsection (5) above unless a draft of the Order has been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament and the Secretary of
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      State shall not lay a draft of such an Order before Parliament except after consultation with or on the recommendation of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs established under section 1 of the 1971 Act.'.
      Government amendments Nos. 42, 79, and 81 to 83.
      Mr. Michael: I intend to speak primarily to new clauses 4 and 5, which require, first, action to prevent drug misuse by young people and, secondly, a national strategy of drug prevention.
      It is a bizarre fact that when the Bill went into Committee it contained nothing to combat the problem of drugs and drug-related crime. Bizarre is too kind a word for such an omission, given that drug-related crime is the scourge of communities up and down the country and that up to £2 billion in burglary and property theft relates to the problem. Pressure from the Labour party, which has highlighted the need to tackle the causes of crime as well as crime itself, has resulted in the Government making some response. Did Ministers recognise the craziness of cutting drug co-ordinators' posts? Did they recognise the damage that is being done by cuts in the youth service arising from Government failure to provide funds and leaving idle hands for which the devil is quick to find work? No, the Government's action was to increase the upper limit for fines for drugs offences. They did nothing to cut crime or to prevent drug misuse.
      Even more telling was the method that the Minister had to use to propose that change. As the Home Secretary had missed out drugs and drug-related crime as an issue for the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill, the Government had to drag it into the Bill with an amendment to the clause which increases penalties under the Sea Fisheries (Shellfish) Act 1967. The action that the Government propose does nothing to provide the people, the funds, the resources or the strategies to tackle the problems of drugs and drug-related crime. In Committee, the Minister introduced an increase by five times in the maximum fine level for the possession of drugs. It was not asked for and it was irrelevant to the urgent problem to be tackled. Inc identally—[interruption.]
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. May I ask the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) to carry on her conversation elsewhere?
      Mr. Michael: I was surprised, when we discussed the increase in fines for drugs in Committee, to hear that the Justices' Clerks Society had requested that rise. That was the assertion made by Conservative Members and by the Minister. They asserted it as the only example of support for their proposition that they could find. I have since been able to confirm that the Justices' Clerks Society had neither requested nor supported such an increase. The Government and their propositions ended up entirely friendless.
      Frankly, increasing the upper limit of fines is irrelevant to the problem that should be addressed in the Bill. Consider the nature of that problem. The total number of notified addicts increased by five times between 1982 and 1992. The number of seizures of drugs increased by 233 per cent. between 1982 and 1992, with the number of seizures for class A drugs rising by 304 per cent.
      7.15 pm
      In the past week, the publication of provisional figures for drug seizures in 1993 by the National Crime Intelligence Service showed an increase of 342 per cent. in seizures at import of amphetamines compared to 1992. It

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      showed a 19 per cent. increase in the seizure of cannabis and a 25 per cent. increase in the seizure of heroin. The number of people found guilty of drug offences has increased by 153 per cent. since 1982. There has been an especially worrying increase in the number of offences committed by young people. Among under-17s, there has been an increase by five times in the number of drug offenders between 1982 and 1992. In the 17 to 21 age group, there has been an increase of 244 per cent. One would have thought that those increases would have concentrated the mind of Government and brought Ministers to the House with a Bill, and ultimately to the Committee with amendments, which would tackle the problem and its roots. That is not the case.
      Research undertaken by Manchester university paints an alarming picture. In a sample of 800 young people aged between 15 and 16 in Merseyside and Greater Manchester, almost half had taken drugs. It appears that a new youth drug culture has developed, associated with raves and so-called dance drugs such as ecstasy, LSD and amphetamines.
      It is relevant to tackle those root problems in the Bill because it is also clear that there is a link between crime and drugs. Addicts frequently steal to support their habit and the amounts of money they require to do so are truly frightening. Using a formula supplied by the Greater Manchester police, my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) has estimated that property worth up to £2 billion is stolen each year by drug addicts to finance their habit. That is why there is a need for a strategy to tackle the use of drugs, especially the use of hard drugs, and the problem of drug abuse by young people.
      We need a policy that hits hard at the supply side of the drugs market by combating drug traffickers and dealers. That requires effective police and customs work to deal with the major importers and manufacturing, the distributors and, at street level, the low-level dealers who can make life a total misery for local people. I shall return to that important issue in a moment. In addition, there must be severe penalties for those convicted of trafficking drugs. We must also co-operate at international level to assist developing countries where drugs are grown—an aspect of foreign policy too often ignored and overlooked.
      We must also cut the demand for illicit drugs at home. That is absolutely vital because it is quite clear that it is impossible to stop imports totally, despite all the efforts of the police and the customs. That is where we need the measures set out by the Opposition in the new clauses. We seek measures to discourage young people from using drugs in the first instance—for example, education programmes in schools and youth clubs—and measures to provide a range of treatment options for those misusing drugs. The Government failed to listen to those of us who protested when they ended the ring fencing of specific grants for drug and alcohol facilities, especially residential facilities, and now they are seeing their chickens coming home to roost as the availability of those facilities is reduced.
      We must have adequate n-eatment for those in prison, in tremand centr s and in secure training centres. We know that drug abu e is rife in prison. Far more must be done to provide treatment for those in institutions. I am glad to see that, in some of the other new clauses, Conservative Members are waking up to the type of new clause that has been proposed by the Opposition on previous occasions. I welcome that and I only hope that they will be able to
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      persuade Ministers of the need for action on the fronts proposed in the measures that I put forward during the passage of what became the Criminal Justice Act 1993, before that during the passage of what became the Criminal Justice Act 1991 and during the passage of this Bill.
      We need to tackle the social causes of drug misuse. Ministers have still not adequately recognised those social causes and their many detrimental impacts on our society, which often result in an output through the medium of crime. We need to provide effective sanctions for drug users who are arrested for drug-related offences.
      At a local level, the importance of a partnership approach to the problems cannot be overemphasised. Just what can be achieved is shown by the King's Cross partnership. Until recently, 150 dealers in crack, cocaine and heroin operated in King's Cross. Residents felt terrorised and intimidated. A combination of robust enforcement techniques by the police, who cracked down on the dealers, and measures by the two local authorities, Camden and Islington, have produced dramatic results. The two boroughs improved street lighting, changed street design and used their licensing powers to prevent cafes from staying open all night, thereby depriving dealers of refuge. The result is that the number of dealers has been reduced to a handful in less than 18 months.
      Ministers pay lip service to partnership at a local level, but those partnerships can succeed only if they have the commitment of police, local authorities and local people working together and if they have the effective support of central Government. The missing partner in so many of the equations is central Government; the people who are missing in terms of practical commitment are Ministers of the Crown.
      One vital element of a co-ordinated strategy is drugs prevention education for young people. Against that background, what have the Government done about such education? Last year, they ceased funding for drugs advisers in schools. They expressed concern at the time and said that they were sure that, if drugs education was important, money would be made available by local authorities or other sources. An analysis by the National Liaison Group of Co-ordinators for Health and Drug Education shows that, whereas there were 135 drug education co-ordinators before the cuts in March 1993, now there are only 75. Those still in place are no longer able to devote most of their time to working with young people on drugs education.
      No wonder the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which was set up to advise Ministers on drugs policy, would they only listen, said in a report in June 1993:
      "We are concerned that the ending of the funding for preventative health education will mean that many local authorities will not be able to fund their health education initiatives … those in the more deprived areas where drugs might be more prevalent may be least able to provide financial resources to finance this work."
      Tackling the drugs problem and, therefore, the crime that is related to drugs requires a co-ordinated policy. It requires co-ordination of response not just from the Home Office but from other Ministers, such as those involved with health, education and local government. We see no sign of the co-ordination and close working that is needed. Yes, there is a ministerial group, but we see no sign that it will introduce the positive action that is necessary to deal with the problems of drug-related crime and the causes of those problems. It is small wonder that the chairman of the

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      all-party group on drugs, the hon. Member for Lewis (Mr. Rathbone), described the ending of funding as a "near scandal".
      Drugs education is vital to the fight against drugs and drug-related crime. Our new clause would place a duty on the local authority to assess the need for drugs education and would allow the Home Secretary to ensure that drug prevention education was reinstated across the country. We seek the partnership that the Government should encourage. The Government should accept the new clauses tonight.
      Lady Olga Maitland: I shall speak to the new clauses standing in my name and the names of my hon. Friends. They relate to the reduction in sentences for offenders willing to attend drug rehabilitation programmes—new clause 65–and to drug dependence and rehabilitation programmes in prison—new clause 64.
      The hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) is not alone in his concern about drugs and drug-related crime. We are all aware that property crime committed by drug addicts seeking to finance their cravings has been running at about £2 billion a year. I estimate that the cost is' equal to about £114 stolen from every household in the country.
      I accept that the Government are fully aware of the problem and I congratulate them on trying, among other things, to identify drug addicts. An example of that is clause 128, which empowers prison officers to take samples from an inmate on arrival in prison. However, there is no point in doing that unless it is carried through to its logical conclusion. The only way that prisoners will not reoffend is to wean them off drugs in the first place. There must be no half-hearted measures and, as in all things, it takes two to tango.
      As shown in new clause 65, there must be an incentive for an offender to undertake a course in drug rehabilitation. Under the new clause, there could be a reduction in sentence if an offender were willing to undertake the drug treatment programme. My response to the cynic who might say, "Well, any prisoner would agree to promise that if he got a reduction in sentence", would be that the sting in the tail would be that if the prisoner failed to complete the course successfully, he would have to serve the whole of the original sentence.
      New clause 64 is the second part of the tango. It puts the onus on the Government to provide effective drug rehabilitation services. At present, they are woefully inadequate. It is not sufficient for officials at a prison such as Whitemoor, which I visited just a few months ago, to say, "Ah, we have prison counselling services available should any prisoner ask for them." It is no wonder that every prison in the land is riddled with drugs and that the inmates leave prison high on drugs only to reoffend.
      Mrs. Gillan: I agree in principle with what my hon. Friend is saying. However, does she believe that statutory provision is required? A few weeks ago, I went to look at Holloway prison. The prison governor told me that he wishes to experiment with drug-free zones within the prison. That would be successful only if the prisoners undertook to be tested on a random or regular basis for drugs. In return, they would receive extra privileges. Does my hon. Friend agree that that method, rather than going the whole hog and introducing statutory provision, might be the way in which to deal with the problem?
      Lady Olga Maitland: The governor of Holloway prison should look to the example of the governor of Downview prison, who already has in place a successful drug rehabilitation programme that works exactly as my hon. Friend describes. Downview prison, which is in Banstead on the edge of my constituency, has a programme run by a voluntary agency called the Addictive Diseases Trust. The trust runs intensive courses of about 12 weeks and they are attended on a voluntary basis. Since the courses began two years ago, 200 prisoners have now either successfully completed the course or are in the process of doing so.
      The success of the scheme is such that it is the only prison in the country where there is a drug-free corridor. Prisoners can qualify for that corridor only if they submit themselves to a urine test, which provides an incentive for maintaining the programme on rehabilitation. We find that having one drug-free corridor in the prison has led to other prisoners asking about it. They are applying to join it from other prisons and it will undoubtedly lead to a day when the governor will say, "I shall no longer just have a corridor; I shall have an entire wing."
      I have visited Downview several times and I have sat with the inmates in the counselling area, which is called the "Serenity Shack", and seen them undergoing their counselling. Interestingly, it is conducted by a former drug addict who speaks the addicts' own language and who is able to understand their problems. In that way, he puts a lot of discipline on the prisoners to complete the programme. It was interesting that the inmates told me about their sheer relief in finding a course of treatment that was effective and that relieved them of a nightmare that had begun when they were children aged between 10 and 12 and first started to experiment with soft drugs. I have had discussions with grown men, lifers and murderers, who have broken down in tears at their wasted lives. They felt that drugs controlled their lives and caused misery for their families and themselves, and they felt that there was no stopping this terrible curse.
      Dr. Robert Spink: Will my hon. Friend join me in resisting all moves to legalise soft drugs, as that is the start of the slippery slope to crime and a deprived life?
      7.30 pm
      Lady Olga Maitland: I thank my hon. Friend for that most useful remark, which I totally support. I find it scandalous that there is a new clause that would legalise soft drugs. I cannot understand how any party can be so irresponsible.
      It is interesting that those inmates now feel that a burden has been taken off their shoulders. They are fitter, healthier and have control over their lives. Most important, there is no incentive for them to reoffend when they are released from prison. That can only be of benefit to everyone.
      According to a parliamentary reply that I received some weeks ago, the Government's contribution to the enormously successful programme is barely £18,000 a year. The rest of the money comes from voluntary contributions. Private discussions with the Government have not yet encouraged me to believe that they are willing to extend that programme to other prisons. They have doubts on the grounds of cost and the fact that the treatment is not fully proven. The programme at Down view prison

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      has meant that 20 former prisoners are now free and have successfully remained off drugs. That alone more than compensates for the cost of the programme.
      It is shortsighted to say, "Let us keep watching and waiting". As the Government spend £36 million a year on the disastrous Health Education Authority, I suggest that they make a cut in the budget on pornographic sex education and put £1 million into an effective rehabilitation programme, the benefits of which have already been tried and tested at Downview prison, where the results are open for all to see. Could not that programme be extended to all prisons in this country? We have no time to waste. We should get on with the programme as a matter of urgency, and I trust that the Government will give the subject full consideration.
      Mr. Tony Banks: This is the worst nightmare that the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) could have imagined—I rise to speak in favour of new clause 67, which proposes to decriminalise cannabis possession and use. Perhaps it is unnecessary for me to say this, but so that Conservative Members, even the most obdurate ones, understand, the proposal is not supported by those on the Front Bench of the official Opposition. It is not Labour party policy to decriminalise cannabis.
      I understand that this i s the first opportunity that we have had in about 15 years to decriminalise cannabis rather than just to talk about it. Despite what the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam said about how scandalous it was that anyone should even presume to urge the decriminalisation of cannabis, there is a debate going on outside the House. That debate involves not only a bunch of 1960s ex-hippies, but judges, senior police officers involved with the drug squad, the head of Interpol, the Surgeon General of the United States of America, The Sunday Telegraph, The Independent, The Times, The Economist, and a number of right-wing radical groups. The issue is not confined, therefore, to one narrow sector of society.
      One of my worries was that, despite that debate outside the House, we were not able to debate the matter in the House. All I want to do is promote a debate, so that we can be sure that we are judging the situation as it should be judged—dispassionately, coolly and in the interests of the population.
      I enter a personal note.:I have never in my life taken or used illegal substances such as cannabis. I do not know how many Conservative Members can put their hands on their hearts and say that. [Interruption.] I can see three or four raised hands among Conservative Members, so I must assume that at some stage the rest have partaken.
      I have done a little bit of homework. I am sorry that the Home Secretary is not at the Dispatch Box, because I have been reading about some of his wilder moments at university. I would like him to come to the Dispatch Box, put his hand on his heart and say that he has never in his life used cannabis. He might find some difficulty doing that and being honest at the same time.
      I am not speaking on behalf of myself or to legalise anything that I have done in the past. That is not a moral point, but something that is worth putting on the record. Much to my regret, the permissive 1960s seem to have passed me by in all respects. I have made up for it in certain areas since then, but this is not one of them.
      Between 1.5 million and 5 million of our citizens regularly use cannabis for recreational purposes. My new
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      clause seeks to create a new category of drug, class D drugs that would, in effect, put cannabis on the same level as alcohol and tobacco. Although it is legal to purchase alcohol and tobacco, we do so under strict conditions. They are not always enforced, but the law exists to enforce them, should we wish. They must be bought from licensed premises, they should not be sold to people under a certain age; there are tax, revenue and quality considerations. My proposal would only put cannabis on the same level as alcohol and nicotine.
      If one was being strictly logical, one would consider the health aspects of cannabis, nicotine and alcohol, then legalise cannabis and ban alcohol and nicotine. I have not yet been able to discover anyone who has died from using cannabis, but, every year, tens of thousands of our citizens die from, and suffer from illnesses related to, using alcohol and nicotine. We talk about drugs, but alcohol and nicotine are far more potent drugs than cannabis.
      We are not even using language in the correct sense. When we talk about cannabis, we are discussing an illegal substance or drug. When we talk about tobacco and alcohol, we are discussing legal drugs.
      Dr. Spink: I hope that the hon. Member will accept that, if tobacco came on to the market now, as a brand new product, no responsible Government would legalise its general use for the public. In that case, why should he now ask for two wrongs to make one right? Surely society should be protected from soft drugs, just as we would wish to protect it from tobacco, if it came on to the market as a new product.
      Mr. Banks: That is an interesting point. If we decided in our wisdom and on health grounds—the hon. Gentleman is right to say that there are legitimate health grounds—to ban nicotine, we would create a large crime wave which would dwarf anything we had ever seen. Obviously, therefore, we cannot do that.
      Cannabis is not as destructive of human health as nicotine. In those circumstances, I cannot accept what the hon. Member said, on two grounds, but he is right in one respect. If Sir Walter Raleigh had just returned with the new product of tobacco, I suspect that we would have banned it. Perhaps we would not even have allowed him to bring in potatoes.
      Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: If the theory is that, by banning a drug, we protect people from it, could my hon. Friend explain the experience of a large number of my young constituents, who find themselves in no way protected from the possibility of being hooked on the drug and caught in the crime wave that goes with it?
      Mr. Banks: My hon. Friend is correct. Surveys show that a significant cross-section of society use cannabis for recreational purposes. Cannabis features in 90 per cent. of all drug offences. When we talk about drug offences, we are effectively talking about cannabis, and there were 42,000 offenders in 1991.
      As well as the debate outside the House, the police, by their actions, are allowing cannabis use. When they pick up people who are carrying a small amount of cannabis that is clearly for personal use, they issue a caution and let them off. That is what is happening. I do not know what the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam would say about that, but it is a fact, and the House should recognise that.

      703
      People often say—the hon. Members for Sutton and Cheam and for Castle Point (Dr. Spink) said it—that the use of soft drugs is the slippery slope towards the chasm. For some people that may be true, but not for everyone. One could also say that, as soon as someone sips a glass of dry sherry, they are on the slippery slope to drinking meths on the Embankment. I assume that the poor unfortunates who end up hopeless alcoholics started off by drinking a dry sherry, but that does not mean that everyone who has a beer or a glass of sherry ends up a hopeless alcoholic.
      In countries where cannabis has been decriminalised, such as Holland, there has been a fall in the number of hard drug users. While I am on the subject of Holland, I must point out that we are in danger of creating drugs tourism in the European Union. If different laws apply in different countries in a union, where the movement of people across national boundaries is that much easier, people who are interested in experimenting with illegal substances will obviously move to the countries where they are more freely available. We should be concerned about drugs tourism.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) mentioned the extensive criminal activity that surrounds drug supply and said that it was estimated that 50 per cent. of property crimes are associated with drug supply and demand. The police recognise that, like prostitution, the use of illegal substances is something that they can never stop, whatever resources we give them. They also maintain that we do not give them enough resources to meet the demands that the Government place on them.
      The decriminalisation of cannabis will allow control and regulation and that is the way to approach the matter. It would also allow the police to use their resources more effectively in other areas where damage is being done to our citizens. I do not know whether the use of cannabis damages the people who use them or society, but much of the criminal activity surrounding the supply of such substances clearly damages us all.
      I am not saying that, because we cannot beat it, we should legislate for it and legalise it. That is like saying that, because we cannot beat house burglary or car crime, we will make them legal. However, why should millions of citizens be criminalised for an activity that, according to the evidence that I have gathered, does not harm them, as the users, or harm others?
      When the Home Secretary tried to whip up some grass roots support at the Conservative party conference by saying, "Let's hit them with harder penalties," it was an absurd, but typical, reaction. We are not hitting them and we are not dealing with the problem, so how on earth will stiffer penalties solve the problem? It is not surprising that a range of eminent authorities attacked the Home Secretary's proposals.
      If we move from criminalisation to regulation, we can start to treat the drug-dependent—that is somewhat different from using cannabis—as patients rather than as criminals. We can also deal with drug education in a different way. It is difficult to become involved in education about drugs, because drug-taking is an illegal activity. Much HIV infection is passed on via people who use hard drugs, and we are not controlling that.
      I am not advocating drug use. I have never used the stuff, nor do I intend to, although I do not object to it. If
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      someone gave me a hash brownie, I would probably pop it down, but I would not smoke hash because I do not like smoke getting into my lungs. I am not advocating drug use, but decriminalisation would have some tangible benefits. One benefit is that it would allow up to 5 million of our citizens who use cannabis for recreational purposes to be brought within the law, rather than criminalised.
      In summary, if the new clause were accepted and placed in the Bill it would: release law enforcement resources; improve police-community relations and, therefore, police effectiveness; all but eliminate revenue-raising crime to fund illegal purchases; enable effective measures to curb the spread of HIV; improve the health of people using drugs; increase the credibility of health education messages; and improve early access to treatment for those developing drug problems.
      The legal trade would have tax benefits, which would no doubt appeal to some Conservative Members; would eliminate the excessive illicit profits that generate violence and corruption; and would remove a major spur to the erosion of traditional, legal safeguards.
      On all those grounds, at an appropriate stage I shall urge the House to support new clause 7.
      7.45 pm
      Mr. Tim Rathbone: The hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael), speaking for the Opposition,' directed his comments towards the Home Office and its Ministers. I echo the tenor of many of his comments, but he should have directed them to the Secretary of State for Education rather than to the Home Secretary.
      Lack of education—especially the education of young people—is an appalling chink in the Government's activities to tackle the misuse of drugs, and I say so advisedly. It is not that nothing is going on as there is much activity. Such illustrious organisations as TACADE are providing extremely well-designed material and Life Education Centres have marvellous programmes that are directed towards young children. They are doing their stuff and are supported by voluntary agencies.
      However, I fear that, all too often, they are left to get on with it. The Government's decision to cut Government funding for health education co-ordinators in education authorities was appalling. As I told my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Education Ministers, I hope that they will review that decision, and I am sorry that they are not on the Front Bench for our consideration of new clauses 4 and 5.
      The hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth, who has just left the Chamber, also took an unfair swipe at my hon. Friend the Minister. Home Office initiatives are one of the areas in which Government activities are excellent. A word of warning, however, as their activities are under review. The Department should not undertake a review like that conducted by Ministers for Education—to find out how best to stop excellent initiatives. I hope that it will find out how programmes can be extended to other cities, towns and regions.
      Programmes work best where a co-operative venture is already in place, as was the case in Sussex. Brighton had the first drugs initiative and it was able to stitch in with the East Sussex drugs advisory council and all the good work

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      that it has done. That is an excellent example of what Government funding for a Government initiative can achieve, working with local people.
      I must offer some words of warning about the ideas about decriminalisation put forward by the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks). First, he cited the director general of Interpol in support of his contention, but he was taken out of context, and has been quoted very selectively. I shall be delighted to share with the hon. Member the correspondence that I have received from the director general in recent weeks.
      Like the hon. Member for Newham, North-West, I am a delegate to the Council of Europe. I should remind him that the legalisation or decriminalisation of drugs was debated extensively at the Council—I was proud to be the rapporteur for that debate. The recommendation not to legalise drugs was carried unanimously in the Council, which then embraced 26 nations—certainly no fewer—with the support of representatives from all parties of all nations.
      The truth of the matter is that the decriminalisation of drugs will not work, and that cannabis has worse effects than the hon. Member for Newham, North-West suggested. It increases the likelihood of lung infection, because it increases the toxic gases in cigarettes, it affects people's brains and, most important of all, it has severe effects on young girls, because it affects their reproductive organs.
      Mr. Tony Banks: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Rathbone: I will not give way, because I was immensely restrained during the hon. Member's speech, and I know that the House wants to make progress.
      Mr. Banks: I would have given way to the hon. Gentleman.
      Mr. Rathbone: The hon. Member seemed to hang his argument on the idea that, as cannabis is only a recreational drug, it should be made legal. Those who take hard nasty drugs such as cocaine and heroin also look upon them as so-called recreational drugs. To hang the arguments about decriminalisation on allowing people to have more legal fun when they are having illegal fun now is a rather sad commentary from the hon. Member for Newham, North-West.
      New clauses 64 and 65, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) relate to drug treatment in prisons. We do not know how many prisoners misuse drugs. We know that about 45,000 people are in prison, and we know that they are roughly representative of the population. A survey of prisoners in 1989 found that 43 per cent. said that they used drugs regularly outside prison. It is therefore likely that they could be misusing drugs inside prison.
      The British Medical Association found that 40 per cent. of women prisoners in Holloway may have problems with drugs—my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam spoke about that earlier. The 1991 national prison survey reported that 41 per cent. of prisoners who were questioned said that their first confrontation with police was because of drink or drugs. That relates to the comments made by the hon. Member for Newham, North-West.
      Of the cases tried by magistrates in the London area, 80 per cent. involve drink or drugs. That highlights the need for treatment for misuse of drugs and alcohol, and the fact that one should not differentiate between them.
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      It is extremely difficult to provide such treatment in prisons. Those involved in the work of the Addictive Diseases Trust have said categorically:
      "Admitting to a drug or alcohol problem in prison can have unpleasant consequences"
      on release. That is absolutely true, but it is still essential to have the ability to offer that treatment.
      In common with my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam, I lift my hat to the Addictive Diseases Trust and to Sir Anthony Hopkins, who is more famous for other things, for his marvellous support of and deep involvement with the trust. I also commend Jonathan Wallace, the trust's director, on getting a unit going in Downview prison.
      New clause 64 makes an important reference to "voluntary organisations". The Addictive Diseases Trust believes, based on its experience, that it is essential to establish with inmates that the treatment process is not part of the prison system, and that its staff are not employed directly by the Home Office or the prison service. That is not a criticism of my hon. Friend the Minister or of prison officers, but it means that such treatment must be at arm's length from the Department and the prison service to make it a credible point of contact to which prisoners may turn.
      The success of that concept is endorsed by everyone who has had any experience of what has gone on in Downview prison. I know that the prison governor, the area manager and everyone from the Home Office who has visited the prison is behind that concept. They are supportive because they can see the effect on prisoners. It is also important to consider the rollover effect, because, when I visited that prison, it was clear to me—I am sure that the Minister can confirm this—that the treatment was helping not only the prisoners, but their wives and their families to come to grips with their problems outside.
      The Addictive Diseases Trust says:
      "We are in the business of turning liabilities into assets."
      I believe that the new clauses tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam would achieve just that.
      Mr. Maclennan: In common with the hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Rathbone), I should like briefly to discuss the three sets of amendments and new clauses that have been grouped together.
      I agree with the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) that the Government have not shown a co-ordinated appreciation of the serious threat that drugs are posing to society. As the hon. Member for Lewes has said, it is true that the Department for Education is primarily to blame for the recent ending of the role of health education co-ordinators. Earlier today, Ministers—most notably the Foreign Secretary, in his statement to the House—told us about the importance of collective responsibility. I believe that the Departments of Health and for Education and the Home Office should be working closely together to tackle the problem of drugs, which afflicts society.
      My main concern about the Home Office is that it is not devoting sufficient resources, research and analysis to the extent of the problem. It is true that anecdotal evidence suggests that many offences can be traced to a criminal seeking to finance his drug-taking habits. The statistical evidence to support that, at least that which is available to the public, is extremely slender. With crime figures rocketing, the time has come for a much more scientific analysis of the relationship of drugs to offending.

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      New clauses 4 and 5 deal with cognate matters—the imposition of a duty upon local authorities, funded by Home Office grants, to pursue anti-drugs education in partnership with the police and other agencies. New clause 5 would impose a duty on the Secretary of State to
      "publish a national strategy for drug prevention."
      That too would focus on education and young people in custody or care.
      I sympathise with and support the intention behind the clauses, and they are a useful peg on which to hang the debate, but we must recognise that education on drugs often misses the target. I give full credit to the Home Office for its responsibility for a valuable study which was prepared at Sheffield university by Marian Lightner and others. It showed that drug education was most likely to be effective among those socio-economic groups that were responsive to education generally.
      Those who are least responsive to education are, broadly, those most disposed to take harder drugs, and indeed all drugs more frequently. Therefore, although it is important to educate in schools, we cannot regard even an extensive drugs education in schools as sufficient, and we require counselling services and detoxification centres outside schools to catch those who are not caught by what goes on in schools.
      Another report, produced for the Department of Health on young people and illicit drug use, researched at Durham university, found that it was commonplace among young 13 to 18-year-olds in some areas to take drugs. Drug use and abuse by children is growing, and growing frighteningly. There must be very few head teachers in the land who can put their hands on their hearts and say that drugs are not being brought into their schools. I do not sense that the urgency of tackling that problem is reflected in Government thinking.
      One of the group of amendments has not yet been moved by the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker). Perhaps he will forgive me if I mention it even before he has moved it, for there is much to be said for new clause 52, which would require the detention in rehabilitation centres of drug addicts convicted of possession under section 5 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.
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      It has to recommend it, first, the fact that prisons are not the best places to send people who need to kick the habit of drug-taking. Secondly, detention in a rehabilitation centre might at least prevent reoffending in the same way on release. It is extremely important that drug addicts are given rehabilitation rather than prison sentences, but we have to qualify that view by recognising that such centres do not currently exist extensively around the country.
      I think that the proposal of the hon. Member for Tayside, North is almost certainly not capable of implementation on practical grounds, but the thrust of his argument is extremely important. It also has to be recognised that treatment for drug addiction is not always lasting or successful, and that lasting care for ex-addicts is necessary to prevent recidivism. The hon. Gentleman might care to consider that in the context of his thinking about those matters, for follow-up and after-care are
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      extraordinarily important.
      Many addicts who come before the courts do not do so because they are addicts. They are tried for other offences and convicted of other offences, and their addiction comes to light only once they are taken into custody.
      With those reservations, I generally support the thrust of new clause 52, but I think that the intentions of the hon. Member for Tayside, North were similar to those expressed by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam, who speaks with some obvious personal interest and knowledge of activities and regimes in certain prisons where drug rehabilitation programmes are being experimented with. I agree with her that it is sensible that those programmes should be tried out by other prisons and by voluntary agencies working in prisons. We need all the help and
      The hon. Member for Lewes said that, although we know that drug abuse in prison is high, we cannot accurately quantify it, and certainly not all users come to the attention of the authorities. Measures to restrict the supply of drugs, even in the newest prisons, are never, as far as one can make out, completely successful. Further, a person who is already in prison may not be deterred by an extension of sentence for drug use, so I think that a strategy of drug demand reduction is required.
      The treatment of drug dependence among prisoners is an important part of tackling offending behaviour generally, as they are often linked, and the availability of treatment is crucial. I therefore support the thinking of the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam that lies behind the clause. I shall be interested to see whether she presses it to a Division in the face of the reluctance of the Government to move in the direction that she has in mind.
      Many of the arguments which I have adduced in support of her new clause 64 would obtain in respect of new clause 65, as it allows the court to reduce the sentence of an offender where it believes that drug use contributed to the crime and where the offender is willing to go on a rehabilitation course.
      I think that that power is unlikely to be frequently used because of the difficulty of proving causation, but its value would lie in the recognition that drugs can lead to crimes that would not otherwise be committed. An addict who receives treatment may be in greater danger of returning to dependence while inside prisons where drugs are more readily available than outside.
      The last group of amendments which I wish to mention includes new clause 51, which would alter the sentences under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 to provide that all offences will be tried on indictment—most can be tried either way at present. Maximum sentences for possession, supply or production would be 50 years for class A, 25 years for class B and 10 years for class C.
      Longer sentences are known to contribute little to deterring others or to preventing reoffending. In the United States, minimum sentences and an explosion in the number of convictions have not reduced the incidence of drug crime or addiction. A heavy-handed criminal justice response may even exacerbate the drugs problem by driving users further from other agencies offering rehabilitation, and by increasing the violence associated with drug-dealing.
      I am less attracted to that proposal of the hon. Member for Tayside, North. The Government too often instinctively believe that one tackles criminal problems by lengthening sentences. The position of drug addicts and drug users is

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      quite different from that of drug dealers, who require stiff penalties. Prison is the last place that one would choose to send many addicts.
      I am grateful to the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) for opening up in Parliament a debate which is widely being continued outside the House of Commons. He is right to say that it is a serious debate, and it is one in which there have been powerful advocates. Among others, a leader in the Financial Times and a number of very senior doctors have supported the decriminalisation not only of cannabis, but of other drugs.
      I do not believe that that can be contemplated at this time by Parliament. I believe that it would run completely counter to widespread public perception, and that Parliament cannot legislate too far in advance of public opinion on an issue of that type. None the less, it is an important issue, and the Government are not approaching the problem of the widespread illegal use of cannabis with any coherence or sense.
      I do not know whether the hon. Member for Newham, North-West has noticed the contrast between the attitude of the Home Office, which has increased the penalty to £2,500 for cannabis-related offences in England, and that of the Scottish Office, which has introduced what it calls a fiscal fine of £25. It seems to me that that reflects what I was speaking about earlier—the lack of coherence in the Government's approach to the handling of the drug problem.
      Sir Ivan Lawrence indicated assent.
      Mr. Maclennan: I hope that the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) is agreeing with me. I am most grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman.
      Mr. Maclean: Will the hon. Gentleman look at Government amendments Nos. 79 and 82, which make exactly the same fine provisions for Scotland?
      Mr. Maclennan: I have noticed those amendments, which I suspect were tabled because I and other hon. Members have drawn attention to the oddity of treating the two systems differently. They do not detract from the point that I am making about the use of fiscal fines, which are a measure of Scottish society's attitude to cannabis taking.The police have welcomed the measure, as it will avoid their efforts being diverted towards chasing up relatively minor drug-related crimes, and will enable them to concentrate their stretched resources on hard drugs dealing, which is so much more profitable.
      A risk that I have not heard seriously discussed is the fact that, if the penalty for dealing in soft drugs becomes so high that the risk to dealers is unacceptable, dealers may turn to dealing in hard drugs, which are much more profitable. That would be an untoward result of the Government's approach.
      I recommend the Scottish Office's approach to the Home Office, which I hope will see fit to follow suit.
      Dr. Spink: What decision was taken at the Liberal Democrat party conference with regard to legalising soft drugs?
      Mr. Maclennan: The hon. Gentleman refers to a resolution passed at a Scottish conference of the Liberal Democrat party in 1993, which Conservative central office has helpfully furnished to Tory Members, and a copy of which has conveniently come into my hands. That proposal
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      was passed in Scotland and reflects the fact that the debate about drugs in Scotland is, in some ways, more advanced. It was put forward in the spirit of the amendment proposed by the hon. Member for Newham, North-West. I have no intention of voting for his amendment and, as far as I am aware, the Liberal Democrat party has no intention of doing so.
      It is not Liberal Democrat policy that cannabis or other illegal drugs should be legalised. I do not suppose that Conservative central office will subsequently circulate my speech, but I should none the less like to put on the record the fact that we have opposed the decriminalisation of cannabis because, as the hon. Member for Lewes said, the health effects are uncertain.
      The hon. Gentleman mentioned some of the feared adverse health effects and I have heard similar evidence from other doctors. It is also uncertain whether legitimised cannabis dealing would lead dealers to use that drug to promote other drugs. We have supported the Scottish Office proposal to make first-time offences of possession subject to non-criminal fiscal fines. That approach should be followed south as well as north of the border.
      My main message to the Home Office today is that it should get its act together and join the Departments of Health and for Education. Let us pool the talent and concerns and use them constructively to tackle the most serious problem facing this country today, which is a major factor in the rise of crime.
      Mr. Bill Walker: I wish to discuss new clauses Nos. 51 and 52. It is unusual to hear other hon. Members discuss new clauses that one has not yet had an opportunity to move.
      Like the hon.Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks), I can say that I have had no association whatever with drugs, even though as a young man I spent some time in the bazaars of the middle east during His Majesty's pleasure. Although I frequently speak about alcohol, particularly Scotch whisky, I am teetotal. Nor do I smoke, but that does not stop me discussing smoking. Like the hon. Gentleman, my interest is to try to find a solution to the ghastly problem facing the United Kingdom and the whole of the civilised world.
      8.15 pm
      There is no single, simple solution. Anyone who has studied the problem realises that, as the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) properly said, the problem exists in our schools and any problem in our schools affects every age group in the community. It would therefore be nonsense simply to consider a narrow solution. The value of this debate is that it gives us an opportunity to address the matter in the round.
      Deterrence has a part to play in dealing with the problem. I am not naive enough to imagine that it alone is a solution, but I have always believed that penalties deter some people and must therefore be part of the package. After all, given that we are faced with a fivefold increase in fines for drugs possession, we must recognise that present sentences are not enough.
      New clause 51 proposes sentences to deal with not just addicts. Although one is concerned with the increase in addicts, the illegal drugs industry generates a turnover of between £2 billion and £2.5 billion per annum. It is a massive industry. Given the amount of money presently being laundered through the financial sector from the illicit

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      drugs trade, its effect on anyone connected with the trade, whether school boys or girls, adults involved in laundering the money or handling the products, or dealers involved in distribution, must be addressed. It is an international trade. A number of recent incidents in Scotland have revealed evidence that the drugs have been landed in the north-west of Scotland for distribution in the United Kingdom.
      Our interest therefore covers much more than simply what is happening in schools, which is why we must consider carefully the sentences available to the courts. It would be far better to use the term "50 years" than the term "life". That would show anyone thinking of offending in this way that he was liable to find himself locked up for 50 years.
      I immediately accept that we have to think of ways of weaning addicts off drugs. My first experience of addicts came with people who were addicted to drink—not unusual in Scotland. When I was a boy it was common to see drunks around the city of Dundee after 9.30 pm, because the public houses closed early. One of the factors that got rid of that problem was a more liberal approach to drinking hours in the pubs. It brought about a dramatic change in drinking fashions.
      Many youngsters become involved in drugs as a result of peer pressure. That is why we have to rethink sentencing policy, and it is why I tabled new clause 51. I will not go through the new clause in detail—I could speak for two or three hours if I did, and I sense that the mood of the House would be against that. I should like to make it clear that I could not support any attempt to legalise cannabis.
      One reason why I oppose legalising drugs came to my attention when my wife and I visited Switzerland, whither I had gone to assess the impact of its more liberal approach to drug offences. I would hate to see here what I saw around the Parliament building in Switzerland: people using needles in public places in the middle of the day. As I told my wife, I could not think of any other country in the civilised world where one could observe people using needles right outside a parliament building.
      I defy anyone to walk outside this building in the middle of the afternoon and find someone using needles publicly in the immediate precincts. People were doing this in Switzerland because of the so-called liberal approach. Swiss parliamentarians told me that, following the introduction of the more liberal approach, known addicts converged on the area because they knew that they would be safe from conviction there. Now this may be what some people want, but it does not appeal to me—it is one reason why I find it difficult to accept arguments in favour of legalisation. In this life it is often a good thing to go and observe such experiments to find out whether they work.
      Next, I wish to discuss the rehabilitation centres covered by new clause 52. Part of the answer to the problem must be helping those who are part of the problem—the addicts. It is important to give the courts the opportunity to detain anyone convicted under the proposed subsection (5A) for a term—it will be left to the courts' discretion—that will be required to wean people off their drugs. That is only sensible.
      I recognise that this cannot be done without some cost to the taxpayer. The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland rightly drew attention to the fact that these centres do not yet exist. He will know that in the years before the second world war there were no centres to help people with alcohol problems either; we had to create them, and the industry itself was largely responsible for
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      paying for them. I should like to think that some of the stiff fines to be imposed on the illegal drug trade, not to mention the repossession of traders' goods and property, will be used to fund the rehabilitation centres.
      I would not want anyone to think, just because I have spoken briefly, that my views on deterrence in this matter differ from my views on deterrence in defence or in any other terms. I believe that deterrence has an important part to play in helping to change attitudes and to convince people who might consider getting involved in the trade that the risks of so doing are unacceptably high.
      Ms Diane Abbott: I support my hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench and affirm the strength of feeling among ordinary people in London, the centre of Britain's drugs trade, about the rising tide of drug misuse and drug-related crime. The problem is acute in my constituency.
      As leading members of the Labour party have pointed out, a major issue at stake is the number of crimes committed in order to raise money to feed the drug habit. Half recorded property crime is due to people trying to find the money to feed their habit. That concerns ordinary Londoners. Many of the prostitutes on the streets of London and our other great cities are there to pay for their habit. I cannot stress too much the desperation felt by ordinary people trying to bring up their families when they discover that someone in the next-door flat or the upstairs flat in their estates has set up as a drug retailer. The misuse of drugs and drug-related crimes are ruining the lives of ordinary Londoners in places like Hackney.
      Crack and cocaine are the newest scourge among hard drug users. On the streets of my constituency I see young men whose lives have been shattered by drug misuse.
      Londoners are increasingly worried about the growth in the use of guns in drug-related crime. Guns are being fired off in crowded clubs, yet crimes involving guns are not given the sort of publicity that they deserve—they are all related to drug misuse. Londoners and the people of Hackney want a real war to be waged against drugs, based on a coherent appraisal of the problem.
      That is where the Government are failing—failing the people of Hackney, the people of London and the people of Britain. The problem of the rising tide of drug misuse is complex; it is not just about token gestures in respect of fines. For instance, we need to examine foreign policy issues, such as the amount of aid given to certain countries. Small farmers in the Caribbean and the middle east turn to drug production because it is often their only means of earning hard currency for their families.
      If the Governments of Britain and the United States were serious about fighting drugs, they would have to look again at aid for third world countries—and at banana production in the Caribbean. If small farmers in Jamaica and the eastern Caribbean are driven out of banana production, they will turn to growing drugs.
      We also need to examine bank secrecy laws. It is no good Tory Ministers posing as being concerned about drugs while they continue, judging by their activities in relation to international banking regulation, to support the Bank of England's endeavour to stop effective disclosure laws. It is because of bank secrecy that the drug barons can shovel their money across continents.
      As I say, we must also look at our support for third world countries' attempts to fight drugs. In Jamaica and the eastern Caribbean the drug barons have more highly

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      powered and expensive speed boats than do the coastguards. If this country were serious about fighting drugs, it would be pumping money into Caribbean coastal defences—after all, Caribbean countries provide calling off points for the drug barons.
      It is easy enough to see drug dealers on the streets and in council flats. However, the people making money from drugs, the Mr. Bigs, are not visible and are often not touched by the Government.
      Hon. Members spoke about treatment and education. Nobody takes drug abuse and drug-related crime more seriously than those who live and work in inner cities. We do not want token gestures by the Government. We want an overall strategy on drugs which takes into account the foreign policy issues that I have raised and education and rehabilitation. Above all, it must take on board the need for a co-ordinated law and order strategy. The environments of too many people are being ruined, too many communities are being harmed and too many children are having their lives destroyed. The Government have failed the country on the drugs issue and the people of Hackney and London want a real war against drugs.
      8.30 pm
      Mr. John Greenway: I should like to make four brief points.
      First, I totally agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Mr. Rathbone) said about the withdrawal of funding for health education workers. I recently called a meeting in my rural constituency for representatives from the police, the churches, schools and youth workers to discuss how to deal with the growing problem of drug taking by young people and the availability of drugs in our market towns. One of the strongest messages from the meeting was the real concern about the withdrawal of that funding by the Department for Education. I urge the Minister to make sure that the Department for Education is fully aware of the anger and outrage felt by many of our supporters in market towns about the withdrawal of that funding.
      Secondly, I should like to respond to the criticism of the Government for increasing the fines for so-called soft drugs. I cannot understand the argument that it is wrong to increase the fines for the possession of amphetamines as well as for the possession of cannabis. We hear a great deal about cannabis, but amphetamines are in the same drugs group. Contrary to what the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) said about cannabis being the main drug, in his annual report published just a few days ago the chief constable of North Yorkshire said:
      "There has generally been a decline in the use of cannabis as against the misuse of amphetamines which is strongly increasing."
      We have to tackle that head on. When the police arid the customs authorities catch people who are involved in drug trafficking the only offence to which many of them will plead guilty or of which they can be found guilty—given the requirements for evidence—is possession. I warmly welcome the increase in fines and it is reassuring to know that it will apply to Scotland as well as to England and Wales. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Sir N. Fairbairn) has said, many of the improvements in interdiction have led to drugs seizures in Scotland.
      Thirdly, I should like to make a point that has not been made on the legalisation of drugs. The hon. Member for
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      Newham, North-West made a genuine attempt to introduce that subject to the House. There is high tax on two other poisons—alcohol and tobacco. If we were even to think about trying to control the availability of cannabis through some form of decriminalisation, presumably for health reasons, if for no other, the substance would have to be subject to high tax. That suggests that we could still end up with a black market. I am sure that the House will want to return to the issue again.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) tabled new clauses on drugs rehabilitation. In that context, one obvious point has not been made. If, as we all agree, the number of offences being committed in this country, especially petty crimes against property, is by known criminals to fund their habit of drug abuse, it must be right that while such people are in prison they should be rehabilitated. It is the one thing that we could do constructively to reduce the recidivism of people leaving prison.
      Mr. Simpson: I support new clauses 4, 5 and 67. In the debate on the previous amendments the Home Secretary warned the House that victim compensation could rise to more than £2 billion by the end of the century. He cautioned that there was a need for radical changes to bring that cost to a more manageable limit. There is an ironic symmetry with the cost of serious drug-related crime. As has been said, £2 billion per year is the estimated cost of crime that is produced by serious drug addiction. That is the fact upon which we should base the debate and the strategies that flow from it.
      I have a word of caution in the context of my experience in my area of Nottingham. I praise the police, local authorities, the health authority and the Home Office drug prevention project for their willingness to talk openly about the serious and growing problem of dependency on crack-cocaine. No one should be under any illusions about the seriousness of that drug and the rate at which problems are growing across the country. I shall give one litmus test example. We did a quick survey one weekend and identified 29 children who were involved in child prostitution. Of those 29 children, 25 were crack dependent. They all had various ways of criminally paying for their dependency.
      Not only in my area but across the country it is becoming increasingly easy to find stolen goods being priced in rocks rather than in pounds. The problem of crack swept through America and the authorities were poleaxed because they did not face the issue soon enough and were not prepared for the scale of the problem. There are two lessons to be learnt from that. First, the problem must be tackled at source. When asked about how they deal with crack when it has reached the streets, the police say that it is like chasing the wind.
      Crack-cocaine must be dealt with by tackling the dealerships and terminating the supply lines. Secondly, we must face the reality that, increasingly, crack—cocaine is being offered to children. If the funding for drugs education work in schools is cut, today's children will not be equipped to deal with the difficult decisions that they will be asked to make in school today and in society tomorrow. That is the stark reality of where we are heading.
      We need a programme, a strategy, to address all that and it must begin with some of the initiatives set down by the Home Office drug prevention project. We need to look at

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      acceptable programmes that will help people while they are still drugs dependent to live with that dependency. Without that we cannot move to the next stage of living without dependency. People do not get conversions on the road as if blinded by a sudden understanding. Hard graft is needed to offer people pathways back to a sane and sensible way of living.
      We must tackle the way in which this country is involved on the quiet in bankrolling serious drugs crime. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) said, unless we tackle the supply lines of funding through the banking system for hard drugs activities, those activities will continue to grow and thrive. That is not part of the Government's strategy.
      As I said, I support new clause 67. Anyone who works with drugs will say that one of the most helpful steps would be to decriminalise cannabis. Those hon. Members who warn about the slippery slope towards serious drug addiction base their arguments on nil evidence. The only serious study which suggested that cannabis was addictive was based on the study of soldiers in the American forces in the Vietnamese war. Many of them pleaded addiction as it was a ground for being sent home. No study has shown that cannabis use leads to dependency on hard drugs. There is no progression except in terms of common supply lines. One of the biggest problems confronting children, young people and adults who use cannabis is that when they try to obtain it they are more likely to be offered a hard drug first. If those supply lines can be separated, there will be an opportunity to break the continuum that brings cannabis users into close and ongoing proximity to hard drug distribution.
      The use of cannabis is a pathway not to addiction but to a criminal record. If it were decriminalised, we would immediately remove the unnecessary 42,000 convictions a year for cannabis use and automatically end the fivefold increase in cautions for cannabis use. We would certainly end the number of people who are harassed because of their use of cannabis. Decriminalisation would allow the country to develop a strategy that differentiated between serious drug use and the increasingly socially acceptable use of cannabis.
      Sir Ivan Lawrence: Everybody agrees on the problem and the extent of it. The question is, what can best be done to solve the problem? I agree with the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott)—probably for the first time—when she says that we need a war against drugs.
      Bearing in mind the compulsive nature of drugs and that, for the user, reason goes out of the window, the answer must be, broadly, some stick, some carrot, much less cautioning and certainly no decriminalisation.
      As to the stick, the Government are to be congratulated on stiffening sentences for traffickers and on tougher fines for users. I support the Government's action, as does my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway), in raising fines from £500 to £2,500. To continue to allow fines to devalue is to send totally the wrong signal to children and youngsters and to suggest that the Government do not care. The Government care very much, as should we all, so we should support increased fines. It would also send the wrong signal to the police, who have
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      been cautioning far too much. One suspects that one reason is that they felt that the Government and the courts did not care to have adequate penalties imposed on cannabis users.
      As to the carrot, in addition to better education in schools—I am pleased that the national curriculum now includes drug education as part of health education—
      Mr. Rathbone: My hon. and learned Friend is inadvertently misleading the House. Drug education is included in biology, but that is not the sort of health education that co-ordinators were providing for all children in all schools.
      8.45 pm
      Sir Ivan Lawrence: On the contrary, I am told that it is to be included in the national curriculum. I am sure that my hon. Friend will welcome that. I agree with his other remarks about Home Office initiatives.
      I listened with interest to my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland), who said that drug users should be given some encouragement. There is not enough drug education or rehabilitation in prisons. We have been going on and on about that for the best part of 20 years. Something more must be done to encourage rehabilitation and education. New clause 62 is in the right direction, although I do not know whether the Government will accept it.
      New clause 65 calls for reduced sentencing, which is probably not the best approach, although a reduction in time served through earlier parole or earlier release would be sensible. The trouble with reducing a sentence is that a promise to undertake a drug misuse course cannot be enforced: if users know that a promise of that kind will give them a statutory right to a lesser sentence, they will all make the promise, but few will deliver and the system of justice will be brought into disrepute. The advantage of earlier parole or earlier release is that the carrot would not be given until the offender had delivered his side of the bargain.
      Some of the chattering classes may be in favour of decriminalisation, and also some Opposition Members, although it is difficult to know whether the Liberal Democrats are in favour or against, as with so many of their policies. However, few people in society are in favour of decriminalising cannabis, because it would inevitably lead to more youngsters using more drugs. How would the drug habit of which the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington complained be lessened if more youngsters took more drugs?
      The ordinary use of cannabis is harmful, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Mr. Rathbone) pointed out. Dr. Paton of Oxford university records that it may cause irreversible brain damage if used daily for two to three years. Opposition Members who leap up and down may be indicating the very problem that Dr. Paton identified. Cannabis use also leads to the use of hard drugs. The trafficker says to the cannabis user, "It does not give you as much of a buzz as heroin, cocaine or crack. Why not try them?" Whether the use of harder drugs is psychological or medical, the courts are full of cases of people who started on lesser drugs such as cannabis, amphetamines or barbiturates and moved on to hard drugs.
      Another objection to decriminalisation is that it would lead to more serious crime. As the number of users and the need to supply even cannabis, amphetamines and barbiturates grew, traffickers would need to supply more.

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      There would be a greater demand for harder drugs, which would inevitably lead to more trafficking—and more traffickers would lead to more serious crime.
      Was the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Simpson) serious when he said that an argument for decriminalising cannabis use would be the release of 42,000 people in prison for that offence? If so, that is a good argument for decriminalising burglary. We could solve large-scale crime overnight by decriminalising burglary and releasing the thousands of persons awaiting trial or imprisoned for burglary.
      The Government's approach is sensible, but more money must be found for education and rehabilitation. If more money can be found for that, if for nothing else, it would be well justified.
      Mr. Paul Flynn: Right hon. and hon. Members share the belief that a terrible and growing problem confronts our country. We have a choice of two paths, one of which we know to be a path of failure.
      Over the past 30 years, the approach in America has been the same as that of Conservative Members. America had a war against drugs, spending $8 billion a year over the past 10 years and a similar amount before that. In 1964, 4 per cent. of young Americans were using cannabis. The latest figure shows that 75 per cent. are doing so. There is no evidence to show that illegal use of any drug throughout the world has been reduced by adopting the methods proposed by Conservative Members. Six countries have the death penalty for using cannabis, and 50 have the death penalty for heroin use.
      In America, similar arguments were used about the evils of alcohol. Even in this country today, the main cause for crime is alcohol. In 1919, America's answer was to ban alcohol: the consequence was that consumption doubled and the number of people who died from alcohol poisoning quadrupled because a great deal of alcohol was manufactured in unhygienic conditions.
      What is the position on drugs now? I speak as someone who hates the use of all drugs. I take none of them, and I suggest that many others should be as antagonistic to the medicinal drugs that we take in huge quantities as they are to illegal drugs. The use of illegal drugs is increasing and our policy on drugs is the main reason why crime is increasing.
      If people living in my constituency on one of the estates where there is 40 per cent. unemployment wish to make some money, it is no good going on a useless job scheme as there is little chance of getting a job at the end and it is no good working for McDonald's for peanuts, but if they deal in drugs there will be a good chance of getting themselves a BMW in five years. The problem that drives the drugs trade is money: profit is what is behind the drugs trade.
      Drug trafficking is the biggest industry in the world. Drugs are coming into Britain in huge quantities. We are catching at the most possibly 10 per cent. and it could be only 3 per cent. The trade is increasing because people are making huge amounts of money from it. The best way of dealing with it is to undercut the profit and the trade by decriminalising the use of cannabis and making it available in the same way as alcohol is available now, and by treating the users of hard drugs as patients.
      We must treat hard drug addicts as patients because there is virtually no chance of getting them off their drugs when they have to steal up to £2,000 of goods a week. If
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      their habit costs £500 a week, as it does in Bristol, they have to steal that money. They are full-time criminals. Drug addicts take the drugs in unhygienic surroundings and using unhygienic needles. The number of people who die from heroin every year is 100. The number of people who die from using cannabis is zero. The number of people who die from taking paracetamol is 300, from other medicinal drugs 2,000, from alcohol 25,000, and from smoking cigarettes 110,000. Yet as a society we spend £100 million persuading our children to use tobacco but gaol them for using cannabis.
      Do Conservative Members know why cannabis was banned? I speak as a chemist. Many substances are far more dangerous than cannabis. I would not encourage anyone to use cannabis or any of the other substances that are available. The reason why cannabis is a banned substance is that the head of a lunatic asylum in Alexandria once went to a conference and said that cannabis made people insane. His reason was that all his in-patients were taking it. He did not mention that everyone outside in the community was taking it as well. Since that day, no one has suggested that cannabis makes people insane.
      Several other substances which are freely available could have been banned. The really lethal substances, which I would be horrified if any of my children used, are freely available in chemist's shops, supermarkets and stationery shops. The glues and other substances that they sniff—things that we have in our offices—could kill youngsters. The great worry with cannabis is that it is usually mixed with tobacco. Many members of a generation in the 1960s in Britain and in America used cannabis mixed with tobacco. Now, not one in 100 of that generation still uses cannabis, but a third of them still use tobacco and in many cases it will kill them.
      We know what popular opinion is. What Opposition Members are proposing will not gain us any votes. I appeal to the Government. We know that their policy is the wrong one. It will lead to more crime because people will need more money for drugs and they will need to commit more crime to get that money. The Government's policy of increasing the fine for cannabis will result in only one thing: the cannabis user will have to commit more crime to feed his or her addiction. Unless we implement a policy of decriminalisation, undercut the market for cannabis and treat the hard-drug addicts as patients, the problem will get far worse. We shall end up in the position that America is in. Every one of our cities will be divided into areas, with drug users defending their areas with guns. That is the future unless the Government see sense.
      Mr. Ronnie Campbell: We are all aware that drugs are a serious problem in Britain and especially in the north-east of England. It was said not so long ago that in the north-east drugs were the third largest industry, after Nissan.
      In my constituency in the past five years, five young people aged between 16 and 19 have lost their lives through taking drugs. The drugs that they took could be bought in the chemist. Unfortunately for some of them, they were not aware of what drugs they were taking and their effects. They took a cocktail of drugs such as temazepam, barbiturates and heroin. They clogged their systems up, went into a coma and died. It is a shame that the four young girls and one young boy who died were not in the real world. They did not understand what the drugs meant to them, but the pushers did. The pushers were

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      ordinary people living in the community of Blyth Valley. They were selling to the young kids so that they could get money to buy more drugs to feed their own habit. So there was a chain reaction of drugs in the community.
      Unfortunately, Blyth Valley has become one of the biggest drug centres in the north-east. I take my hat off to the local police, who have made 28 raids in the past two or three days. When the police entered the house of one known drug dealer, they found 20 stolen televisions, 14 video recorders and a big swag of jewellery. If that does not tell us anything, what will? The drug dealers get the kids to go out and steal and burgle. Burglaries are on the increase in Blyth Valley. The kids bring the swag and get dope for it. The drugs are not only heroin. Some are from chemists. We must persuade chemists to put drugs under lock and key. We must get a grip on temazepam and wobbly eggs—they all have fancy names—before they get a grip on our people.
      I take this opportunity to praise the Newcastle Journal, my regional newspaper, which has agreed to fund a poster campaign in Blyth Valley. It will print the poster for us and I shall distribute it in the area and especially in the schools. We must get across to young people the dangers of drugs. We must talk to them about drugs. It will always be difficult because if we talk to them, we tell them what drugs are. As one headmaster said to me, "What do I do, Ronnie? Do I tell them to take only a little bit of this drug or not to take it with that drug?" The young people who died took a cocktail of drugs. That is the problem. If we educate the kids, they become aware of drugs. Once they are aware of drugs, they will say, "I'll have a bash at it. I'll try a little bit of this or a little bit of that." That is the problem.
      We must find the appropriate level and more money must be poured into the system. I do not know whether the new clause will achieve that, but I will support any amendment to the legislation that will help these young kids. Evil drug pushers are getting them hooked on drugs and making a fortune.
      Mr. Maclean: I shall reply as briefly as I can to what has been a wide-ranging debate.
      I assume that the intention of new clause 64, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland), is to place a statutory duty on the Prison Service to provide drug treatment and rehabilitation programmes. There are problems with the drafting, but, in any event, prison governors are already expected to provide a cohesive response to the needs of inmates with drug problems. Guidance on that is contained in a Prison Service circular instruction and in a resource manual issued to all prisons in 1991, entitled "Caring for Drug Misusers: a Multi-disciplinary Resource for People working with Prisoners".
      The Prison Service is reviewing that guidance, with the aim of developing an improved strategy for tackling drug misuse in our prisons. In Scotland, various prisons have developed specific programmes to meet the needs of particular groups of prisoners. A guidance manual setting out best practice for the management of prisoners who misuse drugs was issued in March: the aim is to help all prisoners to develop and maintain a drug-free life style. I, therefore, see no advantage in legislating to introduce a duty when the Prison Service is already providing an
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      appropriate response. We heard about that from my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Mr. Rathbone); excellent work is also being done at Downview prison.
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      As for new clause 65, I listened to the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam for requiring sentencers to take into account an offender's willingness to participate in a treatment programme when sentencing an offender whose drug habit has contributed to his offending behaviour. I agree whole-heartedly that it is important to deal with criminal activity that is drug related, but I do not believe that the new clause would usefully add to the court's existing powers to deal with such offending behaviour.
      The sentencing framework introduced by the Criminal Justice Act 1991 requires sentences passed by the courts to be commensurate with the seriousness of the offence committed by the offender. A custodial sentence may be passed only if an offence is "so serious" that no other sentence is justified; a community penalty may be imposed only if the offence is "serious enough" to merit it. When a court considers that an offence is not "so serious" that only a custodial penalty is justified, but is "serious enough" to merit a community sentence, the court must ensure that the order or orders that it makes are the most suitable for the offender. In doing so, it may take into account any information about the offender that is before it.
      Attendance at programmes dealing with, for instance, drug or alcohol dependency may be included in a probation order, either voluntarily—as part of supervision under the order—or as a mandatory requirement of the order. Under the Powers of Criminal Courts Act 1973, when a court is proposing to make a probation order and an offender is dependent on drugs or alcohol, the dependency caused or contributed to the commission of the offence and the dependency requires and is susceptible to treatment, the court may include in the order a requirement that the offender submit to treatment by a suitable qualified or experienced person with a view to reducing or eliminating the dependency. A community care assessment or psychiatric report will usually be a prerequisite in such cases.
      Lady Olga Maitland: I take on board what my hon. Friend has said. The crunch is this, however: is the Home Office prepared to devote more resources to voluntary agencies such as the Addictive Diseases Trust, which have a proven track record of success?
      Mr. Maclean: The Home Office is devoting considerable resources not only to programmes in the Prison Service, but to programmes in the voluntary sector. I shall explain that shortly, when I deal with the Opposition amendments.
      Voluntary attendance on a programme may be part of the supervision plan drawn up for a "straight" probation order. The draft revised national standard for pre-sentence reports proposes that when the report writer makes a proposal that envisages a probation order, supervision order or combination order, the report should annex an outline of the supervision plan proposed for the offender to assist the court in its sentencing decision. It should contain a description of the purposes and desired outcome of the proposed sentence; a timetable with key milestones; the

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      methods to be used and activities to be undertaken; the intensity of supervision envisaged; and the likely effect on dependants.
      In the case of an offender with a history of drug misuse, the proposed supervision plan—to which the offender must consent—could therefore include voluntary attendance at a drug rehabilitation programme as an integral part of the plan. The full reasons behind the suggestion must be set out in the main body of the report. In both cases—whether the attendance is voluntary or included in the supervision plan, or mandatory—it is an integral part of the sentence, and forms an element of the restriction of liberty imposed by that sentence.
      When an offender subsequently refuses to co-operate with the terms of a probation order, that offender will be regarded as having breached the order, and may be returned to court. In the most serious cases, the court may decide to re-sentence the offender for the original offence, while taking into account the extent to which the offender has complied with the order. Where the breach appears to the court to be a withdrawal of consent to the community penalty a custodial sentence may result. It would, therefore, seem unnecessary to create a new offence to deal with the problem.
      Furthermore, I am not convinced that it would be appropriate, as I think my hon. Friend has suggested, that completing a drug rehabilitation programme but failing to be rehabilitated by it should of itself constitute breach of an order. Treatment programmes can achieve excellent results, but there is no guarantee of success in individual cases. Finally, as the courts already possess a discretion to pass sentences that will be particularly suitable for offenders with a drug habit, I am not convinced that the new clause would serve a useful purpose.
      I turn now to new clauses 51 and 52, which were tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker). My hon. Friend seeks to increase very significantly the penalties for the drug offences dealt with in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. The House will be relieved to know that I do not intend to go through my hon. Friend's proposals paragraph by paragraph. I merely say that, taken in the context of the sentencing framework as a whole, the current maximum penalties available for drug offences are sufficient to enable the courts to respond effectively and flexibly to the wide range of cases that come before them and to reflect the very different types of offences and offenders. I do not accept that the courts require the additional powers suggested by my hon. Friend.
      Similarly, I cannot agree that it would be appropriate for most drug offences, including, for example, the cultivation of a cannabis plant, to be triable on indictment only. I share my hon. Friend's concerns about drug offences and the need to take them seriously. However, I believe that the current arrangements are satisfactory and give courts the freedom to pass appropriate sentences in all cases, including the power to pass tough sentences in most cases. I hope, therefore, that my hon. Friend will agree not to press his new clauses.
      Mr. Bill Walker: Would my hon. Friend care to put on the record the Government's view of deterrence?
      Mr. Maclean: I shall certainly do so. I take the view that all sentences should contain an element of punishment,
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      an element of deterrence and an element of rehabilitation. That is the only means of having sentences that are just in the round.
      As for the Opposition's new clauses 4 and 5, drugs education and drugs prevention are important and well-established elements of the Government's strategy for tackling drug misuse. They must, however, be integrated with the other elements of our strategy, which, apart from providing adequate treatment services, allow for vigorous enforcement action against drug traffickers and provide the courts with high maximum penalties to deter drug traffickers and dealers.
      The co-operation between local authorities, police and other agencies and communities to which new clause 4 refers is already an increasingly common feature of local initiatives to tackle drug misuse. Clearly, the local authority needs to get together with all other local agencies with an interest in drugs prevention to agree a combined strategy. But local response to drugs problems must take account of local circumstances. A multi-agency programme needs, therefore, to be responsive to changing needs and patterns. The right approach, I suggest, is through a proper blend of encouragement and guidance, not through the creation of additional statutory duties for a single agency.
      The Government's strategic framework for tackling drug misuse has been in place since the mid-1980s. It involves simultaneous action on a number of fronts, which, in view of the Opposition's criticism that there is no coherent strategy, I shall lay before the House. We do have a coherent strategy, of which educating our children on the dangers of drugs misuse is a vital element. The national curriculum requires schools to teach aspects of health education, including aspects of drug misuse.
      Mr. Ronnie Campbell: As I have pointed out, five young people in my constituency have lost their lives in the past two years. What is the Minister's policy to prevent such deaths?
      Mr. Maclean: I resent the implication of the hon. Gentleman's remarks. Of course we are appalled at any loss of life resulting from drug misuse. It is very clear that, without the comprehensive, coherent strategy that we have had for the past few years—without all the efforts to crack down on drugs coming into the country and on misuse in the country and to educate youngsters in the avoidance of drugs—the hon. Gentleman would not be holding up just five fingers. Indeed, the number of deaths would be so much greater that he would need to hold up five fingers a hundred times over.
      Mr. Flynn rose—
      Mr. Maclean: No, I shall not give way now because the House wants to make progress. I shall give way in a moment.
      The Government are committed to ensuring, through the national curriculum and in other ways, that schools continue to equip young people with the knowledge, skills and attitude that they need to promote their immediate and long-term good health. Education has been backed by anti-drugs publicity. Since 1985, the Department of Health has spent increasing amounts on national drug prevention, information and public education campaigns. In 1993–94,

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      some £5 million has been spent and independent evaluation has shown that the campaigns have succeeded in raising awareness of the problem.
      There have also been innovative developments in drug prevention. The drugs prevention initiative was launched in 1989 as a partnership between Government and the community to promote the prevention of drug misuse. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewes paid tribute to it. Teams are now operating in 20 locations to mobilise local communities to stop young people and others at risk taking drugs and help them realise the harmful consequences. Many successful schemes are in place and the initiative has been involved in the funding of more than 900 projects.
      Mr. Flynn: If the programme has been so successful, why is it that, after 15 years of this policy, there is illegal drug use in 90 per cent. of our prisons? If we cannot keep drug misuse out of our prisons, how can we hope to keep it out of our schools, pubs and clubs if we continue with the Government's crazy policies?
      Mr. Maclean: Drug use is endemic in western Europe and the United States. I hope, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman will support the proposals in the Bill to stop drug misuse in prisons through the searching of prisoners and proper drug testing in prisons. I shall welcome the hon. Gentleman's support for that policy, but that is only one plank of our policy to deal with all aspects of drug misuse.
      The collective experience of the work of the 20 drug prevention initiative teams in local communities is being pulled together and co-ordinated. It will provide valuable information about the approaches that can be effective in drugs prevention and about the factors that influence their effectiveness, on which we shall base future action. In addition to all those measures for reducing the demand for drugs, we are putting considerable effort into reducing the supply and demand through effective enforcement action.
      Police and customs continue to work hard to reduce the supply of drugs coming into the country, with notable success. Indeed, the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) pronounced on many seizures at the beginning of his speech. He referred to the success of customs and the police under this Government in tracking down illegal drugs entering the country. We have made tough penalties available to the courts for use against drug traffickers, including up to life imprisonment for dealing in drugs such as heroin and cocaine. The United Kingdom's laws for getting at the profits of the big guys behind drug smuggling are among the toughest in the world. I hope that the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) will welcome that.
      The legislation that we introduced in 1986 enables the courts to deprive drug traffickers of their ill-gotten gains and makes the laundering of drugs money a criminal offence. The legislation has been strengthened by the Criminal Justice Act 1993 and, by the end of the 1992, we estimated that we had confiscated more than £42 million of drug traffickers' proceeds. All those factors come together in a comprehensive anti-drugs strategy involving Departments spending more than £500 million a year in the war against drugs.
      We recognise the need, however, to review the strategy and to ensure that the policies that we are pursuing are correctly identified and are co-ordinated effectively. To
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      that end, we have announced the establishment of a central drugs co-ordination unit. One of the unit's main tasks is to work closely with Departments to ensure that drugs policies are planned, developed and implemented within a clear strategic framework.
      The unit's immediate task is to review our strategy on drugs and make recommendations for its continuing improvement. It will certainly not hesitate to say if it believes that greater attention needs to be paid to drugs education and prevention. A statement of our strategy will be published in due course. It will cover all drug policies, not just drug prevention, and will present a comprehensive and co-ordinated response to the problem. It will start by building on our successes—our successes in the drug prevention initiative, our successes in the safer cities programme, our successes in education, our successes in the work of the police in cracking down on illegal misuse, our successes based on Customs and Excise seizures, and our successes with other initiatives, such as that in King's Cross, mentioned by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth, all of which are happening in the police force under the tenure of the Government.
      9.15 pm
      Finally, I shall say a few words about the proposal of the hon. Member for Newham North-West (Mr. Banks) to decriminalise the supply of cannabis. I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's suggestions. I will not go into detail about the proposal that he has laid before the House, as many of my hon. Friends have effectively demolished it. The Government have no intention of legalising or decriminalising any currently banned drug and we believe that we have overwhelming public support for that view.
      Mr. Tony Banks: I understand that the Minister will not address the arguments, but will he give one assurance to the House—that he has never used cannabis in any form at all? Will he ask the Home Secretary to give that pledge also?
      Mr. Maclean: Yes, I can certainly give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. If we are talking about personal use, I can give him that assurance. I have never used it in my life and I can assure him that I did not try it or inhale it. I have never tried it—[Interruption.] I shall tell him why. It was mainly because I thought that some of people whom I saw using it at university were pretty inadequate, weedy souls. [Interruption.] Those of us who participated in the Territorial Army were not, and we are better for it.
      A recent survey of drugs usage and attitudes to drugs of a sample of more than 4,000 people in four cities confirmed that most—66 per cent.—believe that all drugs currently prohibited should remain illegal and less than 8 per cent. thought that some drugs, such as cannabis, should not be controlled. In a recent radio interview, the Commissioner of the Mepropolitan police, Paul Ckndon, was also against the legalisation of cannabis. It is against every international conference and rule on drugs that the United Kingdom and the United Nations have signed.
      I know that the hon. Member for Newham, North-West at one point complained that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary was appealing to the grass roots. I do not think that he realised what he was suggesting. My right hon. and learned Friend is not appealing to the grass roots in increasing the penalties for class B and class C drugs. He is appealing to plain, simple common sense. Decriminalising drugs is a defeatist step. It

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      sends the wrong message to society, especially to the young, that some drugs are not harmful. That is dangerous. It has no place in our thinking and I reject the Opposition amendments.
      Mr. Michael: That was not so much a speech as a self-indulgent rant and it did not do justice to the debate or to the subject. The police, local authorities, customs and many others are trying to develop coherent policies for the problem of the scourge of drugs and drug-related crime and only the Government are incoherent in undermining the very prevention the Minister has purported to advocate. It was a sad and unhelpful response. British society, individuals, families and communities cannot afford the Government's short-sighted and self-indulgent response.
      It is a disappointment that the Minister has failed to accept our constructive proposals to tackle drugs and drug-related crime. From the Minister's complacent response, it is clear that he will not accept our new clauses. He will clearly not act. In view of the importance of other debates tonight and of other debates on the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill, which, in many ways, will touch on the same topics to which we shall want to return, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
      Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

    New Clause 6

      BODY TO INVESTIGATE MISCARRIAGES OF JUSTICE
      '(1) The Secretary of State shall within one month of the date of Royal Assent of this Act lay before both Houses of Parliament a report describing what plans he has to set up an independent body to investigate alleged miscarriages of justice in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and the timetable within which he proposes to do so.
      (2) The White Paper referred to in subsection (1) above shall describe the Secretary of State's intentions in respect to the following:—

      (a) the membership of and method of appointment to the body;

      (b) the numbers and functions of the employed staff of the body;

      (c) the powers of the staff and members of the body and those of the body itself;

      (d) the provision of legal aid for those alleging that they are the victim of a miscarriage of justice;

      (e) the method and criteria by which the body will select cases for investigation;

      (f) the method and criteria by which cases and issues of law will be referred to the Court of Appeal and the relationship between the two bodies;

      (g) the extent to which the body should disclose documents and the results of its investigations to the alleged victim of the miscarriage of justice; and

      (h) the extent to which the body will employ its own staff or will use others for the investigations.'.—[Mr. Mullin.]

      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Mr. Chris Mullin (Sunderland, South): I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse): With this we may discuss new clause 7—Miscarriages of justice (No.1)—
      'The Secretary of State shall, within one month of Royal Assent, publish a report setting out his proposals for the establishment of a body to investigate alleged miscarriages of justice in the light of the report of the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice.'.—
      Mr. Mullin: This is the third occasion on which I have tabled a new clause to establish an independent review tribunal to examine alleged miscarriages of justice. On 16
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      June 1988, Sir John Farr, the former Member of Parliament for Harborough, and I tabled an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill which would have established such a tribunal. I recall that my speech on that occasion attracted some derision, not least from the right hon. and learned Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg), who is now a Minister in the Foreign Office, but who was then a Minister at the Home Office, and the right hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Mr. Patten), who now presides over the education of our children, but who was at that time the Minister in charge of locking up innocent people.
      What attracted derision in particular was my assertion, which is still controversial in some circles, that innocent people had been convicted of the M62 coach bombing, the Guildford and Woolwich bombings and the Birmingham bombings. It is a matter of record that, today, all 18 of those to whom I referred on 16 June 1988 have had their convictions quashed and are walking the streets with compensation in their pockets.
      In July 1990, prompted by the collapse of the Guildford and Woolwich cases, Sir John Farr and I tabled an amendment to the Courts and Legal Services Bill along the lines of the new clause today. It was opposed on the Government's behalf by the then Attorney-General, the right hon. and learned Member for Tunbridge Wells (Sir P. Mayhew), who professed himself satisfied with the present procedures. In particular, he expressed the view that the powers of the Court of Appeal were adequate to deal with alleged miscarriages of justice.
      Much water has passed under the bridge since then. Besides the collapse of all the main terrorist cases of the mid-1970s, to which I have already referred, there has been a long series of other cases in which convictions have had to be quashed after evidence given at trial by police officers, forensic scientists and others was found to be mistaken, false or doctored. There have also been cases in which vital evidence has been deliberately suppressed, not only by police officers, but by senior lawyers acting on behalf of the Crown, one or two of whom have gone on to high judicial office.
      Twenty-three people have so far had their convictions quashed following the discovery that the West Midlands serious crimes squad had been systematically forging confessions over a long period, although not one of the officers involved in any of those cases has been charged, let alone convicted of a criminal offence. The three men convicted of the murder of PC Blakelock at Broadwater Farm have had their convictions quashed, as have two young women, the Taylor sisters, who were convicted of a murder with which, from the outset, it never seemed likely that they had anything to do. Among the saddest cases was that of Stefan Kiszko, whose conviction was quashed in February 1992 after he had spent 16 years in prison for an offense that scientific evidence available at the time proved that he could not have committed. Tragically, Mr. Kiszko died earlier this year.
      I make no complaint about the fact that our legal system makes mistakes; that is inevitable under any system of justice. What I complain about is that we lack a mechanism for facing up to mistakes even when it becomes obvious to sensible people of all political persuasions that something is seriously wrong. In most of the cases to which I have referred, a gargantuan effort was required to persuade our criminal justice system to own up to what had gone wrong. It involved years of campaigning by the victims

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      themselves, by their relatives, by journalists and broadcasters and, occasionally, by that rare animal, a lawyer prepared to work without payment.
      Such campaigns have often had to be waged in the teeth of bitter abuse in the Murdoch press and elsewhere, some of it, in the past at least, orchestrated by Ministers. In the Guildford and Woolwich cases, it was only when faced with representations over a long period by a delegation comprising two former Home Secretaries, two Law Lords, the broadcaster Mr. Robert Kee and Cardinal Basil Hume that the Home Secretary of the day was persuaded to refer the case back to the Court of Appeal. To begin with, even representations from that distinguished body, to which I pay tribute, were insufficient to move the hard hearts in the Home Office.
      Miscarriages of justice have many victims. First, they destroy or seriously damage the lives of those unjustly sentenced and the lives of their families. Secondly, the long campaigns that have to be waged to put right such miscarriages are distressing for the families of the victims of the crimes for which innocent people are sentenced. They have to see the gory details constantly raked over in public. Thirdly, a miscarriage of justice often means that the real criminal is still at large and free to commit other offences Finally, the criminal justice system is brought into disrepute by the stubborn refusal of those who preside over it to face up to realities that are often obvious to those of us who are not Home Office Ministers or Appeal Court judges.
      Who can deny that the events of the past few years have brought the British criminal justice system into discredit around the world? The new clause is intended, in part at least, to remedy that position. I should have preferred it to have required the Home Secretary to amend the Bill, but I am advised that it can be in order only in the form that it appears on the amendment paper; therefore, it requires the Home Secretary to present detailed plans within a month of the Bill's enactment.
      I note that the Home Office chose last Friday, after months of inactivity, to publish a discussion paper inviting comments on the proposed new review body. I welcome its appearance—belated though it is—although I cannot help wondering whether the timing has more to do with providing the Home Secretary with something to say in the debate this evening than with genuinely facing up to a problem that has been in his in-tray since the day he took office. The fact that, when I inquired this morning, it was not available even in the Vote Office—although I have now received a copy—suggests that this could be little more than a cosmetic exercise. I see that the Home Secretary is shaking his head. I hope that I am wrong.
      I shall comment briefly on what should be the main features of an independent review tribunal. First, it must be composed of persons of an inquiring frame of mind, preferably with a track record of scepticism towards the official version of events. Secondly, while it will of course need to contain some persons with legal training, it should not be dominated by lawyers since, with honourable exceptions, this is a subject where lawyers have traditionally been part of the problem rather than the solution. Thirdly, the tribunal must have powers to summon persons and papers and to conduct its own investigation. Fourthly, it must not be dependent on
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      officers of one police force to investigate the alleged misdemeanours of another. It is essential that it has its own dedicated force of investigators or the powers and resources to commission such a force.
      Fifthly, the tribunal should be able, if it wishes, to recommend to the Court of Appeal that a conviction be quashed. It is not good enough simply to pass on new material without comment, which I gather is what is presently envisaged. Although the Court of Appeal has to a considerable extent cleaned up its act in recent years, history records that the legendary stubbornness of its judges has prolonged many celebrated scandals in the past 15 years. Sixthly, the tribunal should conduct itself with a sense of urgency and not at the leisurely pace with which the C3 department of the Home Office currently proceeds, bearing in mind the fact that it deals with people who may already have spent many years in prison for offences of which they are innocent. Seventhly, the tribunal should apply to Scotland and Northern Ireland, where many alleged miscarriages of justice have occurred. Finally, if the tribunal is to be credible, it will not be good enough simply to transfer to some outside agency the functions of the C3 department.
      In 1982, the distinguished solicitor Sir David Napley told the Select Committee on Home Affairs that he was unable to recall
      "a single case where the Home Office has, as a result of its own investigations, felt able to recommend a pardon or any other recognition that a conviction was necessarily wrongful."
      There may have been one or two exceptions since, but the same is broadly true today. It is a depressing fact that the C3 department generally sees its role as merely poking holes in evidence submitted by others. By way of example, one need look no further than the way in which it has mishandled the Carl Bridgewater case. It is obvious to all sensible people that the case against the four men convicted of that crime has now collapsed. There have been six police inquiries and still amateurs continue to turn up evidence that the police have failed to find or have wilfully misinterpreted. A mountain of new evidence has emerged. The foreman of the jury has called for the case to be reopened. Even an expert, Dr. E.W. Shepherd, commissioned by the Home Office to rebut the assertions made by other experts on behalf of the defendants, has come down on their side.
      9.30 pm
      On 14 January this year, Dr. Shepherd wrote as follows to the Home Secretary:
      "For my part I still have faith that you will choose to act … expeditiously given the gravity of the issues involved and the threat posed to public confidence in the criminal justice system and in the commitment of the police service to act with integrity. I look forward to early confirmation that this faith is well-founded."
      Since then, Dr. Shepherd has heard nothing from the Home Office except a bland letter of acknowledgement. I cannot stress too strongly that he was an expert employed by police officers acting on behalf of the Home Office to examine the case. That shows how difficult it is to persuade the C3 department to take action.
      The recent discussion document issued by the Home Office contains some ominous references to the Police Complaints Authority as a possible model for how the new body should operate. The only lesson to be learnt from the Police Complaints Authority is what not to do. I mean no disrespect to many of the honourable people who work for it and I suspect that some of them would agree with my

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      view. It is a powerless, timorous and generally useless body. What is more, even when it has recommended action, its advice has usually been ignored by the Crown Prosecution Service and others in authority. Most solicitors of my acquaintance would not touch the PCA with a barge pole. If the proposed independent review tribunal is to be modelled on it, we might as well all go home.
      The tribunal that I envisage must be properly funded and empowered—above all, it must consist of men and women possessed of steely determination, bearing in mind the fact that they will have to confront some of the mightiest vested interests in the land. Talking of which, what has become of Sir John May's inquiry into the Guildford and Woolwich case? The House may be surprised to hear that the Scott inquiry is not the only judicial inquiry proceeding at present. Sir John May's inquiry was set up in the autumn of 1989—four and a half years ago—in the wake of the collapse of the case against those convicted of the Guildford and Woolwich bombings.
      Sir John got off to a promising start, with public inquiries into the subsidiary, but related issue—the conviction of Mrs. Annie Maguire and her family—and then he went underground and nothing has been heard from him since. He is said to be interviewing witnesses in private. I understand that some of the principal officials involved have declined to answer his questions and that some of his old chums in the judiciary are no longer on speaking terms with him because he is thought to have pursued the first part of his inquiry a mite too rigorously.
      I mention that inquiry only to raise a wider point. If a judicial inquiry that is set up by the Home Secretary and the Attorney-General in an atmosphere of urgency can be derailed in that way, we should be under no illusions about the fate that awaits an independent review tribunal that is not properly empowered and resourced.
      The idea has been around for a long time. It was first suggested by Lord Devlin in the mid-1970s. It was recommended in a unanimous report of the Select Committee on Home Affairs as long ago as 1982. It was so uncontroversial that it attracted the support of even the hon. Members for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) and for Reigate (Sir G. Gardiner). It was recommended by the Government's own Royal Commission on criminal justice, which reported in July last year. It is preposterous for the Home Secretary to claim that he has had insufficient time to consult. He has had a lot longer to reflect on that issue than on many of the other more controversial issues in the Bill. That is why tonight I and my colleagues will press new clause 6 to a Division. I commend it to the House.
      Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: I fully endorse what my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) said. He has an unenviable and wonderful record. It is unenviable because of the work that has gone into it, but wonderful because of his efforts to fight and to expose miscarriages of justice, principally the wrongful imprisonment of the Birmingham Six.
      The House should listen carefully to what my hon. Friend has to say because I can recall dozens of occasions on which Home Secretaries and Home Office Ministers informed the House at the Dispatch Box, with absolute certainty, that the Birmingham Six, Guildford Four, Tottenham Three, Judith Ward and so on were guilty. They should be a little more cautious and be prepared to look into other evidence.
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      Miscarriages of justice give rise to three enormous problems: the innocent are imprisoned; their families suffer and the abuse that they suffer is as bad as being in prison: and the guilty go free.
      The work that has been done to expose such miscarriages of justice is important. Hon. Members would do well to read the books written by the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six and to see the film, "In the Name of the Father", which shows what really happens when there is a serious miscarriage of justice.
      The hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) seems to find this extremely amusing, but if someone is imprisoned for one third or half of their lives for an offence that he or she did not commit and receives nothing but abuse while trying to get justice, the hon. and learned Member should remember that, as elected Members of Parliament, our job is to act as a check on the Executive and to be prepared to speak up for causes that are often very unpopular. My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South has bravely done so often.
      Sir Ivan Lawrence: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that the theme of the film "In the Name of the Father" is that the prosecution deliberately hid the fact that it had a witness to the alibi of the accused, Gerry Conlon, who was not present at the crime? That theme was completely concocted and has no relevance to the facts of the case or to the reason why the appeal was upheld.
      Mr. Corbyn: The film that the hon. and learned Member is leading us to discuss emphasises what happens when a miscarriage of justice takes place. It is not a book or a record of every detail. It contains inaccuracies and everyone is prepared to admit that.
      Mr. Mullin: I do not wish to discuss the film, except to say that the facts of the Guildford case are far worse than it makes out. The Court of Appeal released the Guildford Four because early drafts of forged confessions were found in regard to Patrick Armstrong. Since confessions account for the entire case against them, they were released.
      Mr. Corbyn: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's intervention. He and other hon. Members are trying to stress the fact that all those miscarriages of justice exposed a method of preventing defence counsel from getting rightful access to information that could have prevented prosecution in the first place. That is a common thread, as is the thread of confessional evidence that is used to obtain conviction.
      When one talks to people who have confessed to commiting a crime that they could not have committed and to being somewhere that they were not, one begins to realise what is happening in police stations and prisons throughout the country and what has led to those dreadful miscarriages of justice.
      The cases that I listed received enormous publicity. If the hon. and learned Member for Burton is not prepared to watch a film—I understand that he is a busy man, with many commitments in the courts and elsewhere—he may care to find time to read a book—perhaps those written by Hugh Callaghan and Paul Hill. Some very good books have been written by people who suffered in prison for years and he might benefit from spending a few hours reading them.
      I recognise that we are dealing with only one part of a very comprehensive piece of legislation. I echo what my

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      hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South said about promised inquiries. I accept that we have had the May inquiry, a royal commission and other examinations of the issues. We had, coincidentally, a statement on Friday about a review process to enable people to gain access to the Court of Appeal. That is long overdue.
      The cases that I have mentioned gained a great deal of publicity because of the dedication of the families and the supporters of those who had been wrongfully convicted and their preparedness to campaign on the issue. Many other people, however, who are in prison may have an equally strong claim to be victims of miscarriages of justice. The problem is that there is no one to campaign for them. They have no access to legal aid to get their cases brought forward. It is a matter of chance whether their cases are picked up by someone who is willing to give up the time necessary to ensure that those cases are heard in the Court of Appeal. That problem is at the core of the argument for some access to that court. It is not good enough to rely, hit or miss, on who happens to pick up a case. The campaign for the release of the Birmingham Six started with no money and just four people at a meeting. After a few years, however, that had developed into a magnificent campaign, which went far wider than just the release of those innocent men from prison on that important day.
      I could mention many cases, but I shall restrict myself to one, which is well known to the Home Secretary. A delegation has met the Minister of State, Home Office to discuss the Bridgewater Three. The Home Secretary is aware of a request that he should refer that case to the Court of Appeal, because fresh evidence has been submitted to him to suggest that the three men who remain in prison—the fourth tragically died in prison—did not and could not have committed the awful atrocity of the murder of Carl Bridgewater. No one is trying to minimise the appalling crime of that terrible death, but it does nothing for Carl's memory or for his family if the wrong people are in prison. We want justice to be seen to be done, which means, first, that those men should be released.
      New evidence has been submitted to the Home Secretary concerning in particular the case of Pat Molloy, one of those convicted of the murder of Carl Bridgewater. The detailed evidence submitted to the Home Secretary reveals that Molloy was not the author of the confession, which he supposedly gave, as the police claimed at the trial. An investigation carried out, on commission, by a leading forensic psychologist, Dr. Eric Shepherd, agrees with the defence experts' reports. The alleged confession was obtained by the late detective constable John Perkins, who Pat Molloy said broke his teeth. Other evidence has been submitted about the way in which Molloy was treated and the manner in which he eventually made his confession, which resulted in his conviction and imprisonment and three others.
      The Home Secretary is well aware of the evidence. A thorough inquiry has already been held about it and delegations have visited the Home Office. Two books have been written on the case, and that by Paul Foot has been published in a revised edition. There is a mountain of evidence to suggest that those in prison for the murder of Carl Bridgewater did not carry out and could not have carried out that crime.
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      It should not be in the gift of the Home Secretary to decide whether the enormous weight of evidence, which I believe is in favour of those in prison now, should be given the right to be heard in open court. That is the kernel of our argument. Those people should have a right of access to the Court of Appeal in any event.
      The Bridgewater case is one of several hundred cases being considered by the Home Office officials. The process of reconsidering evidence is not new, but we want that evidence to be considered in the open. We want equal and real access to justice to be given to all people who believe that they have been wrongfully convicted. That is the basis of our argument and the basis of the argument of those who have served prison sentences.
      I urge the Home Secretary, if he has the time, to look at a number of books written by the victims of miscarriages of justice in this country. He must appreciate that he has a responsibility as Home Secretary to ensure that real justice is available to all people, irrespective of who campaigns for them or the resources at their disposal. At the moment there is no access to legal aid for those who believe they have been wrongfully convicted. There are few lawyers who are prepared to work for nothing and a limited number of people who are prepared to endure the kind of subterranean media abuse that is heaped on those who campaign against miscarriages of justice. For those reasons, many cases are simply not heard. We need real access to justice. That is the synthesis of what we are arguing for in new clause 6, and I look forward to its support. Above all, I look forward to the day when we can say that everyone has real access to the courts.
      9.45
      Mr. Cyril D. Townsend: I need to detain the House for only a moment, but I thought it appropriate that a Conservative Member should be identified with new clause 6. I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) not only on putting the case very clearly, as he did back in 1990, but, I thought, on making all the major arguments.
      It is a pleasure to follow Lord Devlin, 18 years ago, and my Conservative colleagues on the Home Affairs Select Committee in 1981–82. The key point I found, reading through that sixth report, was in paragraph 11. The Committee reached the following conclusion:
      "All our witnesses, apart from the Home Office themselves, felt that some opportunity for independent review would both add to the quality of the advice given to the Home Secretary and at the same time help to persuade petitioners and the public that each case had been given full and fair consideration."
      I suggest that that is the kernel of the case that is being made tonight.
      I draw to the attention of the House another brief quotation from the report. In paragraph 10, the Committee says:
      "Both Justice and the Criminal Bar Association suggested that the chances of a petition ultimately being 'successful' might sometimes depend less on its intrinsic merits than on the amount of external support and publicity that it was able to attract."
      I think that that is true. That should worry us, too.
      I believe that, since Lord Devlin set to work, the climate of public concern about miscarriages of justice has greatly altered. I shall not rehearse the details of the Birmingham and Guildford cases. I think that it is now the talk in the pubs and clubs of our country; it is not a rarefied matter simply for lawyers and Home Office officials.

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      I believe that the onus is on the Home Secretary, if he does not wish to support new clause 6, to say what he will do instead, because there is a genuine problem. I do not believe that the status quo is acceptable to another decade. I therefore hope that the House will, after due deliberation, support this important new clause.
      Mr. Menzies Campbell: I support the eloquent case made by the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin), who, as has been observed, has a distinguished and deserved reputation for his tenacity in seeing through some especially unpopular, but ultimately, no doubt—from his personal point of view—satisfying, campaigns to resolve substantial miscarriages of justice.
      As the House will have observed, new clause 6 embraces not only England and Wales and Northern Ireland, but Scotland. It is sometimes thought, especially by lawyers in Scotland, that our system is immune from miscarriages of justice of the type that has been mentioned. However, the cases of Preece and of Meehan, to which reference was recently made when we debated capital punishment, are eloquent testimony to the fact that miscarriages of justice can occur in any of the legal jurisdictions in the United Kingdom. For that reason, the clause as currently framed refers to Scotland as well.
      There is nothing wrong in the law reacting to a disturbing series of cases. What could be more disturbing than the series of cases to which the hon. Member for Sunderland, South referred? Although I do not propose to rehearse them, it is worth pointing out from an historical point of view that a case that was equally celebrated in its time—that of Oscar Slater in Scotland—forced the legislature to introduce into that jurisdiction a right of appeal in cases where guilt had been determined by a jury. Recent history makes the clause not so much desirable as essential in order to establish public confidence in the judicial system.
      No matter how the powers of the appellate courts are drawn, the existing machinery will inevitably be inadequate to get to the truth of some cases. That is particularly so in a system that leaves the determination of fact at first instance to juries, because appellate courts are reluctant to interfere with conclusions that juries have reached.
      In general, that must be correct, but in cases like those of which we have heard this evening, the appellate courts' restrictive powers are inadequate to get at the truth of issues raised by allegations of miscarriage of justice. It is also important to remember that appellate courts deal with an adversarial system and are bound by the rules of evidence as they apply in the jurisdictions for which they are responsible.
      The Select Committee on Home Affairs was remarkably prescient in the report to which reference has already been made. One cannot help but think that, had the terms of that report been speedily implemented, some of the events of the past 12, 13 or 14 years might have been avoided, to the advantage of our judicial system.
      One need not be seduced by film reconstructions of previous cases, because the real evidence is as compelling as any that might be required. Mistakes occur in the legal system. No one can prosecute or defend over a period without being aware that he or she has made a mistake in the course of presenting a case. No judge can sit over an
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      extended period without being aware that he or she has made a mistake in determining a case. Lawyers must acknowledge the fallibility of the legal system.
      On that footing, I have little hesitation in commending the new clause to the House.
      Mr. Gunnell: I shall not delay the House for long because, as other hon. Members have said, my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) has set out clearly what is needed with regard to a criminal cases review authority. We all await the Home Secretary's reply. Although I welcome the fact that he has published something, I was disappointed that the document had no time scale attached to it—apart from that related to the consultation process—because the matter is urgent.
      My disappointment was accentuated by the fact that it was clear from the Home Secretary's comments in the debate on capital punishment that he takes miscarriages of justice seriously. He used the West Yorkshire case of Stefan Kiszko in a telling way when presenting his reasons for changing his position on capital punishment. He is clearly concerned that the issue of miscarriages of justice is extremely serious.
      I share the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn). The Carl Bridgewater case has been in the public domain for a long time, and significant new evidence has arisen. I hope that the Home Secretary will take that potential miscarriage of justice equally seriously. Those three men have been in prison for a long time. The case therefore needs to come before the Court of Appeal as rapidly as possible. Even if the Home Secretary judges that it should go back, there will still be a considerable delay before those people can be released.
      Such factors underline the urgency of the problem. I hope that the Home Secretary will be able to tell us this evening what timetable he has in mind. We were disappointed that such a review body was not included in the Bill—
      Ms Corston: Does my hon. Friend agree that another factor contributing to the urgency that the Home Secretary should feel is the fact that, because people who are the victims of miscarriages of justice continue to claim their innocence while in prison, they are ineligible for parole? That means, ludicrously, that the innocent serve longer sentences than the guilty.
      Mr. Gunnell: I entirely agree—that is indeed an anomaly.
      The son of two constituents of mine, Alan Dodson, who is in Full Sutton prison, was convicted in 1987 of the murder of his fiancee in 1986. From the moment of his arrest and first interview, he has always maintained his innocence. Division 3C of the Home Office entertains some worries about that, because of the representations about it that have been made to the Home Office. It has asked me for any helpful information that I might be able to provide. That goes to show the difficulty of making any progress on the case.
      The original request for an appeal came from my predecessor, Lord Merlyn-Rees, and was turned down on the ground that there was no new evidence. At the time, that seemed a fair decision, but in some cases it is, by definition, extremely hard to come up with new evidence—when a murder is alleged to have been committed by a person acting alone, and when the police have formed a conclusion from the outset about who the guilty person

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      was. That can mean that the police do not properly investigate other possible leads. It is thus extremely difficult to produce further evidence.
      Sometimes one cannot even procure a copy of the judge's summing-up. That applies in this case; no such copy exists, because the transcript has never been translated from the shorthand. Indeed, some of the shorthand notes of the six days of the trial that preceded the judge's summing up have been lost and can therefore never be recovered. It is clearly impossible to obtain a complete picture of the trial.
      To obtain a copy of the summing up, a Member of Parliament would have to find £600—and I am told that we cannot ask for that to be done at public expense, or even pay for it out of our office expenses, if we are prepared to do so. It is hard to make progress without the summing-up by the judge in such a case.
      The police seem to have formed a single-minded judgment. It seems that the defence may not have been conducted in a way that was helpful to the person in question. All this shows why many people are concerned about a delay in the appearance of a criminal cases review authority on the statute book.
      We are also worried that the Bill will increase the potential for miscarriages of justice. For instance, we regret the way in which the right to silence has been dealt with, but that is a subject for another debate. We also regret the rejection of the many constructive Opposition amendments that sought to restrict the time at which that might take effect to formal situations. That would have meant that people could not be held responsible for everything that happened from the moment they were spoken to on the street, in the police car or at the station without a solicitor being present. Such safeguards should be in place if we are to avoid further miscarriages of justice.
      That being the case, it is particularly important that the miscarriages of justice that have occurred should be capable of investigation and should be put right as rapidly as possible on the broader base, which is simply that they are or may be unsafe.
      It being Ten o'clock, further consideration of the Bill stood adjourned.
      Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business),
      That, at this day's sitting, the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Patnick.]
      Question agreed to.
      Question again proposed, That the clause be read a Second time.
      Sir Richard Body: I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) on his new clause. Twenty years ago, it would have been quite unnecessary, and I would have said that after 20 years at the criminal bar. Over the past two decades there have been far too many injustices that have not been put right by the Court of Appeal because of its procedures and various inhibitions. I suppose that many of us can think of constituents who have been convicted, not in such dramatic circumstances as those that we have heard about, but in a lesser way.
      I can think of one very prominent constituent who was convicted of murder. It was what the French would call a
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      crime passionnel. He was het up and emotionally charged when he went to the police station and was undoubtedly coaxed into making a statement which I do not think would have held water and would have been put right by the kind of independent body about which the hon. Member for Sunderland, South has spoken.
      As I have said, there have been far too many injustices and it is intolerable to permit them to go on without a body such as that which the new clause proposes. Sooner or later, that body will be set up. Let us do it now rather than postpone it and in the intervening time have more injustices.
      Mr. Trimble: I rise primarily to show my support and that of my hon. Friends for the principle behind the new clause proposed by the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin). I welcome the form of the new clause in that it refers not only to England and Wales but to Scotland and Northern Ireland.
      No system will be perfect, and no matter what the circumstances, mistakes are bound to occur in any situation. Several years ago I spoke to a visiting group of American lawyers who were concerned about the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland. I told them the remarkable fact that over the many years of operation of the Diplock courts, there had until then been no cases in which any person convicted in the courts was imprisoned protesting innocence. That, of course, is no longer true. We have had the UDR Four case, with which my hon. Friend the Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mr. Maginnis) has been particularly associated.
      Since the Court of Appeal overturned three of the four convictions in that case, other cases have come forward, at least one of which appears to me to have some merit. Therefore, we cannot claim to be immune from problems, although I must tell the hon. Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Gunnell) that at least we have the advantage of always getting transcripts of cases and judgments and automatic rights of appeal.
      None the less, I am satisfied that there should be a review authority and that it is not right to leave the matter purely to the Home Secretary or the Secretaries of State for Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales, as the case might be.
      Further, the review authority must operate in what one might call an inquisitorial manner. It must free itself from the adversarial approach that dominates the courts and appears to have dominated also the attitudes of the Home Office and administrators. Although the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has not yet responded to the Adjournment debate that my hon. Friend the Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone obtained on the Neil Latimer case a few weeks ago, it seemed from listening to his response that he was still far too much trapped within the habit of thought of someone who operates within the adversarial system. He seemed primarily concerned with defending and vindicating the judges and the judicial decision, rather than with taking an independent view and being motivated primarily by the search for truth, which must be the purpose of the review authority.
      It is strange that lawyers who present cases and judges who decide them are comfortable with the thought that they may make mistakes when dealing with civil actions, and feel no rebuke when an appeal court overrules or varies their decision, but that they become desperately defensive

      737
      about criminal actions—as if they were fallible only in respect of civil actions and infallible in criminal matters. That is not a rational view.
      I welcome the publication of the Home Office discussion paper. As the hon. Member for Sunderland, South said, his new clause and this debate might have set its timetable and target. If so, that is a good thing. Perhaps it is a pity that it was not published earlier. I hope that the Home Office will not adopt a purely parochial attitude and consider only England and Wales, but that like and speedy consideration will be given to Northern Ireland and the other jurisdiction.
      I agree that the wider grounds for appeal referred to in paragraph 44 of the paper should be adopted. The right approach is that adopted in Northern Ireland for county court appeals, when a complete new hearing is started. By complete, I mean that all the evidence is considered afresh—there is not the technical rehearing that occurs in the English Court of Appeal.
      There should be judicial review of the review authority's actions, and it should be under an obligation to make wider disclosure than paragraph 73 of the paper envisages. Most important of all, there should be no limitation on the royal prerogative. The discussion paper makes the mistake of suggesting that the royal prerogative's future scope must be limited, but I believe that it should be available to cover the exceptional case—and by definition, the exceptional case cannot be predicted. An opportunity must exist for recourse to the royal prerogative.
      Another problem that concerns me as a Northern Ireland Member is that of small jurisdictions. I am not sure of the extent to which that is a problem in Scotland, but I suspect that it is one. Northern Ireland has one Lord Chief Justice, a few Lord Justices of Appeal and a few puisne judges—a total of 10. A criminal case will be heard by one of them in the first instance. Under the Diplock courts, there is an automatic right of appeal to a hearing by a further three judges. That accounts for four judges out of 10. If the case is referred back to the criminal court of appeal, another three judges will be required. With the referral of the UDR Four case, one prosecuting counsel had been promoted to the Bench, so was ruled out of consideration. What will happen if such a case is referred back to the Court of Appeal, when it has already run through half the judiciary? Is it reasonable to expect that an entirely fresh view will be taken by judges capable of taking such a view?
      Small jurisdictions also produce a better cohesion among the jury—everybody knows everybody else. I am sure that problem exists also in Scotland. One constituent of mine is in prison in Scotland, and there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the decision in that case was not safe. I encounter in the representations that I make exactly the same defensive attitude that we have seen among the judges and lawyers in Northern Ireland. So there is a particular problem there.
      I finish with one general observation. Details have been given this evening of several serious miscarriages of justice. In some of those cases, although not all—it is not the sole problem—the problem was unethical conduct by the police, the prosecutors and others. That is a general problem. No review authority would be able to cope with that, but it has to be emphasised that part of the process that is adopted must be to reassert the ethical standards that ought to apply in the police and among prosecutors.
      738
      If I recall rightly, when Lord Denning referred on that celebrated occasion to an appalling vista, he had in mind that if the appellant's case was true, it meant that the police had lied and the lawyers has failed in their duty. That was what he saw as the appalling vista: those whom we relied on to behave honourably had behaved dishonourably. That is something that we have to deal with.
      In Northern Ireland, another factor has aggravated the matter. As well as over-enthusiasm among the police and prosecutors, political pressure has been exerted, and corrupted the process. That may also have been a factor in some of the miscarriages of justice in England and Wales too. It has certainly been a factor in Northern Ireland in the case with which I am dealing. The miscarriages of justice in England and Wales have also had another effect. It has been significant in one case that affected us in Northern Ireland. It has resulted in a tendency by juries to disbelieve evidence. That perhaps follows on from what Lord Denning saw as the appalling vista.
      I am glad that the Home Office has published its discussion paper. I hope that the matter will be progressed as speedily as possible. I hope that the other jurisdictions, Scotland and Northern Ireland, will be kept on board and that legislation will be introduced soon which will deal with the matter on a United Kingdom basis, with all the jurisdictions at the same time. I appreciate that, because of its background, there will have to be slight differences for Scotland. There is no significant difference on the matter between the legal systems in Northern Ireland and in England and Wales. I hope that the Home Secretary can assure us this evening that the Northern Ireland Office will be fully on board on this issue and that changes will be made simultaneously.
      Mr. Blair: I rise to speak in support of new clause 6, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin). I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work that he has done on the subject and the manner in which he moved the new clause today. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, East (Ms Corston), whose Bill on the subject has also helped to move the argument forward.
      I wish to be brief and I intend to confine myself to one point. It is right that new clause 6 has been tabled. Like my hon. Friend, I suspect that if it had not been tabled we might not have had such a prompt response from the Home Office last Friday in the form of a discussion paper, although the Home Secretary is doubtless about to stretch our credulity a little more and tell us that it was a marvellous coincidence.
      Of course there are problems of detail. For example, who would conduct the investigations of the new body? However, there is broad agreement in principle about the authority. There is agreement that the review body should be independent of the courts and should have its own procedure for investigations. There is a wide consensus as to the need for the body and a fair degree of consensus as to its powers.
      The hon. Member for Bexleyheath (Mr. Townsend) was right when he said that one of the important things about such a body is that questions of miscarriages of justice would no longer depend on the arbitrary swings of publicity, taking up a particular cause at any one time, but would be on the more objective basis of a proper and thorough investigation.

      739
      The argument for such a body has been concluded and won long since. I make that point in support of the new clause. The Royal Commission on criminal justice, which was in a sense the reason for the legislation before us, was set up on 14 March 1991—the day the Court of Appeal quashed the convictions of the Birmingham Six, who had long and in vain relied on the usual procedures to obtain justice. It followed the 1989 inquiry of Sir John May into the convictions of the Guildford Four and the Maguires. In the course of that inquiry, Sir John made clear his belief that the present system should change, which was also the view of successive Home Secretaries. The inquiry had itself succeeded the report of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, produced more than a decade ago.
      On page 6, the royal commission report—published nine months ago, in July 1993—states:
      "The widely publicised miscarriages of justice which have occurred in recent years have created a need to restore public confidence in the criminal justice system. That need has not diminished since we were appointed."
      10.15 pm
      A royal commission set up to investigate the need for such a body recommended its establishment. It has been debated for literally years, with a growing consensus on all sides that it is necessary. There is no substantial disagreement about the need or purposes of it. In those circumstances, it is scandalous that there is no provision for it in the Bill. Such provision should and could have been in the Bill, and would have attracted enormous support from all quarters in the House.
      I venture to say that if anyone had suggested back in March 1991—when the royal commission was set up—that a recommendation for such a review body in its report would be the one proposal not included in the Bill, people would have been deeply surprised. The Home Secretary may shake his head, but I think that that is obvious. The commission was set up on the very day when the convictions were quashed and it was set up in part, at least, to look into the need for such a body. There was already a strong consensus in its favour, and the commission found definitively that it should be set up. Now, nine months on, we still have only a consultation paper from the Home Office. I believe that there is no good reason why we could not have proceeded in a much quicker and more effective way.
      If we are to restore confidence within the criminal justice system, of course we must be keen to convict the criminal; but we must also be keen to provide justice for the innocent. That is the purpose of any good criminal justice system—not to favour the prosecution or the accused, but to seek and obtain the truth, wherever it may lie. We know that there has been a history of miscarriages of justice over the past few decades, and a royal commission set up to inquire into the purpose of a review body recommended its establishment. Establishing the review body, and including it in the Bill, would constitute an important statement on behalf of the House about the right balance in the criminal justice system.
      There is no good reason for delay. I believe that if the Home Secretary proceeded now he would be doing a service to the entire criminal justice system, and establishing confidence within that system. I urge him to accept calls that have come from hon. Members on both sides of the House, and to act now to put the matter right.
      Sir Ivan Lawrence: I, too, shall be brief.
      There is no doubt that a string of miscarriages of justice has marred the high reputation of British justice; equally, there is no doubt that the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) deserves praise rather than vilification for the part that he has played. I must point out, however, that many—although not all—of those miscarriages of justice took place 16 years ago. Since then, a number of things have already happened to reduce the likelihood of such miscarriages, although not to seal off all possibility of them.
      The miscarriages of justice took place before the establishment of an independent Crown Prosecution Service, genetic testing, the electro-static document analysis system, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984—which protects suspects—and the changes in criminal trial procedure whereby judges warn juries to be ultra-careful in identification cases. These miscarriages mostly took place before the new training of lawyers and judges and, in particular, before the introduction of tape-recorded interviews. That will have reduced substantially, but not sufficiently, the likelihood of miscarriages of justice.
      Immediately after the string of miscarriages, the Government set up the Runciman royal commission. They have accepted in particular the recommendation that there should be a criminal cases review authority, which is long overdue. What is wrong with the present system is simply that it misses some of the miscarriages of justice.
      The Society of Conservative Lawyers gave evidence to Runciman. That evidence was a bit stronger than some of the Runciman proposals that the Government are now considering. We suggested that the Court of Appeal should always acquit if it has a lurking doubt, that more use should be made of the power of the Court of Appeal to order a retrial, that there should be legal aid to cover reasonable search for new evidence and that there should be a widening of principles whereby new evidence could be admitted.
      We also said, however, that the Court of Appeal even in a reformed state would not be enough to remove some of the miscarriages of justice and we, too, suggested an independent review board. We made the point that it should not be the responsibility of the Home Secretary to decide whether or not matters should be considered for reference back to the Court of Appeal, as advised by Home Office officials, who sometimes seem to believe that there must be positive proof of innocence before anything is referred back. One cannot, by looking at papers, detect whether a police officer has been dishonest, whether a forensic scientist has made a mistake or whether a witness was in error.
      There was always a fundamental flaw in leaving it to the Home Secretary—who, of course, is subject to approaches by archbishops and everybody else—to give the impression that some of his decisions may be made on a political or other basis when nobody has the slightest reason for thinking that that ever happens. Obviously we could remove that sort of decision from the Home Secretary and put it in the hands of an independent review body. That would be much better, but such a body must be properly staffed and properly funded and must have full investigative powers. In this regard I agree with much of what has been said during the debate. The body must take up its position as soon as possible, and the discussion paper is a good start.

      741
      We are considering the wrongful conviction of the innocent—a type of miscarriage of justice that is deplorable in every sense. But there is another type of miscarriage of justice—the wrongful acquittal of the guilty. It may be that every year there are tens of miscarriages of justice involving wrongful conviction of the innocent, but there are tens of thousands of miscarriages of justice involving acquittal of the guilty. These people then go out and commit more crimes and are responsible for more suffering and misery in society. Runciman has addressed that matter, too. My plea is that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary should implement those changes as quickly as possible, as he is doing in the Criminal Justice Bill and beyond, so that society may be rid of all kinds of miscarriages of justice—not just the conviction of the innocent but also the acquittal of the guilty.
      Rev. William McCrea: The hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) and I often have very different opinions, and that will certainly continue to be the case. However, there is wide consensus in the House and in the country that there should be an independent body to investigate alleged miscarriages of justice. The establishment of such a body would be in the interests of British justice. I trust that the Home Secretary is listening attentively to the views of hon. Members and will agree to the establishment of an independent body.
      There have been unjust attacks on British justice, and the impression has been given—and is still being given—that in every case in the past few years in which people have been released from prison they were innocent. I do not believe that that is what the courts said: they said that the convictions were not safe, which is very different from suggesting that every individual involved was wholly innocent.
      Mr. Mullin rose—
      Rev. William McCrea: No, I shall not give way as I intend to speak for only a few minutes.
      I stress that I am not interested in putting behind bars anyone who is innocent. British justice does not accept that the innocent should suffer, but I do not believe that the guilty should go free. I want there to be a genuine search for the truth. If those who have been released were guilty, I hope that we can somehow get to the very depths of the case, whether it be the Birmingham, Guildford or Ulster Defence Regiment cases. The House should be seeking the truth, irrespective of what the individual involved represents or of whether, in terms of Northern Ireland, he is from one section of the community or the other.
      I have not heard much from Opposition Members about the UDR Four—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Sunderland, South was one of the few who mentioned them. From the very beginning, my colleagues genuinely believed in the innocence of the UDR Four, while others have recently joined the bandwagon who in the past wrote that they were guilty.
      Lawyers are not perfect; nor are judges, Ministers or Members of Parliament. Errors can be made and, if they have been made, they must be put right, which is why we should have an independent body to investigate matters. My colleagues will certainly support that notion tonight because it is important. I ask the Home Secretary to take the matter seriously and to accept that there is widespread concern in the community.
      742
      I make a further appeal to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and to the Home Secretary about the case of one member of the UDR Four who still lies in prison. He is innocent of the crime of which he has been accused. Three of the UDR Four were let out but one has been left in, and the only possible reason for that is political. There are plenty of reasons why Neil Latimer should be let out and I trust that he will be released.
      I ask the House to support the new clause as I believe that it is being forced to a Division. I trust that the right decision will be taken and that we shall strike a blow for good British justice.
      Mr. Howard: I, too, pay tribute to the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) for the way in which he moved the new clause and for the way in which he has conducted his campaigns down the years. I agree that he must look back on some of his successes with considerable satisfaction.
      Like every other hon. Member, I believe that one innocent person convicted is one too many. I want to put in place the best criminal justice system that it is possible to provide—a system that contains all necessary safeguards to minimise the possibility of a wrongful conviction, the most effective appeals procedures that we can devise, so that if there are any wrongful convictions they can be corrected at the earliest possible stage, and the best machinery for investigating alleged miscarriages of justice to ensure that, in the last resort, appropriate cases are referred back to the courts for review.
      As the House will know, the Government have accepted the royal commission's recommendation that the powers to investigate and refer cases to the Court of Appeal should be removed from the Home Secretary and that a new body—the criminal cases review authority—should be set up to carry out those functions. We are committed to establishing the new authority as soon as possible.
      That is a firm decision by the Government on the principle, but a decision in principle is not enough to provide the basis for detailed legislation. The royal commission considered the issues carefully and, we think, came to the right conclusion. However, its proposals do not amount to a detailed blueprint for the new authority. They do not answer all the questions that need to be settled before effecting this major constitutional change—probably the biggest in the area since the Criminal Appeal Act 1907.
      There are further important issues to consider. Some are points of detail, but they nevertheless have to be decided before an effective scheme can be set in place. Others are more substantial. I shall say a word or two about some of them in a few moments. There may be different views on them, in the House and elsewhere, but they need to be resolved before we can proceed.
      10.30 pm
      We have been devoting a great deal of thought to identifying the issues and examining possible solutions. The results are set out in the discussion paper that I published on Friday. We have invited comments from those interested in this area of the criminal justice system by 31 May 1994. There are many people, practitioners and others, with a long-standing interest in miscarriage of justice cases—there is no doubt that the hon. Member for

      743
      Sunderland, South is among them—with experience and insights to offer. I want to hear from them and to benefit from their views.
      Mr. Michael: The Secretary of State is basically asking us to be patient. Is not he aware that when those of us who were involved with the Criminal Justice Bill in 1993 moved similar propositions, we were were encouraged to be patient because, we were told, they were to be the basis, the heart, of the Bill currently before the House?
      Mr. Howard: Whatever was said at that time was said before the royal commission's report was published. The royal commission might have come up with a detailed blueprint that would have enabled us to include provision for that body in the Bill. I can tell the House that no one would have been more pleased than I to include those provisions in the Bill. I was extremely keen to do it. It is perfectly clear, however, for the reasons that I have set out, that it is not a practical proposition.
      The paper that I published on Friday discusses a range of important issues. They include the authority's relationship with the courts and with the Government, the composition, working methods, procedures and powers of the authority, the criteria for investigating cases and referring them back to the courts, the circumstances in which the royal prerogative should be exercised in the future, how members should be appointed and to whom the authority should be accountable.
      The Lord Chief Justice, when he spoke in another place last October in a debate on the royal commission's report, stressed the importance of not rushing to creating new machinery for looking at alleged miscarriages of justice. He said:
      "It is necessary to have a review procedure and it should be conducted by an independent body".
      But he also said:
      "it is extremely important …that we should not proceed too quickly. It is important that the new body should be properly constituted and set up."— [Official Report, House of Lords, 26 October 1993; Vol. 549, c. 795–98.]
      I agree with him and I can assure him, and the House, that when the new authority is established, it will be after very careful consideration of, and consultation on, all the issues. The new authority will be properly constituted and set up. That is the right way forward, rather than the new clauses.
      I know that many hon. Members are impatient to see that change introduced and so am I, but we should not do anyone any service if we rushed the legislation through without having attended to all the detailed questions that are set out in the discussion paper. It is for those reasons that I urge the House to reject the new clause.
      Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—
      The House divided: Ayes 278, Noes 308.

      Division No. 182]

      [10.35 pm

      AYES

      Abbott, Ms Diane

      Barron, Kevin

      Adams, Mrs Irene

      Battle, John

      Ainger, Nick

      Bayley, Hugh

      Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

      Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret

      Allen, Graham

      Benn, Rt Hon Tony

      Alton, David

      Bennett, Andrew F.

      Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

      Benton, Joe

      Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)

      Bermingham, Gerald

      Armstrong, Hilary

      Berry, Dr. Roger

      Ashton, Joe

      Betts, Clive

      Austin-Walker, John

      Blair, Tony

      Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

      Blunkett, David

      Barnes, Harry

      Boateng, Paul

      744

      Body, Sir Richard

      Hain, Peter

      Boyes, Roland

      Hall, Mike

      Bray, Dr Jeremy

      Hanson, David

      Brown, Gordon (Dunfermline E)

      Hardy, Peter

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

      Harman, Ms Harriet

      Burden, Richard

      Harvey, Nick

      Byers, Stephen

      Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

      Caborn, Richard

      Henderson, Doug

      Callaghan, Jim

      Heppell, John

      Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

      Hill, Keith (Streatham)

      Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

      Hinchliffe, David

      Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

      Hoey, Kate

      Campbell-Savours, D. N.

      Hogg, Norman (Cumbernauld)

      Canavan, Dennis

      Home Robertson, John

      Cann, Jamie

      Hood, Jimmy

      Carlile, Alexander (Montgomry)

      Hoon, Geoffrey

      Chisholm, Malcolm

      Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

      Clapham, Michael

      Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

      Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

      Hoyle, Doug

      Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

      Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

      Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

      Clwyd, Mrs Ann

      Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

      Coffey, Ann

      Hume, John

      Cohen, Harry

      Hutton, John

      Connarty, Michael

      Illsley, Eric

      Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

      Ingram, Adam

      Cook, Robin (Livingston)

      Jackson, Glenda (H'stead)

      Corbett, Robin

      Jackson, Helen (Shef'ld, H)

      Corbyn, Jeremy

      Jamieson, David

      Corston, Ms Jean

      Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side)

      Cousins, Jim

      Jones, Ieuan Wyn (Ynys Môn)

      Cox, Tom

      Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

      Cryer, Bob

      Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O)

      Cunliffe, Lawrence

      Jones, Martyn (Clwyd, SW)

      Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)

      Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

      Dalyell, Tarn

      Jowell, Tessa

      Darling, Alistair

      Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

      Davidson, Ian

      Keen, Alan

      Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)

      Kennedy, Jane (Lpool Brdgn)

      Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

      Khabra, Piara S.

      Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

      Kilfoyle, Peter

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

      Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil (Islwyn)

      Denham, John

      Kirkwood, Archy

      Dewar, Donald

      Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

      Dixon, Don

      Lewis, Terry

      Dobson, Frank

      Litherland, Robert

      Donohoe, Brian H.

      Livingstone, Ken

      Dowd, Jim

      Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

      Dunnachie, Jimmy

      Llwyd, Elfyn

      Eagle, Ms Angela

      Loyden, Eddie

      Eastham, Ken

      Lynne, Ms Liz

      Enright, Derek

      McAllion, John

      Etherington, Bill

      McAvoy, Thomas

      Evans, John (St Helens N)

      McCartney, Ian

      Ewing, Mrs Margaret

      McCrea, Rev William

      Fatchett, Derek

      Macdonald, Calum

      Faulds, Andrew

      McFall, John

      Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

      McKelvey, William

      Fisher, Mark

      Mackinlay, Andrew

      Flynn, Paul

      McLeish, Henry

      Foster, Rt Hon Derek

      Maclennan, Robert

      Foster, Don (Bath)

      McMaster, Gordon

      Foulkes, George

      McNamara, Kevin

      Fraser, John

      McWilliam, John

      Fyfe, Maria

      Madden, Max

      Galloway, George

      Maginnis, Ken

      Gapes, Mike

      Mahon, Alice

      Garrett, John

      Mallon, Seamus

      George, Bruce

      Mandelson, Peter

      Gerrard, Neil

      Marek, Dr John

      Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

      Marshall, David (Shettleston)

      Godman, Dr Norman A.

      Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)

      Godsiff, Roger

      Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

      Golding, Mrs Llin

      Martlew, Eric

      Gordon, Mildred

      Maxton, John

      Grant, Bemie (Tottenham)

      Meacher, Michael

      Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

      Meale, Alan

      Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

      Michael, Alun

      Grocott, Bruce

      Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

      Gunnell, John

      Milburn, Alan

      745

      Miller, Andrew

      Sheerman, Barry

      Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

      Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

      Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

      Shore, Rt Hon Peter

      Morgan, Rhodri

      Simpson, Alan

      Morley, Elliot

      Skinner, Dennis

      Morris, Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

      Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

      Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

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

      Mowlam, Marjorie

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

      Mudie, George

      Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

      Mullin, Chris

      Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

      Murphy, Paul

      Snape, Peter

      Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

      Soley, Clive

      O'Brien, Michael (N W'kshire)

      Spearing, Nigel

      O'Hara, Edward

      Spellar, John

      Olner, William

      Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)

      O'Neill, Martin

      Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

      Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

      Steinberg, Gerry

      Paisley, Rev Ian

      Stevenson, George

      Parry, Robert

      Stott, Roger

      Patchett, Terry

      Strang, Dr. Gavin

      Pendry, Tom

      Straw, Jack

      Pickthall, Colin

      Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

      Pike, Peter L.

      Taylor, Rt Hon John D. (Strgfd)

      Pope, Greg

      Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

      Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

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

      Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lew'm E)

      Trimble, David

      Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

      Tyler, Paul

      Prescott, John

      Vaz, Keith

      Primarolo, Dawn

      Walker, A. Cecil (Belfast N)

      Purchase, Ken

      Walker, Rt Hon Sir Harold

      Quin, Ms Joyce

      Walley, Joan

      Radice, Giles

      Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

      Randall, Stuart

      Wareing, Robert N

      Raynsford, Nick

      Welsh, Andrew

      Redmond, Martin

      Wicks, Malcolm

      Reid, Dr John

      Wigley, Dafydd

      Rendel, David

      Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Sw'n W)

      Robertson, George (Hamilton)

      Williams, Alan W (Carmarthen)

      Robinson, Geoffrey (Co'try NW)

      Winnick, David

      Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

      Wise, Audrey

      Roche, Mrs. Barbara

      Worthington, Tony

      Rogers, Allan

      Wray, Jimmy

      Rooker, Jeff

      Wright, Dr Tony

      Rooney, Terry

      Young, David (Bolton SE)

      Ross, William (E Londonderry)

      Rowlands, Ted

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Ruddock, Joan

      Mr. John Cummings and

      Sedgemore, Brian

      Mr. Dennis Turner.

      NOES

      Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

      Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia

      Aitken, Jonathan

      Bowden, Andrew

      Alexander, Richard

      Bowis, John

      Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)

      Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes

      Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

      Brandreth, Gyles

      Amess, David

      Brazier, Julian

      Arbuthnot, James

      Bright, Graham

      Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

      Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

      Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)

      Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)

      Ashby, David

      Browning, Mrs. Angela

      Aspinwall, Jack

      Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

      Atkins, Robert

      Budgen, Nicholas

      Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)

      Burns, Simon

      Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

      Butcher, John

      Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

      Butterfill, John

      Baker, Nicholas (Dorset North)

      Carlisle, John (Luton North)

      Baldry, Tony

      Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

      Banks, Matthew (Southport)

      Carrington, Matthew

      Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

      Carttiss, Michael

      Bates, Michael

      Cash, William

      Batiste, Spencer

      Churchill, Mr

      Bellingham, Henry

      Clappison, James

      Bendall, Vivian

      Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

      Beresford, Sir Paul

      Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ruclif)

      Biffen, Rt Hon John

      Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

      Blackburn, Dr John G.

      Coe, Sebastian

      Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

      Colvin, Michael

      Booth, Hartley

      Congdon, David

      Boswell, Tim

      Conway, Derek

      Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

      Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)

      746

      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

      Howell, Sir Ralph (N Norfolk)

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

      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

      Day, Stephen

      Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

      Deva, Nirj Joseph

      Jack, Michael

      Devlin, Tim

      Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

      Dickens, Geoffrey

      Jenkin, Bernard

      Dicks, Terry

      Jessel, Toby

      Dorrell, Stephen

      Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

      Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

      Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

      Dover, Den

      Jones, Robert B. (W Hertfdshr)

      Duncan, Alan

      Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

      Duncan-Smith, Iain

      Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

      Dunn, Bob

      Key, Robert

      Durant, Sir Anthony

      King, Rt Hon Tom

      Dykes, Hugh

      Kirkhope, Timothy

      Eggar, Tim

      Knapman, Roger

      Elletson, Harold

      Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

      Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter

      Knight, Greg (Derby N)

      Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)

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

      Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)

      Knox, Sir David

      Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

      Kynoch, George (Kincardine)

      Evans, Roger (Monmouth)

      Lait, Mrs Jacqui

      Evennett, David

      Lang, Rt Hon Ian

      Faber, David

      Lawrence, Sir Ivan

      Fabricant, Michael

      Legg, Barry

      Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas

      Leigh, Edward

      Fenner, Dame Peggy

      Lennox-Boyd, Mark

      Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

      Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

      Fishburn, Dudley

      Lidington, David

      Forman, Nigel

      Lightbown, David

      Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

      Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

      Forth, Eric

      Lloyd, Rt Hon Peter (Fareham)

      Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

      Lord, Michael

      Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)

      Luff, Peter

      Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley)

      Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

      Freeman, Rt Hon Roger

      MacGregor, Rt Hon John

      French, Douglas

      MacKay, Andrew

      Fry, Sir Peter

      Maclean, David

      Gale, Roger

      McLoughlin, Patrick

      Gallie, Phil

      McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

      Gardiner, Sir George

      Madel, Sir David

      Garnier, Edward

      Maitland, Lady Olga

      Gill, Christopher

      Malone, Gerald

      Gillan, Cheryl

      Mans, Keith

      Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair

      Marland, Paul

      Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

      Marlow, Tony

      Gorman, Mrs Teresa

      Marshall, John (Hendon S)

      Gorst, John

      Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

      Grant, Sir A. (Cambs SW)

      Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

      Greenway, Harry (Eating N)

      Mates, Michael

      Green way, John (Ryedale)

      Mawhinney, Rt Hon Dr Brian

      Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

      Mellor, Rt Hon David

      Grylls, Sir Michael

      Merchant, Piers

      Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

      Mills, Iain

      Hague, William

      Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

      Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

      Mitchell, Sir David (Hants NW)

      Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

      Moate, Sir Roger

      Hanley, Jeremy

      Monro, Sir Hector

      Hannam, Sir John

      Montgomery, Sir Fergus

      Hargreaves, Andrew

      Moss, Malcolm

      Harris, David

      Nelson, Anthony

      Haselhurst, Alan

      Neubert, Sir Michael

      Hawkins, Nick

      Newton, Rt Hon Tony

      Hawksley, Warren

      Nicholls, Patrick

      Hayes, Jerry

      Nicholson, David (Taunton)

      Heald, Oliver

      Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

      Hendry, Charles

      Norris, Steve

      Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

      Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley

      Hicks, Robert

      Oppenheim, Phillip

      Higgins, Rt Hon Sir Terence L.

      Ottaway, Richard

      Hill, James (Southampton Test)

      Page, Richard

      Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas (G'tham)

      Paice, James

      Horam, John

      Patnick, Irvine

      Hordern, Rt Hon Sir Peter

      Patten, Rt Hon John

      747

      Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

      Sweeney, Walter

      Pawsey, James

      Sykes, John

      Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

      Tapsell, Sir Peter

      Pickles, Eric

      Taylor, Ian (Esher)

      Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

      Taylor, John M. (Solihull)

      Porter, David (Waveney)

      Taylor, Sir Teddy (Southend, E)

      Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

      Temple-Morris, Peter

      Rathbone, Tim

      Thomason, Roy

      Redwood, Rt Hon John

      Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V)

      Renton, Rt Hon Tim

      Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

      Richards, Rod

      Thornton, Sir Malcolm

      Riddick, Graham

      Thurnham, Peter

      Rifkind, Rt Hon. Malcolm

      Townend, John (Bridlington)

      Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

      Tracey, Richard

      Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)

      Tredinnick, David

      Robinson, Mark (Somerton)

      Trend, Michael

      Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

      Trotter, Neville

      Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)

      Twinn, Dr Ian

      Rumbold, Rt Hon Dame Angela

      Vaughan, Sir Gerard

      Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

      Viggers, Peter

      Sackville, Tom

      Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

      Sainsbury, Rt Hon Tim

      Walden, George

      Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas

      Walker, Bill (N Tayside)

      Shaw, David (Dover)

      Waller, Gary

      Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

      Ward, John

      Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

      Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

      Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

      Waterson, Nigel

      Shersby, Michael

      Watts, John

      Sims, Roger

      Wells, Bowen

      Skeet, Sir Trevor

      Wheeler, Rt Hon Sir John

      Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

      Whitney, Ray

      Soames, Nicholas

      Whittingdale, John

      Speed, Sir Keith

      Widdecombe, Ann

      Spencer, Sir Derek

      Wiggin, Sir Jerry

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

      Wilkinson, John

      Spink, Dr Robert

      Willetts, David

      Spring, Richard

      Wilshire, David

      Sproat, Iain

      Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

      Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)

      Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'fld)

      Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

      Wolfson, Mark

      Steen, Anthony

      Yeo, Tim

      Stephen, Michael

      Young, Rt Hon Sir George

      Stern, Michael

      Stewart, Allan

      Tellers for the Noes:

      Streeter, Gary

      Mr. Sydney Chapman and

      Sumberg, David

      Mr. Timothy Wood.

      Question accordingly negatived.

    New Clause 11

      DUTY OF CROWN PROSECUTION SERVICE TO VICTIMS
      '.-The Crown Prosecution Service shall be under a duty to—

      (a) inform a complainant of the progress of the charge against the accused, of the dates of any court hearings, and of the outcome of any trial.

      (b) consult the complainant about the nature of the charge to be brought against the accused, receive the views of the complainant about the level of the charge and, should the Crown Prosecution Service accept a lesser charge, inform the complainant in writing of the reasons for reducing the charge.'.—[Mr. Michael.]

      Brought up, and read the First time.
      10.45 pm
      Mr. Michael: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): With this, it will be convenient to consider the following:
      New clause 12—Notification to victim or family of offender's release—

      '(1) Where an offender has been convicted of—

      (a) sexual offence involving violence;

      (b) murder;

      (c) manslaughter; or

      (d) causing grievous bodily harm
      748
      and has been given a custodial sentence, the judge may direct that the Secretary of State shall either—

      (i) notify such persons as he may specify, who may include the victim of the offence or, where appropriate, the family of the victim, before the offender is to be released, either on home leave or on parole, of his impending release; or

      (ii) make arrangements for such persons to be informed.

      (2) Where the judge makes no direction under subsection (1) above, an application may be made at any time after the trial for such a direction to be made by the court.

      (3) When the judge makes a direction under subsection (1) above an application may be made at any time after the trial for such a direction to be varied or discharged provided that the court shall be satisfied that the victim or such other persons referred to in the direction have been consulted and had an opportunity to make representation to the court.'.

      New clause 47—Victim protection injunction—

      '1. Where a person convicted of indecent assult, rape, murder or manslaughter is sentenced to a term of imprisonment, the Crown Court may also impose a victim protection injunction upon that defendant.

      2. A "victim protection injunction" is an order under which the defendant shall be prohibited from entering a defined area for a specified period of time, where

      (i) a defined area shall mean an area to be determined by the court, but not more than ten miles radius of

      (a) the usual home of the victim or victims; or

      (b) where the defendant is being sentenced on conviction for murder or manslaughter, the usual home of the close family or legal guardians of any victim

      (ii) a specified period of time shall mean a period of time to be determined by the court but in any event shall be

      (a) not less than two years; and

      (b) not more than ten years; or

      (c) where the defendant is being sentenced on conviction for murder or manslaughter, not more than twenty years.

      3.—(1) A victim protection injunction may be imposed at the discretion of the court, after consideration of all the circumstances of the case, and with particular regard to

      (a) the age of the victim or victims; and

      (b) the nature and seriousness of the offence or offences; and

      (c) the distress caused to the victim or victims by the offence or offences; or where the defendant is being sentenced on conviction for murder or manslaughter, the distress caused to the close family of the victim or victims; and

      (d) the impact of the victim protection injunction on the defendant and his close family; and provided that the court is satisfied that

      (a) distress will be caused to the victim or victims of their close family if the injunction is not imposed; or

      (b) the impact of the injunction upon the defendant and his close family will not be so onerous as to be unjust, having regard to all the circumstances of the case.

      (2) The court shall take into consideration in determining the length of a term of imprisonment the effect of such a victim protection injunction has upon the defendant and may reduce the period to be served in prison may up to a maximum of one third of the sentence at its discretion.
      4. Breach of any of the terms of a victim protection injunction shall be contempt of court under the Contempt of Court Act 1981.
      5. The victim protection injunction shall be enforceable for breach in the Crown Court

      (i) upon written complaint to the Crown Court by any of the victims or any member of their close family or legal guardians such as the victim protection injunction seeks to protect;

      (ii) by the Crown Prosecution Service upon their receiving written complaint from any one of the victims or any member of a victim's close family or legal guardians such as the victim protection injunction seeks to protect.

      6. Any person who has been made the subject of a victim protection injunction may be arrested without warrant where

      (i) at the time of arrest, the police have reasonable cause to believe that person is in breach of that victim protection injunction or

      749

      (ii) the police have received written complaint made by any of the victims or any member of a victim's close family or legal guardians such as the victim protection injunction seeks to protect, and such written complaint appears to the police to have been made in good faith.

      7. The defendant or his legal representative may apply at any time to the Crown Court to have the victim protection injunction varied or discharged, on notice to each victim or their close family or legal guardians, unless the court accepts that the whereabouts of the same cannot be ascertained, provided that

      (i) each victim (or their close family or legal guardians as the court thinks appropriate) consent to the variation or lifting of the victim protection injunction; and subsection (iv) below applies; or

      (ii) none of the victims or, where the injunction was made in respect of a conviction for murder or manslaughter, none of the close family or legal guardians of any victim, any longer resides in the area defined by the victim protection injunction or would suffer unjust distress if the injunction were varied or discharged and subsection (iv) below applies; or

      (iii) the defendant satisfies the court that compassionate grounds exist for the victim protection injunction m be temporarily varied to accommodate a specific short-term purpose such as attending a family funeral; and

      (iv) the court considers it reasonable in all the circumstances, including the circumstances of any victim or victims or their close family or legal guardians, for the victim protection injunction to be so varied or discharged.

      8. "Close family" shall mean

      (i) spouse;

      (ii) children or stepchildren who reside in their patents' home;

      (iii) where the person is under the age of 18, the parents, stepparents or guardians of that person;

      (iv) a cohabitee.'.

      Mr. Michael: I gather, with some regret, that to ensure that we have time to debate these important clauses we have been deprived of a contribution from that Stakhanovite Trappist, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Mr. Wardle), because we are not going to debate statutory local partnerships. We have debated that issue, however, during the passage of several criminal justice Bills and our position is well known.
      The new clauses pay due regard to the interests of victims within the criminal justice system. Constituents and people involved throughout the system have complained that not enough is done to inform victims of what is happening about a complaint, including, for example, the progress of a charge against the accused; the dates of court hearings; and the outcome of a trial. Victims often know nothing of those matters.
      Victims are not consulted, often on pertinent matters. Victims can discover that a case has been dropped or that the charge has been reduced to a less serious one without their ever having been consulted or being given the opportunity to express a view.
      It is right that, at the end of the day, the relevant decisions should be taken by the Crown Prosecution Service and we do not suggest that the victims should have the right to veto those decisions. It would be only right and proper, however, and a useful discipline on the CPS when making its decisions, for it to have to inform, in writing, the victim of the reasons for reducing or not proceeding with a charge.
      Many of my right hon. and hon. Friends have expressed concern at the way in which charges have not been pursued. They are aware that many victims feel that not only have they been subject to nasty and personal crimes,
      750
      including violence, sometimes extreme, but they have been damaged again by the criminal justice system's failure to deal with the offence adequately.
      New clause 12 is equally uncontentious. It calls for the victim or the victim's family to be notified of the offender's release, in appropriate circumstances. The new clause would direct that that information should be provided to the judge—discretion is given to the court. The clause would not make notification mandatory, but would merely ensure that in circumstances where such information is important, it should be provided.
      In the past year, on more than one occasion serious comment has been made by judges about the severity of an offence. Those judges have expressed the hope that a young person should be able to grow up without the fear of further interference or personal damage. The victim or a victim's family have discovered, however, that the perpetrator of sometimes horrific acts, commented on by the judge, is walking the streets. That causes great damage to the victim. The House will be aware of one particular case in which the victim committed suicide because he was so shocked by the release of the offender. It is therefore sensible for the House to make provision for the courts to be able, but not to require them, to issue appropriate directions in appropriate cases.
      I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Warwickshire, North (Mr. O'Brien) intends to refer to the circumstances in which a person could be prevented from going to certain areas because of offences committed. That should be decided, yet again, at the discretion of the courts, at the time of sentence and in appropriate cases only. That would ensure that all circumstances were taken into consideration.
      In view of the importance of the next debate on new clause 13 on racial attacks, and its importance to communities throughout the country, the debate on new clauses 11, 12 and 47 must, of necessity, be brief. It is an important debate, however, because it calls on the Government to do one thing only—to give consideration to victims and put them at the heart of the criminal justice system. I hope that the Minister will be able to accept the new clauses, as that would be a step forward in giving proper consideration to victims; a consideration which they do not receive now either from the CPS or from the criminal justice system as a whole.
      Ms Coffey: I want to refer in particular to new clause 12.
      My interest in ensuring that victims are notified, on request, of the release of an offender grew out of a constituency case. A woman who had been subject to a particularly serious attack first learned of the release of the offender from the local newspapers. As the House can imagine, that was a great shock to her, because the newspapers knew of his release before she did, and she had no time to adjust to the fact.
      The victims charter states that it is not generally practicable to tell the victim of the release of an offender and gives evidence for that, in that it may be many years after the event or victims may have moved away. Certainly in that case it is impractical, but in a situation where there has been an especially horrendous attack on someone and the victim may have spent several years trying to get over the emotional trauma of thet attack and may have residual anxieties, it is important that the victim is prepared for the release of the offender.

      751
      Nothing can ever make up to a victim for the trauma of an attack on them—at least, nothing in terms of what the penal system can hand out to the offender—but I do not think that that is the point. All victims have to be prepared for the eventual release of the offender, and it would be extremely helpful to the victims if they were notified in advance.
      I am not saying that they should be notified of the exact prison from which the offender has been released or the exact time or the day that the offender will be released. They should simply be given some warning that that release is imminent so that they can prepare themselves for it and not find out, as my constituent did, from the local papers, which to her was a traumatic event, as a result of which she felt that she was not being dealt with fairly by the penal system. That advance notification could help balance out the situation.
      Mr. Andrew Miller: I shall be as brief as I can, but I wish to mention a very important matter. Last week, Allyson Burgess had to resort to making a private prosecution, incurring a £15,000 legal bill, to see justice done following the death of her husband, who was killed by a drunken driver. The Crown Prosecution Service official, she said,
      "knew who I was but seemed to find me a nuisance".
      She said in The Daily Telegraph on Friday:
      "the system is geared to criminals and not victims like me."
      Her solicitor, Mr. Martin Smith, told me today that the technicality that resulted in that fiasco could become even worse if the effects of ex parte Chaudhry are not dealt with by primary legislation. Effectively, the Law Lords have said that, if the CPS says that the only charge is careless driving, even people with sufficient means will not be able to pursue a private prosecution, as the Chaudhry case will prevent it.
      The primary object of my speaking tonight is to bring to the attention of the House the stupidity of the current position, and to gain a better deal for victims of crime.
      This week, I met in my surgery the brother of a victim of an identical case to that of Mrs. Burgess. What is more, there may be as many as 600 similar cases in the system. Mr. Peake, the victim's brother, wrote to the Home Secretary on 19 March 1994, pointing out the loophole and asking:
      "Why is it that my family are suffering and yet we are the innocent?"
      I shall not dwell on the facts of the case as the CPS may find grounds for a further prosecution beyond the only remaining charge against the driver relating to the fact that he left the scene of the accident—"accident" being a word that I use with some bitterness.
      This clause will not bring back Mr. Peake's brother. It will not bring back Mr. Burgess. What it will do, however, is enable the victim, or in these cases the victim's family, to engage in a discussion with the CPS and ensure that any moves towards a lesser charge come only after every stone is turned, which is obviously not the case today.
      Mr. Mike O'Brien: Last year, 14-year-old Andrew Olden committed suicide on hearing that the man who had sexually abused him would be released from prison and would be returning to his community. The attacker, Kevin Woods, aged 33, had served 10 months of an 18-month sentence. Andrew's mother said at the inquest that Andrew
      752
      could not live with the thought that that man would be free again in the community. It had a grave and traumatic effect on Andrew, who was taunted by other schoolchildren in his village about Woods's return to the village. Andrew Olden hanged himself.
      What about the girl raped by a classmate? The sentence initially hit the headlines because the girl was given £50 to have a holiday and the rapist received a £500 fine, although it was subsequently increased to two years' custodial sentence. The victim and her parents are terrified about the return of that rapist to her locality, and have repeatedly contacted the police to express their concern.
      What about the mother who, several months ago, was raped by a group of youths? They locked her in her flat and raped her repeatedly over a 24-hour period in the presence of her young toddler. They all live in the same area and will, in due course, be released and return to that area.
      New clause 47 attempts to do something about that situation. Victims should not have to face their attackers in the street so soon after the crime. They should have at least some time to come to terms with the attack. The new clause seeks to protect victims of rape and other violent crime, and the families of those who have been the victim of murder or manslaughter, by preventing, in certain cases where the court decides that it is appropriate, their attacker from re-entering the community where the victim lives.
      11 pm
      When a victim protection injunction is imposed, the judge would take the impact of that on a defendant and his or her family into consideration in determining the length of the prison sentence. Injunctions are regularly given in domestic violence cases.
      The new clause would give criminal courts the power to protect victims. Such a power has previously been held only by civil courts. It would be enforceable by the victim on complaint to the police, so would not impose substantial extra burdens on police time. The important point is that victims, particularly very young victims, would have the right not to have to meet their attacker in the street—perhaps grinning—soon after the event.
      The victim protection injunction would put the rights of victims before those of their attackers. It is a new idea and, I hope, a good one. The criminal justice system does little enough for victims. If we can at least do this, the death of 14-year-old Andrew Olden will not have been completely in vain.
      Mr. Maclean: With your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and as the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) is here, may I first correct something that I said on courts martial under new clause 75? I wish to clarify my intervention in the the hon. Gentleman's speech. He asked about the possibility of appeals from courts martial in Scotland being heard at an Appeal Court in Edinburgh, "as they now are". I said that that would continue to happen, but I am afraid that we were both wrong and I apologise for misleading the House. I may have raised the hon. Gentleman's expectations in that regard, but the appeal of a Scottish service man or any other service man against his conviction by a court martial will not necessarily be heard in Scotland by Scottish judges.
      Although the Court Martial (Appeals) Act 1968 provides that Scottish judges may be nominated to sit in the Court Martial Appeal Court, and the Lord Chief Justice can

      753
      choose where that court sits—in Great Britain, Northern Ireland or anywhere else—it usually sits at the High Court in London with English judges. It applies the provisions of the service discipline Acts in the same way as the courts martial themselves. The overriding principle is that the court martial and any appeal from it will apply the provisions of the service discipline Acts consistently, wherever it sits.
      I apologise for the fact that my earlier remarks were wrong and for inadvertently misleading the House.
      Dr. Godman: I need hardly say that I am extremely grateful to the Minister for putting the record straight:. May I ask a further question on appeals from courts martial? Have any such appeals been made to High Court judges in Scotland, if not Edinburgh, in the past five or six years?
      Mr. Maclean: It will not surprise the hon. Gentleman to hear me say that I do not have that information. I undertake to write to him as soon as possible with all the details, which is, I suspect, the safest course of action.
      To return to new clause 11: the Government's acceptance of a number of the royal commission's recommendations designed to improve the treatment and care of victims and witnesses was announced by my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary on 6 October 1993. These included the idea that victims should, as far as possible, be kept informed of the progress and outcome of cases and that, when appropriate, the CPS should pass on information to the victims and witnesses direct, rather than through the police. Consideration is being given to how these recommendations should best be taken forward to supplement measures already in place relating to the treatment of victims and witnesses.
      The hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) seeks to impose an absolute duty on the CPS to keep the victim informed of developments at all stages of the prosecution. That goes well beyond what the royal commission recommended and the Government accepted. Of course it is right that victims should be kept in touch with what is happening in their cases. The victims charter assigns to the police the main responsibility for that. The royal commission examined the issue in its report last year and concluded that that was sensible as a general rule. The police will already have had contact with the victim and will be in a better position to pass on information. The Government agree with that.
      In addition, there are practical reasons for that view. The CPS has just over 2,000 lawyers, the police establishment in England and Wales has more than 128,000. The task would be impossible for the CPS to carry out without enormously increased resources, which are not available. The CPS is an independent prosecution authority, and as such does not act directly on behalf of the victims; it acts in a wider public interest. Both the victims charter and the royal commission accept that that is the right line to take.
      To give victims the right to be consulted about the level of charges to be brought against the accused would fetter the independence of the CPS, which would not serve the interests of justice. Of course, the victim's interests are important in deciding whether it is in the public interest to prosecute. The CPS will take them into account, as the code for Crown prosecutors provides. On a practical level, comprehensive consultation with the complainant concerning the nature and level of the charge would build in delay and increase the time taken to deal with the case.
      754
      As for new clause 12, I am sure that the motivation behind it is a real concern for the victims of crime and a desire to help them. I applaud and share that sentiment. I cannot, however, accept what the new clause would do. It would give judges the power to direct the Secretary of State to notify specified people,
      "who may include the victim of the offence",
      of the impending release of an inmate convicted of one of the listed offences. I do not want to labour the point, but such a directive power of the judiciary over the Executive would have constitutional implications. We might all entertain doubts about it on that ground alone.
      On the face of it, it may seem reasonable and sensible that victims and their families should be told of the impending release of the offender who victimised them—indeed, there are already arrangements for that to happen when appropriate—but by no means all victims want to receive the information. The offender may be released many years after the trial and the events that gave rise to it, by which time the victim may have succeeded in putting his suffering behind him. Victims may have moved to distant parts of the country, and may have completely recovered from their unhappy experience of the crime. It would not help such people to be notified of the release of the person who caused them so much distress—whether or not they wanted the information.
      Subsection (3) would allow the victim and/or the victim's family to apply for the direction under which they were to receive the information to be rescinded or otherwise altered, so long as the direction in question was made under subsection (1). I do not think that a sensible or realistic remedy for victims who do not wish to be given information about the release of the offender. It would be an additional imposition, which many would not know how to set about handling. Furthermore, it would not be a remedy available in respect of a direction made by the court under subsection (2).
      As for life sentence prisoners—all those sentenced for murder and some of those sentenced for the other three offences mentioned in the new clause—the victims charter already says that release plans for those serving life sentences should be prepared with regard to the wishes of the victim or his or her family. Arrangements are in place to ensure that the probation service gets in touch with the victims whenever possible to discover their views. If they are anxious about the offender's release, their anxieties can be met by imposing restrictions on the offender in his release licence. That too is quite different from what would happen under the new clause.
      I cannot accept the new clause. It is inappropriate for the reasons that I have suggested and I think that the underlying objective is already being addressed and increasingly being achieved by collaborative work involving the Prison Service, the Probation Service and others.
      New clause 47 would enable the Crown court to subject an offender who has been convicted of one of the offences of indecent assault, rape, murder or manslaughter and who is sentenced to a term of imprisonment to a victim protection injunction. That would amount to an exclusion order to ban him from the defined area. The practical difficulties for the police of enforcing such an order would be formidable, even if the area from which he was prohibited from entering were to be defined in recognisable terms, such as district council areas or a county.
      The forbidden area is defined in terms of a radius of

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      "not more than ten miles"
      from the victim's "usual home" or, in the case of an offender who has been sentenced for murder or manslaughter,
      "not more than ten miles"
      from the "usual home" of the victim's
      "close family or legal guardians".
      How is the offender who is subject to one of the victim protection injunctions to know when he has come nearer than the specified distance to his victim's home, particularly in a large conurbation? How is a police officer who is to enforce it supposed to know?
      That is not all. The clause defines the close family of the victim who is dead as a result of murder or manslaughter by the offender to include the spouse, the children living with their parents and cohabiters, but all too often such people are also the close family of the offender as well as of the victim. There are undoubtedly cases in which it is right to keep an offender away from his near relations, but it can hardly be right to make statutory provision to enable the court to order it almost as a matter of course.
      Even where the victim is not related to the offender, the offender has his own family and they are quite likely to live in the same area as the victim. Do we really want to prevent the offender from having contact with his own family? Is that likely to encourage him to turn his back on violence? Victims and the close family of dead victims do not simply live in the vicinity of their usual home. They may have jobs at some considerable distance from their usual home and may spend most of their waking hours in the vicinity of their workplace, which could not be covered by a victim protection injunction. They may have more than one home. Which home is the usual one?
      There are many problems with the clause although, superficially, it looks attractive. However, it has considerable problems and I am not minded to accept it. I have listened carefully to the arguments by Opposition Members on their three new clauses but I am afraid that at present I am unable to accept them.
      Mr. Michael: The Minister is obviously confused. He has not bothered to read the new clauses, as is clear from the way in which he responded. He has not bothered to use the time since the Bill was in Committee to examine the Opposition arguments made there. If he had used that time properly, he would know that the suggestion is not to fetter the work of the Crown Prosecution Service: it is to require it to consult. Nor is it a matter of fettering the court. It is to give an opportunity to put protections in place where that is appropriate in the circumstances of the victim or victims or the family of the victim.
      I ask the Minister to read the report of the debate and to examine some of the examples that have been given. He should respond in particular to my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller), who raised specific points. I do not want to delay the House now, but I hope that the Minister will do my hon. Friend the courtesy of responding to him outside the House. The Minister answered most of his own points himself; otherwise the text, if read properly, will answer the points that he made.
      The essence of the debate is that the victim needs to be treated with respect, understanding and sensitivity because the victim has suffered the direct effects of the crime. Victims should have information and their views should be
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      taken into account. They should be respected as witnesses and within the whole system. That is the essence of our argument, but it is clear that the Minister will not accept it. We shall return to the issues on many occasions until he and other Ministers accept the importance of placing the victim at the heart of the criminal justice system. However, for tonight I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
      Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

    New Clause 13

      RACIAL HARASSMENT
      '1. (1) In relation to any prosecution for any offence of violence it shall be the duty of the prosecuting authority to place before the court any evidence tending to show that such offence has been committed on the ground of colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origin ("racial grounds").
      (2) On conviction of any offence of violence the court shall have regard to such evidence in determining the penalty, and, if satisfied that the offence was committed on racial grounds ("racial violence"), shall impose an additional penalty which may exceed the maximum penalty otherwise prescribed for such offence.
      2. (1) A person is guilty of the offence of racial harassment if on racial grounds he:

      (a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive, or insulting, within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby; or

      (b) commits any trespass or nuisance whereby any occupant of any dwelling is likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress.

      (2) A constable may arrest a person without warrant whom he reasonably suspects of conduct constituting an offence under this section.
      (3) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable:

      (a) on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or a fine or both;

      (b) on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or both.'.—[Mr. Michael.]

      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Mr. Michael: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we may discuss the following: New clause 50—Aggravation of racial hatred—
      '(1) If any person commits any offence provided for by—

      (i) sections 18, 20 or 47 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, or

      (ii) sections 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 and does so with a motive of racial hatred, then he shall be guilty of the said offence with aggravation of racial hatred.

      (2) In this section, "racial hatred" means racial hatred against a group of persons in Great Britain by reference to colour, race, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins.'.
      New clause 88—Racial hatred—
      '.-Part III of the Public Order Act 1986 shall be amended as follows—
      In section 27(1) there shall be substituted for the words "of the Attorney General" the words "of the Director of Public Prosecutions".'.
      New clause 89—Offences committed on racial grounds—
      '.—(1) In relation to any prosecution for any offence of violence it shall be the duty of the prosecuting authority to place before the court any evidence tending to show that such offence has been committed on racial grounds.
      (2) On conviction of any offence of violence the court shall have regard to such evidence in determining the penalty and if satisfied that the offence was committed on racial grounds shall impose a penalty, which shall not be more than twice the

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      maximum prescribed penalty. The court shall be required to give reasons for the penalty imposed, indicating in what way it has taken account of its finding that the offence was committed on racial grounds.'.
      New clause 90—Racial harassment (No. 2)—
      '.—(1) A person is guilty of the offence of racial harassment if on racial grounds he—

      (a) commits any trespass or nuisance whereby any occupant of any dwelling is likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress; or

      (b) uses words or behaviour or displays any writing, sign or other visual representation which is offensive on racial grounds within the hearing or sight of any person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby.

      (2) a constable may arrest a person without warrant whom he reasonably suspects of conduct constituting an offence under this section.
      (3) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable—

      (a) on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or a fine or both;

      (b) on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or both.'.

      11.30 pm
      Ms Joan Ruddock: I am particularly grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael), who has worked so hard on the Bill, for giving me the opportunity to speak on this important new clause. I do so as a lifelong anti-racist and someone who recently produced two reports on racial attacks. All the evidence that I gathered in compiling them convinced me and my colleagues that the law relating to acts of racial harassment and violence urgently needs strengthening.
      That matter is one on which we have pressed the Government before, but Ministers told us that our proposals could only make prevention more difficult. We listened to their objections and redrafted accordingly. While there is much more that we want the Government to do, the simple and limited proposals in new clause 13 offer a way forward.
      New clause 13 creates a new criminal, arrestable offence of racial harassment and provides for heavier penalties to be imposed by the courts for existing crimes of violence where they are committed on racial grounds. I remind the House that those grounds are colour, race, nationality, and ethnic or national origin. The overwhelming evidence of racial harassment is that of white people abusing people of different colour or religion. Clearly, the definition we use would cover also racial abuse of white people by people of another colour.
      We cannot escape the unpalatable fact that racism is endemic in Britain today. Despite existing laws on incitement, nearly 30 years of race relations legislation and much good practice by racial equality councils, local authorities and others, we are experiencing a rising tide of horrific racial abuse. Only recently has public awareness been raised, and primarily because of the 14 racial murders that have occurred in the past two years and the appalling injuries inflicted on people such as Muktar Ahmed and Quaddus Ali, who suffered brutal attacks by gangs of white men and survived them.
      Those cases were recognised by the police and public for what they were—racially motivated violence. Intense focus on a few extreme cases, however, belies the widespread and persistent nature of less violent but deeply offensive and repetitive racial harassment.
      This morning, I received a letter asking why I was
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      "giving Blacks all this attention?"
      I tell the House why. Black people—along with Jewish and Asian people and members of other ethnic minorities—are spat upon, taunted in the streets, have their homes daubed with graffiti and their religious centres defiled. That is why the issue needs attention and our new clause is required.
      Those are not the random crimes that sadly and all-too-frequently affect society at large. They are not cases of the wrong person being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The victims of racial abuse are specifically selected because of their colour or creed. They are victims twice over—of the offence itself and of racism. They know why they were singled out and that they may be singled out again. They know also that anyone from the same group is a potential victim. Little wonder that such abuse engenders widespread fear, that people become afraid to leave their homes and afraid for their children, and that many suffer a permanent sense of humiliation.
      Such abuse occurs throughout Britain. In England and Wales alone, racial incidents recorded by the police in 1993 were close to 9,000—double the number five years ago. Yet research consistently shows massive under reporting. The real figure for racial incidents in England and Wales last year is estimated at between 150,000 and 200,000. Those figures, I suggest to the House, are a terrible indictment of our society and surely a challenge to the Government to act, and act decisively.
      Mr. Keith Vaz: Does my hon. Friend share my concern at the failure of the Government to support the Bill that was introduced by the hon. Member for Finchley (Mr. Booth)?
      Ms Ruddock: Very much so. My hon. Friend makes an important point. That Bill not only had a wide consensus of support outside the House, but was supported by the Labour party and other parties in the House. We regret that the Government could not see fit to support the Bill introduced by a member of their own party.
      Under the present law, few of the perpetrators of racial offences are caught and even fewer are punished. The Government have no information on clear-up rates and no plans to gather any. Suffice it to say that the Attorney-General gave his sanction to prosecutions under incitement law of a mere 14 people in the past seven years. Yet last week no less an authority than the Prime Minister told the House that the existing law was adequate to deal with racial hatred. Well, the victims do not think so. Most of them do not report the offences against them because they do not expect any remedies. Often, they have no confidence in the police. Yet the police in turn say that the laws are inadequate and that they lack resources.
      Mr. David Winnick: Will my hon. Friend make a comparison with the 1950s and 1960s, when the Conservative'Government of the time refused to act on race discrimination, always arguing that special laws were not necessary? A Labour Government in 1964 started the process of putting on to the statute book anti-discrimination laws which have undoubtedly helped to ensure that people who do not have a white skin can obtain employment.
      Ms Ruddock: My hon. Friend's point is well made. He does well to recall those times and that history. Let us hope that history will not repeat itself tonight and that the Government might have learnt some lessons in the intervening years.

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      New clause 13 gives clarity to the offence of racial harassment and enables the police to arrest without warrant the perpetrators, where they are suspected. It ensures that racial motivation must be examined as an aggravating factor in other violent offences and that, on conviction, the double burden of the victim is reflected in the sentence. Both proposals have wide support, including that of the Commission for Racial Equality, the Anti-Racist Alliance, members of the police forces and all political parties in the House. Both proposals provide an opportunity for the Government to demonstrate that they are tough on racially motivated crime and that they care about the victims.
      As the Commission for Racial Equality says in its briefing to us today:
      "The law has a vital part to play in setting and reflecting standards of public behaviour."
      Racists are beginning to campaign actively in Britain. No longer are they kept underground. They are standing for elections and in one case won a local by-election. It is time that the House took racial abuse, racial harassment and racial violence much more seriously and that the Government implemented proposals, if not our proposals, to do something more constructive about it.
      We believe that acceptance of new clause 13 would send a powerful signal that the House is determined to take at least one vital step on the path to ending racial abuse in Britain.
      Mr. Maclennan: I support the move to create a specific offence of racial harassment. That is also the aim of the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Finchley (Mr. Booth) to which the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms Ruddock) referred, and which has cross-party support. However, I shall concentrate mainly on new clause 50, which I tabled.
      The purpose of the new clause is to deal with the problem of racism when violence is committed against the person, or when an offence against public order has taken place and the motivation is racist. The virtue of that approach is that, in my view, it would make it easier to obtain convictions than would the creation of a specific offence of racial violence.
      No tariff of penalties is attached to new clause 50, as few of the offences covered by it currently attract the maximum penalty permitted under the law; but, if racial hatred is proved, the judge may sentence accordingly in most cases. Racially motivated attacks have, alas, become more prominent and numerous. There have been a number of vicious assaults—and, indeed, murders—of mostly young Asian men.
      There are no reliable figures showing the true extent of racially motivated attacks, although a number of police forces are now beginning to record Home Office-reportable offences. In the Metropolitan police district, in the 12 months to September 1993, the police reported 2,110 allegations of reportable offences and 1,730 racial incidents classified by area. They broke down those incidents by offence groups. Common assaults constituted 14 per cent., assaults 18 per cent., abusive language 25 per cent., criminal damage 29 per cent. and all other offences 14 per cent.
      The police also classified the victims of the racial incidents, revealing that 46 per cent. were Asian, 22 per cent. black, 18 per cent. white Europeans and 4 per cent.
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      dark-skinned Europeans. Other victims formed the remaining 10 per cent. Six per cent. of all the incidents were recorded as being anti-semitic. Those figures, however, give no evidence of the seriousness of the offences committed. Some of the smaller groups have suffered some of the more horrific offences, particularly the anti-semitic ones.
      For some time, the Commission for Racial Equality has argued in favour of a specific offence of racial violence. The law does not recognise any such category of offence; as a result, the police have not routinely counted the attacks and are not required to investigate racial motivation.
      The proposed new clause that stands in my name would have the benefit of effecting a change in the attitudes of the police and the prosecuting authorities, and this would assist greatly towards eliminating a scandalous development in our civil society. In the past the police have been criticised for ignoring or condoning racism. I do not believe that our police forces are generally guilty of these faults. It is extremely encouraging that, in his very first speech following his appointment, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, Paul Condon, attacked racism in the police force. There are many ways in which, following the Scarman inquiry, community policing initiatives have helped to stamp out this behaviour. Alas, it appears that amendment of the criminal law is necessary if the attack is to be made more effective.
      11.30 pm
      The proposed new offence of racial aggravation would enable a court to convict where there was evidence of an offence of violence and proof of racial motivation. The court could take that into consideration and impose a more severe sentence accordingly. Proof of racial motivation would not be a necessary ingredient for conviction, but if there were such proof it would allow a condign punishment to be inflicted. I regard this as the most likely means of effecting the change that the Commission for Racial Equality advocates.
      Equally, the creation of a new offence of racial violence could bring the law into disrepute as it would be difficult to prove motivation and difficult to obtain conviction. Consequently, to the horror of racial attacks would be added the frustration of failure to secure conviction.
      Mr. Hugh Dykes: In a sense, there is a coming together of all parts of the House in the presentation of these new clauses. I have the honour—and I welcome the opportunity—to deal with the cluster at the tail end of the group. As hon. Members will no doubt soon begin to gather at the Bar of the House in anticipation of a Division, it behoves me to be reasonably brief.
      Some of my hon. Friends may not necessarily agree with all points. in the arguments in favour of the Opposition's new clauses. Some of these are complicated points of law, which Members who are not lawyers may find slightly more difficult to handle. We have to face the very great problem of an adequate definitional basis for singling out racially motivated attacks on persons and the great complexity of making definitions stick in law. That is an obvious difficulty with which lawyers on both sides of the arguments will have to grapple, often at great length.
      None the less, I believe that it is the will of the House that something more must be done. Thus, I listened with great interest to the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan), as

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      he enunciated his reasons for proposing new clause 50–on his own to start with, but then accompanied by one of his distinguished colleagues.
      New clauses 88, 89 and 90 are technical, but they deal with the fundamental problem. They are, to some extent, similar to the Opposition's new clauses, although there are slight differences in wording. The principal element of new clause 88 is that the Attorney-General requirement would be replaced with a Director of Public Prosecutions requirement. Good legal opinion suggests that that would be a considerable improvement.
      New clause 89 relates, at least a little, to the first part of Labour's new clause 13, and new clause 90 relates to the second part of that provision. I believe that the latter is the most important amendment in the group.
      Although they have not been selected by the Chair—I make no complaint about that—new clauses 86 and 87 were part of the grouping in logical terms because they provided definitions—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If they were not selected, the hon. Gentleman cannot debate them.
      Mr. Dykes: I was referring to them tangentially., but I accept your criticism, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and withdraw my comments immediately.
      Part of the reason for tabling the new clauses was that some hon. Members of all parties are disappointed that the legislation proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mr. Booth) has not yet progressed as far as we had hoped that it would. We live in an increasingly multi-ethnic community, but there is a growing problem in my constituency, in northwest and north London and in Greater London as a whole, and there is a particular problem south of the river.
      The Government would be wise to consider new legislation now to intensify the definitions of racially motivated attacks. Every day, the newspapers are full of dreadful stories of people who are attacked because of their racial origin or the colour of their skin and for no other reason.
      We already have a good basis for new legislation. Existing legislation has been strongly supported by successive Conservative Administrations. Now is the time to go further. Of course, lawyers can always argue about the specific wording of technical clauses. The new clauses are technical, but they are human and moral, too. It behoves us all to accept the new clauses and I support them with great pleasure, hoping that the Minister will respond positively. If he wishes to delay matters by saying that the Government need more tune to consider the new clauses, the House might accept that, but I would not do so with too much ease because the problem is now urgent.
      Although this point is on a wholly different level of human behaviour, I share the anxiety felt by many hon. Members about the fact that many young members of the Metropolitan police are still harassing or stopping too many black youths—who are usually driving cars—for no other reason than the colour of their skin. That has been admitted repeatedly by senior police officers at Scotland Yard. Although the matter is not dealt with in the wording or intent of the new clauses, I mention it deliberately at the end of my remarks in the hope that it will also be considered by the Minister of State.
      Mr. Harry Cohen: I support the new clause. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford
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      (Ms Ruddock) said, we need a new law to deal with racial attacks. Such attacks are vile criminal acts which make people's lives a misery. The victims' lives are blighted by fear for themselves and their children.
      As my hon. Friend said, there has been a steep rise in the number of racial attacks. In 1988, 4,407 racial attacks were reported. By 1993, the figure had risen to 8,779, an increase of 100 per cent. in five years. Forty per cent. occurred in London. It has been estimated that the figure represents an under-reporting of the true figure, because only one in 20 of such attacks are reported to the police. The Minister told the Select Committee on Home Affairs that there were probably 130,000 to 140,000 racial incidents a year, and there is good reason to believe that that is also an underestimate. As my hon. Friend said, there have been about 14 despicable racially motivated murders in the past two years.
      Why are so few racial attacks reported? There is such a great deal of under-reporting because, at one level, there is no confidence in the police. There is a perception that they will not take complaints seriously, and there have been examples of the police blaming the victim. On top of that, the victims know that there is no specific law making racial attacks an offence, so they do not believe it is worth their while reporting incidents to the police.
      In 1985, I introduced the Racial Harassment Bill under the ten-minute rule. It was the first Bill presented to Parliament to make racial attack a criminal offence. It dealt mainly with housing, but it had three aspects. First, it provided that the perpetrators of racial harassment should be evicted from their homes, instead of the victims having to flee for their safety. Secondly, it provided that racial harassment should be a specific offence, as suggested in the new clause. Thirdly, it would have imposed a duty on the police to investigate and report in every such case. The Bill also provided a schedule of offences that would be legally punishable, including graffiti, racist verbal abuse, and so on.
      Since I introduced that Bill, there have been some successes. For example, the definition of what the police record as a complaint of a racial offence has changed and some local authorities have taken up the matter with their own hotlines and have improved their guidelines in their departments to take action against racism when they have come across it.
      Of course, the biggest success is that Front-Bench Members of the Labour party have accepted that they would make racial attacks a criminal offence. Indeed, that has been accepted by many Conservatives Members, including the hon. Members for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) and for Finchley (Mr. Booth). There is overwhelming public opinion in favour of the introduction of a law along the lines of the new clause moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Deptford.
      Despite all the support, this Bill represents the 27 measures cited by the Home Secretary at the Conservative party conference. It includes, for example, action against anti-hunt demonstrators, but it does not take action against racist criminals. That is an insult to the black and Asian communities and to all decently minded, anti-racist people in the country.
      When the Home Secretary went on a tour of the east end, he said:
      "Good relations is not just legislation; but advice, information, help and education—measures that create mutual understanding".

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      He does not talk about advice, information, help and education when it comes to tackling other crime. Let us deal with punishing the offenders in racial circumstances. As for mutual understanding, the Prime Minister said that we should have a little less understanding and a bit more punishment. Why does not that apply to racists? Why do the Government turn that on its head whenever we talk about racial offences?
      When the hon. Member for Finchley introduced his Bill recently and it was talked out by some Conservative Members, the Minister of State, Home Office said that the Government could not legislate until there had been a serious and thorough investigation by a Select Committee. Select Committees have reported and said that there should be an offence of racial harassment. It is nine years since my Bill came before the House—nine years of increasing racial attacks and of murders. Surely that is a serious and thorough enough investigation. The Government have adopted a complacent attitude. They have not shown any moral lead to combat racism. New law is needed. There was a survey of youths in Leeds who were committing racial offences. They knew that it was not a crime when they were confronted. It needs to be made a crime. There needs to be pressure on the police to enforce action against racists, since some forces would still be reluctant to do so unless there is a law for them to implement. The state, especially, must make its anti-racist position absolutely clear in the law.
      One other reason for such a law is the rise of the British National party. It is a most dangerous organisation, not only to black and Asian communities, but to the whole community. It is a threat to democracy and I would not be opposed to banning it. Neo-Nazi organisations have been banned in Germany, for example. If the Government say that there would be civil liberties problems in banning the BNP, they need to make its activities illegal and make the racist attacks that it carries out illegal. That is why a new law is so important.
      Racism is a scapegoat creed. Its real sources are unemployment, bad housing, poverty and hardship, which stem from the economic failures of the Government and of capitalism. Law will not solve that problem, but it will go a long way at least in showing that the state is seriously against the racist outcome of those problems.
      Wherever racism rears its ugly head, there is death. Whether the Ku Klux Klan, the apartheid regime, racial attacks in this country or the holocaust of Nazi Germany, racism equals death. It is in multicultural, multiracial societies where people live together that one has harmony; those societies equal life.
      We need a law; we need the state to come out firmly to say that racism will not be tolerated. That is what the big march the other week by the Trades Union Congress was about. Tens of thousands of people came on to the streets demanding action against racism. The new clause goes in that direction.
      11.45 pm
      Mr. John Marshall: At this time of the evening, hon. Members should remember that speeches do not need to be interminable to be immortal. I shall therefore make a relatively short speech. Virtually everyone in this country and everyone in the House abhors
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      racism, which is against all the traditions of tolerance and liberalism in this country. However, there are a small number of evil men who are determined to harass individuals because of their race, their religion or their colour. That is against all the traditions of this country and against what the House stands for.
      In my constituency, I have seen some of the evils of racism and anti-semitism. Hate mail and holocaust denial are all too common. The hate mail that I have seen—some of which I have received—is sheer, unadulterated filth. Many of my constituents fled from the horrors of Nazism in the 1930s and they find a chilling echo of 1930s German in some of the mail that they receive today. They served this country well in war and they have a right to spend the evening of their lives in peace.
      One of the other obscenities that we have seen is the daubing of cemeteries with Nazi propaganda. Surely at the very least people should be allowed to rest in peace when they have died. It is one of the tragedies of life in this country that if one visits a synagogue or a Jewish school one can guarantee that there will be security men on guard. It is surely wrong that a place of religion or a place of education should need a security officer because the worshippers and the children want to feel secure.
      There are weaknesses in the law. There is sometimes a failure to prosecute. I have seen leaflets that have been circulated in London university which are certainly an incitement to death, but nothing has been done to prosecute those who produce the leaflets.
      There are other weaknesses in the law to which I hope that our right hon. Friend the Minister will address himself. I refer, for example, to the power of constables to arrest. If a constable is on duty at Hyde Park corner and hears a racist speech, he can arrest the law-breaker there and then. My hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, North (Mr. Heald) and I have some experience of Hyde Park corner as we used to speak there many years ago, in the dark days of the last Labour Government, but we never got arrested because we were not racist.
      If constables see someone distributing racist literature through letter boxes in Tower Hamlets or elsewhere, they do not have the power to arrest them there and then. I should like my right hon. Friend the Minister to look at the power of constables to carry out arrests to try to curb racial hatred and racism. I hope that he will give an assurance to the House this evening that he will look at the problem. I should also like him to give an assurance that when the Bill goes to the House of Lords he will consider the possibility of amendments being tabled. By then, he will have had the benefit of the report of the Select Committee on Home Affairs.
      Mr. Bill Walker: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that in Scotland there is anti-English literature being distributed? That, too, must be properly dealt with.
      Mr. Marshall: I have great sympathy with the point made by my hon. Friend. When I went to Scotland at the age of six I remember being told in the playground of the Harris academy in Dundee that I was a foreigner. The situation was aggravated when my mother told me to tell the others that we ruled them from Westminster. That did not go down well then, and I do not think that such comments go down terribly well in Scotland today. There is no doubt that what my hon. Friend has said is right.
      There is an evil and a cancer afflicting our society.
      Mrs. Barbara Roche: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I have been following his remarks closely. He seems to be arguing—and I agree—that there should be changes in legislation. Will he dissociate himself from the words of the Prime Minister, who said in the House some days ago that there was no need for any change in the law?
      Mr. Marshall: I must apologise to the House for the fact that my good nature has prolonged my speech in that I have given way twice. I thought that I made it quite clear to the House that I thought that my right hon. Friend the Minister should look at the power of arrest by constables, which obviously involves a change in the law. I asked him to consider making arrangements for an amendment to be tabled in the other place once he had received the report of the Select Committee, as he will have done by the time the Bill passes to the other place. I hope that my right hon. Friend will give us an assurance on that matter this evening.
      Mr. Winnick: It will be most welcome if the Minister of State, when he responds, says that the Government are sympathetic to new clause 13, but bearing in mind the unfortunate remarks that he made when the Bill of the hon. Member for Finchley (Mr. Booth) was being debated we have little hope that the Government will support the new clause.
      The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Peter Lloyd): I had a great deal of sympathy with the objectives of that Bill, but not with the way it sought to achieve them.
      Mr. Winnick: That is the very point that we are trying to establish today. It is not enough simply to deplore—as we all do—the racial attacks on and harassment of people because of their colour, religion or racial origin. The question is what the House is going to do about it. What laws can we enact to help victims of racism?
      The amount of racial violence is disturbing. The official figures from the Home Office refer to nearly 8,000 racial attacks in a given year. I believe that the true figures on racial violence are much higher. The Minister of State, in an intervention in a previous debate—indeed, in the evidence that he gave to the Select Committee on Home Affairs—accepted that figures on racial harassment, as opposed to violence, are very high. The Minister corrected me by saying that he wanted to make it clear that the figure that he gave to the Select Committee on Home Affairs referred to racial harassment. Leaving aside the amount of racial violence, the Government, through the Minister of State, accept the amount of harassment that occurs simply because of the victim's colour of skin or racial origin.
      As my hon. Friends have said, there is little doubt that racial gangs are operating. They are not exclusively responsible for the sort of violence that we have seen in recent months in the United Kingdom, particularly in the east end of London. No one suggests that the fascist gangs are exclusively responsible, but they are behind many of the attacks. I find it inconceivable that we already have laws on the statute book against incitement to racial hatred—those laws are not in dispute and, as I understand it, no one wants to repeal them—yet at the same time organisations exist which are designed purely to stir up as much racial propaganda and agitation as possible and to
      766
      cause attacks on people. That is the only reason why gangs such as the National Front and the British National party exist. By acting as they do, they break the present law.
      As well as passing new laws, it is important that existing laws are properly implemented. Much more could be done by the police to ensure that some of the racial attacks do not occur. When they do occur, the police should ensure that the offenders are brought to court.
      Mr. David Sumberg: I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman that the law should be much more strongly enforced, but my difficulty with the new clause—I entirely support the motivation behind it—is that the level of proof required to get home in court will be much higher. One will have to prove harassment and that it has a racial motive. I fear that many guilty men and women will go free if the clause is included in the Bill and it is bad law for a case to be brought, only to fail.
      Mr. Winnick: I understand some of the hon. Gentleman's arguments, but the offence will be in addition to existing laws on violence. No one is suggesting that it is the only way in which the alleged offender can be brought to court—it is an additional way.
      One of the purposes of new clause 13 is to demonstrate society's abhorrence of such attacks. In effect, the new offence would show that they are totally unacceptable and that it is unacceptable for violence to be caused to a victim simply because of colour or race. It would be an additional factor to be taken into account when sentencing and not the only evidence that came to court.
      Mrs. Roche: Further to that argument, is it correct that in such cases one would charge offenders with the new offence of racial harassment or violence and also—if an assault had taken place—with actual or grievous bodily harm? If one could not get home on one element of the new offence, one would be able to fall back on existing law.
      Mr. Winnick: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. All forms of violence and criminality are strongly to be deplored. As we know, there is too much violence and crime in Britain today.
      As I said in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms Ruddock), I am reminded of the debates within and outside the House about how we should deal with racial discrimination. At that time, most Conservative politicians and the Conservative Government argued strongly that however wrong such discrimination was—they did not deny that it was taking place—legislation was not the right way to deal with it.
      Time and again, Fenner Brockway moved ten-minute Bills in the early 1960s, arguing strongly that it was essential to introduce laws to deal effectively with racial discrimination. He turned out to be right. Employers who said that they had no objections, but that their customers would object if they employed people who did not have white skin, were not going to change their ways until the law made it impossible for them to continue to discriminate. Now, no one is surprised that banks and other institutions employ people who do not have white skin. If people objected in a bank and said that they did not want to be served by a cashier because he or she happened to black, they would clearly need psychiatric help. No one objects.

      767
      It has been clearly demonstrated that, however much discrimination still exists, legislation was necessary. The same applies today. Just as it was right to legislate then, it is right to do so today, when we are faced with the amount of racial violence and the number of attacks on people in parts of London only two, three and four miles from here. People are literally terrified of going out late in the evening. They are terrified when their children go to school. Why? It is simply because in the main they are of Asian origin and the bullies pick on the women and children. They are the defenceless victims of racism in many parts of the country and in the east end of London.
      We must not merely deplore racism. Government action is necessary in this Parliament to ensure that the victims of racism get the protection that only Parliament can give. The Government must act, and act quickly.
      Mr. Neil Gerrard: A number of hon. Members have already referred to the growing evidence of racial attacks and harassment, so I do not propose to repeat it.
      Many of us know from our constituents about the impact of racism on their daily lives. From representations that we have received from individuals and from black, Asian and Jewish organisations, we know that the law needs to be strengthened. Harassment penetrates every aspect of victims' lives. It is not an isolated incident, but something that occurs every day. In many cases it goes on for years and years.
      As my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) said, people feel threatened and unsafe in situations in which most of us would not feel the slightest threat—in their own homes, at school and in places of worship. The current law is often ineffectual when dealing with those fears.
      12 midnight
      Those people are looking for some action. We may be told that more time is needed to conduct more inquiries and reports before anything can be done, but racial harassment is not new. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) has said, Bills were proposed years ago to draw attention to the problem. Although the Government may have time to wait for the outcome of reports and inquiries, the people in our constituencies who are suffering harassment every day do not. They want to know why the Bill contains nothing to deal with the problem and why it is necessary to debate a new clause to deal with it at this stage in the Bill's proceedings.
      For many years those people have had to seal up their letter boxes to stop petrol being poured through and their homes set on fire. They have had to deal with graffiti on their houses, abuse in the street and physical attacks. A great deal of such harassment goes unreported because people feel that nothing will be done, that the law is ineffective and will not be brought into play.
      Ms Mildred Gordon: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not only a question of physical damage, the fire bombing of houses, the fear felt by children on the way to school, attacks in the street which, if nothing is done about them, will eventually lead to someone being killed, or the fact that woman are afraid to go out at night and that whole parts of the east end which used to be lively are now dead after 9 pm?
      We must also consider the emotional damage that race hate inflicts on young children. A little boy of five with a bandage around his knee told me that he was bitten by a dog because dogs do not like black people. That is terribly sad, because children's self-image and their confidence is being destroyed by race hate. Is it not time that the Government—some of whose members have sent out racist signals on a number of occasions—sent out an anti-racist signal by doing something about the law?
      Mr. Gerrard: I agree absolutely. Sometimes it is easy to look at the extremes of violence and say that we must deal with the murders and arson, and ignore what may be regarded as the more trivial offences of abuse and graffiti. We may ignore the cumulative effect of such behaviour.
      From time to time, we have all been insulted, but most of us do not have to deal with insults, abuse or personally directed graffiti every day. My hon. Friend the Member for Bow and Poplar (Ms Gordon) has drawn attention to the serious psychological damage that that causes. That damage reveals the need for subsection (2) of the new clause, which makes certain acts racial harassment offences.
      At the moment, victims of harassment do not trust the authorities—including the police, councils, voluntary organisations or schools—to take action. The feeling is that no one will help. Although many local authorities have improved their anti-racist policies and the police have improved their methods of dealing with racial crime, people's perception is still that no one will help them. For that reason, it is vital that the law should be changed. That would send out a message about public policy and make it easier to deal with the perpetrators of racial harassment.
      There is no reason for complacency or for saying that we can wait and that there is time for study. It is time for action. I do not hold out much hope after what the Minister said earlier, but I should have thought that we might have a positive response tonight because people in our constituencies cannot continue to wait.
      Debate adjourned.—[Mr. Arbuthnot]
      Debate to be resumed this day.

      NORTHERN IRELAND AFFAIRS
      Motion made, and Question proposed,
      That Mr. James Cran, Mr. Charles Hendry, Mr. Andrew Hunter, Sir James Kilfedder, Mr. Eddie McGrady, Mr. Ken Maginnis, Mr. Jim Marshall, Mr. Peter Robinson, Mr. Clive Soley, Mr. Richard Spring, Mr. John D. Taylor, Mr. David Wilshire and Mr. Mark Wolfson be members of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee.—[Sir Fergus Montgomery. on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]
      Hon. Members: Object.

Stephen Dunne
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Arbuthnot.]
12.4 am
Mr. David Martin: My luck in the ballot has enabled me to raise a matter of grave concern to individual constituents in Portsmouth which also has national relevance.
The issue of child protection and child abuse is deeply emotive. Having children myself, and with active family involvement for many years supporting the fine work of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, I am well aware how easy it is to be misunderstood or misrepresented if one even questions, let alone criticises, fashionable theories and practice based mainly, these days, on the Children Act 1989 and the guidelines produced by the relevant Government departments since.
In the past 20 years, in the paramount interests of the child's welfare, we have given draconian powers to the state to interfere in everyone's home and family, principally through the agents of doctors, police, social workers, probation officers and employees of the NSPCC. We have given powers which require careful training, maturity, sound judgment, restraint and, above all, considerable common sense on the part of all those people to whom they are entrusted on our behalf.
If not so exercised, those powers can do immense damage and grave injustice to innocent parents and other adults, including teachers, who have the misfortune to have the finger merely of suspicion pointed at them, and who find themselves effectively having to prove their innocence of assumed guilt rather than the other way around.
The facts of the case affecting my constituents, the Dunne family, are chilling. Mr. and Mrs. Dunne are responsible, decent people, happily married, with unblemished characters and no history of child abuse. 'They live in their own home in Southsea, in good financial circumstances, and have close family living nearby. 'They have two sons—Andrew, aged three and a half, and Stephen, aged six months.
On 25 February, at 6.15 pm, Mrs. Dunne was bathing the then five-month-old Stephen when she felt a swelling on the right side of his head. She was very worried. There was no sign of bruising, and the swelling felt like fluid. Her husband returned home at 6.45 pm, and they immediately decided to go to the paediatric unit at St. Mary's hospital for casualty attention. They arrived at 7 o' clock and were registered at half-past 7. Stephen had not been seen by 10 pm. He was tired—they were sitting in a corridor—so Mrs. Dunne returned home with the child, the nurse suggesting a visit to their doctor the next morning.
They rang at half-past 8 the next morning, and saw Dr. Robinson at 9.45 am. She referred them immediately to St. Mary's again, writing a letter and telephoning to warn of arrival. By 11 am Stephen had not been examined. Mrs. Dunne suggested coming back when they were less busy, and the nurse said that she would telephone. They were telephoned at 3.45 pm and Stephen was at lest seen at 4 pm, almost 24 hours after the injury had been noticed.
He had shown absolutely no signs of distress, vomiting, nausea or of being off his food, as one might expect with a significant head injury. Two doctors in succession examined him and asked whether he had had a fall or a knock. Mrs. Dunne simply did not know what had caused
770
it, and said so. It was a pure isolated home accident, the type that any experienced parents, even of a superhuman type, regrettably find themselves unable to explain. At 6 o'clock, he was given two head X-rays and admitted overnight. Mrs. Dunne stayed on the ward with him, but had little sleep as Stephen was woken every hour.
The next morning, Mrs. Dunne's sister came to visit with Mr. Dunne. Others were on the ward. At about 10.30 am, Dr. Martin Hardman, a consultant paediatrician, arrived. Unlike the two doctors the previous day, his manner was unfriendly and intimidating. He examined Stephen all over, making it clear that he was looking for signs of injury. He found nothing whatever. He asked repeatedly how the swelling occurred. To the Dunnes' disbelief and horror, he then said offensively, "It's obvious, isn't it?", plainly implying that they had inflicted the injury themselves.
The Dunnes became even more upset. Finally, Dr. Hardman suggested that they go into a private room. With breathtaking ignorance of all that had gone before, he then accused them of not seeking immediate medical attention. He claimed that Stephen had a fractured skull and that "someone must have done it". He said that Stephen must have several more X-rays and stay in hospital, not for medical reasons but to keep him in a safe place.
Mr. Dunne insisted that they return home, and they did so, with Dr. Hardman warning him that it would not look good to social services. The next day, Stephen had eight X-rays of his body. Naturally, no injuries were revealed. His head was further X-rayed. The Dunnes returned home.
That evening, the nightmare worsened, when two police officers and a social worker arrived. They wanted Mr. Dunne to go to the police station for an interview, but he objected strongly and telephoned his parents, who arrived shortly afterwards. Eventually, Mr. and Mrs. Dunne were interviewed in separate rooms at home. One can imagine the emotional turmoil.
The following day, Mrs. Dunne experienced traumatic depression. She felt that she could not be alone with her children, as she was terrified that they may have an accident. She rang the social worker, who came to try to put her mind at rest. On 8 March, a child protection conference was held. Incredibly, it was decided to place Stephen on the child protection register, and to review the case after a month.
The Dunnes are in the grip of the system. There is no apparent escape from it, or from the record. They have appealed to the hospital and to Hampshire social services, the result of which, without my raising the matter as soon as possible in the House, is likely to be explanations and apologies from the hospital for the delays before Stephen was finally seen, but no retreat or effective action with respect to their treatment at the hands of Dr. Hardman. The social services will, understandably, probably reiterate that it is their duty to investigate such matters, and that they merely played it according to the law and the guidelines, once Dr. Hardman had alerted them.
There should be a rigorous independent case conference about the following. First, why did the hospital take from 7 pm on Friday 25 February until 4 pm on Saturday 26 February before examining a five-month-old baby, despite an injury later described as a fractured skull—of which, incidentally, the parents would like proof—and given that it is common knowledge that the first 24 hours are the most critical in such cases?

771
Secondly, why was Dr. Hardman plainly ill informed about such details? Flouting all guidelines, he turned to the parents in a public place and, without demonstrating an open mind, made a profoundly shocking allegation.
Thirdly, what inquiries had Dr. Hardman made of Mr. and Mrs. Dunne's GP about family history and the likelihood of child abuse in respect of their children before activating all the panoply of the child abuse system?
Fourthly, what official independent procedure can investigate Dr. Hardman's diagnosis and actions—apart from my raising what is admittedly one side of the matter in the House as a matter of urgency—and appropriate action consequential on that?
Fifthly, why could not Hampshire social services, in such a case and with such a family, at least try to arrange a low-key, preliminary visit by an experienced social worker, instead of the immediate and traumatic arrival of a social worker accompanied by two police officers whose duty was to take statements and, apparently, take the father off to the police station?
Finally, will my hon. Friend the Minister consider further general considerations that arise from this case?
The NSPCC recently set up an inquiry into why, when there has rightly been such concentration in recent years on laws and procedures to investigate child abuse, the incidence of such deaths does not diminish. There must be more concentration on prevention. If parents are treated thus, as the Dunnes were, despite their family history and record, when they jointly attend casualty with their child, should not the obvious lesson to every other parent—a lesson potentially most harmful to children—be that, if they go to casualty with an injured child, they will be dubbed a suspected child abuser, with all that that entails?
I shudder to think what would have been activated if the unexplained and unexpected cot death of my wife's and my second child, at the age of five months in 1980, had received this sort of investigative attention—not to mention the broken arm of our four-year-old boy some years ago as a result of a home accident. We are all extremely vulnerable as parents, especially those of us who believe in the right of parents to smack young children as part of sensible discipline.
Of course the investigators can—and no doubt do—always argue that they have a duty to act. Of course it can be explained that child protection conferences are not tribunals to decide whether abuse has taken place; that the placing of a child on the protection register does not imply that the parents are guilty of abusing their child. Tell that to Mr. and Mrs. Dunne, or to their family, or to others who get to hear it; tell it to the marines.
According to paragraph 6.39 of the authoritative guidelines in "Working Together", for a child to be placed on the register either there must be an identifiable incident and professional judgment that further incidents are likely, or significant harm is expected on the basis of professional judgment of findings of the investigation, or on research evidence.
These are the criteria on which the conclusion in Stephen's case was based. Perhaps my hon. Friend can ask to see the evidence that could have led to that conclusion—particularly the essential finding that further incidents are likely or to be expected. That finding is deeply
772
offensive to responsible parents, incorporating as it must complete rejection of the idea of an isolated, one-off home accident.
It may also be relevant to ask how older brother Andrew, three and a half years old, has safely reached such an age without being protected from his parents by a paediatrician, the social services and the police.
While doing all we can to root out the evils of genuine incidents of child abuse which turn our stomachs, let us keep a sense of proportion, and, above all, common sense. Only a tiny minority of parents are child abusers, under any reasonable definition of the term. Mr. and Mrs. Dunne have certainly never been in that category, and everything should now be done to see that their faith in the justness of the system is restored, including the immediate removal of Stephen from the child protection register.
I ask my hon. Friend to do what he can to put things right, not only for the sake of this family but for others who may experience similar treatment, which so distorts and misdirects where the real effort is required: in the constant and necessary battle against the horrors of child abuse.
12.17 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. John Bowis): My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Martin) has had the good fortune in the ballot which has enabled him to raise this constituency case. He has set it in the context of his personal and family experience. I fully understand my hon. Friend's concerns for his constituents, especially in the light of his account of the unfortunate and worrying chain of events preceding the child protection investigation.
My hon. Friend asked some important questions about the handling of the case and the possible redress available to the Dunnes—questions similar to the inquiries that I requested be made when I heard of his concerns.
I propose to consider first the problems that Mr. and Mrs. Dunne encountered at St. Mary's hospital, since they seem to be at the core of the case, before I move on to the child protection issue that my hon. Friend has raised.
I understand that there may be some disagreement between Stephen's parents and the hospital about the precise sequence of events, starting with their attendance at ward C2 on 25 February. The hospital's account is that they presented themselves at the medical admissions ward at 7.35 pm on Friday 25 February because Stephen had a lump on the right side of his head.
When a nurse booked them in, she is said to have explained to them that they would have a long wait because the paediatric unit was extremely busy at the time. The consultant paediatrician was on the ward between 9 pm and midnight, treating a sick baby. There is a hospital document which states that, at 10 pm, the parents did
"not wish to wait longer to see doctor"
and they then took Stephen home.
The following day, they saw their GP, who referred Stephen as an in-patient back to St. Mary's hospital. They then presented themselves again at the hospital, and Stephen was admitted at about 4.30 pm.
However, while there may be some dispute about the sequence of events, what is not in dispute is that Stephen was not seen by a doctor on the evening of 25 February. This raises very serious issues about the reception of patients on ward C2 at St. Mary's hospital. The local arrangement at St. Mary's hospital in Portsmouth is for children who need urgent attention to be directed straight

773
to a children's ward. That should not mean that the standards of care are lower. We would still expect suitably experienced staff to be available to assess all children immediately they arrive.
Once a child's condition has been assessed, the child may have to wait for treatment—if other children have greater clinical needs. But we have made it clear in our guidance entitled "Welfare of Children and Young People in Hospital" that every hospital should have effective procedures to prioritise waiting children, and ensure they are seen promptly.
Hospital staff cannot prevent parents from taking their children home if that is what the parents have decided. But no child should under any circumstances be sent home or formally discharged by hospital staff unless the child has first been given an opportunity to be seen by a doctor.
Mr. and Mrs. Dunne understandably, and rightly, made use of their entitlement under the patients charter to complain through the hospital complaints procedures about the service they had received. Current procedures provide for a full investigation into complaints and for a prompt written response to be made. I have seen the response of the chief executive, which acknowledges the failure of the hospital staff to respond promptly and correctly in the first instance, and offers apologies for that failure.
The matter was also discussed at a meeting of the hospital clinical standards board on 24 March, and the chief executive has now written to Mr. and Mrs. Dunne to inform them that the board shared his concern over the admitted failures of 25 February. I understand that the board chairman and medical director of the trust are to hold urgent discussions to determine and agree the steps to be taken to ensure that such a distressing incident is not repeated.
If Mr. and Mrs. Dunne are dissatisfied with the process of the handling of their complaint, they may complain to the health service ombudstnan. However, he is unable to investigate that part of the case which is about clinical judgment, as it falls outside his jurisdiction.
If part of a complaint involves clinical judgment, the matter can be referred to the regional director of public health, for him or her to decide whether an independent professional review by two consultants not involved in the case should be carried out. None of these avenues, of course, precludes Mr. and Mrs. Dunn taking action through the courts if they so wish.
I will be asking the chief executive for an assurance that any necessary action has been taken in response to the issues that have been raised by the failures acknowledged by the chief executive and the board. I shall also be asking the chief executive to satisfy himself and me that all relevant staff at the hospital are fully trained in child protection procedures.
That brings me to the next aspect of this case and the further question raised by my hon. Friend—the child protection investigation.
The issue of alleged or suspected child abuse is one of extraordinary sensitivity. It trails with it a heavy cloud of suspicion. It can create mistrust and division among the closest of families, and it creates the paradox that, at the very time when parents and families most need support and reassurance, when a child whom they love is in pain, officialdom arrives with questions to be answered.
Often in such cases, of course, there are no easy answers. That is why I understand the anguished feelings
774
of Mr. and Mrs. Dunne. Like all families in such a situation, they must not be labelled guilty, but presumed innocent until and unless guilt is proven and, accordingly, treated with respect, sensitivity and courtesy. Anything else is intolerable, inhumane and in contravention of the basic principles of British justice.
My hon. Friend referred to the Government's inter-agency guidance on child protection, "Working Together under the Children Act 1989". Set firmly within the context of that Act, it strikes the right balance between promoting decisive action where that is necessary to protect children from abuse, and reinforcing the need for all professionals to acknowledge the rights and responsibilities of parents and to approach each case with an open mind.
At an operational level, Government guidance should be promoted through the local inter-agency procedures drawn up under the auspices of the area child protection committee. Hampshire published revised child protection procedures in January 1993. I understand that Mr. and Mrs. Dunne have a particular concern about a reference in the procedures that states, at paragraph 3.3(iii):
"Where health staff have information or concern regarding the welfare of a child they will notify the Social Services Department promptly. In child protection cases, the degree of confidentiality will be governed by the paramount need to protect the child".
I further understand that Mr. and Mrs. Dunne met representatives of the social services department on 21 March to outline their particular concerns, and that they have been invited to take the matter up with Hampshire, once the present issue has been resolved, if they want to further the discussion about improvement in practice involving abuse procedures.
Following one issue that has arisen in this case, Hampshire social services will be consulting Victim Support about its role in helping families in child protection situations, to ascertain whether there are lessons to be learned on a broader scale.
As for the police involvement and action, my hon. Friend will understand that I cannot comment, but Mr. and Mrs. Dunne may want to make use of the normal channel for complaints concerning the police, which is the Police Complaints Authority.
My hon. Friend asked for the removal of Stephen's name from the child protection register. That is a local decision taken in accordance with guidance under the Children Act 1989, and one in which I cannot intervene. I know that, in line with our guidance, Stephen's parents, and another family member—Mrs. Dunne's sister—attended the whole of the initial conference called by Hampshire on 8 March to discuss Stephen's case. Before that conference, Mr. and Mrs. Dunne were given a leaflet of explanation about child protection conferences, together with a copy of the factual report of events.
Mr. and Mrs. Dunne have also been invited to attend the review conference planned for 5 April. I hope that they feel able to work in partnership with the social services and the other agencies involved in the case.
I understand my hon. Friend's concern—indeed, his scepticism—about the view stated in our guidance, that placement on the register does not imply any guilt. I re-emphasise the important point that the purpose of the child protection conference is simply to decide whether or not to place the child's name on the child protection

775
register. If the decision is made to do so, the conference will draw up a multi-agency, multi-disciplinary plan for the child's protection.
As our guidance makes clear, the conference is emphatically not a forum for a formal decision that a person has abused a child—that is for the courts. Likewise, placement of a child's name on the child protection register does not mean that the child has been abused. It is a record of children for whom there are unresolved concerns and for whom there is a co-operative protection plan of the kind that I described.
Parental involvement is central to the principles of the Children Act 1989. Before that legislation, we had seen media interviews with some of the parents involved in high-profile child abuse cases in which they had been denied information by authorities, were at best confused, and at worst saw the professionals involved as active enemies. We wanted parents to be involved at all stages of an investigation or intervention, to be informed about the basis for it, and to be consulted at all stages subsequently.
We have made considerable efforts to promote family involvement through the development of training materials financed by our child abuse training initiative, and through a practice guide on "The Challenge of Partnership", which is in preparation. Among materials funded through the training initiative was the development and production of a training package on "Family Participation in Child Protection".
We have also helped to finance a new edition of a joint Family Rights Group and National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children publication, "Child Protection Procedures: What They Mean For Your Family". It has been translated into several languages and is very helpful to parents and family members, in particular in understanding the procedures surrounding child protection conferences and in avoiding jargon—a trap into which professionals too often fall, and one which can be a
776
real barrier to involvement at a time when all the individuals in the family may be feeling particularly isolated and vulnerable. We are funding a training video on parental perceptions of significant harm and child protection investigations, which is aimed to be accessible to both social services professionals and to parents.
I conclude by agreeing wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend that we must keep a sense of proportion, while doing all that we can to root out incidents of child abuse. This is why "Working Together" aims to create the conditions in which agencies act swiftly and decisively when immediate protection of the child is the highest priority. We cannot afford to lose sight of the fact that, in the most extreme circumstances, we are preventing a threat to a child's life.
We are all too well aware of cases in which social services, and other agencies, have been rightly criticised for inaction or inappropriate action. Recent well-publicised cases in Islington and Nottingham have demonstrated all too clearly that the child pays the penalty for the mistakes of the professionals. It is equally right that it is a fundamental principle of the Children Act 1989 that the safety of the child is the paramount consideration.
On the one hand, the debate is about the damage which can be felt by families who feel falsely accused of having abused their child. On the other hand, unexplained head injuries in a child of this age must always feature high on our list of priorities for consideration of investigation, to ensure that the child, whose welfare is of paramount importance, is not at risk of harm.
There are questions to be asked in this case. They are questions which I shall be asking of the hospital. Were the complaints and appeals procedures available to the family? I hope that the coming conference will resolve the difficulties faced by the family, and that Stephen will go on to flourish in a happy and supportive family atmosphere. That is what local and national policy must be all about.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes to One o'clock.

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

  Case Procedure Reform
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what steps the Lord Chancellor is taking to reform the procedures for handling cases in the High Court and the county courts.

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  The Lord Chancellor has asked Lord Woolf to examine the procedures used in the civil courts. Lord Woolf will aim to improve access to justice and reduce the cost of litigation. He will also seek to reduce complexity and modernise terminology.

  List of male and female staff, part-time and full-time in the Lord Chancellor's Department as at 24 March 1994

  Grade

  Male full-time

  Male part-time

  Female full-time

  Female part-time

  Grade 1

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Grade 2

  2

  0

  0

  0

  Grade 3

  8

  0

  1

  0

  Grade 4

  5

  0

  0

  0

  Grade 5

  16

  0

  3

  0

  Grade 5 sol

  11

  0

  1

  2

  Grade 6 senior principal

  28

  0

  8

  0

  Grade 6 legal

  23

  1

  7

  4

  DP registrar

  11

  0

  0

  0

  Senior legal assistant

  6

  0

  1

  1

  Grade 7 principal

  109

  0

  45

  2

  Grade 7 legal

  20

  0

  26

  6

  Legal assistant

  2

  0

  0

  0

  Legal officer

  0

  0

  2

  0

  SEO

  211

  3

  110

  3

  Total

  453

  4

  204

  18

  List of male and female staff, part-time and full-time in the Lord Chancellor's Department as at 24 March 1994

  Grade

  Male full-time

  Male part-time

  Female full-time

  Female part-time

  Senior assistant stats

  2

  0

  0

  0

  Senior information officer

  1

  0

  0

  0

  HEO

  506

  3

  508

  44

  Information officer

  1

  0

  1

  0

  Assistant stats

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Chief typing manager

  0

  0

  3

  0

  Librarian

  4

  0

  4

  0

  HEO D

  3

  0

  5

  0

  Admin trainee

  4

  0

  1

  0

  EO

  700

  7

  1,180

  162

  Assistant information officer

  0

  0

  1

  0

  Senior personal secretary

  0

  0

  15

  0

  Typing manager

  0

  0

  33

  0

  Assistant librarian

  0

  0

  8

  0

  Total

  1,222

  10

  1,759

  206

  482

  Legal Aid
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what assessment he has made of the desirability of availability of legal aid for disputes between groups of pensioners and their pension funds; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  The Government have no plans to make legal aid available for groups, but civil legal aid is available to individuals pursuing most types of action through the civil courts of England and Wales subject to tests as to their means and the merits of their case.

  Civil Servants
  Ms Armstrong
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will list for each civil service grade in his Department the number of(a) male and (b) female, (i) full-time and (ii) part-time employees.

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  Details of the number of staff in each civil service grade by(a) male and (b) female, and by (i) full-time and (ii) part-time employees are set out in the tables.
  483

  List of male and female staff, part-time and full-time in the Lord Chancellor's Department as at 24 March 1994

  Grade

  Male full-time

  Male part-time

  Female full-time

  Female part-time

  SM2

  5

  0

  0

  0

  SM3

  9

  0

  22

  0

  AO

  1,023

  19

  2,719

  667

  Personal secretary

  0

  0

  61

  8

  Interpreter

  0

  0

  2

  0

  AA

  180

  7

  363

  94

  SGB 1

  57

  0

  72

  18

  SGB2

  453

  123

  434

  415

  Typist

  1

  0

  437

  301

  Total

  1,728

  149

  4,110

  1,503

  Council Tax
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what guidelines he has issued in relation to the council tax liability for those domestic staff required to live in at judges' lodgings; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  Those staff required to live in at judges' lodgings are, as a condition of their employment, subject to a service licence and are required to pay rent. As resident licensees, they are consequently liable to pay the council tax, based on an assessment of the accommodation which they occupy. The staff concerned have been advised of the position.

NATIONAL HERITAGE

  Isle of Man
  Mr. Mackinlay
  To ask the Secretary of state for National Heritage when he last met the Minister of Tourism of the Isle of Man with a view to the co-promotion of the island's heritage, Celtic traditions and recreational facilities in north America and the Pacific rim.

  Mr. Sproat
  Neither I nor my right hon. Friend have met the Minister of Tourism of the Isle of Man to discuss the promotion of the island's attractions abroad. The British Tourist Authority has no obligation under the 1969 Development of Tourism Act to represent the Isle of Man. However, it does offer representational services and I understand that it is currently in discussion about new proposals to represent the Isle of Man in certain overseas markets.

  Quangos
  Mr. Knapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage if he will list the number of quangos for which he is responsible; how much in public funds has been given to each quango in each of the last three years; what is the current staffing establishment of each quango; and what it was five years ago.

  Mr. Sproat
  This information is available in "Public Bodies 1993" and earlier editions of the same publication. Copies of all editions are available in the Library of the House.
  484

  Rules and Regulations
  Mr. Knapman
  To ask the Secretary of state for National Heritage how many rules and regulations his Department has passed in each of the last three years.

  Mr. Sproat
  My Department was established in April 1992. Between then and the year end, it passed four regulations. In 1993, it passed 34 regulations and so far in 1994 it has passed six regulations.

  Sports Facilities
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what discussions he has had with the Central Council of Physical Recreation concerning the loss of sports facilities and planning legislation as it relates to sports sites.

  Mr. Brooke
  My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary had discussions with representatives of the Central Council of Physical Recreation, on 2 March, to discuss a number of sports issues, including briefly the national register of recreational land.

TRANSPORT

  Executive Agencies
  Mr. Dunn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what further progress he has made in transferring the executive functions of his Department to agency status; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. MacGregor
  I am establishing three further executive agencies in my Department with effect from 1 April: the Highways Agency, the Coastguard Agency and the Marine Safety Agency. I have set clear aims and objectives for each of the agencies and I am placing clear responsibility for the management of the agencies on their chief executives. I will look to the chief executives for improvements in efficiency and effectiveness and in the quality of the services the agencies provide. The aims and objectives of each agency and the chief executives' reponsibilities are set out in the agencies' framework documents; copies of which will be placed in the Library when published.

  Each year, I shall set these agencies demanding efficiency and service targets, which will be published in annual business plans. The agencies will also publish annual reports; again, copies of these, and the business plans for 1994–95, will be placed in the Library.

  The Highways Agency has some 2,400 staff, and has a headquarters office in London. The agency will be

  485
  responsible for managing and maintaining the existing motorway and trunk road network in England and for delivering the Government's road programme. I believe that the increased focus on managing the network as a whole, which is reflected in the agency's aim and objectives and in the targets in the road users charter and charter standard statement—"Your Home and Trunk Road Proposals"—which I will publish shortly, will result in a better quality of service for users of the trunk road network and those who are affected by traffic on it and improvements to it. Following an open competition, I have appointed Mrs. Lawrie Haynes, formerly with British Aerospace, to be the agency's first chief executive.

  The Coastguard Agency has some 580 staff, the large majority of whom are uniformed coastguard officers, and has its headquarters in Southampton. The agency will be responsible for discharging the Government's responsibilities for civil maritime search and rescue and combating oil and chemical pollution from ships where there is a threat to United Kingdom interests. Following an open competition, I have appointed Mr. Chris Harris, formerly director of the Department's marine emergencies organisation, to be the agency's first chief executive.

  The Marine Safety Agency has some 410 staff, and has its headquarters in Southampton. The agency will be responsible for implementing the Government's strategy for marine safety and the prevention of pollution from ships. Following an open competition, I have appointed Mr. Robin Bradley, formerly a serving Royal Navy officer, to be the agency's first chief executive.

  I wish the chief executives and their staffs every success for the future. I am confident that these new arrangements will enable them to provide yet further improvements in the services they provide while giving better value for money.

  Where right hon. or hon. Members have queries about matters relating to the operation of the agencies, I hope they will write in the first instance to the chief executives, I and my hon. Friends the Ministers for Roads and Traffic and for Transport in London and my noble Friend the Minister for Aviation and Shipping will continue to deal with questions of policy and resources, or where there is dissatisfaction with an agency's reply.

  Isle of Man
  Mr. Mackinlay
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he last met the Minister for Transport of the Isle of Man to discuss transport links and matters of common interest; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. MacGregor
  I have not met the Isle of Man Minister for Transport. However, my noble Friend the Minister for Aviation and Shipping met the hon. David North MHK, Isle of Man Minister for Highways, Ports and Properties, on 2 March to discuss matters of mutual interest.

  Rail Costs
  Mr. George Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is his estimate of additional costs in overall rail subsidy which will be necessary to pay for consultants and to cover additional administration arising out of rail franchising.

  Mr. Freeman
  It is not possible to separate the costs specifically associated with franchising from the overall 486
  cost of restructuring the railway industry. Although there will be some additional administration costs arising from the restructuring of the railway in April, we believe that, over time, these will be more than offset by the efficiency savings privatisation will bring.

  Mr. George Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) what is his estimate of the financial effects of rail franchising of the services subsidised by passenger transport authorities or executives on routes where track is shared with InterCity or Regional Railways where charges are currently made only for marginal costs; and what is his estimate of the financial effects on such services of the requirement to pay a proportionate share of administration costs;

  (2) what effect changes in charging procedure as a result of rail franchising will have in respect of subsidies for services subsidised by passenger transport authorities or executives; and if he will make a statement;

  (3) what is his estimate of the percentage increases in passenger transport executive Railtrack access charges for 1994–95, 1995–96 and 1996–97, compared to the present charges for each executive.

  Mr. Freeman
  It is not possible to draw a direct comparison between the various elements of the charges currently paid by the passenger transport executives to BR under their section 20 agreements, under which the PTEs have paid the net marginal cost of their services to BR, and the charges that will apply under the new regime, under which PTE services will carry an appropriate share of infrastructure charges and central overheads. From April 1994 the PTEs will be treated on the same basis as the franchising director, paying subsidy to the company operating their services, which will in turn need to pay access charges to Railtrack.

  We expect the headline cost to PTEs of maintaining existing service levels to increase under the new regime, but we have undertaken to cover the increased cost in 1994–95 by making special grant payments to them, and, thereafter, to enhance the provision made in the section 20 bolt-on for their constituent metropolitan district councils.

  Channel Tunnel Rail Link
  Sir John Stanley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what percentage of the channel tunnel rail link route, that he announced in his statement of 24 January,Official Report, columns 19–34, will be in tunnel.

  Mr. Freeman
  About 23 per cent. of the 108 km route of the new channel tunnel rail link route announced in January will be in tunnel, although final decisions on the route at Pepper Hill and Ashford may affect this figure.

  Rail Fares
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will publish the most recent available comparisons of rail fares per mile or kilometre throughout the EEC and non-EEC European countries.

  Mr. Freeman
  Comparative data of the kind requested are not available to the Department.
  487

  Heavy Goods Vehicles
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what statistics his Department has for each of the last four years on the number of accidents involving heavy goods vehicles where the operator of the heavy goods vehicle is found not to hold a heavy goods vehicle operator licence.

  Mr. Key
  The information necessary to provide the statistics requested is not at present collected; consideration is being given to how these statistics might be collected in the future following a meeting with the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Vehicle Inspectorate and the Local Authorities Co-ordinating Body on Trading Standards last December.

  Personal injury road accident data are collected by the police and reported to the Department: those accidents involving heavy goods vehicles where the operator does not hold an operator's licence are not at present distinguished from those where such a licence is held by the operator. The Department is pursuing with the Association of Chief Police Officers and individual police forces how more precise statistics might be provided.

  Ministerial Receptions
  Mr. Boyes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what was the cost of receptions held by Ministers in his Department in 1993–94.

  Mr. MacGregor
  The cost of receptions held by Ministers in this Department in 1993–94 was £3,038·21.

  Stansted Airport
  Mr. Kenneth Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport at what date it is forecast that Stansted airport will be operating at full capacity as indicated by the new air traffic forecasts recently published by his Department; and what assessment he has made of the effect on this of doubling the air passenger duty in real terms.

  Mr. Norris
  The air traffic forecasts published by the Department of Transport provide aggregate forecasts for the London airports, and regional airports. They do not provide forecasts for individual airports. The forecasts of the working group on runway capacity to serve the south-east—RUCATSE—indicated that Stansted would reach capacity around 2015; this would require an increase in the air traffic movement limit from its present level of 78,000 movements. No assessment has been made of the effect of doubling the air passenger duty.

  New Car Registrations
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list the number of new car registrations for each of the last eight quarters for(a) Doncaster and (b) South Yorkshire; and what were the comparable figures for (i) five and (ii) 10 years ago.

  Mr. Key
  The requested information for 1993, 1992 and 1988 is given. Comparable figures for these two areas for the year 1983 are not available.

  New registrations

  1993

  1992

  1988

  Doncaster

  Quarter 1

  3,915

  3,313

  5,475

  Quarter 2

  3,104

  2,924

  4,610

  488

  1993

  1992

  1988

  Quarter 3

  6,206

  5,211

  7,220

  Quarter 4

  2,628

  2,384

  3,231

  Total

  15,853

  13,832

  20,536

  South Yorkshire

  Quarter 1

  7,096

  6,509

  10,496

  Quarter 2

  5,852

  5,792

  8,701

  Quarter 3

  11,001

  9,434

  13,344

  Quarter 4

  4,888

  4,440

  6,312

  Total

  28,837

  26,175

  38,853

  Kingkerswell Bypass
  Mr. Allason
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he plans to start work on the Kingkerswell bypass; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Key
  The future progress of this scheme depends on the outcome of our review of the national trunk road programme. We will announce the results of the review shortly.

  Railway Staff, Redundancies
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what steps he intends to take to fill the skills gap left by the departure of experienced railway managers and staff with the restructuring of the railway industry on 1 April.

  Mr. Freeman
  Recuitment and retention of staff are matters for employers in the industry.

  Quarried Stone, Rutland
  Mr. Duncan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will require the transport of quarried stone, for the purpose of any quarrying of limestone between Market Overton and Thistleton in Rutland, to be taken by rail according to the original planning consent of 1954.

  Mr. Freeman
  This is a matter for the county planning authority.

ENVIRONMENT

  Birch Coppice
  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he made the decision to set aside his decision of 2 August 1993 to refuse British Coal's application to opencast at Birch Coppice in Warwickshire.

  Mr. Baldry
  As the hon. Member is aware, my Department issued a decision letter on 2 August 1993 refusing planning permission in respect of British Coal's application to opencast at Birch Coppice in Warwickshire. British Coal exercised its right to challenge that decision in the High Court on 6 September 1993. Having considered the grounds of the challenge, my Department instructed the Treasury Solicitors to submit to judgment on certain aspects of the challenge in February 1994. We are currently awaiting for the court to determine the matter.

  If the court decides to quash the Secretary of State's decision, the appeal will then be referred back to the Secretary of State for him to redetermine. It does not follow that the original decision will automatically be overturned and permission granted.
  489
  In accordance with rule 18 of the Town and Country Planning Inquiry Procedure Rules, the Secretary of State will send to the persons entitled to appear at the inquiry who appeared at it a written statement indicating the matters in respect of which further representations are invited for the purpose of his further consideration of the appeal. This will provide parties with the opportunities to submit written representations or call for the reopening of the inquiry. It will then be a matter for decision by the Secretary of State whether or not the inquiry should be reopened. It is not possible to commence the redetermination process until the court has determined the matter and referred the case back to the Secretary of State. If this happens, the process will be put into effect as soon as possible and a final decision on the matter will be issued as soon as possible after the process has been completed.

  Emissions
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what account is taken of the expected changes in PM10 levels in his Department's methodology for assessing the costs and benefits of proposed road schemes; and if he will seek expert advice on the case for reviewing the methodology to give greater weight to the cost implications for proposed road schemes of the effects of PM10 emissions.

  Mr. Key
  The effects of emissions are considered as part of the environmental assessment of trunk road schemes although they are not assigned monetary values. There is no PM10 standard in the United Kingdom as yet, but this is under consideration as indicated by my hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Environment and Countryside on 21 March 1994 in his answer to a question from the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn),Official Report, column 114. I shall await the results of this work with interest.

  Robin Hood Railway Line
  Mr. Tipping
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) what financial support he plans for phases 2 and 3 of the Robin Hood line in Nottinghamshire; under what powers he will provide such assistance; in what financial years such assistance will be given; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) what funding he intends to make available for phases 2 and 3 of the Robin Hood line in Nottinghamshire; how this funding might be paid; in what financial years this funding will be made available; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Ashton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects to make funds available for stage 3 of the Robin Hood railway line from Mansfield to Worksop.

  Mr. Freeman
  As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport announced on 6 May 1993 resources of £6·5 million are to be made available for phase 2 of the Robin Hood line. An application by Nottinghamshire county council for grant under section 56 of the Transport Act 1968 is still being discussed. The £6·5 million will be a combination of grant and credit approvals under sections 53 and 54 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989. The current project programme indicates that resources will be required in the 1994–95 financial year.

  I am not yet satisfied with the case for phase 3 and my Department is discussing with the county council the
  490
  further work needed on the appraisal. If the council wishes to bid for resources for phase 3, they will need to indicate in a future transport policies and programme submission how it fits into their overall strategy and priorities.

  Channel Tunnel Rail Link
  Sir John Stanley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what will be the maximum speed of channel tunnel passenger trains through the tunnel under Blue Bell Hill, Kent when the channel tunnel rail link route he announced on 24 January,Official Report, columns 19–34, becomes operational.

  Mr. Freeman
  This is an operational matter for the railway operators concerned, in consultation with the Health and Safety Executive. The presently assumed maximum timetabled speed of trains between the channel tunnel and London is 225 km/h—140 mph. Not all trains will run at the maximum speed. Freight and commuter services may operate more slowly than international passenger trains.

  Pollution
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish a table showing the levels of(a) atmospheric pollution, (b) oxides of nitrogen and (c) black smoke emissions in the Doncaster area in each year since 1985.

  Mr. Atkins
  Annual average concentrations of nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide and black smoke in the Doncaster area from 1985 to 1993 are given in the tables.

  1. Nitrogen Dioxide (ppb)

  Year

  Site Address

  NO2 Conc (ppb)

  1986

  Ambulance Station Armthorpe Road DN2 SLU

  24·0

  1986

  College of Technology Waterdale

  24·0

  1986

  Barnsley Road Scawsby

  25·0

  1986

  Mere Lane Armthorpe

  19·0

  1991

  Ambulance Station Armthorpe Road DN2 5LU

  28·0

  19931

  Old Guildhall Doncaster DN1 1RH (1–5 metres from road)

  28·0

  19931

  Old Guildhall Doncaster DN1 1RH (20–30 metres from road)

  29·3

  19931

  Ambulance Station Armthorpe Road DN2 5LU

  21·5

  19931

  East Lane House East Lane Stainforth Doncaster

  18·8

  1 All nitrogen dioxide data for 1993 are still provisional.

  491

  2. Sulphur dioxide (ppb)

  Year

  Site1 1

  Site 2

  Site 3

  Site 4

  Site 5

  Site 6

  Site 7

  Site 8

  Site 9

  1985

  29

  33

  23

  30

  32

  30

  —

  —

  —

  1986

  30

  32

  20

  24

  27

  31

  —

  —

  —

  1987

  16

  26

  16

  20

  24

  26

  —

  30

  —

  1988

  12

  19

  —

  16

  15

  19

  15

  19

  11

  1989

  11

  18

  —

  17

  18

  19

  17

  19

  13

  1990

  12

  17

  —

  14

  16

  21

  16

  22

  12

  1991

  17

  18

  —

  14

  16

  21

  17

  23

  11

  1992

  —

  26

  10

  12

  16

  15

  14

  18

  6

  1993

  —

  —

  13

  13

  17

  17

  6

  20

  9

  Sites1

  1. Welfare Block, Coalite, Works, Askern, nr Doncaster.

  2. Mere Lane, Armthorpe, Doncaster.

  3. Church St. Armthorpe, Doncaster.

  4. Woodlands Clinic, Central Avenue.

  5. College of Further Education, Mexborough.

  6. The Library Moorends.

  7. Homscarr Middle School, Grange Lane, Rossington, Doncaster.

  8. East Lane House, East Lane, Stainforth, Doncaster.

  9. Ellison St. Thorne, Doncaster.

  3. Black Smoke (ug/m3) (British Standard Unit)

  Year

  Site1 1

  Site 2

  Site 3

  Site 4

  Site 5

  Site 6

  Site 7

  Site 8

  Site 9

  1985

  42

  43

  30

  31

  29

  60

  —

  —

  —

  1986

  65

  49

  31

  34

  28

  85

  —

  —

  —

  1987

  68

  48

  30

  41

  35

  81

  —

  98

  —

  1988

  35

  21

  —

  27

  25

  68

  20

  61

  19

  1989

  18

  19

  —

  24

  21

  56

  16

  43

  23

  1990

  12

  14

  —

  13

  15

  21

  13

  45

  11

  1991

  17

  19

  —

  17

  21

  18

  18

  48

  12

  1992

  —

  31

  11

  11

  20

  16

  12

  31

  11

  1993

  —

  —

  13

  13

  21

  21

  15

  25

  11

  1Sites

  As in table 2.

  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what action he plans to take to reduce levels of PM10 in British cities; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Atkins
  Measures to reduce emissions of particles from cars and light vans by 40 per cent. will be applied in 1996 under the consolidated cars directive 91/441/EEC. In addition a further stage of EC directive 91/542, covering emissions from heavy goods vehicles, buses and coaches, has been agreed for implementation in 1996, which will reduce particulate emissions from these sources by about 50 per cent.

  Further action to reduce levels of fine particles will be considered in the light of advice from the Department of Health's independent Committee on Medical Effects of Air Pollutants and from the expert panel on air quality standards, which recommends air quality standards to the Secretary of State for the Environment and which is currently considering a standard for particles.

  Environmental Action Fund
  Sir Richard Body
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish a list of the bodies that will receive moneys under the environmental action fund for the year 1994–95; and how much each is to be given.

  Mr. Atkins
  The list of organisations receiving support from the environmental action fund in 1994–95 is as follows:
  492

  Organisation/Application

  Gran (£)

  ACTAC

  30,204

  Advisory Committee on the Protection of the Sea

  25,000

  Airfields Environment Federation

  8,544

  Atmospheric Research and Information Centre—Information

  15,408

  Atmospheric Research and Information Centre

  22,000

  Bat Conservation Trust (Core Funding)

  27,600

  Black Environment Network

  16,869

  Botanic Centre

  55,000

  Bristol Environment and Energy Trust

  27,000

  British Trust for Conservation Volunteers

  516,500

  Business in the Environment

  20,000

  Byker City Farm

  16,875

  Cash From Trash

  32,000

  Civic Trust

  143,100

  Common Ground

  25,000

  Community Development Foundation

  34,263

  Community Recycling Network

  35,000

  COSQUEC

  9,000

  Cotswold Canals Trust

  20,717

  Council for Environmental Education

  125,000

  Council for Environmental Education (Info in Action)

  21,000

  Create

  63,393

  CSV—Action Earth

  10,000

  CSV—Brumcan

  19,100

  CSV—Older People in the Environment

  31,000

  CSV—Scouts Environmental Challenge Fund

  30,265

  CSV—South West Action

  18,000

  CSV

  144,000

  CTAC

  19,125

  Cycling Project for the North West

  20,718

  Derby Rainbow

  21,200

  Devon Wildlife Trust

  25,000

  ECO Environmental Information Trust

  25,000

  Environ

  12,200

  Environment Council—Information for Local Action

  11,149

  Environment Council

  40,000

  493

  Organisation/Application

  Gran (£)

  Family First Ltd.

  9,625

  Fanning and Wildlife Advisory Group

  130,000

  Friends of the Earth Trust Ltd.

  30,000

  Game Conservancy Trust (Project Funding)

  15,345

  Game Conservancy Trust (Strategic)

  50,943

  Global Action Plan

  35,000

  Green Alliance

  30,000

  Institute of Business Ethics

  11,087

  Irish Sea Forum

  10,000

  Landlife

  24,775

  Learning Through Landscapes

  45,000

  London Ecology Centre Trust

  35,500

  Mersey Basin Trust—Schools project

  15,000

  Mersey Basin Trust

  65,000

  Merseyside Environmental Trust

  22,000

  National Association for Environmental Education

  17,000

  National Council for Voluntary Organisations

  52,000

  National Federation of City Farms

  18,795

  National Society for Clean Air and Environmental Protection

  41,820

  National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardens

  35,000

  National Stone Centre

  11,735

  Neighbourhood Energy Action—ethnic minorities

  20,000

  Neighbourhood Energy Action—rural energy

  25,750

  North East Environment Network

  18,191

  Northern Support Network

  12,000

  Nottinghamshire Rural Community Council

  19,000

  Open Spaces Society

  12,000

  Pedestrians Association

  10,050

  Peterborough Environment City Trust

  36,700

  Projects in Partnership

  20,000

  RSNC

  358,500

  RSNC—The Wildlife Trusts Partnership

  26,250

  Royal Society of the Arts

  24,000

  Royal Town Planning Institute

  11,168

  Scout Association

  19,128

  Sea Watch Foundation

  22,200

  Sheffield Environmental Training

  15,000

  Southampton Environment Centre

  7,117

  Southwark Mediation

  20,642

  SUSTRANS

  25,000

  Thames Explorer Trust

  10,000

  The Environment Trust

  21,297

  The Environment Trust—Lower Lea Project

  63,000

  Toy Pirates

  20,000

  Tree Advice Trust

  40,000

  Tree Council

  48,000

  UK CEED

  25,000

  Upland Cumbria Initiative

  12,500

  Walter Segal Self Build Trust

  49,065

  Waste Not Recycling

  39,245

  Waste Watch—Recycling

  35,304

  Waste Watch—Wasteline

  52,110

  Waste Watch—Strategic

  114,683

  West Midlands Environmental Network

  14,000

  Wey and Arun Canal Trust

  11,000

  Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust

  29,735

  Wildfowl and Countryside Link

  17,450

  Woodland Trust (Award Scheme)

  5,500

  Woodland Trust (Strategic Development Officer)

  19,000

  Woodland Trust (Community Liaison)

  10,000

  World Wide Fund for Nature—Agenda 21

  30,275

  World Wide Fund for Nature

  27,000

  Wyecycle

  15,000

  YMCA Otterburn Hall Trust

  22,000

  Opencast Mining
  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his policy toward reapplications to opencast the same site following privatisation of coal.
  494
  Mr. Baldry
  Each case will be considered on its merits, but I will consider the need for specific policies in the revision of minerals planning guidance 3. There is no time limit before a reapplication may be made.

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the occasions in the last 20 years when very special circumstances have been shown under the Opencast Coal Act 1958 to allow a second application to be granted to opencast a site previously opencast.

  Mr. Baldry
  Figures are available only since 1984. Since that time, there have been five occasions on which special circumstances have been shown to allow compulsory rights orders to be confirmed in respect of sites previously opencast. Applications for a second compulsory rights order for the same site will be considered on their merits.

  Pollution Inspectorate
  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement about the 1994–95 charging schemes for Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution.

  Mr. Atkins
  Charges to cover the costs of regulating processes under integrated pollution control—IPC—and premises subject to Radioactive Substances Act 1993—RSA93—regulation were introduced in 1991 under the Environmental Protection Act 1990. The Act requires Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution to balance costs and income, taking one financial year with another.

  With the agreement of the Treasury, and following consultation with industry and other bodies, my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for the Environment and for Wales have now made revised IPC and RSA93 charging schemes, specifying the revised scales of fees and charges which will take effect from 1 April 1994. Copies of the revised schemes have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

  The charges are based on the cost of HMIP' s regulatory activities. For 1994–95, the rate per inspector day will be £993, and increase of 2·9 per cent. over the rate for 1993–94.

  For IPC, the scheme comprises an application fee to cover the assessment of the operator's proposals and preparation of the authorisation, a variation fee to cover the costs of assessment of any proposals for substantial variation to a process and an annual subsistence charge for the holders of authorisations to cover the costs of inspection and oversight of the plant.

  The application fee for 1994–95 is £2,570 per component for processes which have previously been subject to air pollution control and £3,860 per component for processes coming under regulation by HMIP for the first time. The variation fee is £1,290 per component.

  The annual subsistence charge is £1,730 per component. This included a charge of £150 to recoup the under-recovery of costs, including setting up costs, in earlier years. In addition, some operators will pay a charge for the monitoring of their processes by contractors engaged by HMIP; the amount of the monitoring charge will directly reflect the cost of this work to HMIP.
  495
  Under the RSA93 charging scheme, nuclear licensed premises are billed individually on the basis of regulatory time spent and costs incurred at each site, in accordance with the inspector day rate.

  Non-nuclear premises are charged on the basis of flat-rate fees on a similar basis to the IPC scheme, covering applications, substantial variations and subsistence. For premises authorised to accumulate and dispose of radioactive waste—"band 3 premises", for example, research establishments and major universities—the application and variation fee will be £1,425 and the subsistance charge £995. For those premises authorised to accumulate and dispose of small quantities of substances, or substances with a lesser risk, a lower subsistence charge of £85 will be levied. For premises registered to keep and use radioactive material—"band 4 premises", for example, industrial users of radioactive sources—the application and variation fee will be £515. The subsistence fee for band 4 premises will be £85, but the majority of such premises will be exempt from this because they handle small sources and do not require routine inspection.

  For 1991–92, the first year of operation of the charging schemes, charges were initially set too low. To ensure equity with those operators applying for authorisations and registrations in later years when more realistic charges have been set, holders of authorisations and registrations arising from applications in 1991–92 pay a supplementary subsistence charge. This charge will continue in 1994–95 at the same rate as in 1992–93 and 1993–94: under IPC, £610 per component for applications charges at the full rate, £410 per component for those charged at the reduced rate; under RSA93, £210 and £80 for band 3 and band 4 premises respectively.

  Copies of the schemes will shortly be sent to relevant operators and to other interested bodies.

  Council Houses
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what assessment he has made of the impact of higher council house rents in Wakefield on housing benefit expenditure.

  Sir George Young
  The increase in Wakefield city council's rent guideline for the purpose of housing revenue account subsidy in 1994–95 is £2·79 per dwelling per week. On the basis of returns made by Wakefield, if the council increases its actual rents by this amount, the Department estimates that additional rent income will be £5·803 million, of which £3·482 million will be granted in rebates.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what account is taken of capital expenditure for the purposes of council house maintenance in assessments for housing revenue account subsidies.

  Sir George Young
  Each housing authority's entitlement to housing revenue account subsidy takes into account annual loan charges on the cost of additional borrowing to finance capital expenditure up to a level related to that authority's annual capital allocations for this purpose.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what his estimate is of the expenditure required to bring all of Britain's council house stock up to fully habitable levels at 1994 prices.
  496
  Sir George Young
  Estimates of the cost of making dwellings fit for habitation in England are contained in the report of the 1991 English house condition survey published in September 1993. For all public sector housing, the backlog of such work is estimated at £780 million at 1994 prices. Matters affecting the housing stock in Scotland and Wales are the responsibility of my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland and for Wales.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what the capital and revenue expenditure was, per council house tenancy, on housing maintenance and repairs for each year since 1979.

  Sir George Young
  Capital and revenue expenditure, in cash terms, on maintenance and repairs per council dwelling in England was as follows:

  Year

  Revenue £

  Capital £

  1979–80

  n/a

  n/a

  1980–81

  171

  139

  1981–82

  189

  129

  1982–83

  218

  203

  1983–84

  256

  250

  1984–85

  272

  284

  1985–86

  289

  294

  1986–87

  296

  342

  1987–88

  326

  405

  1988–89

  365

  454

  1989–90

  406

  720

  1990–91

  487

  434

  1991–92

  509

  381

  1992–93

  545

  390

  1993–94

  1595

  1394

  1 Estimate.

  n/a = Not available.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his estimate of the proportion of the 1994–95 housing revenue account subsidy which will be provided for housing benefits reimbursement.

  Sir George Young
  It is estimated that, in 1994–95, £3,549 million of housing revenue account subsidy will be paid to housing authorities in England as reimbursement for their rent rebate expenditure—net of the amount funded by HRA surpluses. This is 81 per cent. of the total provision for housing revenue account subsidy for 1994–95 of £4,381 million.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many local authorities receive a nil or negative housing revenue account subsidy for the housing element component.

  Sir George Young
  In 1993–94 there is a negative entitlement to the housing element of housing revenue account subsidy for 282 English housing authorities. No authority has a nil entitlement.

  Unitary Development Plans
  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list when each of the unitary development plans for each authority in Greater Manchester was published; when they will run to; and when he expects each authority to start preparing the next unitary development plans.
  497
  Mr. Baldry
  The deposit drafts of the Greater Manchester UDPs were published on the following dates:

  Date

  Bolton

  September 1992

  Bury

  October 1993

  Manchester

  October 1992

  Oldham

  March 1993

  Salford

  November 1992

  Stockport

  February 1994

  Tameside

  March 1993

  Trafford

  April 1993

  Wigan

  April 1993

  The Rochdale UDP has not yet been placed on deposit, a consultation draft was published in April 1993.

  We have advised local planning authorities that the general policies for the development and use of land contained in part 1 of a UDP should make provision for development for a period of at least 15 years. The more detailed policies and proposals contained in part 2 should generally make provision for development for a period of 10 years.

  Local planning authorities may prepare proposals to alter or replace existing plans at any time. Plans should be reviewed regularly and the appropriate timing of review will depend on local circumstances, I would generally expect plans to be reviewed at least once every five years.

  Housing Investment Programme
  Ms Armstrong
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the housing investment programme allocation for each local authority in 1978–79, 1993–94 and 1994–95 in cash and in constant prices.

  Sir George Young
  I have today placed in the Library a table of housing investment programme allocations by local authority for the years in question.

  Countryside Organisations
  Mr. Martlew
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the estimated cost of merging English Nature and the Countryside Commission; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Atkins
  A decision whether to merge English Nature and the Countryside Commission has yet to be taken. The likely costs and benefits of merger are being considered as part of the current study into this matter. Conclusions have not yet been reached.

  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether the statement and briefing published by the Countryside Commission on 28 February concerning the future of English Nature and the Countryside Commission was authorised by his Department.

  Mr. Atkins
  No.

  Cwm Selar
  Mr. Hain
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what consultations he has had with the Environment Commissioner of the European Union in relation to the implications of the 1992 habitats directive of the European Union on the proposed opencast coal site development on the Cwm Selar site of special scientific interest, Cwmgwrach, Vale of Neath.
  498
  Mr. Atkins
  There have been no such consultations.

  Nature Reserves
  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to review the responsibility for, or administration of, national nature reserves; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Atkins
  I have no such plans. However, the current study into bringing together English Nature and the Countryside Commission embraces all the activities of both bodies, including English Nature's responsibility for national nature reserves.

  Institute of Terrestrial Ecology
  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to review the role and functions of the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology.

  Mr. Atkins
  None. The Institute of Terrestrial Ecology is a component body of the Natural Environment Research Council, which is not one of my responsibilities. However, it is a highly successful and competitive contractor to many DOE research programmes.

  Sites of Special Scientific Interest
  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to enhance the role or functions of local authorities in relation to sites of special scientific interest.

  Mr. Atkins
  None.

  Housing Capital Receipts
  Mr. Fabricant
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his current estimate of the additional capital receipts that have been made available for investment by local authorities in England as a result of the relaxation in the rules governing use of such receipts which applied between 13 November 1992 and 31 December 1993.

  Mr. Curry
  Latest figures from local authorities indicate that the level of additional receipts was about £1·8 billion, which is more than the £1·75 billion figure suggested by my right hon. and learned Friend the then Secretary of State following the announcement of the relaxation in the 1992 autumn statement.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Civil Servants
  Ms Armstrong
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will list for each civil service grade in his Department the number of(a) male and (b) female, (i) full-time and (ii) part-time employees.

  Mr. Eggar
  The information requested in respect of permanent staff in post on 23 March 1994 is set out in the table.

  Male

  Female

  Grade

  full-time

  part-time

  full-time

  part-time

  Grade 1

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Grade 2

  8

  0

  0

  0

  Grade 3

  47

  0

  5

  0

  499

  Male

  Female

  Grade

  full-time

  part-time

  full-time

  part-time

  Grade 4

  5

  0

  3

  0

  Assistant Comptroller (Patent Office)

  2

  0

  0

  0

  Grades 5

  173

  0

  21

  10

  Executive Director Lower Insolvency Service

  3

  0

  0

  0

  Superintendent Examiner (Patent Office)

  8

  0

  0

  0

  Reservoir Evaluation Specialist 1

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Grade 6

  144

  7

  26

  4

  Grade 7

  779

  6

  106

  32

  Insolvency Grade A

  12

  0

  0

  0

  Insolvency Grade B

  66

  0

  4

  0

  Principal Examiner (Patent Office)

  24

  0

  2

  0

  Senior Examiner (Patent Office)

  150

  1

  14

  3

  Chief Investigations Officer

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Reservoir Evaluation Specialist 2

  2

  0

  0

  0

  Petroleum Specialist 2

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Reservoir Evaluation Specialist 3

  7

  0

  1

  0

  Petroleum Specialist 3

  3

  0

  0

  0

  Senior Electrical Engineer 1

  4

  0

  0

  0

  Senior Executive Officer

  313

  1

  56

  12

  Higher Executive Officer D

  18

  0

  16

  0

  Higher Executive Officer

  704

  3

  259

  42

  Executive Officer

  840

  12

  575

  96

  Administrative Trainee

  9

  0

  4

  0

  Senior Economic Assistant

  6

  0

  8

  1

  Economic Assistant

  4

  0

  1

  0

  Senior Assistant Statistician

  2

  0

  2

  0

  Assistant Statistician

  4

  0

  2

  0

  Senior Information Officer

  10

  0

  7

  1

  Information Officer

  19

  0

  9

  0

  Assistant Information Officer

  8

  0

  5

  0

  Higher Graphics Officer

  0

  0

  1

  0

  Legal Officer

  2

  0

  3

  0

  Senior Librarian

  3

  1

  4

  0

  Librarian

  9

  1

  10

  0

  Assistant Librarian

  11

  0

  13

  3

  Photographic Officer

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Process and General Supervisory C

  2

  0

  0

  0

  Process and General Supervisory D

  2

  0

  0

  0

  Senior Scientific Officer

  258

  1

  36

  1

  Higher Scientific Officer

  251

  1

  74

  11

  Scientific Officer

  120

  1

  49

  10

  Senior Personal Secretary

  1

  0

  44

  0

  Senior Professional and Technical Officer

  96

  0

  1

  0

  Higher Professional and Technical Officer

  77

  0

  4

  0

  Professional and Technical Officer

  27

  0

  1

  0

  500

  Male

  Female

  Grade

  full-time

  part-time

  full-time

  part-time

  Professional and Technical Officer IV

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Senior Telecommunications Technical Officer

  12

  1

  0

  0

  Higher Telecommunications Technical Officer

  44

  0

  0

  0

  Telecommunications Technical Officer

  110

  0

  0

  0

  Insolvency Grade C

  100

  1

  24

  7

  Insolvency Grade D

  207

  6

  74

  25

  Insolvency Grade E

  64

  0

  74

  0

  Examiner (Patent Office)

  29

  0

  3

  0

  Translator I

  2

  0

  0

  0

  Translator II

  2

  0

  5

  2

  Translator III

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Deputy Chief Investigations Officer

  8

  0

  0

  0

  Investigations Officer

  39

  2

  1

  0

  Communications Officer IV

  1

  0

  2

  0

  Chief Typing Manager

  1

  0

  4

  1

  Typing Manager

  0

  0

  26

  3

  Support Manager 1

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Legal Trainee

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Higher Scientific Officer D

  7

  0

  4

  0

  Senior Management Trainee

  2

  0

  1

  0

  Chief Gas Examiner

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Reservoir Evaluation Specialist 4

  13

  0

  2

  5

  Petroleum Specialist 4

  9

  0

  0

  0

  Area Gas Examiner

  0

  0

  1

  0

  Reservoir Evaluation Specialist 5

  0

  0

  2

  0

  Petroleum Specialist 5

  2

  0

  0

  0

  Gas Examiner

  4

  0

  0

  0

  Chief Gas Meter Examiner

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Assistant Chief Gas Meter Examiner

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Gas Meter Examiner 1

  2

  0

  0

  0

  Gas Meter Examiner 2

  9

  0

  0

  0

  Gas Meter Examiner 3

  10

  0

  0

  0

  Higher Mapping and Charting Officer

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Administrative Officer

  879

  8

  1,093

  208

  Administrative Assistant

  454

  11

  543

  94

  Graphics Officer

  0

  0

  2

  0

  Support Manager 2

  5

  0

  4

  0

  Support Manager 3

  11

  0

  25

  2

  Support Grade 1

  33

  0

  85

  16

  Support Grade 2

  209

  14

  231

  198

  Senior Photographer

  2

  0

  0

  0

  Photographer

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Industrial

  131

  1

  7

  1

  Technical Grade 1

  7

  0

  2

  0

  Part time Graduate Trainee

  5

  0

  1

  0

  Technician 2A

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Assistant Telecommunications Technical Officer

  23

  0

  0

  0

  501

  Male

  Female

  Grade

  full-time

  part-time

  full-time

  part-time

  Trainee Telecommunications Technical Officer

  0

  0

  1

  0

  Personal Secretary

  2

  0

  316

  34

  Typist

  7

  0

  318

  112

  Assistant Scientific Officer

  50

  0

  33

  3

  Graphics Technical Grade

  0

  0

  1

  0

  Mapping and Charting Officer

  3

  0

  0

  0

  Robin Hood Railway Line
  Mr. Ashton
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will allocate some of the coalfield regeneration fund to construct stage 3 of the Robin Hood railway line between Mansfield and Worksop.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  Lord Walker is currently considering proposals to support stage 3 of the Robin Hood line which have recently been put to him by the local regeneration partners.

  British Coal (Environmental Impact Assessments)
  Mr. Gunnell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what plans he has for the future of the environmental impact assessment unit at British Coal, following implementation of the Coal Industry Bill.

  Mr. Eggar
  I understand that responsibility for environmental impact assessment of particular projects has been devolved to British Coal's operational groups, under the overall policy guidance of British Coal's headquarters operations department. After privatisation, it will be for successor mining companies to decide how to meet the statutory requirements for environmental impact assessment.

  Exports (Israel)
  Mr. David Young
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if it is his policy to refuse export licences for equipment or machinery capable for use in armaments manufacture which are bought for export to Isreal.

  Mr. Needham
  We announced in June 1982, following the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon, that we would withhold approval of licences for the export to Isreal of all British military equipment. In 1983 it was decided to allow the export of electronic and other small non-lethal components provided they did not form part of equipment due to be put into immediate service with Israeli forces in south Lebanon.

  Her Majesty's Government do control the export of sensitive goods for arms manufacture. However, it is not our policy to refuse such licences as a matter of course.

  All applications for export licences for licensable equipment or machinery capable of use in armaments manufacture are considered on their merits and in line with these policies.
  502

  Car Boot Sales
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade, pursuant to the letter, dated 3 March from the Under-Secretary of State for Corporate Affairs to the hon. Member for Bradford, West, if he will list the powers available to local authorities and the police to address the problems arising from the sale of counterfeit and unsafe goods at car boot sales; what representations he has received from local authorities, the police and others concerning the effectiveness of current powers; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  [holding answer 15 March 1994]: The powers under which local authorities may act against counterfeit or unsafe goods are contained within the Trade Descriptions Act 1968, the Trade Marks Act 1938, as amended in 1988, and the Consumer Protection Act 1987 and specific consumer safety regulations. The police may take action against counterfeit goods under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. In addition to these specific powers against counterfeit or unsafe goods, local authorities and the police have a number of powers to control temporary markets and car boot sales available to them under other legislation.

  The Government are also aware of the problems of trade in counterfeit goods where traders seek to use disclaimers about the goods to prevent prosecution under the Trade Descriptions Act. That is why we are seeking to improve the powers available to local authorities and the police through the provisions of the Trade Marks Bill, which has just completed its passage through another place. The Bill addresses the use of disclaimers by making it an offence to sell counterfeit goods, even if the goods are acknowledged as copies at the point of sale.

  There has been a small number of representations on this subject.

  Negligent Auditors
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade (1) if he will introduce legislation under which individual shareholders would be able to bring class actions against negligent auditors;

  (2) if he will introduce legislation under which individual shareholders will be able to bring class actions against negligent auditors.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  I have no plans to seek to change the present state of the law.

  Code of Central Government Enforcement
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what is the print run of the code for central Government enforcement; and to whom it is being distributed.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  The initial print run of "Working with Business: a Code for Enforcement Agencies" was 70,000.

  The code was initially distributed to all Government Departments, DTI regional offices and to all the enforcement agencies listed in the code for them to distribute to their customers and to any other interested parties as required.

  The code has also been sent to all local authorities, the British Retail Consortium, the Federation of Small

  503
  Businesses, the Association of British Chambers of Commerce and all branches of the Confederation of British Industry.

  In addition, numerous copies of the code have been sent out to any individual, company or organisation that has expressed an interest in seeing it.

  SL Homes Ltd.
  Mr. David Shaw
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what connections have been reported to his Department between Scottish Legal Life Assurance Ltd. and SL Homes Ltd.; and what assessment his Department has made of whether Scottish Legal Life Assurance Ltd. is conducting its affairs in a fit and proper manner.

  Mr. Nelson
  I have been asked to reply.

  Scottish Legal Life Assurance Society Ltd. is a friendly society. Until April 1993 its supervision was the responsibility of the registrar of friendly societies. With the coming into force of the Friendly Societies Act 1992, responsibility has shifted to the Friendly Societies Commission.

  The society's 1990 return showed that all nine members of the society's committee of management were directors of SL Homes Ltd. The chief registrar's report for 1990–91 announced that an inspector had been appointed under section 87 of the Friendly Societies Act 1974 to examine the affairs of the society, and a number of changes were subsequently made to the management structure. The latest return lodged by the society is for the year 1992. It showed that one member of the committee was a director of SL Homes Ltd., and that the society had an outstanding investment with the SL Homes Group of £3,980,637.

  Under the Friendly Societies Act 1992, it is for the Friendly Societies Commission, and not for my Department, to satisfy itself as to the manner in which Scottish Legal Life Assurance Society Ltd. is conducting its affairs. The commission is required to submit to the Treasury and Parliament each year a report on the discharge of its functions.

OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION

  Aid and Trade Provision
  Mr. Tom Clarke
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on what occasions and in regard to which countries he has made offers of funds under aid and trade provision in the absence of, or in advance of, applications for funding for particular projects; if he will list in each case the dates on which these offers were made; and what sums of money were involved.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  Her Majesty's Government have entered into the following framework agreements with recipient Governments:

  Country

  Date

  Level of Business to be supported

  Cameroon

  December 1983

  £40 million

  China (concessional financing agreement)

  CFA I

  May 1986

  £300 million

  CFA II

  September 1988

  £300 million

  Egypt

  March 1983

  £64 million

  India

  February 1986

  £300 million

  Indonesia (concessional loan agreement)

  504

  Country

  Date

  Level of Business to be supported

  CLA I

  July 1986

  £140 million

  CLA II

  February 1989

  £100 million

  CLA III

  April 1993

  £65 million

  Malaysia

  January 1981

  £77 million

  September 1988

  £200 million

  Mauritius

  October 1983

  £12·25million

  Pakistan

  July 1989

  US$50 million

  Thailand

  May 1989

  General protocol with no specific amount

  World Bank

  September 1986 (renewed September 1989)

  £200 million

  These framework agreements range from formal signed agreements, for example for China and Indonesia, and lines of credit, for example Egypt and Cameroon, to indications of possible levels of business, for example India and Malaysia. In each case, the levels indicated relate to support available for agreed projects—covering United Kingdom and EC officially supported packages—using a combination of aid and trade provision grants and export credits through Export Credits Guarantees Department. The content of these exchanges is confidential between Governments.

  St. Helena
  Mr. Ronnie Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what development aid was given to the island of St. Helena in the years 1991, 1992 and 1993.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  Total gross bilateral aid to St. Helena in the three financial years 1990–91 to 1992–93 was as follows:

  Year

  £

  1990–91

  11,759,000

  1991–92

  9,136,000

  1992–93

  9,060,000

  RMS St. Helena
  Mr. Ronnie Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is the cost of the RMS St. Helena.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  The construction cost of the RMS St. Helena was £32·4 million, financed by Her Majesty's Government during the period 1987 to 1991. The annual operating subsidy, which varies, amounts to £911,000 in 1993–94.

PRIME MINISTER

  Malaysian Airlines
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will list the dates occupants of his office, or members of the Cabinet Office, have used the Malaysian airline MAS, for each year since 1985, including this year to date, on official business; and what was the cost of each flight to his Department.

  The Prime Minister
  My Office has not used Malaysian airlines for official travel. I refer the hon.
  505
  Gentleman to the answer from my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in respect of members of the Cabinet Office.

  Building Projects
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Prime Minister what major building projects, valued at over £1 million are being, or have been, wholly or partly financed in(a) Doncaster, (b) Barnsley, (c) Rotherham and (d) Wakefield by the Cabinet Office; and what was the cost of each project to his Department.

  The Prime Minister
  None.

  Isle of Man
  Mr. Mackinlay
  To ask the Prime Minister when he last met the Chief Minister of the Isle of Man.

  The Prime Minister
  I have not had the opportunity to meet the Chief Minister of the Isle of Man as Prime Minister, and I do not recall meeting him prior to November 1990.

  Euphrates River
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Prime Minister what information is available to Her Majesty's Government about the amount of water taken from the Euphrates and its tributaries and sources by water requirements in(a) Turkey and (b) Syria.

  The Prime Minister
  There are a variety of figures available on the quantities of water withdrawn from the River Euphrates and its tributaries and sources, by Turkey and Syria. The following figures are taken from the World Resources Institute report for 1990–91. Within the national boundaries of Syria 4,500 million cubic metres of water per year—MCM/yr—were generated and 4,700 MCM/yr extracted. The figures for Turkey were 28,200 MCM/yr generated and 3,100 MCM/yr extracted.

  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Prime Minister what evidence is available to Her Majesty's Government that draining constitutes the reason why water courses, linked to the Euphrates river, are dried up.

  The Prime Minister
  A stretch of 70 km of the Euphrates river is dry. On the evidence available there is no other possible explanation.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Accommodation (Commercial Organisations)
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Chairman of the Finance and Services Committee, pursuant to the answer given by the chairman of the Accommodation and Works Committee to the hon. Member for Derbyshire North-East (Mr. Barnes) on 14 March,Official Report, columns 512–13, what consideration has been given to charging rent to those commercial organisations there listed for the space they occupy in the Palace of Westminster; and what considerations underlie the policy of not charging such rent.

  Mr. Channon
  As explained in the reply to the question to which the hon. Member refers, many of the 506
  arrangements with commercial organisations are long established, and enable the House to enjoy the benefit of services provided by the bodies concerned, taking account of the fluctuating nature of the House's requirements. The financial arrangements are kept under review.

  Television Monitors
  Mr. Corbett
  To ask the Chairman of the Information Committee if he will make arrangements for television monitors to be placed in offices in the Norman Shaw South parliamentary building used by hon. Members' secretaries and research staff.

  Mr. Waller
  The location of television monitors is a matter which it would be appropriate for the House to consider in the context of the information Committee's report on the provision of a parliamentary data and video network.

  Mr. Corbett
  To ask the Chairman of the Information Committee if he will make arrangements for access to television and radio channels to be made available to hon. Members with offices in the Norman Shaw South parliamentary building.

  Mr. Waller
  Proposals for access to television and radio channels are included in the Information Committee's report on the provision of a parliamentary data and video network, which recommends the extension of the pilot network to further buildings on the parliamentary estate. The report has not yet been considered by the House.

TREASURY

  Ministerial Receptions
  Mr. Boyes
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the cost of receptions held by Ministers in his Department in 1993–94.

  Mr. Nelson
  Total expenditure in 1993–94 amounts to £3,100, part of which was met by the Government hospitality fund.

  Russia
  Sir Thomas Arnold
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how the G7 proposes to help the Russian Government to strengthen their efforts to achieve their macroeconomic stabilisation and to establish a credible programme of social support.

  Mr. Nelson
  Macroeconomic stabilisation in Russia depends on the implementation of appropriate policies by the Russian Government. At their meeting in Kronberg on 26 February, G7 Finance Ministers encouraged the International Monetary Fund and the Russian Government to reach agreement on a suitable economic programme, which could be supported by IMF resources under the second tranche of the systemic transformation facility. The G7 confirmed that all the other elements of the $43 billion package announced in Tokyo in April 1993 remained available to Russia as reform was progressively implemented.

  Bilateral donors have provided technical assistance on the development of a suitable social safety net in Russia.

  507
  This includes assistance from the United Kingdom through the know-how fund. G7 Finance Ministers underlined the importance of a credible programme of social support to enhance public acceptance of the reform process and urged the World bank and Russia to co-operate in accelerating disbursement of the elements of the $3 billion special privatisation and restructuring programme which addressed the social dimension of reform.

  Malaysian Airlines
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the dates Ministers, or officials from his Department, including his Department's agencies, have used the Malaysian airline MAS for each year since 1985, including this year to date, on official business; and what was the cost of each flight to his Department.

  Mr. Nelson
  MAS has been used for official travel on one occasion in March 1993 at the cost of £1,122.

  Building Projects
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what major building projects valued at over £1 million are being or have been wholly or partly financed since 1989 in(a) Doncaster, (b) Barnsley, (c) Rotherham and (d) Wakefield by his Department; and what was the cost of each project to his Department.

  Mr. Nelson
  None.

  Kenya (Debt)
  Sir Thomas Arnold
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the level of Kenya's external debt to the United Kingdom; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Nelson
  Kenya's outstanding debt to the United Kingdom public sector totals £59·8 million, all of which is owed to the Export Credits Guarantee Department.

  New Road Proposals
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the Treasury requirements as to the cost-benefit analysis of new road proposals.

  Mr. Portillo
  The Treasury requires that new road proposals should provide good value for money. Treasury guidelines on the appraisal of public sector capital projects are set out in the publication "Economic Appraisal in Central Government: A Technical Guide for Government Departments".

  Gross Domestic Product
  Rev. Martin Smyth
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of gross domestic product and gross domestic product per head for(a) the north-west region of England, (b) the north-east region of England and (c) Northern Ireland.

  Mr. Nelson
  Estimates of GDP are compiled by standard economic region, and by county. The latest available regional estimates, for 1992, were published in the December 1993 issue of "Economic Trends", available in the House of Commons Library. The north-east of 508
  England, comprising Cleveland, Durham, Northumberland and Tyne and Wear, is not separately designated within the north standard region. However, figures for the north-east can be derived from the latest county estimates, relating to 1991. In 1991, total GDP for the north-east was £18,991 million, and GDP per head was £7,320.

  Council Tax
  Ms Ruddock
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the answer of 15 March,Official Report, columns 577–78, what measures he intends to take to improve the rate of processing appeals against council tax banding in the London borough of Lewisham.

  Mr. Nelson
  The Valuation Office agency and valuation tribunals have been set targets for the clearance of appeals which will ensure four out of five appeals will be cleared by 31 December 1994. Any remaining appeals will be cleared as quickly as possible in 1995.

  Steps have already been taken in Lewisham by deploying additional resources including the use of overtime and Saturday working whenever possible to ensure that these targets are met.

EDUCATION

  Optical Fibre Network
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what steps he is taking to encourage the rapid development of a national broadband optical fibre network.

  Mr. Boswell
  The Government have encouraged the higher education funding councils to establish a new administrative framework to support and develop the national broadband optical fibre network known as Super Janet. Fifty-nine higher education institutions and research centres are currently connected and it is intended to connect at least another 50 users over the next three years.

  Autism
  Mr. Win Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what percentage of local education authorities provide educational support services for children with autism; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Forth
  The information requested is not collected centrally. Under the Education Acts 1981 and 1993, it is the responsibility of schools and local education authorities to identify, assess and make provision for children with special educational needs, including those with autism.

  Advertising
  Mrs. Ann Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what was the actual expenditure by each of the non-departmental public bodies for which he has responsibility in each year of their existence since 1964 on(a) television advertising, (b) radio advertising, (c) newspaper advertising and (d) other promotional material; and what is his latest estimate for 1993–94 and 1994–95.

  Mr. Boswell
  This information is not held by the Department.

  Mrs. Ann Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what is his latest estimate of the expenditure in
  509
  1993–94 and 1994–95 by his Department on (a) television advertising, (b) radio advertising, (c) newspaper advertising and (d) other promotional material; and whether this included expenditure on those items by the non-departmental public bodies for which he has responsibility.

  Mr. Boswell
  The latest estimate for advertising and other promotional materials by the Department for the financial years 1993–94 and 1994–95 are given in the table:

  £000s 1993–94

  £000s 1994–95

  Television advertising

  0

  0

  Radio advertising

  29·2

  0

  Newspaper advertising

  1,413·0

  900·0

  Other promotional material

  7,332·4

  6,700·0

  These figures do not include expenditure by the non-departmental public bodies for which the Department for Education has responsibility.

  "National School Tests in 1994"
  Mrs. Ann Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what were the printing and production costs of the leaflet "National School Tests in 1994", ISBN 0 85522 441 X; how much his Department paid the Post Office to distribute these leaflets across post office counters; and how many copies were printed.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The printing and production cost of producing 4 million copies of the leaflet "National School Tests in 1994" was £50,000. There was an initial print run of 3 million copies followed by a reprint of 1 million to meet demand.

  Distribution of 1·2 million leaflets with child benefit payments in all main post offices in England during March cost £99,000.

  Grant-maintained Schools
  Mrs. Ann Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what element of the grant to grant-maintained schools has been identified for teachers' pay in the 1994–95 annual settlement.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  There is no annual settlement covering annual maintenance grants for grant-maintained schools. In 1994–95 these will be based on the funding available to local authority schools, either by reference to the provisions of the relevant scheme for the local management of schools or by means of the common funding formula. The local authority finance settlement takes account of the broad range of pressures on local education authorities, including pay settlements and price inflation, as well as the scope for savings.

  Mrs. Ann Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what was the allowance made for teachers' pay in the 1994–95 grant-maintained schools' annual settlement.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  Grant-maintained schools receive an annual maintenance grant which they may spend according to their own view of priorities. It contains no specifically identified element for teacher salaries.
  510

  Nursery Education
  Ms Armstrong
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education how many three and four-year-old children are in receipt of nursery or primary education in each education authority area; and what percentage this represents of the total number of children of that age group in each area.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The information requested is shown in the table.

  Pupils aged 3 and 4 in maintained nursery and primary schools in LEAs in England in January 1993

  LEA

  Pupils

  Percentage of Population

  Camden

  2,017

  51

  Greenwich

  4,266

  63

  Hackney

  3,147

  52

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  2,109

  58

  Islington

  2,755

  59

  Kensington and Chelsea

  1,232

  41

  Lambeth

  3,470

  48

  Lewisham

  3,693

  53

  Southwark

  4,101

  59

  Tower Hamlets

  4,102

  70

  Wandsworth

  4,048

  67

  Westminster

  1,613

  46

  Barking and Dagenham

  3,252

  72

  Barnet

  4,731

  58

  Bexley

  2,247

  37

  Brent

  4,589

  69

  Bromley

  1,341

  18

  Croydon

  4,255

  47

  Ealing

  5,668

  74

  Enfield

  4,033

  55

  Haringey

  4,457

  78

  Harrow

  2,603

  48

  Havering

  2,346

  40

  Hillingdon

  3,339

  50

  Hounslow

  4,212

  73

  Kingston upon Thames

  2,138

  62

  Merton

  3,650

  78

  Newham

  4,930

  64

  Redbridge

  2,334

  39

  Richmond upon Thames

  1,895

  46

  Sutton

  1,777

  38

  Waltham Forest

  3,568

  55

  Birmingham

  20,313

  68

  Coventry

  5,087

  58

  Dudley

  4,257

  53

  Sandwell

  7,492

  92

  Solihull

  3,635

  70

  Walsall

  6,768

  94

  Wolverhampton

  6,092

  87

  Knowsley

  4,166

  84

  Liverpool

  10,766

  83

  St. Helens

  3,264

  70

  Sefton

  4,900

  63

  Wirral

  5,362

  58

  Bolton

  5,599

  73

  Bury

  3,100

  61

  Manchester

  9,971

  75

  Oldham

  4,655

  71

  Rochdale

  4,140

  66

  Salford

  5,584

  88

  Stockport

  4,343

  57

  Tameside

  4,693

  73

  Trafford

  3,795

  66

  Wigan

  4,901

  57

  Barnsley

  4,028

  68

  Doncaster

  6,146

  75

  Rotherham

  4,323

  61

  Sheffield

  8,329

  64

  Bradford

  10,008

  69

  Calderdale

  3,740

  69

  Kirklees

  6,743

  64

  511

  LEA

  Pupils

  Percentage of Population

  Leeds

  12,903

  67

  Wakefield

  6,297

  71

  Gates head

  3,504

  69

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  5,202

  75

  North Tyneside

  4,320

  89

  South Tyneside

  3,591

  86

  Sunderland

  6,049

  73

  Avon

  12,952

  52

  Bedfordshire

  7,714

  48

  Berkshire

  6,539

  31

  Buckinghamshire

  5,720

  31

  Cambridgeshire

  8,135

  44

  Cheshire

  13,880

  53

  Cleveland

  14,879

  92

  Cornwall1

  5,348

  45

  Cumbria

  7,020

  58

  Derbyshire

  14,980

  61

  Devon

  7,141

  28

  Dorset

  5,588

  37

  Durham

  11,826

  77

  East Sussex

  6,512

  38

  Essex

  9,279

  23

  Gloucestershire

  4,439

  32

  Hampshire

  8,988

  21

  Hereford and Worcester

  3,821

  21

  Hertfordshire

  13,511

  50

  Humberside

  14,639

  61

  Isle of Wight

  1,143

  41

  Kent

  15,029

  36

  Lancashire

  19,972

  52

  Leicestershire

  9,759

  39

  Lincolnshire

  6,348

  43

  Norfolk

  6,398

  35

  North Yorkshire

  8,813

  50

  Northamptonshire

  8,388

  49

  Northumberland

  5,570

  74

  Nottinghamshire

  15,591

  57

  Oxfordshire

  3,511

  22

  Shropshire

  3,906

  35

  Somerset

  4,261

  35

  Staffordshire

  16,050

  57

  Suffolk

  5,744

  32

  Surrey

  6,748

  26

  Warwickshire

  6,259

  49

  West Sussex

  3,802

  22

  Wiltshire

  3,962

  25

  England2

  656,193

  51

  1 Includes Isles of Scilly.

  2 Includes Corporation of London.

  Primary Schools
  Ms Armstrong
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what percentage of primary school classes in each local education authority are taught by one teacher to(a)over 30 pupils and (b) over 40 pupils.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The information requested is given in the table.

  Percentages of single teacher classes (i) over 30 and (ii) over 40 in maintained primary schools in each LEA in England January 1993

  LEA

  31 and over

  41 and over1

  Corporation of London

  0·0

  0·0

  Camden

  4·5

  0·0

  Greenwich

  8·7

  0·2

  Hackney

  4·0

  0·0

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  8·3

  0·0

  Islington

  4·3

  0·0

  512

  LEA

  31 and over

  41 and over1

  Kensington and Chelsea

  2·6

  0·0

  Lambeth

  3·7

  0·0

  Lewisham

  8·0

  0·0

  Southwark

  8·8

  0·0

  Tower Hamlets

  3·7

  0·0

  Wandsworth

  8·5

  0·0

  Westminster

  4·5

  0·0

  Barking and Dagenham

  5·8

  0·0

  Barnet

  8·3

  0·3

  Bexley

  26·1

  0·2

  Brent

  9·3

  0·3

  Bromley

  31·8

  0·0

  Croydon

  14·8

  0·0

  Ealing

  15·5

  0·0

  Enfield

  27·0

  0·0

  Haringey

  3·2

  0·0

  Harrow

  20·5

  0·0

  Havering

  17·8

  0·0

  Hillingdon

  23·8

  0·3

  Hounslow

  22·8

  0·5

  Kingston upon Thames

  46·8

  0·0

  Merton

  16·6

  0·4

  Newham

  6·8

  1·2

  Redbridge

  48·1

  0·0

  Richmond upon Thames

  13·1

  0·0

  Sutton

  34·6

  0·0

  Waltham Forest

  18·9

  0·0

  Birmingham

  24·4

  0·1

  Coventry

  18·2

  1·1

  Dudley

  16·4

  1·1

  Sandwell

  29·2

  0·2

  Solihull

  25·3

  0·0

  Walsall

  21·7

  0·0

  Wolverhampton

  17·4

  0·0

  Knowsley

  25·4

  0·0

  Liverpool

  19·7

  0·1

  St. Helens

  23·0

  0·0

  Sefton

  27·4

  0·0

  Wirral

  13·5

  0·0

  Bolton

  32·9

  1·3

  Bury

  30·2

  0·0

  Manchester

  19·7

  0·9

  Oldham

  35·6

  0·1

  Rochdale

  42·1

  0·2

  Salford

  20·8

  0·1

  Stockport

  26·1

  0·1

  Tameside

  41·9

  0·1

  Trafford

  42·2

  0·0

  Wigan

  29·5

  0·2

  Barnsley

  17·1

  0·3

  Doncaster

  18·3

  0·1

  Rotherham

  7·7

  0·0

  Sheffield

  16·8

  0·1

  Bradford

  15·8

  0·2

  Calderdale

  22·6

  0·0

  Kirklees

  21·2

  0·4

  Leeds

  22·7

  0·2

  Wakefield

  27·4

  0·1

  Gateshead

  9·6

  0·2

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  24·2

  0·4

  North Tyneside

  15·8

  0·2

  South Tyneside

  16·7

  0·2

  Sunderland

  11·7

  0·1

  Isles of Scilly

  0·0

  0·0

  Avon

  26·0

  0·0

  Bedfordshire

  19·1

  0·4

  Berkshire

  22·1

  0·1

  Buckinghamshire

  24·9

  0·2

  Cambridgeshire

  21·9

  0·0

  Cheshire

  30·9

  0·1

  Cleveland

  19·0

  0·0

  Cornwall

  28·9

  0·0

  Cumbria

  18·8

  0·1

  Derbyshire

  30·0

  0·1

  Devon

  22·1

  0·0

  Dorset

  34·6

  0·1

  Durham

  23·1

  0·2

  East Sussex

  31·1

  0·0

  513

  LEA

  31 and over

  41 and over1

  Essex

  20·5

  0·0

  Gloucestershire

  18·2

  0·1

  Hampshire

  24·2

  0·0

  Hereford and Worcester

  15·0

  0·2

  Hertfordshire

  20·4

  0·0

  Humberside

  22·1

  0·2

  Isle of Wight

  21·9

  0·0

  Kent

  27·4

  0·1

  Lancashire

  31·6

  0·1

  Leicestershire

  17·7

  0·4

  Lincolnshire

  20·2

  0·0

  Norfolk

  14·6

  0·3

  North Yorkshire

  17·5

  0·0

  Northamptonshire

  15·1

  0·0

  Northumberland

  27·3

  0·0

  Nottinghamshire

  19·0

  0·1

  Oxfordshire

  11·8

  0·1

  Shropshire

  17·1

  0·2

  Somerset

  26·0

  0·0

  Staffordshire

  29·5

  0·4

  Male

  Female

  Full time

  Part time

  Total

  Full time

  Part time

  Total

  Total

  Grade 1

  1

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  1

  Grade 2

  3

  0

  3

  0

  0

  0

  3

  Grade 3

  12

  0

  12

  0

  0

  0

  12

  Grade 4

  3

  0

  3

  1

  0

  1

  4

  Grade 5

  34

  0

  34

  12

  0

  12

  46

  Grade 6

  13

  0

  13

  2

  0

  2

  15

  Grade 7

  108

  1

  109

  42

  2

  44

  153

  SEO and equivalent

  73

  3

  76

  36

  3

  39

  115

  HEO and equivalent

  182

  3

  185

  164

  21

  185

  370

  EO and equivalent

  200

  0

  200

  273

  35

  308

  508

  AO and equivalent

  157

  5

  162

  404

  63

  467

  629

  AA and equivalent

  136

  0

  136

  226

  25

  251

  387

  Total

  922

  12

  934

  1,160

  149

  1,309

  2,243

  These figures include 376 staff in post in the Teachers Pensions Agency.

  School Meals
  Ms Armstrong
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education how much each education authority charges for school meals to children not on income-related benefits.

  Mr. Forth
  It is for each local education authority to decide how much to charge for the school meals provided for children not entitled to free school meals. Information on charging for school meals is not collected centrally.

  Private Higher Education
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will list those academic institutions in the private higher education sector whose courses have not been accredited by the Higher Education Quality Council and the Higher Education Funding Councils of England, Wales and Scotland, but where mandatory local education authority grants will apply at the lower rate.

  Mr. Boswell
  Neither the Higher Education Quality Council nor the three Higher Education Funding Councils accredit courses. A number of courses at private higher education institutions are designated under the Education (Mandatory Awards) Regulations. Students holding mandatory awards for attendance on those courses have their maintenance grants calculated in the same way as all other award holders. The fees payable on their behalf under
  514

  LEA

  31 and over

  41 and over1

  Suffolk

  9·6

  0·1

  Surrey

  17·2

  0·0

  Warwickshire

  25·8

  0·1

  West Sussex

  14·9

  0·0

  Wiltshire

  20·3

  0·1

  ENGLAND

  21·5

  0·1

  1 Included in the figures for classes of 31 and over.

  Civil Servants
  Ms Armstrong
  To ask the Secretary of state for Education if he will list for each civil service grade in his Department the number of(a) male and (b) female, (i) full-time and (ii) part-time employees.

  Mr. Boswell
  The figures are follows:

  the regulations are normally £715 in the current academic year; higher rates apply for courses at institutions which receive recurrent grant out of public funds.

  Consultation Documents
  Mr. Win Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will list all the documents issued for consultation in the last year, indicating the time provided for consultation and the recipients of each consultation document.

  Mr. Boswell
  This information could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Surplus School Places
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education how many surplus school places there were(a) in total and (b) as a percentage of school capacity in each local education authority in 1979 and each year since 1987.

  Mr. Forth
  The Department collected comprehensive information on surplus school places through a detailed survey in 1991. For the figures derived from that survey, I refer the hon. Member to the reply to the hon. Member for Warwickshire, North (Mr. O'Brien) on 31 January 1994,Official Report, columns 517–21. Detailed information by local education authority is not available for earlier years.

  My right hon. Friend intends to make regulations later this year under section 21 of the Education Act 1993 requiring all LEAs and, where it has relevant responsibilities, the new Funding Agency for Schools, to

  515
  submit information to the Secretary of State annually, beginning in 1994, on the numbers of surplus places in LEA-maintained and grant-maintained schools respectively.

  Public Appointments
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what percentage of public appointments made by his Department in 1993 were of(a) Asians and (b) black people; and if he will list their names.

  Mr. Boswell
  The information given is based on the total number of public appointments made by the Department by the end of 1993 and includes information on ethnic minority appointments available at that time.

  Department for Education Public appointments December 1993

  Number

  Per cent.

  Total number of public appointments held in 1993

  248

  Total number of appointments held by ethnic minority members in 1993

  9

  3·6

  Asian

  4

  1·6

  Black

  5

  2·0

  Name

  Ethnic group

  School Curriculum and Assessment Authority

  Mrs. Shahwar Sadeque

  Asian

  Royal Ballet School Governing Body

  Mr. Bruce Gill

  Black

  Further Education Funding Council—Regional Committees

  GREATER LONDON

  Mr. Abdul Bhanji

  Asian

  Mr. John Taylor

  Black

  YORKSHIRE AND HUMBERSIDE

  Mr. David Nerurkar JP

  Asian

  NORTH WEST

  Mr. Wally Brown

  Black

  WEST MIDANDS

  Professor Kumar Bhattacharyya

  Asian

  National Youth Agency

  Ms Althea Efunshile

  Black

  Ms Theo Sowa

  Black

  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education (1) what information his Department holds or obtains relating to individuals who have been appointed, or may be considered for appointment, to paid or unpaid posts for which a Minister has to approve the person or shortlist for the appointment, in particular relating to active involvement in(a) extreme left-wing organisations, (b) extreme right-wing organisations and (c) involvement in any of the political parties represented in the House of Commons;

  (2) what procedures his Department has to prevent the possible appointment of individuals with extreme political views to posts for which a Minister has to approve the person or shortlist for the appointment.

  Mr. Boswell
  The information we hold on individuals appointed or being considered for appointment to public 516
  bodies for which we have responsibility is limited to whatever personal information they volunteer as well as details we solicit relating to their professional background. This is because appointments are made or approved solely on the basis of aptitude, merit and suitability for the job.

  We do not keep a record of the political affiliation of appointees or potential candidates. To add to the information already obtained, Ministers normally interview candidates before making or approving appointments. We are satisfied that these procedures are sufficient to avoid the possibility of unsuitable appointments.

  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education (1) if he will list the organisations and individuals outside his Department who are sent information on, or consulted about, individuals who are, or may be, proposed to the Minister for appointment to posts for which a Minister has to approve the person appointed or the shortlist for the appointment;

  (2) if he will list the organisations and individuals who have been asked, since June 1992, to submit names of individuals to be considered for appointments to paid and unpaid posts for which a Minister has to approve the person or shortlist for the appointment.

  Mr. Boswell
  There is no statutory requirement placed on the Secretary of State to consult or inform organisations or individuals prior to making or approving appointments to paid or unpaid posts. The constitutions, articles and trust deeds of some public bodies do place a requirement on Ministers to consult with interests which they consider relevant; these bodies include the Further Education Unit Management Board, the Further Education Staff college and the National Youth Agency.

  Reading
  Mr. Win Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education (1) what further plans he has to develop programmes to improve the reading skills of children;

  (2) if he will continue to support the reading recovery programme;

  (3) what plans he has to ensure that the expertise gained by those involved in reading recovery programmes continues to be utilised;

  (4) what evaluation he has made of programmes sponsored, by his Department and local education authorities to improve the reading skills of children in their early years.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The best way to improve the reading skills of children is to ensure rigorous teaching in our schools, particularly our primary schools; and to continue with rigorous national tests which focus on the basics. Sir Ron Dearing's report on the national curriculum highlighted the need for primary education to concentrate on the basic skills, including reading, and said that this should be a priority for the discretionary time which will be released as a result of slimming down the national curriculum overall—to be concentrated outside the core subjects of English, mathematics and science. We now await Sir Ron's advice on a revised national curriculum.

  We are also strengthening the initial teacher training regime by requiring students to spend more time in schools and by specifying that all primary initial teacher training

  517
  courses should include at least 150 hours of work on English with a minimum of 50 hours on the teaching of reading.

  In addition, we are supporting a number of literacy programmes including:

  (i) a three-year trial of reading recovery in 20 local education authorities at a total cost of £14·2 million, supported through our grants for education support and training programme. This trial will be completed in March 1995. The School Curriculum and Assessment Authority is also sponsoring an independent research project on the effectiveness of reading recovery compared with other methods of early reading intervention, to be completed by the end of the year. Any further action on reading recovery will be considered in the light of this research and of our evaluation of the GEST-funded trial;

  (ii) thirteen other literacy projects in 12 inner-city local education authorities at a total cost of £2·4 million in the current year, again supported through the GEST programme;

  (iii) the family literacy programme undertaken by the adult literacy and basic skills unit. We have increased our grant to ALBSU for this programme for £0·25 million in the current year to £1·2 million in 1994–95;

  (iv) Volunteer Reading Help, which is a charity which links volunteers with children who teachers feel would benefit from one-to-one help with their reading. The enable the organisation to expand further, we shall be nearly doubling our grant to VRH in 1994–95 to £90,000.

  Sixth Forms
  Mr. Rooker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to his answers of 25 February,Official Report, column 505, and 1 March, Official Report, column 686, how many pupils there are expected to be in each of the new sixth forms he has approved since April 1992.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The number of pupils in the sixth forms concerned was expected to be:

  Number

  (a) Grain-maintained

  Baverstock GM School, Birmingham

  70

  Small Heath School, Birmingham

  150

  Sawtry Village College, Cambridgeshire

  150

  The Merrill Community School, Derbyshire

  100

  Chellaston School, Derbyshire

  200

  Beauchamps GM School, Essex

  125

  Bromfords School, Essex

  The King John School, Essex

  282

  West Hatch School, Essex

  180

  The Arnewood School, Hampshire

  236

  The Burgate School, Hampshire

  120

  Ringwood School, Hampshire

  120

  The Maplesden Noakes School, Kent

  100

  Sheringham High School, Norfolk

  120

  Highams Park School, Waltham Forest

  180

  Queen Elizabeth School, Warwickshire

  180

  Moseley Park GM School, Wolverhampton

  135

  (b) LEA-maintained

  Ullswater Community College, Cumbria

  260

  Martin Kemp-Welch School, Dorset

  99

  Wymondham School, Norfolk

  120

  St. Peter's RC Comprehensive School, Solihull

  180

  New school for pupils aged 11 to 18 years in Halifax, Calderdale, to replace two 11 to 16 schools

  120

  518

  Teachers
  Mr. Win Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what is his policy towards the employment in local education authorities and grant-maintained schools of teachers without formal and recognised teaching qualifications.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  Unqualified teachers may not normally be employed in either local education authority maintained or self-governing—grant-maintained—schools. Some exceptions are, however, specified in statutory regulations. They include student teachers, those who with my right hon. Friend's approval are employed as licensed or overseas trained teachers, and instructors with special qualifications or experience who may be employed when no suitable qualified teacher is available.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to his answer of 8 March,Official Report, columns 133–34, when the information about the appointment of newly qualified teachers to permanent teaching posts in 1993 will be available.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The data are unlikely to be available for statistical use before spring 1995 when the appointment details of newly qualified teachers have been returned by local authorities on their annual returns for financial year 1993–94. The required information will then be placed in the Library.

  Postgraduate Legal Training
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will reconsider his decision not to allow mandatory grants for postgraduate legal training.

  Mr. Boswell
  The Education Act 1962 restricts mandatory awards to full-time courses leading to a first degree or comparable qualification, or to the DipHE or HND, and to courses for the initial training of teachers. We have no present plans to expand the scope of mandatory awards to include postgraduate law, or other, courses.

  Ministerial Meetings
  Mr. Gapes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will list the meetings between Ministers and officials in his Department with hon. Members representing constituencies in London in the last year.

  Mr. Patten
  The details1 requested are as follows:

  Secretary of State

  Hugh Dykes MP (Harrow, East)—4 March 1993

  Nicholas Scott MP (Chelsea)—20 December 1993

  Minister of State

  John Marshall MP (Hendon, South)—12 January 1994

  Richard Tracey MP (Surbiton)—25 February 1994

  Mr. Boswell

  None.

  Mr. Forth

  Sir Michael Neubert MP (Romford)—26 October 1993

  Mr. Squire

  Richard Tracey MP (Surbiton)—12 October 1993

  Michael Shersby MP (Uxbridge)—2 December 1993

  Sir Michael Neubert MP (Romford)—21 January 1994

  Note:

  1. The details cover all Ministers' meetings concerning Departmental business with hon. Members since 1 March 1993.
  519

EMPLOYMENT

  Labour Statistics
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is the latest figure for the ratio between the number of unemployed persons, and the number of vacant jobs in the Doncaster travel-to-work area.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The information is not available in the form requested. The information that is available is shown in the table, although the figures cannot meaningfully be expressed as a ratio, as jobcentre vacancies represent only a third of all vacancies nationally, and this proportion is likely to vary between different regions, different skills and different occupations.

  Furthermore, within any one area, there is not necessarily a strong match between the skills of the unemployed and the nature of the vacancies available. It should also be noted that the area covered by jobcentres in Doncaster does not correspond exactly with Doncaster travel-to-work area.

  Unadjusted Unemployment and Vacancies February 1994

  Claimant Unemployment

  Unfilled Jobcentre Vacancies1

  15,017

  492

  1 There are currently six Jobcentres covering the Doncaster TTWA, five in Doncaster and one in Thorne.

  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will publish his Department's estimate for England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom, and for each year since 1990 of the numbers on the unemployment register; and what were the numbers and percentages of those on the unemployment register in each case leaving the register(a) to take up full-time employment, (b) to take up part-time employment, (c) to take up full-time or part-time training and (d) to take early retirement.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The available information on the levels of claimant unemployment and on the numbers leaving claimant unemployment can be obtained from the NOMIS database in the Library. Detailed information is not available on the destinations of the claimants who leave unemployment. However, past survey evidence indicates that the majority of people who leave claimant unemployment go into jobs.

  Tattoos
  Mr. Sheerman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will explore ways in which he can assist job seekers with disfiguring tattoos to have them removed by the health service or other organisations.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The Employment Service provides a very wide range of back to work help for job seekers, which can include advice about the removal of disfiguring tattoos. I understand from colleagues in the Department of Health that this treatment is available from the national health service if, in the opinion of a consultant, it is necessary for clinical reasons.
  520

  Wages
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will publish his estimate of the average gross weekly wage for men, women and all workers in each standard region of Great Britain for the latest available period.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  Information on the average weekly earnings of employees in the standard regions of England, and in Scotland and Wales, is published in part A of the 1993 new earnings survey. Tables 12 and 13 cover full-time males and full-time females respectively, and table X5 covers all full-time employees.

  A copy of the report is available in the Library.

  Work Experience Schemes
  Sir Ralph Howell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many participants are currently taking part in Government-run or financed work experience schemes; and what percentage are claiming unemployment benefit while on the scheme.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The latest figures available show that at the end of February there were 12,227 participants in Government-run or financed work experience programmes. None of these people was in receipt of unemployment benefit.

  Health and Safety Executive
  Mr. Gapes
  To ask the Secretary of state for Employment what consultation there has been with Health and Safety Executive customers before the distribution arrangements for its free and priced publications were changed from HMSO to Prolog; if he will state the terms of the agreement with Prolog; and what market research was conducted on the working of the previous arrangement.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  A review of distribution of the Health and Safety Executive's publications was carried out in 1993 by HSE and external consultants. This review focused on the existing arrangement with HMSO for the distribution of priced publications and other arrangements that existed for the distribution of free publications. The review did not involve consultation with customers. Following the review and an open tender, HSE decided that its customers could be accessed more satisfactorily and economically through a single contract with Prolog for warehousing, distribution and direct mail services. The contract with Prolog is for a three-year period from 4 October 1993.

  EC Social Charter
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will list those topics of legislation contained in the social charter of the European Community signed by 11 members at Strasbourg(a) which can be implemented within the treaties of the Community operative prior to the coming into force of the treaty on European Union and (b) those which may flow from the latter treaty.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The social charter, signed by the other 11 member states, was a political declaration and as
  521
  such contained no specific proposals for legislation. The social action programme, which followed the social charter, listed particular proposals for Community action. All of these proposals have a legal basis in the treaty of Rome, but many of them require unanimity.

  The agreement of the Eleven on social policy contained in a protocol annexed to the treaty on European Union contains considerably more explicit provision for the other member states to adopt social legislation, in many cases by qualified majority voting.

  Outdoor Education Centres
  Mr. Win Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment, pursuant to his answer of 16 March,Official Report, column 719, what information is collected, and in what form, on visits by the Health and Safety Executive to outdoor education centres.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  Following visits to outdoor education centres, inspectors prepare reports which include factual information about the centres, their size and the types of activities undertaken. The reports include an assessment of how providers manage health and safety.

  Mr. Jamieson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment on what basis his Department will decide which outdoor education centres will be inspected by the Health and Safety Executive.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  Decisions on which education centres are inspected are a matter for the Health and. Safety Executive, not the Department.

  Mr. Jamieson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if his Department holds a comprehensive list of the outdoor education centres in England.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to him on 15 March 1994,Official Report, column 625.

  Employment Rehabilitation Courses
  Mr. Rooney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what are the criteria used by Employment Service staff to decide whether a client they refer to an

  Non-industrial staff in post 1 January 1994 education group

  Men hours

  Women hours

  Grade

  full-time

  part-time

  all

  full-time

  part-time

  all

  Administrative assistant

  743

  11

  754

  1,860

  304

  2,164

  Administrative assistant ADP

  5

  —

  5

  35

  32

  67

  Enrolled nurse

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Support grade band 2

  327

  9

  336

  105

  145

  250

  Teleprinter operator

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Trainee typist

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Typist

  2

  —

  2

  442

  221

  663

  Total AA level

  1,077

  20

  1,097

  2,442

  702

  3,144

  Administrative officer

  7,848

  126

  7,974

  18,680

  5,320

  24,000

  Administrative officer ADP

  12

  —

  12

  16

  1

  17

  Assistant photographer

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Driver

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Personal secretary

  2

  —

  2

  330

  42

  372

  Personal secretary trainee

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Support grade band 1

  67

  1

  68

  114

  21

  135

  Trainee graphics officer

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Total AO level

  7,929

  127

  8,056

  19,140

  5,384

  24,524

  522
  employment rehabilitation course should remain on their disability or unemployment-related benefits or be placed on a rehabilitation allowance; if those who remain on unemployment-related benefits may participate in full-time rehabilitation courses of more than 21 hours per week; and what changes are planned in these arrangements as a result of the introduction of the new incapacity benefit.

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

  Letter from M. E. G. Fogden to Mr. Terry Rooney, dated 28 March 1994:

  The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your question about whether a client referred to an employment rehabilitation course should remain on disability or unemployment related benefits.

  Clients attending full-time rehabilitation programmes are entitled to claim Rehabilitation Allowance according to their circumstances or may choose to remain on their existing benefits. My people will discuss the options with each client and help them to decide which course of action will be most advantageous in their particular circumstances.

  Clients may continue to claim benefits for unemployment (unemployment benefit, Income Support or a combination of both) for as long as they remain eligible, with the exception of those in receipt of Income Support as a sole benefit. They must claim Rehabilitation Allowance to satisfy the Benefits Agency rules about payment of benefits.

  Similarly, as long as all the conditions of entitlement remain satisfied, a person who remains incapable of work may continue to receive benefits for incapacity (Sickness Benefit, Invalidity Benefit or Severe Disablement Allowance). Department of Social Security (DSS) inform us that there are no plans to change these rules under the new incapacity benefit.

  I hope this is helpful.

  Civil Servants
  Ms Armstrong
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will list for each civil service grade in his Department the number of(a) male and (b) female, (i) full-time and (ii) part-time employees.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The information requested is listed in the tables.
  523

  Men hours

  Women hours

  Grade

  full-time

  part-time

  all

  full-time

  part-time

  all

  Assistant information officer

  2

  —

  2

  10

  2

  12

  Assistant librarian

  5

  1

  6

  13

  4

  17

  Assistant scientific officer

  7

  —

  7

  3

  —

  3

  Assistant statistician

  9

  —

  9

  9

  —

  9

  Economic assistant

  7

  —

  7

  4

  —

  4

  Executive officer

  5,009

  54

  5,063

  8,438

  2,452

  10,890

  Graphics officer

  2

  —

  2

  2

  —

  2

  Graphics technical grade

  —

  —

  —

  2

  —

  2

  Graphics technical grade (GO4 RR)

  4

  —

  4

  2

  —

  2

  Management trainee

  19

  —

  19

  32

  4

  36

  Photographic officer

  4

  —

  4

  —

  —

  —

  Professional and technology officer

  3

  —

  3

  —

  —

  —

  Psychologist graduate trainee

  2

  —

  2

  13

  —

  13

  Scientific officer

  55

  —

  55

  35

  2

  37

  Senior personal secretary

  —

  —

  —

  55

  2

  57

  Social worker

  8

  —

  8

  6

  2

  8

  Support manager 3

  15

  —

  15

  9

  —

  9

  Technical grade 1

  5

  —

  5

  1

  —

  1

  Technical grade 2

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Translator EO

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Typing manager

  —

  —

  —

  43

  3

  46

  Total EO level

  5,157

  55

  5,212

  8,677

  2,471

  11,148

  Administration trainee

  2

  —

  2

  4

  —

  4

  Assistant agricultural assistant

  40

  —

  40

  7

  —

  7

  Chief typing manager

  —

  —

  —

  2

  —

  2

  Controller of typists

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Departmental sister

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Higher Executive Officer

  2,083

  12

  2,095

  1,419

  227

  1,646

  Higher Executive Officer ADP

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Higher Executive Officer AT

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Higher Executive Officer D

  10

  —

  10

  9

  —

  9

  Higher Graphics Officer

  1

  —

  1

  —

  1

  1

  Higher Instructional Officer

  80

  —

  80

  2

  —

  2

  Higher Photographic Officer

  2

  —

  2

  —

  —

  —

  Higher Professional and Technology Officer

  17

  —

  17

  —

  —

  —

  HPTO/Assistant Inspecting Officer (Railways)

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Higher Psychologist

  17

  —

  17

  38

  3

  41

  Higher Scientific Officer

  75

  —

  75

  21

  4

  25

  Higher Social Worker

  3

  —

  3

  2

  —

  2

  Information Officer

  23

  —

  23

  21

  3

  24

  Inspector Class 2

  112

  —

  112

  74

  —

  74

  Instructional Officer 1 1987

  115

  —

  115

  9

  —

  9

  Librarian

  —

  —

  —

  9

  4

  13

  Research Officer Resource and Planning

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Research Officer Social Science

  —

  —

  —

  3

  —

  3

  Senior Assistant Statistician

  6

  —

  6

  7

  1

  8

  Senior Economic Assistant

  12

  —

  12

  3

  —

  3

  Senior Enrolled Nurse

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Senior Physiotherapist

  1

  —

  1

  2

  1

  3

  Support Manager 1

  2

  —

  2

  —

  —

  —

  Support Manager 2

  1

  —

  1

  4

  —

  4

  Training Officer TW1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Translator HEO

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  UVP Field Organiser

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Ward Sister

  1

  —

  1

  3

  —

  3

  Total HEO Level

  2,605

  12

  2,617

  1,639

  244

  1,883

  Agricultural Inspector

  96

  —

  96

  10

  —

  10

  Employment Nursing Adviser

  4

  —

  4

  38

  1

  39

  Inspector IB

  214

  3

  217

  74

  27

  101

  Inspector (Nuclear Installations)

  62

  —

  62

  2

  —

  2

  Inspector of Mines

  20

  —

  20

  —

  —

  —

  Inspector of Quarries

  14

  —

  14

  —

  —

  —

  Petroleum Specialist 5

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  524 525

  Men hours

  Women hours

  Grade

  full-time

  part-time

  all

  full-time

  part-time

  all

  Reservoir Evaluation Specialist 5

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Senior Executive Officer

  708

  3

  711

  229

  28

  257

  Senior Graphics Officer

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Senior Industrial Relations Officer

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Senior Information Officer

  20

  —

  20

  8

  1

  9

  Senior Instructional Officer

  20

  —

  20

  1

  —

  1

  Senior Librarian

  1

  —

  1

  2

  —

  2

  Senior Photographic Officer

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Senior Professional and Technology Officer

  12

  —

  12

  —

  —

  —

  SPTO/Inspecting Officer (Railways)

  17

  —

  17

  —

  —

  —

  Senior Psychologist

  13

  1

  14

  15

  1

  16

  Senior Research Officer Resource and Planning

  —

  —

  —

  2

  —

  2

  Senior Research Officer Social Science

  10

  —

  10

  18

  6

  24

  Senior Scientific Officer

  78

  1

  79

  15

  —

  15

  Senior Social Worker

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —.

  Senior Training Adviser

  24

  —

  24

  7

  3

  10

  Specialist Inspector

  100

  1

  101

  12

  —

  12

  SPTO Marine Surveyor Grade 1

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Training Officer TWI Higher Grade

  —

  —

  —.

  —

  —

  —

  Training Services Officer 1

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Training Services Officer 2

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —.

  Total SEO Level

  1,415

  9

  1,424

  433

  67

  500

  District Inspector of Mines (1982)

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Grade 7

  536

  4

  540

  142

  29

  171

  Inspector 1A

  167

  1

  168

  12

  2

  14

  Petroleum Specialist 4

  132

  —

  132

  3

  —

  3

  Petroleum Specialist 4 (SIMI)

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Principal Agricultural Inspector

  32

  —

  32

  —

  —

  —

  Principal Inspecting Officer (Railways)

  11

  —

  11

  —

  —

  —

  Principal Inspector (Nuclear Installations)

  79

  —

  79

  2

  —

  2

  Principal Marine Surveyor

  2

  —

  2

  —

  —

  —

  Principal Specialist Inspector

  106

  2

  108

  7

  —

  7

  Reservoir Evaluation Specialist 4

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Senior Employment Nursing Adviser

  2

  —

  2

  2

  —

  2

  Senior Inspector of Quarries

  2

  —

  2

  —

  —

  —

  Total Grade 7 Level

  1,070

  7

  1,077

  168

  31

  199

  Chief Employment Nursing Adviser

  —

  —

  —

  1

  —

  —

  Deputy Superintending Inspector of Agriculture

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Deputy Superintending Inspector of Factories

  24

  —

  24

  3

  —

  3

  Employment Medical Adviser

  16

  8

  24

  9

  1

  10

  Grade 6

  113

  —

  113

  11

  —

  11

  Nursing Consultant

  1

  —

  1

  3

  —

  3

  Petroleum Specialist 3

  19

  —

  19

  —

  —

  —

  Principal Inspector of Quarries

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Reservoir Evaluation Specialist 3

  2

  —

  2

  —

  —

  —

  Superintending Inspector (Nuclear Installations)

  25

  —

  25

  —

  —

  —

  Superintending Specialist Inspector Band C

  23

  —

  23

  —

  1

  1

  Total Grade 6 Level

  224

  8

  232

  27

  2

  29

  Chief Nursing Consultant

  —

  —

  —

  1

  —

  1

  Deputy Chief Inspector of Agriculture

  2

  —

  2

  —

  —

  —

  Grade 5

  90

  —

  90

  18

  3

  21

  Petroleum Specialist 2

  5

  —

  5

  —

  —

  —

  Principal Inspector of Mines (1982)

  11

  —

  11

  —

  —

  —

  Reservoir Evaluation Specialist 2

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Superintending Inspector of Factories

  17

  —

  17

  7

  —

  7

  Superintending Specialist Inspector Band B

  12

  —

  12

  —

  —

  —

  Total Grade 5 level

  138

  —

  138

  26

  3

  29

  Chief Inspector of Agriculture

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Deputy Chief Inspector of Factories

  6

  —

  6

  —

  —

  —

  Deputy Chief Inspector (Nuclear Installations)

  5

  —

  5

  —

  —

  —

  Deputy Chief Inspector (Specialist)

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Deputy Director of Medical Services

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Grade 4

  11

  —

  11

  —

  —

  —

  Senior Area Director

  11

  —

  11

  —

  —

  —

  526 527

  Men hours

  Women hours

  Grade

  full-time

  part-time

  all

  full-time

  part-time

  all

  Senior Employment Medical Adviser

  18

  2

  20

  5

  —

  5

  Total Grade 4 level

  52

  2

  54

  5

  —

  5

  Deputy Chief Inspector of Mines

  2

  1

  3

  —

  —

  —

  Grade 3

  24

  —

  24

  1

  —

  1

  Petroleum Specialist 1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Reservoir Evaluation Specialist 1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Total Grade 3 level

  26

  1

  27

  1

  —

  1

  Chief Inspector of Mines

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Grade2

  4

  —

  4

  1

  —

  1

  Total Grade 2 level

  5

  —

  5

  1

  —

  1

  Grade 1

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Grade 1A

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Total Grade 1 level

  2

  —

  2

  —

  —

  —

  Total

  19,700

  241

  19,941

  32,559

  8,904

  41,463

  Non-industrial staff in post 1 January 1994 ED group

  Grade

  Total hours

  Full-time

  Part-time

  All

  Administrative Assistant

  2,603

  315

  2,918

  Administrative Assistant ADP

  40

  32

  72

  Enrolled Nurse

  —

  —

  —

  Support Grade Band 2

  432

  154

  586

  Teleprinter Operator

  —

  —

  —

  Trainee Typist

  —

  —

  —

  Typist

  444

  221

  665

  Total AA Level

  3,519

  722

  4,241

  Administrative Officer

  26,528

  5,446

  31,974

  Administrative Officer ADP

  28

  1

  29

  Assistant Photographer

  —

  —

  —

  Driver

  —

  —

  —

  Personal Secretary

  332

  42

  374

  Personal Secretary Trainee

  —

  —

  —

  Support Grade Band 1

  181

  22

  203

  Trainee Graphics Officer

  —

  —

  —

  Total AO Level

  27,069

  5,511

  32,580

  Assistant Information Officer

  12

  2

  14

  Asssistant Librarian

  18

  5

  23

  Assistant Scientific Officer

  10

  —

  10

  Assistant Statistician

  18

  —

  18

  Economic Assistant

  11

  —

  11

  Executive Officer

  13,447

  2,506

  15,953

  Graphics Officer

  4

  —

  4

  Graphics Technical Grade

  2

  —

  2

  Graphics Technical Grade (GO4 RR)

  6

  —

  6

  Management Trainee

  51

  4

  55

  Photographic Officer

  4

  —

  4

  Professional and Technology Officer

  3

  —

  3

  Psychologist Graduate Trainee

  15

  —

  15

  Scientific Officer

  90

  2

  92

  Senior Personal Secretary

  55

  2

  57

  Social Worker

  14

  2

  16

  Support Manager 3

  24

  —

  24

  Technical Grade 1

  6

  —

  6

  528

  Grade

  Total hours

  Full-time

  Part-time

  All

  Technical Grade 2

  1

  —

  1

  Translator EO

  —

  —

  —

  Typing Manager

  43

  3

  46

  Total EO Level

  13,834

  2,526

  16,360

  Administration Trainee

  6

  —

  6

  Assistant Agricultural Inspector

  47

  —

  47

  Chief Typing Manager

  2

  —

  2

  Controller of Typists

  —

  —

  —

  Departmental Sister

  —

  —

  —

  Higher Executive Officer

  3,502

  239

  3,741

  Higher Executive Officer ADP

  —

  —

  —

  HEO AT

  —

  —

  —

  HEOD

  19

  —

  19

  Higher Graphics Officer

  1

  1

  2

  Higher Instructional Officer

  82

  —

  82

  Higher Photographic Officer

  2

  —

  2

  Higher Professional and Technology Officer

  17

  —

  17

  HPTO/Assistant Inspecting Officer (Railways)

  1

  —

  1

  Higher Psychologist

  55

  3

  58

  Higher Scientific Officer

  96

  4

  100

  Higher Social Worker

  5

  —

  5

  Information Officer

  44

  3

  47

  Inspector Class 2

  186

  —

  186

  Instructional Officer 1 1987

  124

  —

  124

  Librarian

  9

  4

  13

  Research Officer Resource and Planning

  1

  —

  1

  Research Officer Social Science

  3

  —

  3

  Senior Assistant Statistician

  13

  1

  14

  Senior Economic Assistant

  15

  —

  15

  Senior Enrolled Nurse

  —

  —

  —

  Senior Physiotherapist

  3

  1

  4

  Support Manager 1

  2

  —

  2

  Support Manager 2

  5

  —

  5

  Training Officer TW1

  —

  —

  —

  Translater HEO

  —

  —

  —

  UVP Field Organiser

  —

  —

  —

  Ward Sister

  4

  —

  4

  Total HEO Level

  4,244

  256

  4,500

  529

  Grade

  Total hours

  Full-time

  Part-time

  All

  Agricultural Inspector

  106

  —

  106

  Employment Nursing Adviser

  42

  1

  43

  Inspector 1B

  288

  30

  318

  Inspector (Nuclear Installations)

  64

  —

  64

  Inspector of Mines

  20

  —

  20

  Inspector of Quarries

  14

  —

  14

  Petroleum Specialist 5

  —

  —

  —

  Reservoir Evaluation Specialist 5

  —

  —

  —

  Senior Executive Officer

  937

  31

  968

  Senior Graphics Officer

  —

  —

  —

  Senior Industrial Relations Officer

  —

  —

  —

  Senior Information Officer

  28

  1

  29

  Senior Instructional Officer

  21

  —

  21

  Senior Librarian

  3

  —

  3

  Senior Photographic Officer

  —

  —

  —

  Senior Professional and Technology Officer

  12

  —

  12

  SPTO/Inspecting Officer (Railways)

  17

  —

  17

  Senior Psychologist

  28

  2

  30

  Senior Research Officer Resource and Planning

  2

  —

  2

  Senior Research Officer Social Science

  28

  6

  34

  Senior Scientific Officer

  93

  1

  94

  Senior Social Worker

  —_

  —

  —

  Senior Training Adviser

  31

  3

  34

  Specialist Inspector

  112

  1

  113

  SPTO Marine Surveyor Grade 1

  1

  —

  1

  Training Officer TWI Higher Grade

  —

  —

  —

  Training Services Officer 1

  1

  —

  1

  Training Services Officer 2

  —

  —

  —

  Total SEO Level

  1,848

  76

  1,924

  District Inspector of Mines (1982)

  1

  —

  1

  Grade 7

  678

  33

  711

  Inspector 1A

  179

  3

  182

  Petroleum Specialist 4

  135

  —

  135

  Petroleum Specialist 4 (SIMI)

  —

  —

  —

  Principal Agricultural Inspector

  32

  —

  32

  Principal Inspecting Officer (Railways)

  11

  —

  11

  Principal Inspector (Nuclear Installations)

  81

  —

  81

  Principal Marine Surveyor

  2

  —

  2

  Principal Specialist Inspector

  113

  2

  115

  Reservoir Evaluation Specialist 4

  —

  —

  —

  Senior Employment Nursing Adviser

  4

  —

  4

  Senior Inspector of Quarries

  2

  —

  2

  Total Grade 7 Level

  1,238

  38

  1,276

  Chief Employment Nursing Adviser

  1

  —

  1

  Deputy Superintending Inspector of Agriculture

  —

  —

  —

  Deputy Superintending Inspector of Factories

  27

  —

  27

  530

  Grade

  Total hours

  Full-time

  Part-time

  All

  Employment Medical Adviser

  25

  9

  34

  Grade 6

  124

  —

  124

  Nursing Consultant

  4

  —

  4

  Petroleum Specialist 3

  19

  —

  19

  Principal Inspector of Quarries

  1

  —

  1

  Reservoir Evaluation Specialist 3

  2

  —

  2

  Superintending Inspector (Nuclear Installations)

  25

  —

  25

  Superintending Specialist Inspector Band C

  23

  1

  24

  Total Grade 6 Level

  251

  10

  261

  Chief Nursing Consultant

  1

  —

  1

  Deputy Chief Inspector of Agriculture

  2

  —

  2

  Grade 5

  108

  3

  111

  Petroleum Specialist 2

  5

  —

  5

  Principal Inspector of Mines (1982)

  11

  —

  11

  Reservoir Evaluation Specialist 2

  1

  —

  1

  Superintending Inspector of Factories

  24

  —

  24

  Superintending Specialist Inspector Band B

  12

  —

  12

  Total Grade 5 Level

  164

  3

  167

  Chief Inspector of Agriculture

  —

  —

  —

  Deputy Chief Inspector of Factories

  6

  —

  6

  Deputy Chief Inspector (Nuclear Installations)

  5

  —

  5

  Deputy Chief Inspector (Specialist)

  —

  —

  —

  Deputy Director of Medical Services

  1

  —

  1

  Grade 4

  11

  —

  11

  Senior Area Director

  11

  —

  11

  Senior Employment Medical Adviser

  23

  2

  25

  Total Grade 4 Level

  57

  2

  59

  Deputy Chief Inspector of Mines

  2

  1

  3

  Grade 3

  25

  —

  25

  Petroleum Specialist 1

  —

  —

  —

  Reservoir Evaluation Specialist 1

  —

  —

  —

  Total Grade 3 Level

  27

  1

  28

  Chief Inspector of Mines

  1

  —

  1

  Grade 2

  5

  —

  5

  Total Grade 2 Level

  6

  —

  6

  Grade 1

  1

  —

  1

  Grade 1A

  1

  —

  1

  Total Grade 1 Level

  2

  —

  2

  Total

  52,259

  9,145

  61,404

  Training Allowances
  Ms Short
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what responsibility the Birminghan training and enterprise council has to ensure that all young people in the youth training guarantee group receive a training allowance up to their 18th birthday; how this responsibility
  531
  will be met if local training providers are not paid by Birmingham TEC to provide allowances after 17-year-olds have reached NVQ level 2; and if he will make a statement.

  Miss Widdecombe
  I understand that Birmingham training and enterprise council acknowledges its responsibility to ensure that all young people in the youth training guarantee group receive a training allowance up until their 18th birthday. For the 1994–95 financial year it will be a contractual requirement for the TEC's training providers to ensure that young people are able to remain in training and in receipt of a training allowance until their 18th birthday. The TEC will pay all training providers a contribution towards the training allowance and trainee support costs.

  Consultants
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment, pursuant to his answer of 23 March,Official Report, column 288, if he will list the number of contracts and their cost with management consultants in the latest year for which figures are available.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  In the period April 1993—March 1994, the Employment Department let 20 management consultancy contracts which had been drawn up by its business consultants lead buying unit to a value of £212,300. Information on contracts drawn up by the Department could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

DEFENCE

  Chemical Weapons (Vaccines)
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 4 November 1993,Official Report, column 474, if he will set out the reason for his policy of not to disclose stocks of nerve agent pretreatment sets.

  Mr. Hanley
  It is not my Department's practice to disclose information relating to stock levels of nerve agent pretreatment as it relates to operational capability.

  Eskmeals Testing Range
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will now publish the results of the monitoring of the Eskmeals testing range conducted by Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution.

  Mr. Aitken
  As my hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Environment and Countryside made clear in his answer on 2 February 1994,Official Report, column 799, environmental monitoring at Eskmeals is carried out by the Ministry of Defence. Copies of environmental monitoring reports and data going back to 1981 were placed in the House of Commons Library last July.

  Building Projects
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what major building projects, valued at over £1 million, are being or have been wholly or partly financed since 1989 in(a) Doncaster, (b) Barnsley, (c) Rotherham and (d) Wakefield by his Department; and what was the cost of each project to his Department.
  532
  Mr. Hanley
  There is no record of my Department having financed any major building projects valued at over £1 million in Doncaster, Barnsley, Rotherham or Wakefield since 1990. Information relating to the period before 1990 could be provided only at disproportionate cost as this would involve researching Property Services Agency archives.

  Drug Testing
  Mr. Davidson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will give details of the results of the trials on random drug testing conducted by the Army last year; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Hanley
  The purpose of the trials carried out last year was to assess the proposed methodology for compulsory drug testing. The trials showed that adjustments were necessary. These have been made.

  Redundancies
  Mrs. Ray Michie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 21 March,Official Report, column 117, if he will give details of the number of redundancies by rank and the total to date in each of the three services as a result of "Options for Change"; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Hanley
  I will write to the hon. Member.

  Civil Servants
  Ms Armstrong
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list for each civil service grade in his Department the number of(a) male and (b) female, (i) full-time and (ii) part-time employees.

  Mr. Aitken
  I refer the hon. Member to the Answer I gave to the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) on 29 November,Official Report, columns 371–76.

  Consultants
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 23 March,Official Report, column 337, if he will list the number of contracts, and their cost, with management consultants in the latest year for which figures are available.

  Mr. Aitken
  My Department does not maintain statistics centrally on the number and value of contracts placed with management consultants; thus, an answer to this question could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Auxiliary Oil Replenishment Vessels
  Mr. Byers
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he expects the auxiliary oil replenishment vessels 1 and 2 to enter service with the Royal Navy.

  Mr. Aitken
  The RFA's Fort Victoria—AOR-01—and Fort George—AOR-02—are currently undergoing post-acceptance trials and defect rectification work. They are planned to enter full service with the Royal Navy this summer.
  533

  Marsh Arabs
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what evidence is available to Her Majesty's Government of shelling of villages occupied by indigenous peoples of the marshes where the Tigris meets the Euphrates.

  Mr. Hanley
  Evidence drawn from aerial surveillance and other sources indicates that there has been systematic destruction of villages belonging to the indigenous people of the southern marshes of Iraq. This has not necessarily been caused by shelling.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Public Appointments
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the organisations and individuals outside his Department who are sent information on, or consulted about, individuals who are, or may be, proposed to the Minister for appointment to posts for which a Minister has to approve the person appointed or the shortlist for the appointment.

  Mr. Goodlad
  Consultation for appointments to public bodies is carried out as appropriate with other Government Departments and outside organisations depending on the circumstances of the appointment and the body involved.

  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list each appointment for which a Minister has to approve the appointment or shortlist for the appointment, showing for each appointment(a) which Minister exercises the responsibility, (b) the salary, if any, attached to the post, (c) the term of the appointment and (d) the person currently appointed to the post.

  Mr. Goodlad
  The information is as follows:

  Wilton Park Academic Council—All appointments:

  (a) Secretary of State

  (b) No salaries are paid

  (c) Three years renewable at the Secretary of State's discretion for a further three years

  (d) See:

  1987—Mrs.Liliana Archibald (Chairman)—* December 1995

  Director, Holman Wade Ltd.

  1992—Mr. John Hanson, CBE—ex officio

  Director General, British Council

  (Vacant)—ex officio

  Head of EC Office, London

  1991—Dr. Connie Martin—ex officio

  Secretary General, Anglo-German Foundation

  1987—Dr. John Scates—ex officio

  International Director, CBI

  1991—Professor Jack Spence—ex officio

  Director of Studies, Chatham House

  1983—Mr. Michael Kaser—*December 1995

  St. Antony's College, Oxford

  1989—Dr. Janet Morgan—*June 1995

  Director, WH Smith

  1989—Mr. Bruce George, MP—*June 1995

  Labour, Walsall South

  534

  1989—Mr. John Lyons, CBE—*June 1995

  Formerly General Secretary Engineers' and Managers' Association

  1990—Mr. Peter Temple-Morris, MP—* December 1996

  Conservative, Leominster

  1990—Sir Julian Bullard, GCMG—*December 1996

  Pro-Chancellor, Birmingham University

  1993—Mr. Anthony Bruce—June 1996

  Deputy Director Exports, The General Electric Company plc

  1993—Mrs. Juliet Campbell, CMG—June 1996

  The Mistress, Girton College, Cambridge

  1993—Professor Helen Wallace—June 1996

  Director, Sussex European Institute, University of Sussex

  1993—Mr. Nicholas Harvey, MP—June 1996

  Liberal, North Devon

  1993—Mr. Edward Mortimer—November 1996

  Foreign Affairs Editor, The Financial Times

  1994—Mr. Michael Walsh—June 1997

  Secretary, International Department, Trades Union Congress

  Wilton Park Departmental Board

  All appointments

  (a) Secretary of State

  (b) No salaries are paid

  (c) No formal arrangements

  (d) Mrs. Ruth Watts Davies

  Miss Valerie Le Moignan

  Wilton Park Conference Centre

  Director

  (a) Secretary of State

  (b) On a scale comparable to HCS 5

  (c) Three years renewable

  (d) Mr. Richard Langhorn

  Westminster Foundation for Democracy

  Governors

  (a) Secretary of State

  (b) None

  (c) Three years

  (d) Sir James Spicer, MP

  Ian Taylor, MP

  The Rt. Hon. and Hon. Sir Archie Hamilton, MP

  Geoffrey Hoon, MP

  Sir Russell Johnston, MP

  Mrs. Margaret Ewing, MP

  Ms Carole Tongue, MEP

  Mr. Tony Clarke

  Professor Peter Frank

  Mr. Timothy Garton Ash

  Lady Howe, JP

  Mr. Gavin Laird, CBE

  Mr. Ralph Land, OBE

  Dr. Michael Pinto-Duschinsky

  Anglo-Irish Encounter

  Joint Chairman

  (a) Secretary of State

  (b) salary is paid

  (c) Indefinite

  (d) Sir David Goodall, GCMG

  Anglo-Irish Encounter

  Joint Secretary

  (a) Secretary of State

  (b) No salary is paid

  (c) Indefinite

  (d) Mr. Donald Cape, CMG

  British Council

  Chairman

  (a) Secretary of State

  535

  (b) Honorarium of £9,215, 3 per cent. in 1993

  (c) Three years

  (d) Sir Martin Jacomb

  British Council

  (i) Deputy Chairman, (ii) Vice-Chairman, (iii) Vice-chairman

  (a) Secretary of State

  (b) No salary is paid

  (c) Three years

  (d)

  (i) Lord Chorley, FCA

  (ii) George Robertson, MP

  (iii) Rt. Hon. Timothy Renton, MP

  Imperial War Museum

  Board of Trustees

  (a) Secretary of State

  (b) No salary is paid

  (c) Three years

  (d)

  (i) Ian Smart

  (ii) Sir Edward Jackson

  Great Britain China Centre

  Chairman

  (a) Secretary of State

  (b) No salary is paid

  (c) Three years

  (d) Graham Greene, CBE

  British Association for Central and Eastern Europe

  Chairman

  (a) Secretary of State

  (b) No salary is paid

  (c) Three years

  (d) Rt. Hon. Paul Channon, MP

  Britain-Russia Centre

  Chairman

  (a) Secretary of State

  (b) No salary is paid

  (c) Three years

  (d) Sir Curtis Keeble, KCMG

  Marshall Aid Commemoration Committee

  Chairman

  (a) Secretary of State

  (b) No salary is paid

  (c) Three years

  (d) Sir Donald Tebbit

  Marshall Aid Commemoration Committee

  Members of the Board

  (a) Secretary of State

  (b) No salary is paid

  (c) Three years

  (d) Professor SirJames Ball

  Sir Roger Bannister

  Professor Christine Bolt

  Sir Arthur Bryant

  Professor Lord Desai

  Professor Harry Dickinson

  University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies

  Member of the Board

  (a) Secretary of State

  (b) No salary is paid

  (c) Five years

  (d) Lord Wilson of Tillyorn

  University College of Wales

  Wilson Chair of International Politics

  (a) Secretary of State

  (b) No salary is paid

  (c) Five years

  (d)

  (i) Mr. Stefan Terlezki

  (ii) Mr. Robert Harvey

  Commonwealth Institute

  Chairman and Vice Chairman

  (a) Secretary of State

  536

  (b) None currently because the post is vacant. In the past the chairman has received an honorarium of £15,000 per annum.

  (c) Three years renewable

  (d) Posts vacant

  Commonwealth Institute

  Governors of the Board

  (a) Secretary of State

  (b) No salaries are paid

  (c) Three years renewable

  (d) David Thomson (Acting Chairman)

  Sir Michael Caine

  Mr. Colin Shepherd, MP

  Mr. George Oakes, MP

  Mr. J. S. Maclure Mr. Cy Grant

  Baroness Flather

  Sir Mark Russell

  Dr. Ann Robinson

  The hon. David Douglas-Home

  Ms Diane Warwick

  Number 1 Diplomatic Service Appeals Board

  (i) Chairman; (ii) Official side member; (iii) TUS side member; (iv) Independent member

  (a) Secetary of State

  (b) No salary is paid

  (c) Three years

  (d)

  (i) Sir Ewen Fergusson

  (ii) Mrs. Juliet Campbell

  (iii) Mr. Frank Trew

  (iv) Ms Kamlesh Bahl

  Number 2 Diplomatic Service Appeals Board

  (i) Chairman: (ii) Official side member; (iii) TUS side member; (iv) Independent member

  (a) Secretary of State

  (b) No salary is paid

  (c) Three years

  (d)

  (i) Sir Mark Russell

  (ii) Mr. Rodney Bedford

  (iii) Miss Sally Bull

  (iv) Lady Jaqueline Dyson

  Overseas Development Administration

  All appointments are made by the Minister of State

  The ODA Advisory Committee on Economic and Social Research Overseas

  Term of office—three to five years

  No salaries are paid

  Dr. C. O. N. Moser

  Professor A. W. Rew, MA (Econ)PhD

  Professor J. F. J. Toye, MA (Cambs)MSc, PhD

  Dr. H. Afshar

  Professor P. Blaikie

  Professor K. Davey Ms D. Elson

  Dr. J. Heyer

  Professor N. Stern

  The Commonwealth Scholarship Commission

  Term of office—three years No salaries are paid

  Sir Michael Caine (Chairman)

  Professor S. B. Saul (Deputy Chairman)

  Professor R. A. Howie

  Professor B. M. Ogilvie

  Professor. J. G. G. Ledingham

  Mrs. D. L. Wedderburn

  Professsor S. Marks

  Profesor Gillian Beer

  Dr. C. Booth

  Dr. R. O. Iredale

  Dr. P. Parsloe

  Professor A. Little

  Professor D. Jennings

  J. Hanson

  Professor A. Diplock, DSC

  537
  Overseas Service Pension Scheme

  No salaries are paid

  P. D. M. Freeman

  D. Trotter

  C. D. Stenton

  Miss D. R. Phillips

  D. H. Loades

  Indian Family Pension Scheme

  No fixed term of office

  No salaries are paid

  D. Trotter

  Major General D. L. T. Horsford

  Major R. J. Henderson

  Lt. Colonel P. Kemmis-Betty

  Major R. Mottram R. V. Fenton

  J. M. Phelps

  J. P. C. Coventry

  G. E. D. Walker

  Mrs. P. Lamarque

  Mrs. M. Ramsay-Brown

  The Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC)

  Term of office—three years

  Sir Peter E. Leslie (Chairman)—£25,730

  Sir Michael Caine (Deputy Chairman)—£8,856

  Professor M. L. O. Faber

  £4,821

  M. McWilliam

  E. B. Waide

  Professor I. D. Carruthers

  J. B. Zochonis

  Sir William Ryrie

  The Crown Agents

  Term of office—three years

  D. H. Probert (Chairman)—£30,000

  A. K. Stewart-Roberts (Deputy Chairman)—£6,640

  P. F. Berry (Managing Director)—£68,100

  Mrs. D. Miller MBE, JP

  £5,320

  Miss K. Mortimer

  F. Cassell, CB

  J. D. Andrewes

  F. T. Sumner

  Crown Agents Holding and Realisation Board

  Term of office—three years

  No salaries are paid

  D. H. Probert

  A. K. Stewart-Roberts

  P. F. Berry

  Mrs. D. Miller, MBE, JP

  Miss K. Mortimer

  F. Cassell, CB

  J. D. Andrewes

  F. I. Sumner

  Institute of Development Studies Governing Body

  Term of office—three years

  No salaries are paid

  Sir Michael Caine

  Ms Kate Mortimer

  Dr. Carol Cosgrove

  Dr. Alexander Shakow

  Mr. Bowen Wells, MP

  Mr. Derek Enright, MP

  Governing Body of Queen Elizabeth House

  Term of office—three to five years

  No salaries are paid

  Sir Peter Marshall, KCMG

  Professor Shula Marks

  Mr. Paul Ackroyd

  Professor Adrian Wood

  Government Hospitality Fund Advisory Committee for the Purchase of Wine

  (a) The Rt. Hon. Alastair Goodlad (Minister in charge of GHF)

  538

  (b) No salaries are paid

  (c) No fixed term

  (d) Sir Ewen Fergusson, GCMG, GCVO

  Major John Surtees, OBE, MC

  Mr. Sebastian Payne

  Mr. Anthony Hanson

  Mr. Mark Savage

  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information his Department holds or obtains relating to individuals who have been appointed, or may be considered for appointment, to paid or unpaid posts for which a Minister has to approve the person or shortlist for the appointment, in particular relating to active involvement in(a) extreme left-wing organisations, (b) extreme right-wing organisations and (c) involvement in any of the political parties represented in the House of Commons.

  Mr. Goodlad
  Information on the political activities of candidates for appointments to public bodies is obtained from a variety of sources depending on the body in question. In many cases, the political activities of the appointee are not relevant.

  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what procedures his Department has to prevent the possible appointment of individuals with extreme political views to posts for which a Minister has to approve the person or shortlist for the appointment.

  Mr. Goodlad
  Appointees to public bodies are considered on the basis of their experience and background in relation to the appointment in question. Political views are considered when membership of a political party is relevant to the appointment.

  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the organisations and individuals who have been asked, since June 1992, to submit names of individuals to be considered for appointments to paid and unpaid posts for which a Minister has to approve the person or shortlist for the appointment.

  Mr. Goodlad
  Names of individuals to be considered for appointments to public bodies are, depending on circumstances, submitted from a variety of sources including other Government Departments and, as appropriate, the body to which the appointments is to be made.

  Zaire
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information he has about Sudanese Government forces being assembled in Zaire; and what representations he has made to the Government of Zaire about this.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  We have made no such representations. A Zairean Government communiqué of 4 March strongly denied the presence of Sudanese Government troops in Zaire.

  North Korea
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what reports he has had about the adequacy of the inspections of the
  539
  International Atomic Energy Agency in North Korea; and what access the Korean authorities gave the team to the seven agreed nuclear sites.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency has stated that IAEA inspections carried out between 3 and 14 March did not permit the agency to conclude that nuclear material had not been diverted for military use in North Korea since February 1993. Agency inspectors were not allowed to proceed with a full inspection at one of North Korea's seven declared nuclear facilities.

  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment he has made of whether North Korea now has diverted sufficient plutonium to make at least one nuclear weapon.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The director general of the IAEA told his board of governors on 21 March that as a result of inspections carried out between 3 and 14 March, the agency could not conclude that nuclear material had not been diverted for military use in North Korea since February 1993. In addition, North Korea has not granted the IAEA access to two undeclared sites, inspection of which would help to clarify whether there had been diversion of material prior to that date. The Security Council is currently considering the matter.

  Occupied Territories
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what progress is being made in providing Palestinians with international protection in the occupied territories.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The United Kingdom co-sponsored United Nations Security Council resolution 904 which calls for measures to be taken to guarantee the safety and protection of the Palestinian civilians throughout the occupied territories, including a temporary foreign or international presence. The nature of such a presence is the subject of negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the degree of commitment of Israel and the PLO to early elections in the occupied territories.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Israel and the PLO are committed by the declaration of principles signed on 13 September 1993 to the goal of holding elections not later than nine months after the entry into force of the declaration. The declaration entered into force on 13 October 1993.

  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assistance he is giving to the establishment of a Palestinian police force in the occupied territories.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  We will train senior officers of the Palestinian police in the United Kingdom later this year. We are also providing full riot protection equipment for 200 members of the Palestinian police.

  Western Sahara
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent progress has been made towards holding a referendum in the Western Sahara.
  540
  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The United Nations Secretary-General submitted his latest report on 10 March. The report is being considered by the Security Council.

  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is the policy of the United Nations mission in the Western Sahara on the participation by Morrocans in a referendum in the Western Sahara.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The United Nations Indentification Commission is trying to establish the identification of all those eligible to vote in the referendum on the Western Sahara and to register them.

  Sudan
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs which United Nations employees are currently held by the Sudanese People's Liberation Army in Sudan; and what representations he has made about this.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  We know of no United Nations employees being held by the SPLA. The United Nations announced on 6 March the release of United Nations staff detained on 24 February by the SPLA in violation of Operation Lifeline Sudan principles.

  East Timor
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information he has about the numbers of people who have died violently in East Timor since the Indonesian takeover.

  Mr. Goodlad
  There is no reliable source for such information.

  Israel
  Mr. David Young
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made to the United States of America to discontinue all military aid to Israel until further Israeli settling in the Palestinian areas ceases and there are adequate safeguards to the Palestinians from existing settlers.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  None.

  Mr. David Young
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made to the United States of America to press Israel to dismantle all settlements in Palestinian territory.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  We have kept in close touch with the Americans on this issue. We regularly make demarches to the Israelis urging them to cease the construction of settlements which is illegal and an obstacle to peace.

  Entry Clearance Officers
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to his answer of 16 March,Official Report, column 699, what is his definition of a man year.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  A man year is the amount of time spent per year by a person doing entry clearance officer work. It is based on a standard formula which take
  541
  account of time not available because of public holidays, leave, sickness, etcetera. It includes also the time of staff on temporary duty, such as summer seasonal relief.

  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to his answers of 16 March,Official Report, columns 699–700, if he will make a statement on the reasons for entry clearance officers at posts overseas being instructed to reply direct to letters from solicitors in the United Kingdom, but not to reply direct to letters received from hon. Members.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  As I explained in my letter of 7 July 1993 to hon. Members, the migration and visa correspondence unit was established specifically to handle MPs' inquiries about entry clearance matters; and to ensure

  Number of men employed

  Number of women employed

  full-time

  part-time

  full-time

  part-time

  Open structure

  Grade 2

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Grade 3

  3

  —

  1

  —

  Grade 4

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Grade 5

  56

  —

  9

  2

  Grade 6

  94

  —

  8

  —

  Grade 7

  291

  9

  55

  3

  Occupational groups

  Senior Executive Officer

  72

  1

  21

  2

  Higher Executive Officer (D)

  3

  —

  —

  —

  Higher Executive Officer

  162

  1

  79

  9

  Executive Officer

  242

  1

  170

  32

  Administrative Officer

  289

  2

  397

  40

  Administrative Assistant

  66

  —

  50

  3

  Senior Economic Assistant

  2

  —

  —

  —

  Economic Assistant

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Senior Information Officer

  5

  —

  6

  —

  Information Officer

  11

  —

  20

  —

  Assistant Information Officer

  5

  —

  5

  —

  Senior Librarian

  —

  —

  3

  —

  Librarian

  —

  —

  6

  —

  Assistant Librarian

  5

  —

  13

  —

  Museum Curatorial Grade D

  —

  —

  2

  —

  Museum Curatorial Grade E

  —

  —

  1

  —

  Museum Curatorial Grade F

  2

  —

  —

  —

  Senior P and T Officer

  43

  —

  2

  —

  Higher P and T Officer

  48

  —

  1

  —

  P and T Officer

  19

  —

  —

  —

  Technical Grade 1

  8

  —

  —

  —

  Higher Mapping and Charting Officer

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Mapping and Charting Officer

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Mapping and Charting Technical Grade 1

  —

  —

  1

  —

  Typing Manager

  —

  —

  9

  1

  Personal Secretary

  —

  —

  139

  13

  Typist

  1

  —

  71

  12

  Senior Scientific Officer

  64

  —

  17

  —

  Higher Scientific Officer

  39

  —

  23

  —

  Scientific Officer

  22

  —

  12

  1

  Assistant Scientific Officer

  9

  —

  13

  —

  Catering Manager 1

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Catering Manager 2

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Catering Manager 3

  2

  —

  1

  —

  Higher Photographic Officer

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Photographic Officer

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Higher Graphics Officer

  —

  —

  1

  —

  Graphics Officer

  —

  —

  —

  1

  Dep Reg Vet Officer

  2

  —

  —

  —

  Agricultural Officer 1

  18

  —

  1

  —

  Agricultural Officer 2

  5

  —

  —

  —

  P & GS Grade B

  3

  —

  —

  —

  P & GS grade C

  5

  —

  —

  —

  P & GS Grade D

  9

  —

  —

  —

  P & GS Grade E

  11

  —

  —

  —

  Stores Officer Grade B

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Stores Officer Grade C

  1

  —

  1

  —

  Stores Officer Grade D

  5

  —

  —

  —

  542
  more effective and efficient handling of such inquiries which had previously been subject to the risk of delay or of overseas mail going astray. MPs' representations are thus accorded priority at all times. Resource constraints preclude letters from others, such as solicitors, being given the same level of service.

  Civil Servants
  Ms Armstrong
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list for each civil service grade in his Department the number of(a) male and (b) female, (i) full-time and (ii) part-time employees.

  Mr. Goodlad
  The latest figures available are:
  543

  Number of men employed

  Number of women employed

  full-time

  part-time

  full-time

  part-time

  Support Manager 1

  4

  —

  —

  —

  Support Manager 2

  3

  —

  6

  —

  Support Manager 3

  25

  —

  20

  —

  Support Grade Band 1

  142

  —

  78

  3

  Support Grade Band 2

  147

  1

  123

  —

  Senior TTO

  18

  —

  —

  —

  Higher TTO

  69

  —

  —

  —

  TTO

  101

  —

  1

  —

  Assistant TTO

  91

  —

  4

  —

  Communications Officer IV

  —

  —

  1

  —

  Industrial grades

  32

  4

  12

  18

  Departmental Groups

  Senior Grade

  130

  —

  5

  —

  Diplomatic Service Grade 4

  257

  —

  11

  —

  Diplomatic Service Grade 5

  371

  1

  52

  8

  Diplomatic Service Grade 6

  228

  1

  32

  —

  Diplomatic Service Grade 7M

  330

  —

  90

  7

  Diplomatic Service Grade 7D

  75

  —

  36

  1

  Diplomatic Service Grade 8

  48

  —

  9

  —

  Diplomatic Service Grade 9

  388

  —

  391

  10

  Diplomatic Service Grade 10

  261

  1

  184

  1

  Legal Adviser

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Second Legal Adviser

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Deputy Legal Adviser

  2

  —

  —

  —

  Legal Counsellor

  4

  —

  2

  —

  Senior Assistant Legal Adviser

  6

  —

  3

  —

  Assistant Legal Adviser

  2

  —

  2

  —

  Research Counsellor

  3

  —

  —

  —

  Senior Principal Research Officer

  10

  —

  4

  —

  Principal Research Officer

  14

  2

  12

  1

  Senior Research Officer

  23

  —

  8

  1

  Research Officer

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Diplomatic Service Grade 8C

  14

  —

  —

  —

  Diplomatic Service Grade 9C

  7

  —

  —

  —

  Diplomatic Service Grade 5T

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Diplomatic Service Grade 6T

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Diplomatic Service Grade 7T

  20

  —

  —

  —

  Diplomatic Service Grade 8T

  44

  —

  1

  —

  Diplomatic Service Grade 9T

  15

  —

  —

  —

  Secretary 1

  —

  —

  105

  1

  Secretary 2

  1

  —

  435

  9

  Secretary 3

  1

  —

  6

  —

  Chief Overseas Security Officer

  41

  —

  —

  —

  Overseas Security Officer

  144

  —

  2

  —

  Nurse

  —

  —

  4

  —

  Doctor

  4

  —

  1

  —

  Senior Lecturer

  3

  —

  7

  —

  Senior Field Investigating Officer

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Field Investigating Officer 2

  13

  —

  3

  —

  Translator 1

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Translator 2

  1

  —

  3

  3

  Translator 3

  1

  —

  1

  —

  Chief Cypher Superintendent

  3

  —

  —

  —

  Cypher Superintendent

  12

  —

  —

  —

  Cypher Supervisor

  31

  —

  —

  —

  Telecommunications and Cypher Officer

  97

  —

  6

  —

  Operator Technician

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Queen's Messenger

  27

  —

  —

  —

  Queen's Messenger Escort

  4

  —

  —

  —

  Marsh Arabs
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information is available to Her Majesty's Government about the reason for the burning of settlements in the marshes where the Tigris meets the Euphrates.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The destruction of settlements in the marshes of southern Iraq may be related to marsh 544
  drainage construction projects, counter-insurgency operations or harassment of Shia Arabs by the authorities in Baghdad. United States, United Kingdom and French aircraft deployed to patrol the southern no-fly zone continue to monitor the situation closely. Iraq's motives are unlikely to be clear until the United Nations monitors are allowed access to the area, as required by the United Nations resolutions. But judging from Saddam's past record of brutality towards his own people, the wide-scale burning of settlements is likely to be part of an aggressive campaign against those who live in the marshes.
  545

  Mr. Van den Broek
  Mr. Marlow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will urge Mr. Van den Broek to refrain from commenting on issues which are the province of member states.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  No. Mr. Van den Broek is entitled to express his personal opinions.

  Paul Goodall
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps he is taking to ensure that Abdul Hadi Al Gahtani who is in jail in Zemica, Bosnia is brought to trial over his alleged participation in the murder of Paul Goodall.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  We remain in close touch with the Bosnian authorities about their continuing investigations into the murder of Paul Goodall. They are fully aware of our concerns that the murderer is identified and brought to justice.

  Nauru
  Mrs. Gillan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he expects to reply to the Australian request of August 1993 for a contribution to the Australian settlement of the Nauru rehabilitation claim.

  Mr. Goodlad
  The United Kingdom Government has made an ex gratia payment to Australia of A$12 million in respect of the Australia/Nauru settlement agreement of 10 August 1993. In return Australia has agreed not to pursue any further claims against the United Kingdom on this matter. The British Government have accepted no liability with respect to any claims made by Nauru or Australia.

SCOTLAND

  Sporting Estates
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what estimate he has made, on a per acre basis, of the yield to the Scottish economy from sporting estates.

  Sir Hector Monro
  My right hon. Friend does not collect this information.

  Salmon
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many persons were employed in the salmon netting industry; and how many salmon netting stations were operative, in (i) 1979 and (ii) at the most recent available date.

  Sir Hector Monro
  Statistics are produced on salmon and sea trout netting effort but not on employment in the Scottish salmon netting industry nor on the number of salmon netting stations. The available statistics are included in the "Statistical Bulletin on Scottish Salmon and Sea Trout Catches".

  Deer Forests and Grouse Moors
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what is his latest estimate of the acreage of Scotland under(a) deer forest and (b) grouse moors.
  546
  Sir Hector Monro
  My right hon. Friend does not collect this information.

  Isle of Man
  Mr. Mackinlay
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he last met Ministers of the Isle of Man to discuss transport links, promotion of the common Celtic heritage and other matters of mutual interest.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  My right hon. Friend has had no meetings with Ministers of the Isle of Man.

  Sheep Scab
  Mr. Maclennan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) what plans he has to make it a requirement to notify the Scottish Office Agriculture and Fisheries Department of an outbreak of sheep scab; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) what information he has about the incidence of sheep scab in Scotland.

  Sir Hector Monro
  I have seen a number of reports recently about sheep scab outbreaks in Scottish flocks. However, this is a disease which can be controlled readily by individual farmers who are well aware of the preventive measures and procedures needed to deal with it. Most of the detailed measures on the control of sheep scab were removed in July 1992 and the Government have already announced that they will complete this process. We have no other plans to require the notification of sheep scab.

  Prisoners
  Mr. Gunnell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what were the total number of prisoners in custody in Scotland on the first day of each month from May 1992 until the latest month for which figures are available.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  [holding answer 24 March 1994]: Responsibility for the subject of the question has been delegated to the Scottish Prison Service under its chief executive, Mr. E. W. Frizzell. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from E. W. Frizzell to Mr. John Gunnell, dated 24 March 1994:

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton has asked me to reply to your Question about the total number of prisoners in custody in Scotland on the first day of each month from May 1992 until the latest month for which figures are available.

  The table below gives that information to date.

  1992

  1993

  1994

  January

  —

  5,157

  5,080

  February

  —

  5,490

  5,372

  March

  —

  5,886

  5,561

  April

  —

  5,893

  —

  May

  5,276

  5,739

  —

  June

  5,361

  5,879

  —

  July

  5,406

  5,853

  —

  August

  5,184

  5,835

  —

  September

  5,348

  5,916

  —

  October

  5,376

  5,214

  —

  November

  5,337

  5,253

  —

  December

  5,387

  5,340

  —

  Mr. Gunnell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what were the total numbers of prisoners in custody in
  547
  Scotland on (a) 1 June 1979, (b) 1 June 1983, (c) 1 June 1987 and (d) 1 April 1992 and on the latest date for which figures are available.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  [holding answer 24 March 1994]: Responsibility for the subject of the question has been delegated to the Scottish Prison Service under its chief executive, Mr. E. W. Frizzell. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from E. W. Frizzell to Mr. John Gunnell, dated 24 March 1994:

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton has asked me to reply to your Question about the total number of prisoners in custody in Scotland on 1 June 1979, 1 June 1983, 1 June 1987, 1 April 1992 and on the latest date for which figures are available.

  Information relating to the numbers in custody on the first of each month is not available for 1979, 1983 or 1987. In 1979 the average daily population (based on the full calendar year) was 4,585. In 1983 and 1987 the average daily population for the month of June in each year was 5,116 and 5,407 respectively. On 1 April 1992 the population was 5,348 and on 18 March 1994, the latest date for which figures are available, the population was 5,498.

  Dougarie Estate
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will state the reasons for the decision not to prosecute in the case arising from the shooting of a short-eared owl on Dougarie estate, Isle of Arran.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  It is not the policy of the Crown to give details of the reasons for decisions taken in individual cases. My noble and learned Friend the Lord Advocate is, however, aware of the circumstances of this case and is satisfied that the procurator fiscal's decision not to proceed to trial was a proper one in the circumstances as then known to him.

  Mr. Gunnell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what were the total numbers of prison spaces in Scotland on(a) 1 June 1979, (b) 1 June 1983, (c) 1 June 1987 and (d) 1 April 1992 and on the latest date for which figures are available.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  [holding answer 24 March 1994]: Responsibility for the subject of the question has been delegated to the Scottish Prison Service under its chief executive, Mr. E. W. Frizzell. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from E. W. Frizzell to Mr. John Gunnell, dated 24 March 1994:

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton has asked me to reply to your Question about prison places in Scotland.

  During any year a number of cells are unavailable for use for a variety of reasons, including redecoration or damage repair work, refurbishment (including in some cases, to provide night sanitation) or for other policy reasons (eg being retained in the event of an emergency). Information on cells in use is not available for the earlier of the years you requested. However the design capacity of the estate was as follows:

  1979

  1983

  1987

  Design capacity (as at end of each calendar year)

  5,279

  5,318

  5,691

  At the beginning of April 1992, the design capacity was 5,692 with 5,103 spaces available for use. The latest position (as at Friday 18 March 1994) is that the design capacity is 5,736, with a total of 5,167 spaces available for use.
  548

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Prison Improvement Programmes
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prison improvement programmes have been cancelled over the past 12 months; if he will list the prisons in England and Wales where this has happened; and what are the reasons for such cancellations.

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

  Letter from Ian Dunbar to Mr. Tom Cox, dated 28 March 1994:

  The Home Secretary has asked me, in the absence of the Director General from the office, to reply to your recent Question about whether any building improvement programmes have been cancelled within the past twelve months.

  Two schemes have been cancelled during the last twelve months at Brixton and Stocken on value for money grounds. An alternative solution is currently being considered for Brixton.

  Car Boot Sales
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many representations he has received from(a) hon. Members, (b) members of the general public and (c) chambers of trade and other trade organisations requesting tighter controls and regulation of car boot sales.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  Since April 1992, representations have been received from 11 hon. Members and from 11 members of the public. No representations have been received from chambers of trade and other trade organisations.

  Prisoners (Police Cells)
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisoners are currently being held in police stations in south Yorkshire.

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

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 28 March 1994:

  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about the number of prisoners currently held in police stations in South Yorkshire.

  On the night of 22 March 1994, the latest date for which full information is available, there were 55 prisoners in police stations in the South Yorkshire area.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisoners on average were being held in each of the police stations in South Yorkshire (i) for each month since January 1993 and (ii) for each day in February and March 1994; and if he will make a statement as to what causes he has identified for any trends in these figures.
  549
  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Responsibility for this matter has been delegated to the Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 21 March 1994:

  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about the numbers of prisoners held in police stations in South Yorkshire from January 1993 to date.

  During the period from 1 January 1993 to 8 February 1994, no prisoners were held in police stations in South Yorkshire.

  The attached table shows the position from 9 February 1994 to 22 March 1994.

  Since 1 January 1994, the prison population in England and Wales has risen by over 3,300. This has caused considerable pressure on prison accommodation, particularly in the north of England.

  Date

  Police station

  Actual number

  9 February 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  14

  10 February 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  19

  11 February 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  3

  12 February 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  3

  13 February 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  3

  14 February 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  9

  15 February 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  20

  16 February 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  22

  Rotherham

  3

  17 February 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  25

  18 February 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  1

  19 February 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  1

  20 February 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  1

  21 February 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  4

  22 February 1994

  Nil

  —

  23 February 1994

  Nil

  —

  24 February 1994

  Nil

  —

  25 February 1994

  Nil

  —

  26 February 1994

  Nil

  —

  27 February 1994

  Nil

  —

  28 February 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  15

  1 March 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  16

  2 March 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  18

  3 March 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  16

  4 March 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  11

  5 March 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  14

  6 March 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge St.

  14

  7 March 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  30

  8 March 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  21

  9 March 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  22

  10 March 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  25

  11 March 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  4

  12 March 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  8

  13 March 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  8

  14 March 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  20

  Thorne

  10

  Rotherham

  15

  15 March 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  26

  Thorne

  10

  Rotherham

  15

  16 March 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  26

  Rotherham

  15

  Thorne

  12

  Doncaster

  4

  17 March 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  26

  Thorne

  12

  Doncaster

  13

  Rotherham

  16

  18 March 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  25

  Rotherham

  15

  Thorne

  10

  19 March 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  25

  Thorne

  12

  Doncaster

  4

  Rotherham

  16

  550

  Date

  Police station

  Actual number

  20 March 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  25

  Thorne

  12

  Doncaster

  4

  Rotherham

  16

  21 March 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  25

  Thorne

  11

  Rotherham

  15

  Doncaster

  10

  22 March 1994

  Sheffield, Bridge st.

  17

  Thorne

  10

  Doncaster

  11

  Barnsley

  4

  Rotherham

  13

  Mixed-Sex Prisons
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many mixed-sex prisons there are in England and Wales; if he will list their locations; and what consideration he is giving to increasing their number.

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

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 28 March 1994:

  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about mixed sex prisons in England and Wales.

  The following three Prison Service establishments in England and Wales currently and routinely hold both males and females: Durham, Risley (near Warrington) and Low Newton (near Durham). Male and female prisoners are held separately.

  There are, at present, no plans to increase the number of establishments holding both males and females.

  Doncaster Prison
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list, by category, the establishment number of prisoners to be held at Doncaster prison when it is opened.

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

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 28 March 1994:

  HM Prison Doncaster

  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about Doncaster prison.

  Doncaster has a certified normal accommodation of 771 places. As a local prison serving the courts, the population mix will fluctuate with the number and age of prisoners committed to it. It is expected that two thirds of the prisoners will he male young offenders and one third adult males. The population will include those on remand, those convicted awaiting sentence, those sentenced awaiting allocation to a training prison and some who will serve their entire sentence in the prison.

  Joy Gardner
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if the report sent by the Police Complaints Authority to the Crown Prosecution Service concerning the
  551
  death of Joy Gardner will include an investigation into the role of immigration officials involved in Mrs. Gardner's case in the period up to the attempted deportation.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  No. The report of the investigation by the assistant chief constable of Essex police, which was supervised by the Police Complaints Authority, is concerned with any possible criminal and disciplinary consequences of the actions of police officers.

  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) when his Department was first made aware that Joy Gardner was still in the United Kingdom after her six month visa had expired;

  (2) how and by whom his Department was first made aware that Joy Gardner was still in the United Kingdom after her six months visa had expired; and from what other sources he later received the same information.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  The Immigration Department first became aware that Mrs. Gardner was still in the United Kingdom after expiry of her leave to enter when her husband visited the public inquiry office in Croydon on 11 September 1990 and applied on her behalf for leave to remain on the basis of marriage. This was the only source from which the information that she had overstayed was received.

  Volunteering
  Mr. Alan Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to involve representatives of local government in the planning and oversight of the "Make a Difference" initiative on volunteering.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  I very much hope that local government will want to play a full and active part in "Make a Difference". My officials have already met local authority associations to discuss ways in which local government can be involved, and several local government representatives attended the launch on 1 March.

  National Lottery Charities Board
  Ms Mowlam
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects to announce the members of the proposed National Lottery Charities Board.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  My right hon. and learned Friend hopes to announce the chairman very shortly. He will then be discussing with him or her the appointment of the 16 board members and will make these as soon as possible.

  Youth Detention
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much it costs per head to detain youths in(a) prisons and (b) other forms of detention centres; and if he will make a statement.

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

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. Martyn Jones, dated 28 March 1994:

  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent question about the cost of detaining young offenders.
  552
  Young people remanded to prison are held in local prisons and remand centres at an average weekly cost of £526. Sentenced young offenders are held in closed young offender establishments at an average weekly cost of £634 or open ones at £492.

  Isle of Man
  Mr. Mackinlay
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he last met the Chief Minister of the Isle of Man.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  My right hon. and learned Friend has not had the opportunity to meet the Chief Minister of the Isle of Man.

  Fire Safety Inspections
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many fire safety inspections were undertaken by fire services in England and Wales in the past year; how many complaints were received about the conduct of these inspections; and how many complaints were found to be justified.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  The total number of inspections carried out by fire services in England and Wales during the calendar year January to December 1992 was 840,724.

  During the period January to March 1993, some 225,505 inspections were carried out. Figures for the calendar year January to December 1993 are not yet available.

  A survey of brigades in 1993 showed that 81 complaints were received about the conduct of inspections. On investigation, 50 of those complaints were found to be justified.

  Prisoners
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the average proportion of category A prisoners and category B prisoners within the prison population in each of the last 10 years.

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

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. Doug Hoyle, dated 28 March 1994:

  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about the average proportion of category A prisoners and category B prisoners within the prison population in each of the last ten years.

  The information for 30 June of each year is given in the attached table. Information on category A prisoners is available for the period requested but information on category B prisoners is only readily available from 1991 onwards.

  Population of category A and B prisoners in Prison Service establishments on 30 June, 1984–1993

  Security category

  Category A

  Category B

  On 30 June

  Number

  Percentage of adult sentenced population1

  Number

  Percentage of adult sentenced population1

  1984

  417

  1·6

  n/a

  n/a

  1985

  429

  1·6

  n/a

  n/a

  1986

  458

  1·7

  n/a

  n/a

  1987

  656

  2·2

  n/a

  n/a

  553

  Security category

  Category A

  Category B

  On 30 June

  Number

  Percentage of adult sentenced population1

  Number

  Percentage of adult sentenced population1

  1988

  644

  2·1

  n/a

  n/a

  1989

  664

  2·2

  n/a

  n/a

  1990

  564

  2·0

  n/a

  n/a

  1991

  592

  2·0

  4,822

  16·4

  1992

  597

  2·0

  4,751

  15·8

  1993

  578

  2·1

  5,149

  18·4

  1 Some sentenced prisoners will have had no category assigned to them. A small number of category A and category B prisoners may be young offenders rather than adults.

  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the average number of prisoners in each of the last 10 years(a) serving life sentences, (b) serving sentences of over 10 years, (c) serving sentences of over four years and (d) serving sentences for crimes of a violent or sexual nature.

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

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. Doug Hoyle, dated 28 March 1994:

  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about what was the average number of prisoners in each of the last 10 years (a) serving life sentences, (b) serving sentences of over 10 years, (c) serving sentences of over four years and (d) serving sentences for crimes of a violent or sexual nature.

  The available information is for 30 June each year and is published annually in successive volumes of "Prison Statistics England and Wales" (Tables 1.8 and 1.9 of the latest volume, for 1991, Cm 2157 give annual data for the period 1981 to 1991). A copy of this publication is available in the House of Commons Library. Provisional information for 1992 and for 1993 where available is given in the attached table.

  Sentenced population in Prison Service establishments on 30 June1

  Length of sentence

  1992

  1993

  Life

  3,000

  3,095

  Over 10 years less than life

  1,399

  n/a

  Over 4 years less than life2

  9,965

  n/a

  Offence

  Violent or sexual offences3

  10,233

  410,700

  1 Provisional figures.

  2 Includes those serving a sentence of over 10 years.

  3 As recorded. Some 13 per cent, of the sentenced population in 1992 and 6 per cent, in 1993 had no offence recorded centrally.

  4 Estimated.

  Evidence (Video Link)
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will introduce legislation to allow adult victims of sexual offences to give evidence by video link, subject to judicial discretion; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Maclean
  The Government have no plans to introduce such legislation, but we have undertaken to review the position of vulnerable adult witnesses following 554
  the completion of research into the effectiveness of new provisions relating to the evidence of children, which were introduced by the Criminal Justice Act 1991.

  Blakenhurst Prison
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many prisoner custody officers are currently employed at Blakenhurst; and how many have resigned or been sacked since the prison opened;

  (2) how many prison custody officers have been employed at Blakenhurst by United Kingdom Detention Services since it opened; and if he will provide details;

  (3) what information he has as to how many former members of the state prison service now work at Blakenhurst;

  (4) what is the grade of the Crown Monitor at Blakenhurst prison;

  (5) how many disturbances have taken place at Blakenhurst since it opened; and if he will give details.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Responsibility for these matters has been delegated to the Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. Doug Hoyle, dated 28 March 1994:

  HM Prison Blakenhurst

  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Questions about Blakenhurst prison.

  Since its opening a total of 308 people have been employed as prisoner custody officers at Blakenhurst. 30 people have resigned and two have been dismissed. There are 276 prisoner custody officers currently employed at the prison; 13 former members of the Prison Service work there.

  The Controller is a Governor III grade Crown servant.

  There have been a total of two disturbances and five occasions on which there have been peaceful acts of indiscipline at Blakenhurst since its opening. The details are listed in the attached Annex.

  Police (Training)
  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the training given to(a) special constables and (b) regular police officers upon joining, after two years in post and thereafter.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  The training of special constables is a matter for individual chief officers but usually takes place either at weekends or as part of a series of evening training sessions. Initial induction is followed by a basic training programme and development courses as appropriate.

  All regular police officers go through a 31-week foundation course immediately they join, partly in force and partly at one of the district training centres. During their two-year probationary period, they spend a further six weeks following centrally produced training programmes, in addition to any further specialist or general training which their forces may provide locally.

  On promotion to sergeant, officers attend a six-week sergeants development course, run by groups of forces on a regional basis. A further regionally run inspectors management development course follows promotion to

  555
  inspector. Some specialist training—such as detective training, advance driving courses and dog training—is also organised on a regional basis.

  A comprehensive programme of development related to the roles and responsibilities of more senior officers is provided by the Police Staff college, Bramshill. In addition to this leadership programme, the college offers a range of short courses and also runs an accelerated promotion course for officers of high potential.

  Other establishments which provide national training facilities are the Crime Prevention Centre and the specialist support unit for community and race relations.

  In addition to the training mentioned above, individual forces provide their own training either directly or through external courses.

  Suspect Escorts
  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the cost in each of the past three years of transporting under police escort suspects from the area in which they were arrested back to the area where the alleged crimes took place for trial; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  This information is not collected.

  Trials
  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what consideration he has given to the use of technology to enable all people charged with crimes to be tried in the area in which they were arrested; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  We have no current plans to use technology in the way suggested. The Government do, however, keep under review developments in this sector, and are examining a number of ways in which the conduct of court business might be aided by the use of new technology.

  Prisoner Escapes
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what was the estimated number of prisoner escorts in each of the last five years; and what proportion of those involved the use of custom-built cellular vehicles;

  (2) how many prisoners escaped from prison escorts in each of the last five years; and how many of those escapes were from custom-built cellular vehicles;

  (3) how many escapes have occurred from Group 4 prisoner escorts since April 1993; and if he will give details of each case;

  (4) how many category A prisoners have escaped from prison service escorts in the last five years; and how many of those escorts involved cellular vehicles.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Responsibility for these matters has been delegated to the Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. Doug Hoyle, dated 28 March 1994:

  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Questions about escapes from escorts, and the estimated number of orison escorts over the last five years, and the proportion in which custom built cellular vehicles were used.
  556
  The information you requested is not recorded centrally and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

  Escapes from prison escort over the last five years and the number of escapes from cellular vehicles—the following table lists all escapes from escort of prisoners supervised by Prison Service staff from both the public and private sectors and from the private escort contract. It does not, however, include prison escorts conducted by the police forces in England and Wales.

  Year

  Number of inmates

  1989

  118

  1990

  119

  1991

  144

  1992

  147

  1993

  1192

  1 Thirty of these escapes would have been the responsibility of police escorts in previous years and are not reflected in prior year figures.

  Information about escapes from Prison Service cellular vehicles is not readily available and could only be produced at disproportionate cost.

  Escapes from Group 4 since April 1993 with details of escapes.

  From 1 April 1993 to 28 February 1994 40 inmates escaped from Group 4 prisoner escorts.

  The following table provides details of the escapes:

  Location of escape

  Number of prisoners

  Attendance at court

  31

  En route from vehicle

  8

  Outside hospital

  1

  Total

  40

  Before Group 4 undertook prisoner escort work, 34 of the above inmates who escaped would have been the responsibility of police escorts.

  This information is derived from the Incident Management Support Unit, a part of the Directorate of Custody.

  Category 'A' prisoners and escapes from Prison Service escorts over the last 5 years.

  No Category 'A' prisoner has escaped from a Prison Service escort in this period.

  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisoners have escaped while under escort from Preston prison in the past 12 months; how many of those escapes were from private taxi hire; and how many of those escapes were from custom-built cellular vehicles.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Responsibility for these matters has been delegated to the Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. Doug Hoyle, dated 28 March 1994:

  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Questions about the escape of prisoners whilst under escort from Preston prison in the past 12 months.

  During the past year three prisoners from Preston prison have escaped whilst under escort. Two of these escapes were whilst the prisoners concerned were receiving treatment in an outside hospital. In the first of these incidents the prisoner was recaptured almost immediately by the escorting prison officers. In the later incident the prisoner was recaptured by the police within three hours of his escape. The remaining incident involved the escape of a prisoner from a privately hired bus. This prisoner was subsequently recaptured by the police some six weeks after his escape.
  557
  There have been no escapes from private taxi hire vehicles or custom built cellular vehicles during the past year.

  Prisoner Escorts
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many staff Group 4 employ to carry out prisoner escort duties in Humberside and the east midlands.

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

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. Doug Hoyle, dated 28 March 1994:

  COURT ESCORT AND CUSTODY SERVICE IN HUMBERSIDE AND THE EAST MIDLANDS

  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about the court escort and custody service in Humberside and the East Midlands.

  Group 4 have a current operational strength of 334 prisoner custody officers, including supervisory officers, for the prisoner escort and court custody duties required under the contract. This excludes senior managers at their area headquarters.

  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when Securicor will begin escorting prisoners in London; and in what area of London this service will first be handed over to Securicor.

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

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. Doug Hoyle, dated 28 March 1994:

  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about the court escort and custody service contract in the Metropolitan Police District.

  The contract with Securicor will be introduced in five phases, commencing on 27 June 1994. The contract will commence in North East London and will cover Pentonville and Holloway prisons.

  Prisoner Populations
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what has been the average certified accommodation and the average prisoner population for each month at Blakenhurst since the prison opened;

  (2) what was the average prisoner populations and the average certified normal accommodation at The Wolds for each month since April 1992.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Responsibility for these matters has been delegated to the Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. Doug Hoyle, dated 28 March 1994:

  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Questions about the average certified accommodation and the average prisoner population for each month at Blakenhurst since the prison opened and at the Wolds for each month since April 1992.
  558
  I attach tables showing the prison population and Certified Normal Accommodation (CNA) at the Wolds and Blakenhurst for the last day of each month.

  Population and CNA of the Wolds at the last day of each month 1992 to 1994

  Last day of Month

  CNA1

  Population

  1992

  April

  320

  48

  May

  320

  100

  June

  320

  112

  July

  320

  143

  August

  320

  172

  September

  300

  197

  October

  300

  221

  November

  320

  238

  December

  320

  214

  1993

  January

  320

  304

  February

  320

  318

  March

  320

  309

  April

  320

  310

  May

  320

  310

  June

  320

  317

  July

  320

  317

  August

  320

  318

  September

  320

  322

  October

  320

  327

  November

  320

  320

  December

  320

  320

  1994

  January

  320

  322

  February

  320

  323

  1 The operational capacity was lower than the CNA during the period when the establishment was being opened.

  Population and CNA of Blakenhurst at the last day of each month 1992–94

  Last day of month

  CNA1

  Population

  1993

  May

  20

  21

  June

  120

  136

  July

  200

  247

  August

  300

  318

  September

  400

  433

  October

  550

  563

  November

  649

  614

  December

  649

  556

  1994

  January

  649

  621

  February

  649

  563

  1 The operational capacity was lower than the CNA during the period when the establishment was being opened.

  Telephone Conversations (Taping Guidelines)
  Mr. Fatchett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will publish the guidelines issued to the Prison Service concerning the tape recording of telephone conversations between prisoners and third parties; and if he will make a statement.

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

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. Derek Fatchett, dated 28 March 1994:

  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about the guidelines issued to the Prison Service concerning the tape recording of telephone conversations between prisoners and third parties.
  559
  Guidance on the operation of telephones for prisoners' use including the tape recording of conversations are set out in Prison Service Circular Instructions 21/1992 and Circular Instruction 50/1988, copies of which are in the Library.

  Staff and Prisoner Assaults
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many staff assaults have occurred at The Wolds prison since it opened; and what is the average rate of staff assaults per 100 prisoners;

  (2) how many recorded prisoner on prisoner assaults have taken place in each month since The Wolds prison opened;

  (3) how many staff assaults have occurred at Blakenhurst since the prison opened; and what is the average rate of assaults per 100 prisoners.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Responsibility for these matters has been delegated to the Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. Doug Hoyle, dated 28 March 1994:

  ASSAULTS AT THE WOLDS AND BLAKENHURST

  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Questions about assaults on staff at Blakenhurst and the Wolds and on prisoners at the Wolds.

  The Wolds opened in April 1992. During its first year of operation there were 36 assaults on staff proved at adjudication, equivalent to 18 per 100 average population of prisoners. In the eleven months to February 1994 there were 29 such assaults, equivalent to an annual rate of 10 per 100 average population. Blakenhurst opened in May 1993 and in the first ten months of its operation there were 81 assaults on staff, equivalent to an annual rate of 28 per 100 average population. This experience is consistent with that of new public-sector prisons, where the number of assaults is often higher in the period after opening and then declines.

  I attach a table showing the monthly figures of prisoner on prisoner assaults at the Wolds.

  The Wolds

  Assaults on prisoners

  1992

  April

  0

  May

  0

  June

  0

  July

  0

  August

  1

  September

  0

  October

  1

  November

  4

  December

  3

  1993

  January

  0

  February

  3

  March

  4

  April

  1

  May

  1

  June

  1

  July

  0

  August

  0

  September

  0

  October

  1

  November

  0

  December

  0

  19941

  January

  2

  February

  1

  1 Provisional.

  560

  Ethnic Minorities
  Mrs. Ann Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many full-time equivalent teaching posts have been approved for each local education authority in (i) 1993–94 and (ii) 1994–95 for funding under section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966 in(a) maintained schools, (b) voluntary-aided schools and (c) central teams which provide a service throughout the authority;

  (2) how many full-time equivalent teaching posts have been approved for each parliamentary constituency in (i) 1993–94 and (ii) 1994–95 for funding under section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966 in (a) maintained schools and (b) voluntary-aided schools;

  (3) if he will list, for each constituency, the schools with teacher posts approved for funding under section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966 in (i) 1993–94 and (ii) 1994–95.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave on 21 March,Official Report, columns 34–36, to the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn), in which I set out, in relation to each relevant local education authority, numbers of posts designated to be filled by qualified teachers, approved for funding under section 11.

  Comprehensive information is not available centrally about the current allocation of approved posts to individual schools within local education authority projects and such information could not be obtained except at disproportionate cost. As to the position with regard to 1994–95, an encouraging proportion of authorities have notified us of their intentions to make good the shortfall arising from the reduction in section 11 funding. However, many authorities have yet to inform us of their plans.

  Mrs. Ann Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many full-time equivalent teaching posts have been approved for each grant-maintained school for funding under section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966 for(a) 1993–94 and (b) 1994–95; and what was the total grant in each case under section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Comprehensive information is not available centrally about the current allocation of posts approved for funding under section 11 to grant maintained schools. The available information is shown in the table.

  Grant-maintained schools are eligible to apply for funding direct. In some cases, schools which were already grant maintained applied successfully at the time of the last applications round and have had their own projects since 1 April 1992. Information in relation to those is shown in the table.

  Other schools, which have since opted for grant-maintained status, were originally covered under local education authority projects. Local agreement is often reached for such schools to remain within those projects, notwithstanding their change of status. In such instances, section 11 grant continues to be paid to the local authority, and it is the responsibility of the school to make the contribution to the total cost which the authority would otherwise have made.

  Alternatively, a school may leave the local education authority project and apply to set up its own. In such cases, the number and type of posts approved are agreed between

  561
  the school and the local education authority as being the allocation appropriately made to the school by the local education authority immediately before. Section 11 grant is then paid to the school at a level consistent with contemporary practice in relation to the payment of grant

  Approved posts

  Grant

  Name

  LEA

  1993–94

  1994–95

  1993–94

  1994–95

  Ashcroft

  Bedfordshire

  0·5

  0·5

  3,444

  3,549

  *Ash Green

  Warwickshire

  0·4

  0·4

  5,637

  6,217

  Avon Valley

  Warwickshire

  1·0

  1·0

  11,669

  11,750

  Beechview

  Buckinghamshire

  0·6

  0·6

  6,963

  6,995

  Bridgewater and Brindley Hall

  Buckinghamshire

  0·75

  0·75

  13,230

  13,111

  Burntwood

  Wandsworth

  4·0

  4·0

  57,024

  55,687

  Claremone

  Harrow

  1·0

  1·0

  13,519

  13,629

  Copland

  Brent

  2·5

  2·5

  37,853

  33,860

  Deacons

  Cambridgeshire

  4·5

  4·5

  33,315

  24,823

  Francis Bacon

  Hertfordshire

  4·0

  4·0

  23,107

  24,645

  Graveney

  Wandsworth

  5·0

  5·0

  71,186

  69,720

  Greenford

  Ealing

  3·4

  3·4

  46,819

  39,461

  Greenwood Dale

  Nottinghamshire

  2·0

  2·0

  25,783

  26,111

  Hall Green

  Birmingham

  0·85

  0·85

  9,326

  9,320

  *Hamilton

  Buckinghamshire

  3·0

  3·0

  40,946

  41,410

  *Hendon

  Barnet

  2·0

  2·0

  26,645

  28,041

  Holly Hall

  Dudley

  0·4

  0·4

  1,186**

  3,778

  Holy Trinity

  Kent

  0·87

  0·87

  10,308

  10,819

  London Oratory

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  3·1

  3·1

  39,595

  38,025

  Myton

  Warwickshire

  1·45

  1·45

  20,254

  19,888

  Northampton Boys

  Northamptonshire

  1·0

  1·0

  16,809

  13,372

  Northolt

  Ealing

  1·2

  1·2

  5,802

  5,379

  Oldfield

  Avon

  0·3

  0·3

  3,881

  3,645

  Radcliffe

  Buckinghamshire

  1·0

  1·0

  10,400

  10,478

  Raines Foundation

  Tower Hamlets

  1·0

  1·0

  26,803

  27,146

  *Reading Girls

  Berkshire

  1·0

  1·0

  12,410

  12,733

  Robert Napier

  Kent

  0·5

  0·5

  1,239

  1,220

  Small Heath

  Birmingham

  4·6

  4·6

  50,057

  50,626

  Stratford

  Newham

  3·0

  3·0

  53,106

  54,277

  Wood End

  Ealing

  1·3

  1·3

  8,968

  6,815

  *Wrenn

  Northamptonshire

  2·0

  2·0

  27,188

  27,351

  Notes:

  1. Figures in relation to posts are in full-time equivalent terms.

  2. The figures for Deacons include I instructor post and 1 bilingual assistant post; and for Small Heath, 1 home/school liaison assistant post. All others are designated teacher posts.

  3. As to 1994–95, figures relate to posts eligible for funding front 1 April 1994. It is a matter for each school to decide, within its overall financial provision, how it intends to proceed in the light of reductions in section 11 funding. Schools marked* have indicated that they propose to make no substantive change in 1994–95. In other cases, responses are awaited from schools.

  4. At present, section 11 grant is paid quarterly in arrears on the basis of actual expenditure incurred by the grant recipient. The 1993–94 grant expenditure figures relate to grant paid in respect of the school's own expenditure in the three quarters from 1 April to 31 December 1993.

  5. In the case marked**, the expenditure is from 1 September 1993, the operative date for the school's project.

  6. With effect from 1994–95, section 11 grant will be paid on the basis of an annual budget allocation. The figures for 1994–95 show the budget allocation which has been notified to each school in relation to the school's expenditure in 1994–95.

  7. The table does not include schools whose new project proposals are in the process of consideration, or who have not yet been notified of a budget allocation figure for 1994–95.

  Mrs. Ann Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department to what extent his Department will retain responsibility for funding teaching posts under section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966 after the creation of the single regeneration budget from April 1995; what will be the proportion of the funding thus retained; and what proportion will be transferred to the single regeneration budget.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Around 55 per cent. of the total provision in relation to 1994–95 for teaching and other posts approved for funding under section 11 will form part of the single regeneration budget when it comes into operation on 1 April 1994. The Home Office will continue to administer the balance of funding remaining under section 11 in respect of approved teacher and other posts.
  562
  to the local authority, and it is the responsibility of the school to pay the balance of the total cost. Information about such schools is included in the table.

  For convenience, the local authority area in whose area a school is located is indicated.

  Civil Servants
  Ms Armstrong
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list for each civil service grade in his Department the number of(a) male and (b) female, (i) full-time and (ii) part-time employees.

  Mr. Howard
  The figures requested are given in the table below which sets out the total number of non-industrial Home Office staff by grade—including those in agencies, on outward secondment or maternity or special leave—and the number who are male and female and full-time and part-time employees. The information was extracted from the Home Office personnel system on 25 March 1994.
  563

  Grade

  Part-time Female

  Part-time Male

  Full-time Female

  Full-time Male

  Total

  Administrative Trainee (New)

  0

  0

  2

  6

  8

  Administrative Assistant

  350

  17

  1,241

  577

  2,185

  Administrative Officer

  560

  30

  2,541

  1,287

  4,418

  Assistant Director

  0

  0

  0

  9

  9

  Assistant Librarian

  1

  0

  8

  4

  13

  Assistant Statistician

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Assistant Storeperson

  0

  0

  8

  96

  104

  Assistant Division Officer

  0

  0

  0

  4

  4

  Assistant Identification Officer

  0

  0

  8

  6

  14

  Assistant Immigration Officer

  3

  0

  19

  17

  39

  Assistant Information Officer

  0

  0

  3

  4

  7

  Assistant Inspector Fire Services 1

  0

  0

  0

  14

  14

  Assistant Inspector Fire Services 2

  0

  0

  0

  2

  2

  Assistant Inspector Fire Services 3

  0

  0

  0

  12

  12

  Assistant Scientific Officer

  8

  0

  62

  22

  92

  Assistant Chief Officer (HD Opps Study)

  0

  0

  0

  2

  2

  Church of England Chaplain

  0

  1

  5

  91

  97

  Church of England/Roman Catholic Part-time Chaplain

  23

  95

  3

  6

  127

  Chaplain General Prisons

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Chief Immigration Officer

  5

  0

  48

  309

  362

  Chief Inspector Animals Sp. Inspector

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Chief Typing Manager

  0

  0

  4

  0

  4

  Commandant

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Communication Officer 2

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Communication Officer 3

  0

  0

  2

  13

  15

  Consultant Vol Sers Unit

  0

  0

  2

  0

  2

  Divisional Officer Grade 1

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Divisional Officer Grade 2

  0

  0

  0

  2

  2

  Executive Officer

  166

  8

  1,018

  936

  2,128

  Farm Manager 1

  0

  0

  0

  9

  9

  Farm Manager 1a

  0

  0

  0

  14

  14

  Farm Manager 2

  0

  0

  0

  10

  10

  Farm Manager 3

  0

  0

  1

  28

  29

  Farm Manager 4

  0

  0

  0

  19

  19

  Farms and Gardens Officer

  0

  0

  0

  4

  4

  Fireground Supervisor

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Foreman

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Governor 1

  0

  0

  0

  39

  39

  Governor 2

  0

  0

  7

  78

  85

  Governor 3

  0

  0

  14

  103

  117

  Governor 4

  0

  0

  39

  275

  314

  Governor 5

  0

  0

  29

  409

  438

  Governor 5 (Aps)

  0

  0

  6

  19

  25

  Grade 1 (Permanent Secretary)

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Grade 2 (Deputy Secretary)

  0

  0

  0

  8

  8

  Grade 3 (Under Secretary)

  0

  0

  7

  21

  28

  Grade 4

  0

  0

  0

  3

  3

  Grade 5

  5

  1

  18

  71

  95

  Grade 6

  3

  0

  10

  89

  102

  Grade 7

  27

  0

  131

  457

  615

  Graphics Officer

  1

  0

  2

  11

  14

  Graphics Technical Grade

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Head of Department 3

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Head of Department 5

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Head of Department 6

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Head of Department iv

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Head Pharmacist

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Higher Tcoms Technical Officer

  0

  0

  0

  18

  18

  Higher Executive Officer

  79

  1

  411

  704

  1,195

  Higher Executive Officer (D)

  0

  0

  8

  18

  26

  Higher Graphics Officer

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Higher Instructional Officer

  0

  0

  2

  26

  28

  Higher Professional and Technical Officer

  0

  0

  5

  126

  131

  Higher Scientific Officer

  16

  0

  66

  96

  178

  Higher Psychologist

  1

  1

  33

  11

  46

  Her Majesty's Chief Inspector Constabulary

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Her Majesty's Chief Inspector Fire Services

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Her Majesty's Inspector Constabulary

  0

  0

  0

  5

  5

  Her Majesty's Inspector Fire Services 1

  0

  0

  0

  2

  2

  Her Majesty's Inspector of Fire Services 2

  0

  0

  0

  7

  7

  Her Majesty's Inspector-Territorial

  0

  0

  0

  4

  4

  Immigration Officer

  75

  7

  747

  1,377

  2,206

  Information Officer

  0

  0

  13

  6

  19

  Insp. Animals SP Insp.

  0

  0

  2

  15

  17

  Inspector (Police)

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Inspector Immigration

  0

  0

  1

  69

  70

  Instructor

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  564

  565

  Grade

  Part-time Female

  Part-time Male

  Full-time Female

  Full-time Male

  Total

  Instructional Officer 1

  0

  0

  146

  892

  1,038

  Instructional Officer 2

  0

  0

  0

  2

  2

  Interpreter

  0

  0

  2

  5

  7

  Lecturer Grade 2

  0

  0

  6

  18

  24

  Legal Officer

  0

  0

  3

  1

  4

  Librarian

  0

  0

  5

  2

  7

  Matron Housekeeper 0–150

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Medical Officer

  0

  5

  8

  72

  85

  Medical Officer (P/T)

  4

  104

  0

  0

  108

  Night Patrol

  5

  2

  75

  851

  933

  Nursing Grade A

  2

  0

  1

  1

  4

  Nursing Grade C

  2

  0

  46

  4

  52

  Nursing Grade D

  3

  0

  97

  23

  123

  Nursing Grade E

  1

  0

  93

  43

  137

  Nursing Grade F

  13

  0

  75

  19

  107

  Nursing Grade G

  0

  0

  20

  8

  28

  Nursing Grade H

  0

  0

  5

  1

  6

  Personal Secretary

  43

  0

  451

  3

  497

  Principal Lecturer

  0

  0

  0

  3

  3

  Pharmacist

  5

  0

  8

  5

  18

  Pharmacy Technician

  2

  0

  19

  2

  23

  Physical Education Officer

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Principal Medical Officer

  0

  0

  2

  6

  8

  Principal Officer

  0

  0

  44

  1,306

  1,350

  Principal Officer (Aps.)

  0

  0

  9

  24

  33

  Principal RC Chaplain

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Prison Auxiliary

  12

  1

  303

  1,297

  1,613

  Prison Officer

  3

  7

  1,802

  17,026

  18,838

  Prison Officer (Aps.)

  0

  0

  20

  18

  38

  Prof, and Technology Officer

  0

  1

  11

  85

  97

  Psychologist

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Psychological Assistant

  2

  0

  26

  14

  42

  Psychologist—Graduate Trainee

  0

  0

  19

  8

  27

  R.C. Chaplain

  0

  2

  1

  13

  16

  Registered Catering Manager

  0

  0

  0

  5

  5

  Research Officer (Social Science)

  0

  0

  9

  7

  16

  Scientific Officer

  15

  0

  50

  51

  116

  Senior Instructional Officer

  0

  0

  1

  1

  2

  Senior Telecommunications Technical Officer

  0

  0

  0

  2

  2

  Senior Research Officer

  1

  0

  5

  4

  10

  Senior Assistant Statistician

  0

  0

  2

  6

  8

  Senior Divisional Officer

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Senior Executive Officer

  20

  3

  115

  289

  427

  Senior Information Officer

  0

  0

  3

  5

  8

  Senior Lecturer

  0

  0

  0

  3

  3

  Senior Legal Assistant

  0

  0

  1

  1

  2

  Senior Librarian

  0

  0

  1

  1

  2

  Senior Medical Officer

  0

  1

  5

  35

  41

  Senior Officer

  0

  0

  164

  3,350

  3,514

  Senior Personal Secretary

  2

  0

  40

  0

  42

  Senior Pharmacist

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Senior Prof, and Technical Officer

  0

  0

  1

  149

  150

  Senior Psychologist

  2

  0

  27

  19

  48

  Senior Scientific Officer

  9

  1

  22

  165

  197

  Shop Assistant

  1

  0

  0

  0

  1

  Shop Manager

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Staff Principal Pharmacist

  0

  0

  0

  5

  5

  Storeperson

  0

  8

  21

  43?

  466

  Stores Officer Grade A

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Stores Officer Grade B

  0

  0

  0

  4

  4

  Stores Officer Grade C

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Stores Officer Grade D

  0

  0

  4

  5

  Sup Insp Animals Sp Insp

  0

  0

  0

  3

  3

  Support Grade Band 1

  14

  0

  88

  47

  149

  Support Grade Band 2

  173

  12

  262

  273

  720

  Support Manager 1

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Support Manager 2

  0

  0

  3

  1

  4

  Support Manager 3

  0

  0

  11

  1

  12

  Technical Officer Grade 1

  0

  0

  4

  14

  18

  Technical Officer Grade 2

  0

  0

  3

  5

  8

  Telecom Engineering Tech

  0

  0

  0

  4

  4

  Telecom Technical Engineer 2

  0

  0

  0

  4

  4

  Telecoms Technical Officer

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Telephonist

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Temporary Prison Officer

  2

  0

  2

  0

  4

  Trainee Graphics Officer

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Trainee Typist

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  566

  567

  Grade

  Part-time Female

  Part-time Male

  Full-time Female

  Full-time Male

  Total

  Typing Manager

  0

  0

  32

  0

  32

  Typist

  255

  0

  492

  1

  748

  1,914

  308

  11,194

  34,246

  47,662

  North Wales Police Authority
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will amend Home Office circular 176/1976 with a view to ensuring that the North Wales police authority can consider, in the appointment of a new chief constable, an officer or officers currently on the senior officer list who can speak Welsh; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  The circular was introduced after careful consideration and discussion with the local authority associations and police staff associations and the policy outlined in it has been adhered to consistently since 1976. The principles underpinning the guidance in the circular are still valid.

  Male Offenders
  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what percentage of male offenders reconvicted within two years commenced(a) probation with day centre on 4A requirements, (b) probation without requirements and (c) community service, in 1987.

  Mr. Maclean
  Reconviction statistics relate to "standard list" offences as defined in appendix 4 of "Criminal Statistics England and Wales, 1992". It is estimated from a sample of persons commencing supervision under the probation service in 1987 that the proportions of males reconvicted within two years were:

  Per cent.

  Community service orders

  56

  Probation orders with a day centre or 4A requirement

  66

  Probation orders with no such requirement

  54

  Source: Reconvictions of those given Probation and Community Service Orders in 1987. Home Office Statistical Bulletin Issue 18/93.

  Marriage Registrars
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which section within his Department liaises with marriage registrars.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  The Home Office has no direct liaison with registrars. From time to time, staff in the immigration and nationality department are in contact with the registrar general of the Office of Population and Census Surveys.

  HIV Infection (Prisons)
  Sir Ivan Lawrence
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has for reducing the risk of HIV infection in prisons; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  HIV/AIDS policy for prisoners already places strong emphasis on preventive measures,568
  notably educational and counselling services. Following a wide-ranging review of policy and practice the potential for further risk reduction measures is being considered.

  It will be appreciated that these are sensitive and difficult issues which need to be considered carefully, the more so because I understand that the first report has been received of an identified case of HIV transmission within prisons in England and Wales. The Public Health Laboratory Service has been asked to investigate the case and, if appropriate, advise on the further measures necessary to reduce the risk of other similar occurrences.

  The Wolds Prison
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what means are in place to monitor services at The Wolds prison which Group 4 contract out to third parties;

  (2) what steps have been taken to enable a comparative cost analysis between The Wolds and the public sector following the criticisms made by the Prison Chief Inspector last year;

  (3) if he will publish the reports made by the Crown Monitor at The Wolds;

  (4) how much Group 4 will be paid to run The Wolds prison; and how any originally agreed sum has been subsequently varied;

  (5) how many disturbances have occurred at The Wolds prison since it opened;

  (6) how many custody officers are currently working at The Wolds prison; and what information he has as to how many custody officers have resigned or been sacked by Group 4 since The Wolds opened.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Responsibility for these matters has been delegated to the Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. Doug Hoyle, dated 28 March 1994:

  HM Prison Wolds

  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Questions about Wolds prison.

  On 28 February 1994 155 people certificated as prisoner custody officers (PCOs) were employed at Wolds prison. In 1992 four PCOs resigned and in 1993 ten did so. Two have been dismissed, both in 1993. In 1994 12 PCOs have resigned. It is believed that some of these have accepted offers of PCO posts elsewhere.

  The Controller monitors all the services delivered under the contract, including those which, with Prison Service permission, are subcontracted. There are no plans to publish the Controller's reports. These are internal management reports and it would not be appropriate to release them. Reports by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons and the Board of Visitors have been published.

  The Prison Service has made public the cost of operating Wolds on several occasions, before and after publication of the Chief Inspector's report, including responses to a number of Parliamentary Questions and at the time of the publication of the Chief Inspector's report on Wolds in August 1993, the announcement of the plans for private sector involvement in the

  569
  Prison Service in September 1993, and the announcement of award of the contract for Doncaster prison in January this year. Comparative cost analysis has also been undertaken and published at the time of the latter announcements. I should point out that the ability to draw meaningful comparisons is limited because the Wolds is the only adult remand prison. In addition, the Prison Service publishes comparative information about the performance of all prisons, directly and privately managed, on a regular basis in its Annual Report. Information on Wolds was included in the Prison Service Annual Report and Accounts for 1992–93 which was published in November 1993 (Cm 2385). The report shows that the net operating costs for Wolds for that financial year were £5·5 million and the cost per prisoner place per week was £333. The net operating cost includes all costs associated with the operation of Wolds, including payments made to Group 4. Figures for the 1993–94 financial year will be included in the next annual report.

  Group 4 is currently paid at the rate of £4·8 million a year for the management of Wolds. Amounts paid to Group 4 are included in the total costs of operating Wolds referred to above. The contract with Group 4 allows for variations to be made to the services required under the contract and for annual reviews of the contract price in line with the movements of the appropriate prices and earning indices published by the Department of Trade and the Department of Employment. In the life of the contract the most significant changes have been variations to reflect the transfer of the court escort function from Wolds prison to the new court escort and custody service in Humberside and the East Midlands in April 1992; and the movements in the relevant indices.

  Finally, you also requested information on disturbances at the prison. Details of incidents between the opening of the prison and 29 June 1993 have already been provided to Parliament (Official Report: 26 July 1993, col. WA 75–79). Since that time there have been three instances of concerted indiscipline, making a total of 28 incidents in all.

  Pentonville Prison
  Mr. Maclennan
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what improvements have been made in Pentonville prison relating to criticisms made by Her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons; which points of criticism remain unresolved; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) what representations he has received concerning conditions in Pentonville prison.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  [holding answers 25 March 1994]: Judge Tumin made 128 recommendations in his report of November 1993. There were five main recommendations; the Prison Service has accepted four, of which one is already being implemented. The further 123 recommendations to the governor have largely been implemented or are in the process of being implemented.

  Some 17 recommendations are under active consideration. The remaining eight recommendations require further discussion.

  In line with the main recommendations, it is expected there will be full access to sanitation by the end of 1994 and "slopping out" will no longer be necessary. There is an agreed strategic plan for building work; B wing is being refurbished and work should be completed by May 1995. Work to refurbish and extend the kitchen started in October 1993 and modernisation of the health care centre is intended for the financial year 1996–97. A review of staffing in the health care centre is currently being evaluated and a working group has been established to consider other health care issues. Computer software for budget management is to be provided.
  570
  The remaining main recommendation was to review the policy of holding immigration detainees in Pentonville. The majority of people detained under immigration powers are already housed in Immigration Service accommodation. There will, however, remain a certain number of immigration detainees who will need to be accommodated in prisons because of their behaviour.

  There have been no formal representations from interested outside bodies or pressure groups about conditions generally at Pentonville.

  Deaths (Police Cells)
  Ms Ruddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many(a) deaths and (b) suicides of Prison Service prisoners occurred in police cells in 1993:

  (2) how many deaths there were in police cells in 1993; and how many were suicides.

  Mr. Charles Wardle
  [holding answer 14 February 1994]: The numbers of persons who died in police cells or detention rooms in 1993 are as follows:

  Total deaths

  Suicide verdict reached

  Inquest awaited

  Provincial forces

  12

  2

  2

  Metropolitan police

  6

  0

  0

  None of the deaths involved Prison Service prisoners.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  National Continence Week
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what projects his Department instigated in respect of National Continence Week.

  Mr. Ancram
  The Department of Health and Social Services funded an advertising campaign on television and in the local press during National Continence Week which was supported with editorial coverage. It produced and distributed more than 50,000 leaflets, posters and stickers to promote the national help and advice line and encourage sufferers to seek treatment. The Department also collaborated with health and social services boards in drawing up a full programme of local events.

  Agriculture (Incomes)
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will show the average income of(a) farmers and (b) farm workers in (i) cash and (ii) real terms, using 1985 as a constant, in each year since 1980 showing these incomes as a percentage of the average wage.

  Mr. Ancram
  Estimates of cash farm income in Northern Ireland for 1986–87 onwards are given in the table. Figures for previous years are not available on a consistent basis. Estimates of average farm income are not comparable with the average wage.

  Estimates of the earnings of full-time hired agricultural workers in Northern Ireland are also given in the table.
  571

  Earnings of full-time hired agricultural workers (£week)

  Year

  1Estimated cash income (£/farm) current terms

  Year

  Current terms

  2Real terms 1985 prices

  3Percentage of average wage

  1980–81

  n/a

  1980

  66·54

  94·12

  66·7

  1981–82

  n/a

  1981

  71·60

  90·52

  62·7

  1982–83

  n/a

  1982

  77·01

  89·65

  61·9

  1983–84

  n/a

  1983

  85·86

  95·61

  64·3

  1984–85

  n/a

  1984

  88·60

  93·96

  61·2

  1985–86

  n/a

  1985

  90·44

  90·44

  58·9

  1986–87

  12,600

  1986

  102·40

  99·03

  63·6

  1987–88

  14,500

  1987

  104·47

  97·00

  59·2

  1988–89

  15,600

  1988

  111·75

  98·89

  58·9

  1989–90

  19,000

  1989

  121·70

  99·92

  58·9

  1990–91

  16,600

  1990

  129·09

  96·84

  57·2

  1991–92

  16,300

  1991

  143·52

  101–72

  58·4

  1992·93

  19,700

  1992

  145·07

  99·09

  53·8

  1993–944

  21,600

  41993

  153·15

  102·99

  54·2

  n/a=Not available.

  1 Farm Business Survey account years ending on average in mid-February.

  2 Deflated by the Retail Price Index.

  3 Average earnings of all industries and services in Northern Ireland.

  4 Provisional.

  Source Northern Ireland New Earnings Survey.

  Farm Workers
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list the total number of(a) fanners and (b) farm workers in Northern Ireland in each year since 1980.

  Mr. Ancram
  The information requested is given in the table. The figures are from the June agricultural censuses for each year and include estimates for minor holdings not covered by the census:

  Farmers, partners and directors

  Working spouses

  All other farmworkers

  1980

  38,471

  5,833

  19,215

  1981

  38,579

  5,459

  19,225

  1982

  38,406

  5,183

  19,336

  1983

  38,526

  5,033

  19,866

  1984

  38,285

  4,863

  19,976

  1985

  37,761

  5,275

  20,209

  1986

  37,552

  5,374

  19,627

  1987

  37,129

  5,304

  19,550

  1988

  37,417

  5,008

  19,630

  1989

  36,709

  4,903

  20,084

  1990

  36,302

  4,741

  19,992

  1991

  35,991

  4,562

  19,259

  1992

  36,224

  3,908

  18,997

  1993

  34,408

  5,790

  19,426

  Isle of Man
  Mr. Mackinlay
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when he last met Ministers of the Isle of Man to discuss transport links, promotion of the common Celtic heritage and other matters of mutual interest.

  Sir John Wheeler
  Ministers from the Isle of Man had a meeting with Lord Arran on 14 October 1992. Those present were the Finance Minister, Minister of Health and Social Security and junior Health Minister all of whom were in Northern Ireland to discuss and seek advice on acute hospital planning.

  The meeting also touched on opportunities for co-operation on a range of health service matters.
  572
  There has to date been no necessity for Ministers from both Governments to meet to discuss transport links or the promotion of the common Celtic heritage.

  Civil Servants
  Ms Armstrong
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list for each civil service grade in his Department the number of(a) male and (b) female, (i) full-time and (ii) part-time employees.

  Sir John Wheeler
  The information requested is provided in the tables.

  Home civil servants at 1 March 1994 (non-industrial and industrial staff)

  (a) Male

  (b) Female

  Grade

  (i)FT

  (ii)PT

  (i)FT

  (ii)PT

  1

  1

  —

  —

  —

  2

  2

  —

  —

  —

  3

  4

  —

  —

  —

  4

  2

  —

  —

  —

  5

  9

  —

  —

  —

  6

  5

  —

  —

  —

  7

  20

  —

  4

  1

  1SEO

  4

  —

  3

  —

  HEO D

  3

  —

  1

  —

  HEO

  7

  —

  14

  —

  AT

  —

  —

  1

  —

  2EO

  12

  —

  14

  —

  SPS

  —

  —

  7

  —

  TM

  —

  —

  1

  —

  AO

  9

  —

  9

  1

  PS

  —

  —

  15

  —

  AA

  2

  —

  4

  1

  Typist

  —

  —

  13

  3

  CM1

  1

  —

  —

  —

  CM3

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Chef 1

  2

  —

  1

  1

  SMG3

  1

  —

  —

  —

  SGB 1

  6

  —

  —

  —

  SGB2

  4

  —

  1

  2

  GHJCC6

  2

  —

  —

  —

  GHJCC2

  2

  —

  2

  10

  Notes

  (a) Casual staff and prison service staff are not included.

  (b) Casual staff and prison service staff are not included.

  1SEO equivalent grades are included.

  2EO equivalent grades are included.
  573

  Northern Ireland Civil Servants

  Non-Industrials as at 24 March 1994

  Male Full time

  Male Part time

  Female Full time

  Female Part time

  General Service Grades

  Head of Service

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Permanent Secretary

  6

  —

  —

  —

  Under Secretary

  30

  1

  —

  —

  Grade 4

  2

  —

  —

  —

  Assistant Secretary

  100

  —

  12

  —

  Senior Principal

  30

  —

  —

  —

  PO

  341

  —

  49

  6

  PO (London)

  —

  —

  1

  —

  DP

  491

  1

  153

  10

  DP (London)

  —

  —

  1

  —

  SO

  574

  —

  385

  34

  SO (A)

  9

  —

  2

  —

  AT

  5

  —

  1

  —

  EOI

  590

  3

  699

  90

  Social Sec Officer (1)

  271

  1

  528

  91

  EOII

  492

  —

  889

  91

  EOII (London)

  —

  —

  2

  —

  AO

  983

  2

  2,248

  304

  AA

  808

  1

  2,181

  193

  Social Sec Officer 2A

  98

  —

  178

  15

  Social Sec Officer 2B

  528

  6

  1,159

  192

  AO (London)

  —

  —

  1

  —

  AA

  1

  —

  —

  1

  Accountant Gd 7

  2

  —

  1

  —

  Accountant DP

  4

  —

  —

  —

  Accountant SO

  19

  —

  6

  —

  Accountant EOI

  3

  —

  1

  —

  Auditor SO

  26

  —

  8

  —

  Auditor DP

  12

  —

  1

  —

  Total General Service Grades

  5,426

  15

  8,506

  1,027

  Other Grades

  6,549

  25

  2,751

  360

  Total Non-Industrials

  11,975

  40

  11,257

  1,387

  Industrials as at l February 1994

  Craft

  642

  0

  1

  0

  Non Craft

  3,620

  2

  40

  5

  Total Industrials

  4,262

  2

  41

  5

  Total Northern Ireland Civil Servants

  16,237

  42

  11,298

  1,392

  Assisted Places Scheme
  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1) what assessment he has made of how many of those pupils currently covered by the assisted places scheme would have entered private education without the support offered by the scheme;

  (2) what safeguards are used by his Office to ensure that schools covered by the assisted places scheme meet recognised educational standards;

  (3) how much his Office has spent on the operation of the assisted places scheme in each year since 1981; how many pupils have been covered by the scheme in each year since 1981; and if there was any overspend on the budget allocated in each of these years;

  (4) if he will list those schools in Northern Ireland which have pupils under the assisted places scheme in the current academic year; how many pupils are supported at each institution; and how much it cost his Office to provide this support;
  574
  (5) how much it costs his Department annually to publicise and administer the operation of the assisted places scheme;

  (6) what assessment has been made of the assisted places scheme by his Office;

  (7) if he will list the 20 independent schools which currently have the highest proportions of their school rolls made up by pupils covered by the assisted places scheme; and if he will give the percentage of pupils covered by the assisted places scheme and the size of the school rolls;

  (8) what level of fee is charged by each institution covered by the assisted places scheme in the current academic year.

  Mr. Ancram
  There is no assisted place scheme or equivalent in Northern Ireland.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Egg and Poultry Industries
  Mr. Gill
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the best estimate of the number of regulations affecting the egg and poultry industries currently in force.

  Mr. Jack
  My Department has responsibility for 33 regulations that apply specifically to the egg and poultry industries. Twenty-one of these are EC rules for marketing and international trade, six covering eggs and 10 covering poultry and five applying to both. There are a further 26 regulations covering livestock and food commodities which also affect the egg and poultry industries.

  The veterinary medicines directorate also has responsibility for regulations made under the Medicines Act 1968 which affect these industries.

  Food Farming and Fishing Industries
  Mr. Gill
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many regulations affecting the food farming and fishing industries have been either relaxed or rescinded during the course of this Parliament.

  Mr. Jack
  Up to the end of February 1994, 11 statutory instruments which imposed burdens on the food, farming or fishing industries had been rescinded and 18 had been relaxed. These figures do not, however, reflect other deregulatory activities undertaken by the Department, for example, the deregulation of the milk and potato markets as provided for in the Agriculture Act 1993, measures proposed under the Deregulation Bill, or deregulation gains won in Brussels.

  Building Projects
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what major building projects, valued at over £1 million are being or have been wholly or partly financed since 1989 in(a) Doncaster, (b) Barnsley, (c) Rotherham and (d) Wakefield by her Department; and what was the cost of each project to her Department.

  Mr. Jack
  The Ministry is not funding, and has not funded since 1989, either wholly or in part, any such building projects in these four towns.
  575

  Dairy Farmers
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many dairy farmers there were in England in each year since 1985.

  Mr. Jack
  The number of farms classified as dairy farms in England, is given in the table. The figures are taken from the June agricultural census; figures for June 1993 are not yet available.

  Number of dairy farms in England1 (excluding minor holdings)

  Number

  1985

  28,300

  1986

  27,583

  1987

  26,138

  1988

  24,767

  1989

  23,849

  1990

  23,174

  1991

  22,701

  1992

  21,712

  1 Up to and including June 1992, forms were classified as "dairy" if the dairy enterprise, including followers, accounted for over one-third and commonly over two-thirds of total standard gross margin and was the largest enterprise group. A new system of farm classification was introduced in 1993 under which farms were classified as dairy if the dairy cows accounted for over two thirds of total SGM. Under this new system the number of dairy farms in 1992 was 19,115.

  Common Agricultural Policy
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the(a) amount and (b) percentage of CAP money being paid to farmers in the United Kingdom (i) in each of the three years prior to June 1992 and (ii) in each year since June 1992; and what was the total amount of CAP expenditure in each of these years.

  Mr. Jack
  Information on CAP expenditure by member state, consisting of direct aid to farmers, and indirect aid through market support measures, for example, is available for 1989 to 1992 from the annual financial reports of the guarantee section of the European agricultural guidance and guarantee fund, copies of which were deposited in the Library of the House of Commons. For 1993, provisional figures show total CAP payments to the United Kingdom of 2,736 mecu—£2,149 million—7·9 per cent. of corresponding total provisional expenditure of 34,585 mecu—£27,170 million. It is important to note that the first year in which the CAP reform agreement of June 1992 has a full budgetary impact is 1994.

  Farming Incomes
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if she will show the average income of(a) farmers and (b) farm workers in (i) cash and (ii) real terms, using 1985 as a constant, in each year since 1980 showing these incomes as a percentage of the average wage.

  Mr. Jack
  Estimates of the earnings of hired agricultural full-time workers in England are obtained 576
  from the earnings and hours survey and the wages and employment inquiry prior to 1991. These figures are given in the table. Figures for 1980 are not available separately for England.

  None of the estimates of average farm income is comparable with the average wage. The table presents estimates of cash income for 1986–87 onwards. Estimates for previous years are not available on a consistent basis.

  Earnings of hired full-time workers in England

  Year

  Estimated annual cash income average all types of farm(incL hort)1

  Current terms2

  Real terms 1985 prices23

  Percentage of average wage4

  (£'000sper farm)

  (£ per week)

  (£ per week)

  1981

  5—

  90·72

  115·40

  79·65

  1982

  5—

  99·97

  116·59

  80·30

  1983

  5—

  110·97

  124·84

  83·62

  1984

  5—

  117·02

  125·15

  81·83

  1985

  5—

  128·72

  128·72

  84·13

  1986

  14·4

  135·66

  132·33

  83·13

  1987

  14·4

  143·89

  134·71

  82·93

  1988

  12·7

  151·37

  135·47

  80·86

  1989

  30·2

  164·29

  135·82

  80·85

  1990

  32·2

  182·43

  137·36

  82·47

  1991

  32·5

  201·89

  143·73

  85·47

  1992

  37·1

  208·16

  142·56

  83·03

  1993

  5—

  214·02

  144·81

  83·41

  1 Accounting years end, on average, in February of the following year. Cash income represents the cash return to with an entrepreneurial Interest in the business: farmers and spouses, non-principal partners and directors and their spouses and farm workers for their manual and managerial labour and on all their investment in the business. Source: farm business survey.

  2 Includes payments for basic, overtime and holiday hours, plus value of annual bonus, perquisites and other payments. It also includes the value of employer's contributions to employee's council tax.

  3 Deflated by the all items RPI.

  4 Average earnings of full time manual employees on adult rates—prior to 1983 men aged 21+ and women aged 18+—in all industries and services in Great Britain, whose pay was not affected by absence for the survey period. Source: new earnings survey.

  5 Figures not available.

  Food Surpluses
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the level of surplus of(a) arable and (b) livestock food production in (i) the United Kingdom and (ii) the EU in each year since 1990; and what is her estimate of these figures for each of the next three years.

  Mr. Jack
  There are many different definitions of surplus. However, if surplus is measured as production in excess of domestic consumption, the following table provides the latest estimates of self-sufficiency for the major agricultural commodities in the United Kingdom and the European Union. Estimates for future years are not available.
  577

  Self sufficiency for the major agricultural commodities in the United Kingdom and the European Union. 1990–92

  United Kingdom

  European Union

  Commodity

  1990

  1991

  1992

  1990

  19911

  19921

  Cereals

  115·8

  119·0

  123·5

  120·3

  119·9

  128·9

  Sugar

  53·9

  53·0

  53·0

  128·1

  133·7

  122·7

  Potatoes

  89·2

  90·7

  91·8

  99·7

  101·3

  100·8

  Butter

  71·5

  60·2

  54·4

  124·5

  111·2

  2—

  SMP

  101·2

  96·4

  95·3

  149·5

  127·7

  2—

  Eggs

  92·1

  93·9

  94·8

  101·3

  102·0

  2—

  Beef and Veal

  91·0

  91·5

  85·2

  107·9

  115·0

  112·5

  Sheepmeat

  89·5

  84·9

  82·8

  81·4

  84·9

  82·8

  Pigmeat

  69·0

  72·3

  74·5

  103·5

  103·9

  102·9

  Poultrymeat

  93·3

  95·9

  89·5

  104·8

  105·6

  105·5

  1 Includes Eastern Germany.

  2 Not available.

  Source EUROSTAT.

  Public Appointments
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) if she will list the organisations and individuals outside her Department who are sent information on, or consulted about, individuals who are, or may be, proposed to the Minister for appointment to posts for which a Minister has to approve the person appointed or the shortlist for the appointment;

  (2) if she will list the organisations and individuals who have been asked, since June 1992, to submit names of individuals to be considered for appointments to paid and unpaid posts for which a Minister has to approve the person or shortlist for the appointment.

  Mr. Jack
  A wide range of organisations are consulted with reference to appointments made by Ministers. Inquiries involve many divisions of the Ministry and to collate the details requested could not be achieved without disproportionate cost as the information is not held centrally.

  Farm Subsidies
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many farmers in the United Kingdom were paid over £1 million in subsidies; and what was the total amount of aid given to organic farming in Britain in the most recent year for which figures are available.

  Mr. Jack
  It is not possible to establish, without disproportionate cost, the number of farmers in the United Kingdom paid over £1 million in subsidies.

  No specific aid for organic producers has yet been paid but it is intended to begin an aid scheme later this year, made under the EC agri-environment regulation, which will encourage conversion to organic farming. Organic producers are of course able to benefit under all the schemes open to farmers generally. In addition, we have a programme of research and development into questions of concern to organic farmers and growers with funding of £1 million in the current financial year.

  Farm Sizes
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many farms in the United Kingdom are in the size classification(a) under eight, (b) from eight to 40, (c) from 40 to 100, (d) from 100 to
  578
  200, and (e) over 200 farm size units; and what is the total business activity in each category, as measured by standard gross margins.

  Mr. Jack
  The information requested is given in the table.

  Number of holdings in the United Kingdom and total ESU by ESU size group as at June 1993

  Size of business ESUs

  Number of holdings

  1ESUs

  <8

  106,850

  245,801

  8<40

  72,170

  1,498,247

  40<100

  43,940

  2,789,421

  100<200

  15,558

  2,107,439

  200+

  5,687

  2,114,808

  Total

  244,205

  8,755,717

  Note

  Data in this table exclude minor holdings.

  1 1 European size unit (ESU) equals 1,200 ECU of Standard Gross Margin (average value 1987–1989).

  Civil Servants
  Ms Armstrong
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if she will list for each civil service grade in her Department the number of(a) male and (b) female, (i) full-time and (ii) part-time employees.

  Mr. Jack
  The information set out as at 1 March 1994 relates to non-industrial staff in MAFF, excluding agencies.

  Full-time

  Part-time

  Grade

  male

  female

  male

  female

  Total

  Grade 1

  1

  0

  0

  0

  1

  Grade 2

  5

  0

  0

  0

  5

  Grade 3

  21

  1

  0

  0

  22

  Grade 4

  8

  0

  0

  0

  8

  Grade 5

  81

  10

  0

  0

  91

  Grade 6

  88

  9

  1

  3

  101

  Grade 7

  557

  124

  3

  13

  697

  SBO

  364

  75

  1

  17

  457

  HEO

  610

  290

  6

  37

  943

  BO

  779

  588

  4

  57

  1,428

  AO

  661

  1,070

  9

  146

  1,886

  AA

  643

  1,114

  24

  230

  2,011

  Total

  3,818

  3,281

  48

  503

  7,650

  579
  The figures are given by grade equivalent and include all permanent staff, casuals and staff on temporary release. Part-time staff are counted as 1·0.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Maxwell Pensions Unit
  Mr. Jacques Arnold
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement on the progress made by the Maxwell Pensions Unit.

  Mr. Peter Atkinson
  To ask the Secretary of state for Social Security what progress has been made by the Maxwell Pensions Unit on behalf of Maxwell pensioners.

  Mr. Hague
  The Maxwell Pensions Unit continues to encourage an early resolution to Maxwell pensions disputes. It is providing substantial administrative support to the Maxwell Pensioners Trust initiative to secure an overall settlement to pensions disputes. The Government fully support this initiative, and we are continuing to urge all parties to participate constructively. A speedy settlement which keeps legal action to a minimum must be in everyone's best interests, especially the pensioners'.

  Child Support Agency
  Mr. Madel
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will consider changes in the Child Support Agency regulations where the amount of child support received by the parent with care extinguishes her entitlement to income support; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Scott
  We have no specific proposals for further changes. We will, however, continue to keep the scheme under close scrutiny.

  Mr. Illsley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what proposals he has to alter the formula for calculating maintenance payments under the Child Support Agency.

  Mr. Scott
  We have no specific proposals for further changes. We will, however, continue to keep the scheme under close scrutiny.

  Mr. Kevin Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when the hon. Member for Doncaster, North can expect to receive replies to his letters to the Child Support Agency chief executive of 17 December, PBU 03452, and 7 January PBU 03670.

  Mr. Scott
  I understand that Ros Hepplewhite, the chief executive of the Child Support Agency, replied to the hon. Member on 24 March.

  Private Pensions
  Mr. Robert Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when he next intends to meet the chairman of the Securities and Investments Board to discuss the regulations of the private pensions sector.

  Mr. Hague
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State met the chairman of the Securities and Investments Board on 23 March.
  580

  Pensioners (Government Expenditure)
  Mr. Lester
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how much extra money the Government are spending each year on poorer pensioners, since the 1988 reforms.

  Mr. Hague
  The total extra help above the normal upratings that will be made available to pensioners on income-related benefits since 1988 will be worth around £1·2 billion in 1994–95.

  Benefit Tourism
  Mr. Dunn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what action he is planning to combat benefit tourism.

  Mr. Duncan Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what measures he is taking to limit the payment of United Kingdom benefits to foreigners.

  Mr. Lilley
  The Government have referred a proposal for an habitual residence test in the income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit schemes to the Social Security Advisory Committee and the local authority associations. Once the consultation process has been completed, regulations will be laid before Parliament.

  Mr. Moss
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what steps he is taking to ensure that people from abroad, who are allowed to enter this country on condition that they will be no burden on public funds, will not be allowed to claim benefit.

  Mr. Hayes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if people from abroad who come into this country on the condition that they will be no burden on public funds will be prevented from claiming benefit.

  Mr. Hague
  Persons from countries outside the European Union are generally admitted to this country on the understanding that they do not become a charge on public funds while they are here. The income support rules exclude them,from receiving that benefit except in very closely defined circumstances. Regulations were recently laid before the House to take effect from 1 April which will bring the housing benefit and council tax benefit rules into line with the income support rules.

  Benefits (Working Women)
  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what social security benefits are payable, and what other measures his Department is taking, to help working women.

  Mr. Simon Coombs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what steps his Department has taken to help women at work.

  Mr. Hague
  We have recently announced new measures which will particularly assist working women. About 150,000 families will benefit from the introduction in October 1994 of a disregard for child care in family credit which will be worth up to £28 a week. Improved maternity payments which take effect in July will benefit around 285,000 working women who give up work around the time of their baby's birth.
  581
  In addition, working women may be able to claim income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit depending on their hours of work and incomes, and child benefit and family credit if they have children.

  Pregnant Workers Directive
  Mr. Heald
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what response his Department is making to the pregnant workers directive.

  Mr. Hague
  I announced the proposed changes to maternity benefits on 8 March in my reply to the hon. Member for Erewash (Mrs. Knight).

  Pensioners
  Mr. Burden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many pensioners in the west midlands are in receipt of either income support or housing benefit.

  Mr. Hague
  In May 1992, 130,000 pensioners were receiving housing benefit alone from local authorities in the standard west midlands region and 270,000 pensioners were receiving income support in the midlands administrative region for social security.

  Notes

  Sources:

  i. Housing Benefit and Community Charge Benefit Management Information System (1 per cent. sample).

  ii Income Support Annual Statistical Enquiry (1 per cent. sample).

  2. Pensioners have been defined as recipients aged 60 or over, or with a partner aged 60 or over.

  3. All figures are in benefit units. A benefit unit may be a single person or a couple.

  4. The standard west midlands region covers the counties of Shropshire, Warwickshire, Hereford and Worcester, Staffordshire and the metropolitan district of west midlands.

  5. The midlands administrative region for social security covers most of the east and west midlands.

  Mr. Dykes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many pensioner households were, in 1979 and in the last year for which figures are available, below the 1979 supplementary benefit level.

  Mr. Hague
  Official estimates are available only for 1979. They were published in the "Low Income Families" series. Following a technical review in 1988 LIF was superseded by the "Households Below Average Income" series, which provides estimates of the pattern of disposable income across the United Kingdom population and analyses change over time. The latest edition of HBAI, published in 1993, shows a reduction in the number of pensioners in the bottom 10 per cent. of the income distribution from 31 per cent. in 1979 to 11 per cent. 1990–91 when measured after housing costs or 36 per cent. and 22 per cent. respectively before housing costs.

  Copies of both publications are in the Library.

  Family Credit
  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is his estimate of the number of families who are worse off as a result of claimants moving from income support to family credit in 1991–92 and 1992–93.

  Mr. Hague
  The information requested is not available. However, recent research by the Policy Studies Institute indicated that couples in work with family credit were on average £18 per week better off than when out of work.
  582

  VAT on Fuel
  Mr. John Austin-Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what calculations he has made of(a) the amount of VAT at 8 per cent. on fuel will add to the cost of each unit of electricity consumed and (b) the number of units on which 50p will pay the additional VAT.

  Sir John Cope
  I have been asked to reply.

  The answers would depend on the particular electricity company, and factors such as whether standard tariff or Economy 7 tariff is used.

  The Government have made available a very substantial package of help, which will cost up to £1,250 million a year from April 1996 onwards.

  Pensioners and disabled people are likely to find, on average, that this extra help from the Government will broadly cover all changes in the price of fuel, including VAT, over the course of this Parliament.

  Maintenance Payments
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how much his Department gained for income support claimants in maintenance payments from absent parents in the last year before responsibility was transferred to the Child Support Agency.

  Mr. Scott
  The total amount of maintenance obtained through DSS action for income support claimants in 1992–93 was £220 million.

  Records of maintenance payments from liable relatives kept during the last year before responsibility for child maintenance was transferred to the Child Support Agency do not distinguish between payments from absent parents, spouses and the sponsors of immigrants.

  Partial Incapacity Benefit
  Mr. Alan Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans he has to introduce a partial incapacity benefit.

  Mr. Scott
  We have no plans to do so.

  Building Projects
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what major building projects valued at over £1 million are being or have been wholly or partly financed since 1988 in(a) Doncaster, (b) Barnsley, (c) Rotherham and (d) Wakefield by his Department; and what was the cost of each project to his Department.

  Mr. Hague
  There is one such project. In Doncaster there is a joint Benefits Agency/Property Holdings project to assist the rationalisation of the district organisation. This project began in 1993 and is due to be completed during 1995–96 at an anticipated cost of £1·445 million.

  Income Support
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will provide details of the most recent estimate of the take-up rate of income support, by caseload and by entitlement; and, by reference to the former measure, how many individuals are not claiming their entitlement.
  583
  Mr. Hague
  Estimates of the take-up of income related benefits for Great Britain were published in "Income Related Benefit Estimates of Take-up in 1990 and 1991" on 25 March 1994, a copy of which is in the Library.

  Maintenance Prosecutions
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will give details for the last three years of the number of prosecutions and their outcomes for failure to maintain under section 105 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992, formerly section 26 of the Social Security Act 1986.

  Mr. Scott
  The available information is in table.

  Criminal Proceedings: Section 26 of Social Security Act 1986

  1989

  1990

  1991

  Against the liable person

  39

  11

  4

  Convictions

  18

  1

  4

  Sentenced to a term of imprisonment

  2

  —

  —

  Fine or imprisonment

  8

  1

  2

  Suspended sentence

  —

  —

  —

  Note: Figures are for calendar years ended 31 December.

  Source: Department of Social Security Statistics 1993.

  Bronchitis and Emphysema
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will provide details of(a) the total number of claims to date received for prescribed disease D12—coal miners' chronic bronchitis and emphysema—(b) the total number of awards for prescribed disease D12 to date and (c) the total number of refusals for prescribed disease D12 and the grounds for these disallowances.

  Mr. Scott
  As at 20 March 1994, about 38,700 claims had been received for the prescribed disease D12, chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Of the claims so far decided, about 2,600 have been awarded benefit, and about 18,400 have been disallowed. Most of those disallowed failed to satisfy the medical conditions, about 940 failed to satisfy the occupational prescription requirements and a very small number were already being fully compensated for the diseases in an award for pneumoconiosis—PD D1. All figures are based on a 100 per cent. count and are subject to amendment.

  Disability Working Allowance
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what measures(a) will be introduced and (b) are under consideration in order to improve the coverage and take-up of disability working allowance.

  Mr. Scott
  We have announced three changes to improve take-up of disability working allowance. From October 1994 we will introduce a child care costs exemption of £40 per week in cash terms. From April 1995 there will be automatic remission of NHS charges for those with savings of £8,000 or less and we will extend access to disability working allowance for those undertaking training for work. We have commissioned extensive independent research to examine coverage and take up; final evaluation is expected to be completed in 1996.

  Housing Benefit
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what was the total amount allocated for housing benefit reimbursement in 1993.

  Mr. Hague
  The total amount of housing benefit subsidy paid to local authorities in Great Britain for the 1992–93 financial year was £6,613 million; the estimated expenditure for 1993–94 is £7,861 million.

  Source

  The Social Security Departmental Report: March 1994

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what proportion of(a) housing association tenancies, (b) council tenancies and (c) private tenancies received housing benefit in the last year for which figures are available.

  Mr. Hague
  The proportion of housing association, council and other privately rented tenancies in receipt of housing benefit in 1992–93 were 46 per cent., 62 per cent. and 45 per cent. respectively.

  Data sources:

  1. The housing benefit management information system quarterly caseload counts for 1992–93.

  2. Housing and construction statistics dated December 1992, the latest date for which information is available.

  Notes:

  1. The quarterly caseload information includes estimates for non-responding authorities.

  2. The housing and construction statistics are estimates based on the 1991 census and information from local authorities; the number of dwellings includes unoccupied dwellings.

  Benefits (Young People)
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement on social security payments available to those aged under 25 years.

  Mr. Hague
  A wide range of social security benefits is available to those aged under 25, subject to their individual circumstances. Income support recipients under 25 years old are entitled to a lower rate of benefit than those aged 25 or over. There are a number or reasons for this, such as the lower earnings expectations of younger people and the fact that a large majority of younger people receiving benefits do not live independently. It would be wrong for benefit levels to offer an attractive alternative to work or to training for work or an incentive to leave home.

  Personal Pensions
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list, for each year since 1986, each publicity campaign run by his Department regarding personal pensions together with the cost of each campaign; and if he will place representative copies of press advertisements and other literature in the Library.

  Mr. Hague
  In January 1988 the Department of Health and Social Security ran a general campaign which included personal pensions at a cost of £1·2 million. In March 1994 the Department of Social Security ran a campaign costing £100,000.

  I am placing copies of relevant material in the Library.

  Pension Funds
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) if he will make a statement on his policy concerning pension funds and their trustees
  585
  following the decision on 26 July 1993 of Vinelott J. in McDonald and others v. Horn and others—Chancery division Nos. 2931M and 5995M of 1992;

  (2) if he will make it his policy to enable pensioners to be funded in advance for disputes with their pension funds, subject only to leave from a High Court master; and if he will make a statement;

  (3) if he will introduce measures relating to pension fund disputes which would help to reduce the uncertainty surrounding pre-emptive orders for costs; and if he will make a statement;

  (4) if he will introduce measures to require the trustees of pension funds to appoint an independent trustee or arbitrator to report on the claims against such funds; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Hague
  The Pensions Law Review Committee considered the role of pension scheme trustees and dispute resolution procedures as part of its wide-ranging review of pension matters. We are currently considering the PLRC's recommendations and will announce our conclusions in due course.

  Quarry House, Leeds
  Mr. Fatchett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if the making of the television programme "Here and Now" at Quarry house, Leeds, constituted a breach of security; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Hague
  The element of the television programme "Here and Now" which involved internal filming in Quarry house did not constitute a breach of security. Those involved were authorised visitors to the building.

  Civil Servants
  Ms Armstrong
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list for each civil service grade in his Department the number of(a) male and (b) female, (i) full-time and (ii) part-time employees.

  Mr. Hague
  The information requested for permanent staff employed by the Department, including its agencies, on 28 February 1994 is in the table.

  Grade (including equivalent professional and other grades)

  Male

  Female

  Full-time

  Part-time

  Full-time

  Part-time

  Grade 1

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Grade 2

  4

  0

  0

  0

  Grade 3

  14

  0

  3

  0

  Grade 4

  6

  0

  3

  0

  Grade 5

  92

  l

  25

  4

  Grade 6

  240

  2

  66

  7

  Grade 7

  543

  3

  142

  10

  Senior Executive Officer

  1.09

  4

  373

  9

  Higher Executive Officer (D)

  11

  0

  6

  0

  Higher Executive Officer

  3,418

  9

  2,295

  228

  Executive Officer

  9,700

  104

  12,503

  3,132

  Administrative Officer

  11389

  195

  27466

  7,262

  Administrative Assistant

  4,585

  117

  8,058

  2,311

  Others

  43

  1

  82

  34

  Totals

  31,136

  436

  51,122

  12,997

  Notes

  1. The table excludes:—

  (i) staff on loan or secondment and not being paid by the Department.

  (ii) staff on unpaid leave for more than 3 months or on unpaid maternity leave.

  (iii) casual staff.

  Invalidity Benefit
  Mrs. Ray Michie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when he expects the European Court of Justice to consider the case of women on invalidity benefit whose payments are reduced when they reach 60 years; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Scott
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley) on 3 March at column 821.

  Performance Targets
  Mr. Nigel Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what performance targets he is setting for his Department's executive operations for 1994–95; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Lilley
  The targets for 1994–95 which I have set for DSS executive operations are set out below. The targets support the continued success of the Government's "next steps" agencies and citizens charter initiative.

  The targets represent a challenging level of performance and a year-on-year improvement in the service that the customers receive. In particular, I have set a comprehensive list of targets for the new War Pensions Agency to be launched in April.

  As well as the performance targets, agencies have been set resource management targets requiring them to deliver their plans within their agreed financial allocation and, where appropriate, to make efficiency savings.

  Targets for the Child Support Agency will be announced as soon as they have been finalised.

  The business plans of the Benefits Agency, Contributions Agency and the Resettlement Agency have been published today, the War Pensions business plan will be published on 13 April. The Information Technology Service Agency's business plan will be published shortly. The Child Support Agency's business plan will be published after the targets have been finalised. I will arrange for copies of business plans to be placed in the Library.

  The targets are:

  Benefits Agency

  1. Benefit Clearance Times1

  Social Fund Crisis Loans—the day the need arises.

  Income Support New Claims—71 per cent. of claims cleared in 5 days and 90 per cent. in 13 days.

  Sickness and Invalidity Benefit Claims—65 per cent. of claims cleared in 10 days and 95 per cent. in 30 days.

  Child Benefit—67 per cent. of claims cleared in 10 days and 95 per cent. in 30 days.

  Family Credi—60 per cent. of claims cleared in 13 days and 95 per cent. in 42 days.

  Disability Living Allowance—68 per cent. of claims in 30 days and 85 per cent. in 53 days.

  2. Benefit Accuracy

  Income Support—to pay the correct amount in 92 per cent. of cases.

  Incapacity Benefits2—to pay the correct amount in 96–5 per cent. of cases.

  Family Credit—to pay the correct amount in 93 per cent. of cases.

  Disability Living Allowance—to pay the correct amount in 96 per cent. of cases.

  3. Customer Satisfaction

  85 per cent. of customers to regard the Agency's service as satisfactory or better.

  4. Resource Management

  To keep the net cash limited provision for the discretionary

  Social Fund budget approved by Parliament.

  587

  5. Financial Recovery

  Recovery of Social Fund loans—£221 million.

  Benefit savings from the detection and prevention of fraud £654 million.

  Recovery of Benefit overpayments—£75 million.

  (1) clearance times cover the date of receipt of a written claim in the Agency to the date of decision/payment. All days refer to working days.

  (2) Incapacity benefits is an overall term used to cover Sickness Benefit, Invalidity Benefit, Severe Disablement Allowance and Maternity Allowance.

  Contributions Agency

  1. Performance: compliance.

  Collection of contribution arrears (excluding Central Payments Section) of £206 million.

  Identification of £131 million Class 1 arrears as a result of compliance work.

  Increase the number of surveys to 134,000 including 27,000 employer educational visits.

  Actively identify 80,000 persons with Class 2 liability of whom 28,000 will have an immediate requirement to pay contributions.

  2. Performance: records maintenance

  Process 98 per cent. of available employers end of year returns by 31 December 1994.

  Correct 91 per cent. of rejects from employers end of year returns by 31 March 1995.

  3. Performance: information provision/customer service

  Clear 99 per cent. of benefit enquiries handled clerically in 2 working days to 98 per cent. accuracy.

  Despatch either a full reply, or an informative response, to 95 per cent. of all customer enquiries within 10 working days of receipt.

  Complete action to register acceptable Personal Pension cases and process straight-forward Termination Notices for 94 per cent. of all cases within 24 working days of receipt.

  Provide a level of public service considered to be satisfactory by at least 80 per cent. of customers surveyed.

  War Pensions Agency

  1. Performance targets

  Disablement 1st claims (UK)—60 per cent. of claims cleared in 150 days

  War Widows claims (UK)—80 per cent. of claims cleared in 70 days

  Disablement second and subsequent claims—60 per cent. of claims cleared in 135 days

  Claims accuracy (all claims)—95 per cent.

  Entitlement appeals—70 per cent. of appeals processed in 275 days

  Assessment appeals—70 per cent. of appeals processed in 190 days

  2. Customer satisfaction target

  85 per cent. of clients to regard the Agency's service as satisfactory or better, as measured by an independent survey.

  Resettlement Agency

  1. Disengagement Strategy

  Cease direct operation of four resettlement units by granting funds to suitable organisations who will provide similar resettlement services in the same premises by 31 March 1995.

  Progress replacement proposals for Leeds and Bishopbriggs Resettlement Units to enable completion of the disengagement programme by 31 March 1996.

  2. Grant management

  Agree with DSS HQ by 31 March 1995 the aims and objectives of the business which will remain after resettlement unit closes in 1996.

  By 30 June 1994, review and evaluate the initial programme of monitoring visits to grant-aided organisations. Produce a plan to address the problems found by 30 June 1994. Determine a framework for the following year's monitoring programme by 1 September 1994. Revise the standard conditions of award by 31 December 1994.

  3. Customer Care

  Survey of residents to confirm that not less than 85 per cent. express satisfaction with standards.

  4. Resettlement

  By 31 March 1995 place 625 resettlement unit residents into suitable alternative accommodation in the community.

  588
  Information Technology Services Agency

  1. Manage ITSA's resources within the net running cost regime.

  2. Deliver an overall business efficiency improvement of 5 per cent.

  3. Deliver 80 per cent. of services to customers to service levels for budget, time and quality as agreed within contracts.

  4. Prepare ITSA for outsourcing the bulk of its TT Processing functions to Departmental timescales.

  5. Departmental Information Technology Authority (DITA) —provide agreed reulatory services within allocated resources.

HEALTH

  Devon Divisional Ambulance Office
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will call for a report into the circumstances in which a prosecution of Devon divisional ambulance office failed due to the loss of prosecution documents; and if she will make a statement.

  Mr. Sackville
  No. This is a matter for the Crown Prosecution Service.

  GP Fundholders
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will itemise by regional health authority and family health service authority the expenditure by general practitioner fund-holders of management allowances on(a) employment of staff, (b) use of loan services, (c) training, (d) buying in specialist advice, (e) purchase of equipment and (f) other in each year since 1990–91.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave him on 26 January at column 298. More detailed information about the breakdown of reimbursement from the management allowance is available from regional health authorities.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list the general practitioner fundholding practices in South Yorkshire; and if she will give the total spent out of the allocation for each practice for 1992–93 and the current year to date.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  There will be 152 fundholding practices in the Yorkshire region from 1 April 1994, covering 39 per cent. of the population. Regional health authorities are responsible for managing the general practitioner fundholding scheme in their areas. For local information about South Yorkshire the hon. Member may wish to contact Sir Bryan Askew, chairman of the Yorkshire regional health authority.

  Private Health Insurance
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what guidance she has issued about the provision to senior managers in the national health service of private health insurance.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  None.

  Fraud
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will draw the attention of agencies with auditor responsibilities inside the national health service to the new guidelines issued by the Auditing Practices Board regarding the duty to report fraud.
  589
  Mr. Sackville
  No. External auditors of the national health service operate independently in accordance with their own code of practice or auditing standards.

  Tattoo Removal
  Mr. Sheerman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what steps she is taking to encourage the provision of services enabling disfiguring tattoos to be removed;

  (2) to what extent her Department helps or encourages organisations which remove disfiguring tattoos.

  Mr. Sackville
  The removal of tattoos is available through the national health service where it is considered to be clinically necessary.

  Hospitals, Doncaster
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many staff were employed by the Doncaster royal and Montagu hospital NHS trust in(a) April 1992, (b) October 1992, (c) April 1993 and (d) October 1993.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The most recent information available centrally is that 2,330 and 2,520 whole-time equivalent national health service staff were employed in Doncaster royal and Montagu hospital national health service trust on 30 September 1991 and 1992 respectively.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was, in cash terms, the rate of return on capital for the Doncaster royal and Montagu Hospital national health service trust in(a) 1992–93 and (b) 1993–94; and what rate is projected for 1994–95.

  Mr. Sackville
  The operating surplus of the trust in 1992–93 was £3.82 million, which represented a return of 7·2 per cent. on average net relevant assets. The forecast rate of return for 1993–94 and the projected rate for 1994–95 are estimated and unaudited information which is only appropriate for the internal performance management purposes for which it is collected.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many long-term hospital ward beds have been closed in the Doncaster area since the coming into effect of the community care provisions of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1991.

  Mr. Bowis
  Information about available beds; on long-term care wards in Doncaster since the community care arrangements were introduced in April 1993 is a matter for the local health authorities or trusts.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if the Doncaster Royal infirmary and Mexborough Montagu hospital NHS hospital trust achieved its target rate of return on capital in 1992–93.

  Mr. Sackville
  Yes.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many staff were employed by the Doncaster Healthcare NHS trust in(a) April 1993 and (b) October 1993.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The most recent information available centrally is that 1,740 whole-time equivalent national health service staff were employed by the Doncaster Healthcare national health service trust on 30 September 1992.
  590
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was, in cash terms, the rate of return on capital for the Doncaster Healthcare NHS trust in 1993–94; and what rate is projected for 1994–95.

  Mr. Sackville
  The rate of return for 1993–94 will not be available until the trust prepares its accounts later this year. The information for 1994–95 is estimated and unaudited and is appropriate only for the internal management purposes for which it is collected.

  Public Appointments
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list each appointment for which a Minister has to approve the appointment or shortlist for the appointment, showing for each appointment(a) which Minister exercises the responsibility, (b) the salary, if any, attached to the post, (c) the term of the appointment and (d) the person currently appointed to the post.

  Mr. Sackville
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is responsible for appointments listed in "Public Bodies 1993", a copy of which is available in the Library.

  A full list of members and their remuneration was placed in the Library in July 1993.

  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if she will list the organisations and individuals who have been asked, since June 1992, to submit names of individuals to be considered for appointments to paid and unpaid posts for which a Minister has to approve the person or shortlist for the appointment;

  (2) if she will list the organisations and individuals outside her Department who are sent information on, or consulted about, individuals who are, or may be, proposed to the Minister for appointment to posts for which a Minister has to approve the person appointed or the shortlist for the appointment.

  Mr. Sackville
  No central record is maintained of the organisations and individuals consulted. The Department's aim is to appoint people from a broad range of different backgrounds, and many professional and voluntary bodies are consulted when appointments are made to public bodies.

  Nominations for the chairmen and ministerial non-executive appointments to regional health authorities and national health service trust boards are sought from the chairmen of the appropriate regional health authorities.

  Surplus Property
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what steps she intends to take to ensure that redundant hospitals are disposed of promptly;

  (2) what steps she takes to ensure that health authorities and NHS trusts pay due regard to the Department's estate code on property transactions in the NHS in disposing of surplus property.

  Mr. Sackville
  None. Health authorities and trusts are expected to follow the guidance contained in "Property Transactions in the NHS", and to conduct disposals expeditiously and in accordance with the advice of professional agents. Copies of the guidance are available in the Library.
  591
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the estimated current value of the national health service estate in the North Western regional health authority region which is surplus and is to be disposed of.

  Mr. Sackville
  North Western regional health authority estimate the value of surplus property available for disposal over the next 10 years to be about £56 million.

  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what representations she has received concerning expenditure by Warrington Community NHS trust on maintaining empty properties; what guidance has been issued to trusts on these costs; and how they are counted for capital charging purposes.

  Mr. Sackville
  National health service trusts are responsible for managing their own estates.

  The costs of maintaining property is a revenue cost accounted for through the trust's accounting procedures.

  Capital charges are payable in respect of property in use based on an assessment of their existing use value. There is guidance on their reassessment of values for capital charges for empty property in the capital charges and trust equivalent manual.

  Hospital Closures
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will make it her policy to collect centrally information on hospital closures in England.

  Mr. Sackville
  No, these are for local decision except where statutory objections are raised. In her statement of 21 October 1993,Official Report, columns 398–412, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced changes to streamline and simplify central management. This requires that central reports are kept to a minimum.

  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to her answer of 23 March,Official Report, columns 231–32, if she will list the known hospital closures contested by community health councils in each year between 1979 and 1988.

  Mr. Sackville
  Records of notification of proposed closures were not routinely collected before 1990. The previous reply provided all the information readily available.

  Building Projects
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what major building projects valued at over £1 million are being or have been wholly or partly financed since 1989 in(a) Doncaster, (b) Barnsley, (c) Rotherham and (d) Wakefield by her Department; and what was the cost of each project to her Department.

  Mr. Sackville
  The information is as follows:

  Building projects since 1989 valued at over £1 million

  Expenditure to completion or estimated outturn cost

  Recorded expenditure to date

  £

  £

  Doncaster

  Doncaster royal infirmary phase 1 (west end development)

  2,284,635

  —

  Doncaster west end development theatre and enabling works1

  2,925,000

  247,586

  592

  Expenditure to completion or estimated outturn cost

  Recorded expenditure to date

  £

  £

  Barnsley

  None

  Rotherham

  Swallownest long-stay mental illness unit

  2,952,022

  —

  Rotherham district general hospital phase 3B geriatric unit1

  6,869,000

  4,449,518

  Rothetham general phase 3A, acute-obstetric ward1

  3,297,000

  1,346,790

  Wakefield

  None

  1 Building projects currently under construction with a total value of over £1 million.

  Dental Services
  Mr. Thurnham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the average number of teeth of five-year-old children suffering from dental decay for(a) 1991 and (b) the most recent date for which information is available, analysed by district for England, in descending order of good health.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The Department has commissioned the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys to conduct surveys of the dental health of children at 10-year intervals. The most recent survey was carried out in 1993 and the report will be published later this year. Copies of previous survey reports and preliminary results of the 1993 survey are available in the Library.

  Information on the dental health of five-year-old children is available from surveys by the British Association for the Study of Community Dentistry. Copies of the latest published report, which relates to a survey conducted in 1989–90, are available in the Library.

  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what representations she has received in respect of dentists encouraging patients to join insurance schemes to cover dental care.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  We receive correspondence from hon. Members, dentists and members of the public on many aspects of dentistry including provision of private treatment.

  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people have left the national health service in relation to dental care, in each family health service authority covering Coventry.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  Some 1,676 patients were deregistered in the Coventry family health services authority area between 3 July 1992 and 18 March 1994. The number who subsequently reregistered with another general dental practitioner is not known. On 3 July 1992 the number of patients registered with a national health service dentist in Coventry was 181,371. At 31 January 1994 the total was 181,463, an increase of 92.
  593
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how she is monitoring the numbers of dentists who have left the national health service(a) nationally and (b) in Coventry.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The Department collects information from all family health services authorities of the number of dentists who have given written notice to remove their names from the FHSA dental lists, and of the number of dentists who deregister patients. The Dental Practice Board supplies periodic reports on the numbers of dentists in contract to the FHSAs.

  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans she has to review the level of dental charges(a) nationally and (b) in the Coventry area.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The Government keep the level of national health service dental charges under regular review. Patient charges are determined nationally, and are not subject to local variation.

  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what guidelines she has issued for dentists regarding the encouragement of patients to take out private insurance schemes.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The regulations governing general dental services stipulate that a dentist shall not, with a view to obtaining the agreement of a patient to undergo care and treatment privately, advise a patient that the care and treatment which is necessary to secure and maintain his oral health is not available from that dentist under general dental services. Nor may a dentist seek to mislead a patient about the quality of care and treatment available under general dental services.

  Complaints
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many written complaints relating to hospital and community services were made in each year since 1982.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor) on 25 March at column 462. Information for the year 1992–93 is not yet available.

  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when she expects to publish the report of the review of the national health service complaints procedure.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  I refer the hon. Member to my reply to the hon. Members for Bristol, South (Ms Primarolo) and for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) on 24 March at column 411.

  Family Health Services (Drugs Bill)
  Mrs. Currie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what proportion of the drugs bill for the family health services has been accounted for by prescription charges in each of the last five years.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  None. The family health services drugs bill does not include the income received from prescription charges.
  594

  PM10 Emissions
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment has been made by her Department of the number of excess deaths associated with emissions of PM10; and if she will make a statement.

  Mr. Sackville
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) on 17 March at column 828.

  Autism
  Mr. Win Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment she has made of the efforts of the responsible bodies to make an early diagnosis and assessment of children with autism; what is the current assessment of the prevalence of autism in children; and how many autistic children have been so diagnosed.

  Mr. Bowis
  It is primarily a matter for the statutory authorities to monitor the arrangements for assessment in their area. It is estimated that the prevalence rate of autism is between four and five per 10,000 population.

  NHS Trusts
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health which NHS trusts coming into operation on 1 April will have a turnover(a) in excess of £50 million, (b) between £20 to £50 million and (c) less than £20 million.

  Mr. Sackville
  The financial plans of the fourth wave of national health service trusts are currently being discussed with purchasing health authorities and the outposts of the National Health Service Management Executive and will be finalised during April. We expect that the information will be available shortly after that.

  Ms Primarolo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health with whom Touche Ross had a contract to advise on the financial performance of fourth-wave trust hospitals in the west midlands; and how much the contract was worth.

  Mr. Sackville
  The contract to advise on the financial viability of fourth-wave trust applicants was between Touche Ross and the National Health Service Management Executive of the Department of Health. It is inappropriate to disclose the value of the contract on the grounds of commercial confidentiality.

  Waiting Times
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what percentage of patients are seen and assessed for treatment within five minutes of arriving in accident and emergency departments;

  (2) what percentage of patients are seen within 30 minutes of their out-patient appointment time.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  In the quarter ending 31 December 1993, 83 per cent.—estimated based on samples—of patients attending accident and emergency departments were assessed immediately and 80 per cent.—estimated based on samples—of patients were seen within 30 minutes of their specified appointment time in out-patient clinics.
  595

  Civil Servants
  Ms Armstrong
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list for each civil service grade in her Department the number of(a) male and (b) female, (i) full-time and (ii) part-time employees.

  Mr. Sackville
  The information shows the position on 23 March 1994:

  Grade including grade equivalents)

  Male

  Female

  Full-time

  Part-time

  UG1

  3

  0

  3

  0

  UG2

  8

  0

  8

  0

  UG3

  20

  5

  24

  1

  UG4

  17

  11

  28

  0

  UG5

  126

  78

  181

  23

  UG6

  92

  44

  132

  4

  UG7

  425

  150

  527

  48

  SEO

  285

  117

  391

  11

  HEO

  398

  326

  683

  41

  EO

  408

  564

  973

  35

  AO

  347

  986

  1,273

  60

  AA

  227

  302

  478

  51

  Others1

  96

  70

  153

  13

  Totals

  2,452

  2,653

  4,818

  287

  1There are a number of grades, mainly in the youth treatment service, which do not easily equate to unified grades.

  Casual staff have been excluded, as have staff on loan to other Government Departments, on maternity leave of more than three months, and on unpaid career breaks/study leave.

  NHS Estates
  Mr. Fatchett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list the current staffing levels of National Health Service Estates, setting out the number of staff(a) on permanent contracts and (b) on temporary contracts.

  Mr. Sackville
  The staffing level of the National Health Service Estates agency is as follows:

  73 Staff on permanent contract

  24 Staff employed on three-year fixed term contracts.

  2 Staff employed on five-year fixed term contracts.

  2 Staff employed on temporary contracts of less than one year.

  27 Staff employed via Manpower Agency contract.

  1 Temporary member of staff employed via a specialist financial employment agency.

  NHSME Pamphlets
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many pamphlets the National Health Service Management Executive has published since October 1993; and if she will list the title, the recipients and the cost.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  Since October 1993 the National Health Service Management Executive has published 15 pamphlets, leaflets and brochures. The table gives the description, cost and to whom they were sent.

  Distribution to NHS Managers

  Title

  Cost £

  Ethnic Minorities Brochure

  11,406

  Private Finance Brochure

  9,277

  Health of the Nation One Year On

  6,955

  Targeting Practice for Nurses (including reprint)

  123,911

  Management Executive News (7 monthly editions)

  46,912

  New World New Opportunities (reprint)

  3,450

  Patients Charter News (3 editions)

  34,664

  596

  Title

  Cost £

  Value for Money Update

  4,641

  NHSME Annual Report

  52,024

  Primary Care Booklets

  18,820

  Patient Perception Booklets (9 Booklets on various subjects)

  377,000

  Health Service Indicators Publicity—Prices leaflet

  1.01

  Establishing Districts of Residence

  1,495

  This is the Information Management Group

  2,660

  Risk Management Manual

  25,614

  1 estimate

  Home Help
  Ms Armstrong
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is her latest information on how much each local authority charges for home helps to people not on income-related benefits.

  Mr. Bowis
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) on 17 February at columns 931–32.

  Medical Negligence
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to her answer of 14 March,Official Report, column 538, how many of the cases of medical negligence, and what costs, were associated with self-governing trusts.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  None for 1990–91, as there were no national health service trusts then. For 1991–92, the returns were incomplete, as previously stated, and it would be invidious to extract from the information already provided, the figures for NHS trusts that supplied them, without comparable details for others or for individual directly managed units.

  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to her answer of 14 March,Official Report, column 538, when she expects the information on medical negligence claims for 1992–93 to be available.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The information for 1992–93 that has been supplied by national health service bodies by 31 March 1994 will be collated and will be available shortly after that.

  Hospital Admissions
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) pursuant to her answer of 8 March,Official Report, column 168, how many of the non-elective hospital admissions were from general practitioners fundholding practices in each region in each year;

  (2) pursuant to her answer of 8 March, Official Report, column 168, how many of the non-elective hospital admissions were (a) readmissions and (b) self-referrals in each year in each region.

  Mr. Sackville
  The information available centrally on in-patient activity does not separately identify non-elective readmission rates, the level of self-referrals or whether individual patients are registered with fundholding or non-fundholding general practitioners.

  Highfield Primary School, Leeds
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what inquiry she is making into the role of Leeds health authority in providing sex and health education advice to Highfield primary school, Leeds.

  Mr. Sackville
  Leeds community and mental health services national health service trust employs the school nurse who has provided a sexual health education class at Highfield primary school. The school, the local education authority and the trust are co-operating in determining the facts about the class and will take any necessary action once the facts of the matter have been established.

  Hospital Statistics
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will give by region(a) the number of new accident and emergency cases during 1992–93 and (b) the total out-patient attendances during 1992–93.

  Mr. Sackville
  The information is shown in "Outpatients and ward attenders for England: Financial Year 1992–93", a copy of which is available in the Library.

  Radiation
  Ms Primarolo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps she has taken to examine ways of reducing children's artificial exposure to radiation, including X-rays.

  Mr. Sackville
  [holding answer 23 March 1994]: Practitioners carrying out medical exposures of radiation are required by regulation 4(3) of the Ionising Radiation (Protection of Persons Undergoing Medical Examination or Treatment) Regulations 1988 to keep doses of ionising radiation to the patient as low as reasonably practicable in order to achieve the required diagnostic or therapeutic purpose. A guide to good radiation practice was published in 1988 by the United Kingdom Health Departments, the National Radiological Protection Board and the Health and Safety Executive. These are the "Guidance Notes for the Protection of Persons against Ionising Radiations Arising from Medical and Dental Use", copies of which are available in the Library.

  All practitioners wishing to administer radioactive medicinal products must hold a certificate issued under the Medicines (Administration of Radioactive Substances) Regulations) 1978. The Administration of Radioactive Substances Advisory Committee advises the Department and the United Kingdom Health Ministers on matters connected with the issue of certificates and has also issued guidance notes. Investigations concerning children are the subject of special advice within those guidance notes. The ARSAC keeps its advice under constant review.

  Following the issue of health circular (89)18, copies of which are available in the Library, all health authorities were required to review the management of all departments making use of ionising radiation to ensure that they conformed to the statutory requirements and the guidance on good practice. They were also required to set up a system to review and periodically update their procedures in the light of changing guidance.

  The Department of Health medical devices directorate issued safety guidelines for magnetic resonance diagnostic equipment in clinical use in 1993. Copies of the guidelines will be placed in the Library.
  598
  A further circular to the national health service is due to be issued later this year consolidating and updating advice on the statutory and management responsibilities in relation to the medical use of ionising radiations.

  The Department is currently funding a research project designed to test the feasibility of parents keeping a radiation dose log book for their child's diagnostic and therapeutic radiation doses from birth until the age of five years.

  The reduction in medical radiation doses for the whole of the population including children is under constant review. Officials are in contact with all the professional bodies involved in the medical use of ionising radiation and have regular discussions with them. Meetings and discussions are also held regularly with the royal colleges connected with radiology, the NRPB and the Health and Safety Executive.

  The Royal College of Radiologists has produced a booklet entitled "Making the best use of a Department of Clinical Radiology—guidelines for doctors". This gives specific advice for paediatric radiology and copies will be placed in the Library.

  NHS Administration
  Dr. Marek
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the total cost of employing managers, advisers, administrators and clerical staff in the NHS Management Executive, the NHS Supplies Authority, the Prescription Pricing Authority, the medical advisers support group and the Medicines Research Centre in each of the last three years for which figures are available.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  [pursuant to his reply, 28 February 1994, c. 603]: I regret that some of the figures in my previous reply were provided incorrectly as millions rather than thousands.

  They should read:
  "The total manpower costs for the medical advisers support group—properly named the Medical Advisers Support Centre—were £71,108 in 1990–91—part year in which the MASC was set up—£157,958 and £175,936 in 1991–92 and 1992–93 respectively. The total manpower costs for the Medicines Research Centre—MeReC—were £83,000 in 1990–91—part year in whch the MeReC was set up—£114,247 and £111,828 in 1991–92 and 1992–93 respectively."

ATTORNEY-GENERAL

  Civil Servants
  Ms Armstrong
  To ask the Attorney-General if he will list for each civil service grade in his Department the number of(a) male and (b) female, (i) full-time and (ii) part-time employees.

  The Attorney-General
  The information is set out in the table below and is correct as at 1 March 1994.

  Members of the legal secretariat to the Law Officers will be reflected, as appropriate, in the records of the Government Departments from which they are seconded.

  Male

  Female

  Grade

  Full-time

  Part-time

  Full-time

  Part-time

  Treasury Solicitor's Department

  1

  1

  —

  —

  —

  2

  1

  —

  1

  —

  3

  8

  —

  —

  —

  4

  2

  —

  1

  —

  599

  Male

  Female

  Grade

  Full-time

  Part-time

  Full-time

  Part-time

  5

  31

  —

  9

  2

  6

  50

  1

  11

  2

  71

  59

  1

  39

  7

  SEO1

  13

  —

  2

  —

  HEO1

  23

  —

  20

  1

  EO1

  27

  —

  52

  1

  AO1

  32

  —

  68

  9

  AA1

  15

  —

  22

  —

  Crown Prosecution Service

  1

  —

  —

  1

  —

  2

  —

  —

  —

  —

  3

  5

  —

  —

  —

  4

  15

  —

  —

  —

  5

  46

  —

  1

  —

  6

  167

  —

  25

  1

  712

  1,130

  13

  790

  182

  SEO1

  76

  —

  28

  3

  HEO1

  132

  —

  149

  15

  EO1

  363

  4

  833

  96

  AO1

  353

  5

  978

  99

  AA1

  165

  2

  677

  113

  Serious Fraud Office

  1

  2

  —

  —

  —

  3

  1

  —

  —

  —

  4

  1

  —

  —

  —

  5

  8

  —

  2

  —

  6

  9

  —

  5

  1

  71

  10

  —

  3

  —

  SEO1

  11

  —

  2

  —

  HEO1

  12

  —

  5

  —

  EO1

  12

  —

  12

  —

  AO1

  13

  —

  21

  —

  AA1

  4

  —

  9

  1

  1 Figure includes equivalent Civil Service grades.

  2 Figure includes Senior Crown Prosecutor, Principal Crown Prosecutor and Crown Prosecutor.

DUCHY OF LANCASTER

  Rail Information
  Mr. Rowe
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Transport about the degree of openness in the information being made available about the channel tunnel rail link and other rail developments.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  I have had no discussion with my right hon. Friend on this particular subject.

  Tenders
  Mr. Clifton-Brown
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what steps his Department is taking to ensure that when tenders for public work are invited that they are in realistic commercial terms and without unnecessary contingent liabilities.

  Mr. David Davis
  The Government's guide to market testing, produced by my Department and published in August 1993, gives advice on how to invite tenders for central Government work. This is supplemented and updated as the need arises.

  Civil Service
  Mr. Brandreth
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what has been the change in the size of the home civil service since 1987; and what change is expected in the next seven years.

  Mr. David Davis
  Since 1987, the size of the civil service has been reduced by 51,480 to 546,340 the lowest number in the past 50 years.

  Plans for the next seven years are not available, but plans for the next three years are published in the "Statistical Supplement to the Financial Statement and Budget Report", Cm 2519, a copy of which is available in the Library.

  Citizens Charter
  Mr. Bayley
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, pursuant to his answer of 21 March,Official Report, columns 84–85, whether the Government will introduce a regular annual report on the performance of public services against charter promises; and what alternative means he proposes to enable citizens to ascertain whether service standards are being improved year on year.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  It is essential that public services themselves report regularly and publicly on their performance against service standards so that people can see that standards are being raised. As I said in my response to the hon. Member for York on 21 March,Official Report,columns 84–85, reports on the initiative as a whole will be made to Parliament as and when appropriate.

  Mr. Bayley
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, pursuant to his answer of 21 March,Official Report, columns 84–85, who will decide when it is appropriate for a report on the citizens charter to be made to Parliament; and if he will take steps to involve citizens of the United Kingdom about the timing of such reports.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  After consultation with colleagues I will decide when it is appropriate for a report on the citizens charter to be made to Parliament. There are no immediate plans to involve citizens of the United Kingdom about the timing of such reports.

  Public Appointments
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what percentage of public appointments made by his Department in 1993 were of(a) Asians and (b) black people; and if he will list their names.

  Mr. David Davis
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 25 March 1994,Official Report, column 440.

  Malaysian Airlines
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will list the dates Ministers, or officials from his Department, including his Department's agencies, have used the Malaysian airline MAS for each year since 1985, including this year to date, on official business; and what was the cost of each flight to his Department.

  Mr. David Davis
  Information available shows that neither Ministers nor officials of the Cabinet Office,
  601
  including the Office of Public Service and Science and its agencies, have used the Malaysian airline MAS. An official of the Central Office of Information used MAS on one occasion in June 1989 at a cost of £819.

  Civil Servants
  Ms Armstrong
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will list for each civil service grade in his Department the number of(a) male and (b) female, (i) full-time and (ii) part-time employees.

  Mr. David Davis
  In the departments and agencies for which I am responsible, and in other areas which fall to the Cabinet Office vote, the figures for non-industrial civil servants are:

  Grade Band

  Male

  Female

  Full-time

  Part-time

  Full-time

  Part-time

  Grade 1 (including 1A)

  3

  0

  0

  0

  Grade 2

  17

  0

  2

  0

  Grade 3

  21

  0

  4

  0

  Grade 4

  4

  0

  0

  0

  Grade 5

  53

  1

  15

  4

  Grade 6

  74

  3

  17

  2

  Grade 7

  277

  3

  69

  8

  SEO

  349

  3

  121

  12

  HEO (D) and AT

  14

  0

  3

  0

  HEO

  591

  1

  264

  37

  EO

  557

  2

  367

  54

  AO

  410

  3

  796

  139

  AA

  167

  5

  298

  89

  Total

  2,537

  21

  1,956

  345

  Figures at 23 March 1994.

  Sir Peter Emery
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many civil servants were in post in each Government Department(a) in 1990 and (b) at the latest date for which figures are available; and how many jobs, from which Ministry, have been contracted out or turned over to external agencies.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  Details of the number of civil servants employed by each Government Department are available in the Library of the House. The figures for 1 October 1990 were laid on 15 January 1991,Official Report, column 462, and for 1 October 1993 on 17 December 1993, Official Report, columns 972–73. Between 1 April 1992 and 31 December 1993, 12,291 civil service posts were contracted out as part of the competing for quality programme. Information about numbers of posts contracted out prior to 1 April 1992 and about contracting out which may have resulted from other initiatives is not held centrally.

  Some 336,585 civil servants are currently employed in agencies created as part of the next steps initiative.

  Charters
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many charters are in the course of preparation and in what areas; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. David Davis
  The citizens charter second report, published on 16 March, sets out the good progress that has already been made on the citizens charter initiative, and show the plans for the future. Some 38 charters have now 602
  been produced. When it becomes an agency on 1 April, the Highways Agency will launch its own charter. Further and higher education charters for Northern Ireland will be published in the spring. Revised versions of the job seekers charter and the parents charter are also planned for the spring.

WALES

  Health Promotion Authority for Wales
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what consultations he has had with the chairman of the Health Promotion Authority for Wales concerning the removal of Mr. David Griffiths from, the audit committee of the authority.

  Mr. Redwood
  [holding answer 25 March 1994]: None. This is a matter for the chairman and board of the Health Promotion Authority for Wales.

  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) what consultations he has had with the chairman of the Health Promotion Authority for Wales concerning the letter he received from Mr. David Griffiths, a board member of the authority;

  (2) what representations he has received from Mr. David Griffiths, a member of the board of the Health Promotion Authority for Wales, concerning the financial management and audit procedures of the authority;

  (3) when he proposes to respond to the letter from Mr. David Griffiths, a board member of the Health Promotion Authority for Wales, in relation to the financial management and audit procedure at the Health Promotion Authority for Wales.

  Mr. Redwood
  [holding answer 25 March 1994]: Mr. Griffiths wrote to me on 29 January 1994, setting out his concerns. He wrote a further letter on 18 March asking when he would receive a reply. The Chairman of the Health Promotion Authority for Wales provided information to assist my reply. A response was sent to Mr. Griffiths on 23 March.

  Local Government Reorganisation
  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list those representations that have been made to him favouring the inclusion of Llanelly in the proposed new unitary authority of Powys.

  Mr. Redwood
  Since publication of the Local Government (Wales) Bill, I have received representations about the inclusion of Llanelly in the proposed Powys unitary authority from:

  Powys county council

  Blaenau Gwent borough council

  Llanelly community council

  Roger Evans MP

  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list those representations that have been made to him favouring the inclusion of Pentyrch in the proposed new unitary authority of Cardiff.

  Mr. Redwood
  Since publication of the White Paper "Local Government in Wales: A Charter for the Future", I have received one representation from Taff Ely borough council expressing opposition to the inclusion of Pentyrch
  603
  in the proposed Cardiff unitary authority. Cardiff city council has written to express its support for the proposals in the White Paper, as have many members of the public.

  Public Appointments
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) what procedures his Department has to prevent the possible appointment of individuals with extreme political views to posts for which a Minister has to approve the person or shortlist for the appointment;

  (2) what information his Department holds or obtains relating to individuals who have been appointed, or may be considered for appointment, to paid or unpaid posts for which a Minister has to approve the person or shortlist for the appointment, in particular relating to active involvement in (a) extreme left-wing organisations, (b) extreme right-wing organisations and (c) Involvement in any of the political parties represented in the House of Commons.

  Mr. Redwood
  The general procedure for the making of public appointments is contained in the Cabinet Office publication "Guide to Public Appointments Procedures" which is available in the Library of the House. Applicants to the Welsh Office register of candidates for public appointment complete a nomination form giving biographical information including a self-assessment of their background and skills. References are taken up on candidates considered for an appointment and a conflict of interest declaration is required from everyone who is offered an appointment. I take all relevant information into account in seeking to appoint the best candidate for the post.

  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) if he will list the organisations and individuals who have been asked, since June 1992, to submit names of individuals to be considered for appointments to paid and unpaid posts for which a Minister has to approve the person or shortlist for the appointment;

  (2) if he will list the organisations and individuals outside his Department who are sent information on, or consulted about, individuals who are, or may be, proposed to the Minister for appointment to posts for which a Minister has to approve the person appointed or the shortlist for the appointment.

  Mr. Redwood
  I consult such individuals and organisations as may be appropriate.

  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list each appointment for which a Minister has to approve the appointment or shortlist for the appointment, showing for each appointment(a) which Minister exercises the responsibility, (b) the salary, if any, attached to the post, (c) the term of the appointment and (d) the person currently appointed to the post.

  Mr. Redwood
  The information at 1 March 1994 is shown in "Appointments by the Secretary of State for Wales" which is available in the Library of the House.

  Housing
  Mr. Dafis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) if he will publish for each district council and for Wales as a whole at constant prices(a) the number of council
  604
  houses, (b) the amount of guideline housing revenue account subsidy for 1994–95 and (c) the amount shown in (b) divided by the number of council houses;

  (2) if he will publish for each district council and for Wales as a whole at constant prices (a) housing revenue account subsidy for 1993–94, (b) guideline housing revenue account subsidy for 1994–95 and (c) the percentage change of (b)compared with (a).

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  Information on the number of council houses in each district and in Wales as a whole was given to the hon. Member in my reply of 9 March 1994,Official Report, columns 289–290.

  Information on the amount of housing revenue account subsidy claimed by each district council and for Wales as a whole in 1993–94 was given to the hon. Member in my reply on 14 February 1994, Official Report, column 634.

  An overall subsidy guideline for each district council is not provided. Local authorities calculate their housing revenue account subsidy entitlement for each year in accordance with formulae within the determinations which are issued annually. Copies of the determinations for 1994–95 have been placed in the Library of the House and authorities' subsidy claims for that year have not yet been received.

  Development Board for Rural Wales
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what targets he has set the Development Board for Rural Wales for the sale of its industrial estates on the open market; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Redwood
  The development board has a commercial and industrial property disposal target of 150,000 sp ft in 1993–94. This is expected to raise receipts totalling some £2·7 million.

  Seismic Activity, Newtown
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will initiate an urgent study into seismic activity in the Newtown area; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Redwood
  Earthquakes in the Newtown area are adequately recorded by the British Geological Survey United Kingdom seismograph network which is operated by its global seismology research group from Edinburgh. BGS has already initiated a macroseismic survey of the recent earthquake in this area. It routinely undertakes such surveys after all significant earthquakes in the United Kingdom and did so following the nearby Bishops Castle earthquake in April 1990.

  A more extensive study of the mid-Wales area was undertaken in 1984, by the British earthquake research group, following the event in April of that year. More generally, a study into "Earthquake Hazard and Risk in the UK" has been commissioned by the Department of the Environment from Ove Arup and Partners and the report was published in 1993 by HMSO. A copy of the report is in the Library of the House. A conclusion of the report is that, since there is only a small possibility of an earthquake—in the United Kingdom—causing significant damage, the risk to society is sufficiently low not to cause undue concern.
  605
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what steps have been taken to ensure the adequacy of emergency arrangements in the event of earthquakes in the Newtown area; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Redwood
  This is primarily a matter for Powys county council.

  Full-time

  Part-time

  Grade

  Male

  Female

  Male

  Female

  Total

  G1 and Equivalents

  1

  —

  —

  —

  1

  G2 and Equivalents

  2

  —

  —

  —

  2

  G3 and Equivalents

  11

  1

  —

  —

  12

  G4 and Equivalents

  5

  2

  —

  —

  7

  GS and Equivalents

  43

  7

  —

  1

  51

  G6 and Equivalents

  27

  2

  —

  1

  30

  G7 and Equivalents

  131

  36

  1

  15

  183

  SEO and Equivalents

  114

  23

  2

  4

  143

  HEO and Equivalents

  187

  86

  —

  13

  286

  Administration Fast Stream

  11

  9

  —

  1

  21

  EO and Equivalents

  213

  219

  —

  60

  492

  AO and Equivalents

  164

  346

  1

  78

  589

  AA and Equivalents

  174

  228

  —

  50

  452

  Industrials

  111

  14

  5

  15

  145

  Tuberculosis
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of Stale for Wales what information is held by his Department on the numbers of people and children infected by tuberculosis in Wales.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  The number of notifications of tuberculosis in Wales by age is published annually in the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys publication "Communicable disease statistics". The latest edition includes data for 1991 and is available in the Library of the House.

  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many children in Wales leave school without having been vaccinated against tuberculosis.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  Information is not available centrally in the form requested. However in the financial year 1992–93 there were 15,878 tuberculosis vaccinations given to children aged 15 and under. This figures does not include children in this age group who were vaccinated in a previous year.

  Dental Services
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many general dental practitioners there are within each family health services authority in Wales; and how many in each area are accepting new patients who are entitled to receive free NHS dental treatment.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  This information is not available centrally in the format required. Family health services authorities have notified the Welsh Office that the position as at 24 March 1994 was as follows:

  (a) Number of general dental practitioners

  (b) Number accepting all new NHS patients

  Gwyd

  106

  140

  Dyfed

  107

  70

  Gwent

  154

  22

  Civil Servants
  Ms Armstrong
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list for each civil service grade in his Department the number of(a) male and (b) female, (i) full-time and (ii) part-time employees.

  Mr. Redwood
  The total number of persons employed by my Department are:

  (a) Number of general dental practitioners

  (b) Number accepting all new NHS patients

  Gwynedd

  65

  16

  Mid Glamorgan

  134

  69

  Powys

  42

  25

  South Glamorgan

  146

  35

  West Glamorgan

  126

  126

  Notes

  1. These figures are not statistically validated.

  2. Columns (a) and (b) may include dentists registered with more than one family health services authority.

  1Denotes number of practices—number of GDPs not available.

  4. Column (b) indicates number of dentists accepting all new patients. It does not include those dentists accepting only children and/or adults exempt from NHS charges.

  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many salaried dentists are employed by each family health services authority in Wales.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  There are two salaried dentists employed by Gwynedd family health services authority and one by Dyfed family health services authority. A further salaried dentist will be employed by Powys family health services authority from 19 April 1994.

  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many community dentists are employed by each health authority and each hospital trust in Wales.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  Provisional information, relating to staff in post in the community dental service, is given in the table.

  Staff in post as at 30 September 19931

  Health Authorities

  Gwynedd

  8·3

  Mid Glamorgan

  14·3

  Powys

  1·0

  South Glamorgan

  15·5

  West Glamorgan

  11·8

  607

  Staff in post as at 30 September 19931

  NHS Trusts

  Carmarthen and District

  1·5

  Ceredigion and Mid Wales

  3·7

  Clwydian Community Care

  10·4

  Gwent Community

  14·1

  Llanelli Dinefwr

  1·8

  Pembrokeshire

  5·6

  Powys Health Care

  4·0

  1 Whole-time equivalents. Excluding locum staff.

  South Glamorgan Health Authority
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the transfer of funding from South Glamorgan health authority to other Welsh health authorities; what consultations he has had in relation to the basis of the formula for allocating the capitation funding; what consultations he has had with the chairman of South Glamorgan health authority concerning the abatement of purchasing power; and if he will list the numbers of patients, specialties, operations and treatments affected by the alteration in the formula.

  Mr. Redwood
  Health authorities were consulted in January 1991 on options for a weighted capitation formula to be used to determine each authority's share of available revenue resources. After considering the responses from 608
  authorities, my predecessor informed the House on 21 March 1991, Official Report, columns 178–80, of his decision as to the most appropriate basis for this formula.

  South Glamorgan HA's present share of revenue resources exceeds its formula share. It is intended that all authorities will attain their formula shares by 1998–99, with the shares of presently underfunded authorities increasing and those of overfunded authorities, including South Glamorgan, decreasing.

  Although South Glamorgan HA's percentage share will decline, its cash allocation will be dependent upon the growth resources available and on inflation. The 10-year resource assumptions provided to health authorities for planning purposes show how their formula shares and cash allocations would move on the basis of annual real terms growth of 0·5 per cent.

  This growth assumption was exceeded in the cash allocations for health authorities for 1994–95, which I announced on 16 March 1994, Official Report, column 698, south Glamorgan's allocation provides a cash increase of 2·05 per cent., over its allocation for 1993–94. Provided that the authority secures the minimum efficiency savings specified for all health authorities for 1994–95 and uses these savings to fund the cost of pay awards in 1994–95, there should be no abatement of its purchasing power. It will, in fact, have received a real terms cash growth of over 1 per cent. For these reasons, I have no plans to meet the chairman of the health authority.

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

Madagascar: Cyclone Geralda
Lord Merrivale Lord Merrivale asked Her Majesty's Government:
What aid they are giving to Madagascar to assist its recovery from the effects of Cyclone Geralda on 2nd and 3rd February.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Chalker of Wallasey): My Lords, we have provided aid worth around £312,000 in total. That includes contributions to the non-government organisation, CARE, for its emergency relief programme in Brickaville, our share of the European Community's relief efforts and the local purchase of five tonnes of dried fish for distribution to those worst affected by the cyclone.
Lord Merrivale: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer. Does she agree that a special relationship exists with that country, dating back to the last century, which was brought about largely by our missionaries in the early 1820s, the desire for closer ties and the signing of a treaty of friendship and commerce on 27th June 1865? Should not Madagascar's appeal be considered more sympathetically by the Government than is the case at present?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, we have helped Madagascar in a number of ways, both in giving it meteorological information before the cyclone and in responding to Cyclone Geralda in the way that I have described. We have helped with the dangerous situation brought about by Cyclone Litanne which hit the Brickaville area on 16th March. Last Friday Cyclone Nadya fortunately passed over the north side of the island and did not do as much damage as the previous cyclones. However, since last weekend a damage assessment mission has been present in Madagascar to give further assistance. We respond immediately to Madagascar's urgent needs and we also run a technical co-operation programme there; and, I am glad to say, we have excellent relations with that country.
Lord Judd: My Lords, although noble Lords will be glad to hear about the relief that we have been able to supply, will the Minister not agree that, after devastating events of that kind, it is very often the reconstruction over a longer period which is the most demanding challenge of all? Will the Minister tell the House a little about what we and our partners in Europe are doing in that respect?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, it seems that we are almost in the lead there. The Community has committed some £890,000 in support of NGO activity
828
by CARE. We have monitoring missions in the area affected and, together with the European Community and the United Nations Department for Humanitarian Affairs, we shall do what is necessary to help. However, I ask the noble Lord to remember that they are an able people. While they may need a little help, we do not need to do everything for them.
Lord Merrivale: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that Cyclone Geralda was the worst cyclone since 1927, with winds gusting up to 220 miles per hour over a width of 500 miles? It left many families homeless, caused widespread flooding and destroyed harvests? It is a very special case.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend that it is a disastrous situation. I do not dispute any of my noble friend's facts about the devastation. We have targeted our response to the worst affected area, as wished by the Government of Madagascar. We have offered more help as it is needed. That is why we have an assessment mission there at present which is led by the British ambassador, representatives of the UN and representatives of CARE. We shall do what is needed, however bad the situation may be.

Anti-Semitism
2.41 p.m.
Baroness Perry of Southwark Baroness Perry of Southwark asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will consider implementing the recommendations relating to education in the January 1994 report of the Runnymede Commission on anti-semitism.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Blatch): My Lords, the Government share the commission's view that racism and anti-semitism are serious issues. The Government have pursued a range of measures in support of racial harmony, including action on initial and in-service teacher training; the provision of opportunities within the national and basic curriculum; and the development of model syllabuses for religious education in consultation with representatives and leaders of various faith communities including Judaism. Those are all areas included in the commission's recommendations.
Baroness Perry of Southwark: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that helpful and sympathetic Answer. However, does she agree that the report by the commission, of which I was a member and which was chaired by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford, demonstrates how sensitive and complex are the issues involved in teaching the Jewish religion? Can she offer help to teachers who must deal with those issues, many of whom have no knowledge or training in that subject?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I can give assurances that the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority will take those anxieties into account when drawing up

829
religious education syllabuses and when working with the leaders and representatives of faith groups. I can say also that current aspects of Jewish history—for example, the history of the Holocaust—will be dealt with through the national curriculum. It is important that integrity is sustained throughout all those areas. Grants for education support and training will fund the training of teachers so that they are more comfortable with the subject and better informed about it.
Lord Judd: My Lords, does the Minister agree that now we are living so demonstrably in a multi-ethnic society a tremendous challenge faces the whole educational system in preparing our young people to make a positive success of a nation which is so rich in variety? In that respect, can the Minister say more about her plans for religious education as distinct from teaching religion so that children understand each other's different faiths and approach multi-culturalism in a positive frame of mind?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, all the information about religious education has been circulated for consultation. I do not believe that the time allocated to me for the Question permits me to give a full answer. The noble Lord is well aware of the documents that are in the public domain at the moment. However, he is absolutely right: it is a challenge. One of the reasons why the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority is working so hard is that there has been rather a woolly approach to multi-cultural education in this country. It is not a great melting pot. It is important to retain and sustain the integrity of each faith group. That is the objective of the work being carried out by the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority.
The Lord Bishop of Oxford: My Lords, as the noble Baroness mentioned me by name, I feel that I must declare an interest in the Question as I had the privilege to chair the working party which produced the report on anti-semitism. The working group consisted of Moslems, as well as Jews and Christians. Sadly, from an historical point of view, the Churches have to admit that they must bear a fair share of responsibility for anti-Judaic teaching. However, in recent decades, a great deal of good work has been done to correct the errors of the past and much of that work is summarised in a pamphlet entitled, A Fresh Way of Thinking: Guidance for the right teaching of Christianity in relation to Judaism, which is to be published later this month. Is the Minister willing to make the availability of that pamphlet known to teachers of religious education in schools? It would help teachers as well as preachers to avoid some of the worst pitfalls.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, without having had sight or sound of the document which the right reverend Prelate is offering to me, it is difficult for me to answer that question. However, if it is at all helpful, I can tell him that we have a mechanism for making schools aware of such documents through a publication called Schools Update which goes to schools and deals with all
830
matters of education. We could certainly use that vehicle for bringing the pamphlet to the attention of teachers.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, is not the real message to be given in respect of anti-semitism that it is not merely unpleasant and sinister, but that it is also factually false and not to be believed in by any sensible and intelligent human being?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble and learned friend. It is absolutely true that accuracy is important. There has been too much interpretation both as regards history and multi-racial education. I believe that we should make every effort to ensure that we help our teachers to be more accurate and objective in handling this very sensitive issue.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I should also like to declare an interest as I am a Runnymede trustee. Will the Minister bear in mind another Runnymede publication, the Equality Assurance report, published last year, which, far from being woolly, was a practical guide to teachers on how to combat religious and racial prejudice in our plural, multi-cultural society?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I take note of the noble Lord's remarks. I shall certainly make it my business to read the report. Again, if we find it useful, it can form part of the bank of literature designed to help teachers.

Opposition Spokesmen, House of Lords: Remuneration
2.47 p.m.
Lord Marlesford Lord Marlesford asked the Leader of the House (Lord Wakeham):
Whether he will refer to the Senior Salaries Review Body the remuneration of Opposition spokesmen in the House of Lords.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Wakeham): My Lords, salaries are paid from public funds to the Leader of the Opposition and the Opposition Chief Whip in your Lordships' House. The Government have no plans to extend that or to refer the matter to the Senior Salaries Review Body.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, in the light of that somewhat discouraging reply, does my noble friend agree that there is scope for misinterpretation in that it might be thought either that the Government are not anxious to have the most effective scrutiny of legislation in this Chamber—which is the main justification for the existence of the House of Lords—or that they wish to have such scrutiny, which involves a great deal of hard work, on the cheap, quite apart from the normal activities of Back-Benchers? Does that not suggest a mean mindedness which, as we all know, is totally out of character as regards my noble friend?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I certainly have no desire to lessen the scrutiny that takes place in your Lordships' House and which I have cause to respect

831
However, I am not entirely sure that all the scrutiny that we have had in recent times has come from the Opposition Front Bench.
Lord Richard: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord the Leader of the House for declaring my interest in the matter. It is very rare to see a Question on the Order Paper which is so sensible, so objective, so perceptive and, indeed, so forward looking and analytical in the way in which it has been approached. Is the noble Lord aware that I would like to tell the noble Lord, Lord Manes ford, that if he tables a Motion to the same effect, I should be delighted to second it?
However, there is a serious point involved. Many of my noble friends on the Front Bench perform their functions in the House at considerable financial cost to themselves. Even if the noble Lord the Leader of the House has set his mind totally against paying a salary to Opposition Front Bench spokesmen, would he be prepared to enter into discussions about ways in which their legitimate expenses might properly be paid? I have in mind the expenses they incur because of their position on the Front Bench rather than the expenses they incur merely through being Members of the House.
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, if the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition wants to discuss this matter with me, I am always open to have discussions with him. However, I should point out that the Short money, which has been designed to assist Oppositions in performing their parliamentary duty, was only recently uprated on 4th November 1993 by 35 per cent. An additional travel allowance worth £100,000 was also made available and an annual uprating linked to the RPI. Those allowances are for both Houses of Parliament but they are also designed to help noble Lords in their work.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, before the noble Lord gives his mind to casting any of these benefits on the official Opposition, he should remember that the Liberal Democrat Leader and Chief Whip do not get a penny.
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I am aware of that, but I have no plans to change that situation at present.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, although I support the thoroughly sensible proposal of my noble friend Lord Marlesford, will my noble friend the Minister consider referring the matter of the underpaid junior Ministers in this House to the appropriate body, in view of the fact that most of them are just at the age when they have heavy family expenses and their pay is poor?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I appreciate the point my noble friend makes as regards junior Ministers in this House. As I explained to the House on 29th November 1993, when we debated the Ministerial and other Salaries Order, all Lords Ministers, including the Leader of the Opposition and the Opposition Chief Whip, receive the cash equivalent of the two-stage increase that was awarded in another place. That was slightly different from the previous position in that they received the same cash increase as opposed to the same percentage increase. Therefore there was a differential
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but that differential will not increase. That is a slight improvement, but I know it is not as good an improvement as my noble friend seeks.
Lord Mason of Barnsley: My Lords, does the noble Lord the Leader of the House agree that it is worth considering whether Ministers should be subject to performance related pay and that we might call upon the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor to adjudicate and determine how many qualify for that?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, perhaps 1 could offer my services as an adjudicator. On that basis, I believe: that the pay of Government Ministers would exceed any indications that have come from any quarters. However, I do not believe that that could be afforded.
Lord Clark of Kempston: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that if the Short money was increased to cover Opposition spokesmen, this would have to apply to another place? If we are to increase anything, we should increase the Short money. I believe that it would be wrong to include Opposition Front Bench spokesmen in this measure if one does not show any consideration for the Liberal Democrats. I believe we would find ourselves in a dangerous situation if we were to pay anyone who sits on the Front Bench a salary. The money we are discussing should come out of the Short money.
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend this far: the idea that we should pay Opposition Front Bench spokesmen for being on the Front Bench and representing their parties in this House would have implications for the equivalent spokesmen in the House of Commons who do not receive such remuneration. The idea that is proposed would constitute a significant change and we need to give a great deal of thought to it. I am not sure this is the most opportune lime to give these matters further consideration.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that some eight years ago the late Lord Ponsonby and I paid a visit to the Senior Salaries Review Body to discuss this subject? We were given a sympathetic hearing by that body, but the difficulty was to define precisely who on the Front Bench should receive remuneration. If there had not been that difficulty, I believe that the body would have recommended some form of remuneration. Will not the noble Lord give thought to this matter and reconsider it?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, as is often the case, the noble Lord frames his question in a wise way. One of the difficulties that would have to be faced is that of making a distinction between those who make part-time contributions and those who make relatively full-time contributions. Some of the infrequent visitors to your Lordships' House make speeches of profound significance and importance. Some who are more regular contributors to our debates also make speeches of profound significance and importance.
Lord Elton: My Lords, does my noble friend therefore accept that the proper running of this House requires there to be an effective Opposition Front Bench and that to hold an effective place thereon makes it

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impossible to have a full-time job? There is therefore justice in considering means by which some recognition of the lack of earnings is made as people suffer greatly from that lack of earnings, particularly during their peak earning years when they are trying to form a basis for their retirement pension.
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I recognise that there is a case for this remuneration. However, I believe that the present time is not the time to make a change. I cannot add much to what I have already said. I recognise there is a case but I do not believe that this is the time to pursue it.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, in continuing to give urgent consideration to these matters, will the noble Lord give the House an undertaking that at the same time he will ensure that effective comparisons are made with the salaries and expenses of Members of the European Parliament, most of whom do far less work than even the least frequent attender here?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I had no doubt that if I did not make that comparison, the noble Lord would and your Lordships would benefit from his remarks on these matters.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, I declare a sort of non-interest in the light of what the noble Lord has just said. He relies greatly on Short money. Has the noble Lord considered the possibility of Short money being specifically allocated to your Lordships' House? At the moment we depend very much on trickle-down, which is a rather slow process.
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, as the noble Lord will know, in 1987 the Top Salaries Review Body recommended in its 24th report that there should be a special allocation of Short money for your Lordships' House. Discussions were held then—I was at that time the Leader of the House in another place—between the parties as to the best way to deal with this matter. I believe it was agreed that it was probably better to let the parties organise the matter and to allocate money to them for them to allocate between their Members in the Lords and in the Commons, as there are different ways of allocating it. I believe that that was how the matter was settled on the previous occasion when this matter arose. However, it is of course possible to settle the matter in a different way.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: My Lords, does my noble friend accept that on this side of the House our interest in Opposition remuneration is purely altruistic and that we anticipate no pecuniary benefit here? We wish only to see noble Lords opposite continuing to live in the manner to which they have become accustomed.
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for making that point. The Opposition have certainly had some years to reflect on this matter and I hope that that situation will continue for a number of years yet.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, as parliamentary memories are so short, will the noble Lord ensure that when Short money is written it has a capital "S"?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I am sure that few of us have forgotten that the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, used to spell his name with a capital "S". He was the Leader of the House in another place when the original Short money proposals were put forward. I always spell it with a capital "S". Oppositions of both parties have a great deal to be grateful to him for.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, may I clarify two points? First, as I understand it, Short money is available for resources for Opposition parties, such as research, secretarial assistance and so on. It is in no sense intended to be remuneration. Secondly, my noble friend drew an analogy with the other place. Members of the other place are paid a salary for the performance of their parliamentary duties, which include duties on the Opposition Front Bench, while Back-Bench Members of this House are not paid any salary, nor should they be. Does my noble friend recognise that there is a feeling in this House that the issue should be further considered? We should be glad of some guidance as to how we can ensure that such further consideration takes place.
Lord Wakeham: My Lord, I recognise the strength of the points that my noble friend raised. There are plenty of methods open to him. He does not need me to show him the ways in which he can demonstrate his interest in and enthusiasm for the subject. He is quite right to say that the Short money is intended for the payment of research costs and expenses and not to pay salaries for Opposition spokesmen. He is quite right to say that Members of another place are paid a salary. We have to consider all these matters very carefully because, as my noble friend said in the last part of his remarks, the question of payment for service in your Lordships' House is a fundamental issue and something which I would not favour.

Housing Benefit
3.1 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick Lord Dean of Beswick asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they have any plans to alter the present system of housing benefit.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Society Security (Viscount Astor): My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State announced last year a fundamental review of social security. The review includes housing benefit.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that the amount of money paid in housing benefit across the board this year now totals £8.8 billion? If any changes are to take place, instead of diminishing resources for such a purpose would it not be sensible to transfer some of that huge sum of money into a house-building programme to provide low-cost housing for people at the bottom of the social scale so

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that they will have a home for the foreseeable future? Once the £8.8 billion is paid out there is nothing left. It just disappears.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, I can confirm the figures quoted by the noble Lord. As I said, we are carrying out a fundamental review of social security because spending is growing rapidly. It is important that resources go to those most in need while at the same time ensuring value for money. We are looking carefully at housing benefit and will consult widely prior to making any decision. The Government's policies are designed to focus resources on the most needy. That has been achieved by shifting resources away from direct subsidies in the form of lower rents, which help everyone regardless of need, in favour of personal subsidies in the form of housing benefit, an income-related benefit, which is targeted at those tenants who need help to pay their rent.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, will the Minister answer the specific point that I made in relation to transferring some of this huge sum of money into a house-building programme for houses for rent?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, housing associations are now the main providers of new low-cost housing for rent and sale. Public resources of more than £1.5 billion will be available to them in 1994-95, resulting in some 58,000 new homes. The noble Lord makes an interesting point. As I said, we are considering all the issues and will consult widely before taking any decision.
Earl Russell: My Lords, can the noble Viscount tell us what the Housing Act 1988 has added to the cost of housing benefit?
Viscount Astor: No, my Lords, I cannot do so easily.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, will the Minister accept that the Government's homelessness review proposes that homeless families should in future go into private rented accommodation rather than council housing? Does he also accept that it costs £14 more a week to place a family in private rented accommodation than in council housing, given the additional cost of housing benefit? That being so, will the social security Minister tell us how he hopes to cut the cost of housing benefit when his honourable friend in the other place, the Minister for housing, is pushing it upwards?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, the Government's proposals in relation to homelessness set out in the Department of the Environment's consultation paper offer a new approach to the allocation of local authority and housing association tenancies based on real need, not on whether somebody happens to fall within a rather broad definition of homelessness. The Government's proposals envisage a continued safety net for families and vulnerable individuals who find themselves without anywhere suitable to live through no fault of their own. Of course we consult closely with the Department of the Environment on these matters.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, will the Minister now be kind enough to answer my question? What will be the additional cost in housing benefit following the homelessness review? How does the Minister for Social Security hope to cut it?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, the noble Baroness will have to wait until the end of the review to see what the figures are.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, does not the Government's housing policy consist of a double whammy against homeless people and people who require houses? Does the noble Viscount agree that, first, the number of publicly owned houses has been reduced and they are not being replaced as they should be; and, secondly, as a result, rents in the private sector are being pushed up, making it difficult for people to pay rents in the private sector and also placing an additional burden on the social security budget?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, the independent rent officer service determines reasonable market rents for housing benefit subsidy purposes. We believe that public funds should not subsidise people who choose to live in unreasonably large or expensive accommodation We have encouraged local authorities to raise their rents closer to market levels. We believe that to be a better system because subsidies should go to those who need them and not to everybody.

Business
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lady Chalker of Wallasey will, with the leave of the House, repeat in the form of a Statement an Answer to a Private Notice Question in another place on the Foreign. Ministers' meeting in Ioannina.
Police and Magistrates' Courts Bill [H.L.]: Division No. 1
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Mackay of Clashfern): My Lords, in Division No. 1 on Thursday, 24th March, the number of those voting Content is recorded incorrectly. The Contents were 134, not 133.

Education Bill [H.L.]
3.7 p.m.
Report received.
Clause 1 [The Teacher Trainer Agency]:
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 21, at end insert:
("and generally to secure that teachers are well fitted and trained to promote the spiritual, moral, social, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils and to prepare pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life.'').
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this amendment gives the agency a general objective to ensure that teachers are well fitted and trained to promote the spiritual, physical and other aspects of pupils'

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development, and to prepare them for adult life. I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for identifying the case for such an amendment through one of his own at Committee stage. I hope that he will find that the points he raised in Committee are reflected in the amendment before the House.
Noble Lords will notice that this is a detailed and prominent amendment to Clause 1. It complements but also extends the existing objectives, such as that to contribute to raising the standard of teaching. The amendment will require the agency to take account of spiritual, moral and other imperatives in pursuing all of its objectives.
The amendment follows a path first taken in Section 1 of the Education Reform Act 1988. That section, and a similar provision in the Education (Schools) Act 1992, with which the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, was also associated, have helped to pinpoint the importance of ethos and values in our schools. It is entirely right that that strain of thinking should also be present in the agency's approach to its work. I beg to move.
Lord Elton: My Lords, in welcoming the amendment I should like to mention the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, is at this moment presiding over a Victorian children's party to draw attention to the unfriendly nature of work at the Palace of Westminster so far as concerns the family. He deeply regrets the fact that he cannot be here to thank my noble friend for this receptive response to his concerns.
My noble friend has made clear that the spiritual, moral, social, cultural and physical development of pupils is at the centre of the concern for those who train them for their professional careers and must be seen to be so on the face of the Bill. Therefore it is proper that the provision should be inserted at line 21 as one of the objectives of the agency in exercising its functions. Many of us would prefer the provision to be inserted as paragraph (a) rather than paragraph (e); nevertheless it is good to have it in the Bill. For too long the preparation of teachers to teach has been taken as training in its strict sense, whereas it is education.
When I embarked on a career in education as a teacher my father, who had been a don at Oxford for many years, said, "I can only tell you two things that you ought to know about the profession. First, it is the most exhausting profession there is; and secondly, you cannot teach people you do not like". I took that with a large pinch of salt. I tried as hard as I could not to dislike anyone I sought to teach. However, I discovered that where I failed I could go on training them although I could not teach them. I could get them to learn the proper responses, but I could not develop in them any empathetic response to their subject.
We are fortunate that the amendment is in such a prominent place on the face of the Bill. I hope that my noble friend will accept the apologies in absentia of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, who is engaged in such worthwhile service.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that the amendment and all the particulars in the
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clause are precisely those factors which ought to be on the agenda of a general teaching council rather than a training agency?
Baroness Cox: My Lords, I warmly support the amendment. It is particularly timely for two reasons which I shall highlight and ask my noble friend to comment on. First, as I am sure my noble friend is aware, last week the adult literacy and basic skills unit produced a disturbing report. A study of 21 year-olds indicated that a large number felt themselves lacking in the basic skills of numeracy and literacy. If one extrapolates from that number the relevance for a larger population, it means that several million adults in our country believe themselves inadequately prepared in numeracy and literacy.
Even more disturbing is the fact that among those who did not feel lacking in basic skills, significant numbers were lacking in such skills. That points to a further 2 million adults in the population. Will my noble friend give some assurance that in its reference to preparing pupils,
"for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life",
the amendment ensures that those serious problems are addressed with regard to the basic skills of numeracy and literacy?
Perhaps I may highlight and commend other areas and seek my noble friend's assurance. During Question Time, reference was made to an important circular on the teaching of religious education, in particular the way in which leaders of different faith communities had agreed ways in which they would like their faiths taught, respecting the integrity of their faith. I understand that the matter is at the consultation phase. When that circular is agreed, in whatever final form, will it form the basis of the preparation of teachers for teaching faiths in ways with which the leaders of different faiths are content?
3.15 p.m.
Baroness Perry of Southwark: My Lords, I, too, give my support to the amendment. Can my noble friend assure us that the content of the clause will be reflected in the criteria for accreditation of the courses of initial training? In the past there has been mixed and variable success in initial training for some of the issues highlighted in the amendment. Does the last part of the amendment which states,
"to prepare pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life",
relate to those opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of working life? There has long been a lack of success with regard to initial training working well with industry and commerce, and reflecting the concerns of future employers of the pupils in the methods and contents of the teaching.
It has long seemed to me that there is a strong case for employers—industrialists and commercial people —to be much more involved with initial training, and to be more closely allied to the institutions and, in future, the schools in which teachers are to be taught. I hope my

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noble friend will give some assurance that those issues will be borne well in mind with regard to the criteria for the accreditation of the courses.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, perhaps I may ask the Minister, most respectfully, whether there is riot a defect in the amendment, apart from the question of religious education, to which my noble friend Lady Cox referred. I am worried that the provision could be implemented without specific reference to the teaching of children with special needs who have learning difficulties. Express reference is made to that in Amendment No. 24 to Clause 5 on the functions of a funding agency. Is it not appropriate that the need for specialised training of teachers as regards children with learning difficulties should be expressly acknowledged in Clause 1? It may be said that it is part and parcel of Clause 1 (1) (b) or Clause 1(2) (c), as one of the routes of teaching. However, in view of the importance of the subject, acknowledged by the excellent regime laid down in Part III of the previous Education Act, perhaps further consideration might be given to the issue.
Assessment for children who have special education-al needs may well provide for the school to cope with the learning difficulties—that is the ordinary school, not a special school. A statement may also make special demands on teachers at a school other than the specialist teachers. I refer to speech therapists, educational psychologists, and what have you. If such provision is made for a child with learning difficulties, the art of a teacher is more than ever the task of teaching that child how to learn.
I have taken a hide of your Lordships' time for it is a subject of our common concern. Some of us who were backward beyond belief in certain subjects remember with gratitude how a patient teacher could teach us to learn and send us on our way at least with a school certificate. But had we been assessed or statemented children with special educational needs, I wonder what would have become of us without a teacher trained to teach such children.
I shall listen with attention and respect to what the Minister says. In principle I support the amendment. The Minister may say, "The measure is covered by other statutory provisions". Even if that is so, perhaps consideration could be given to a more comprehensive amendment by the Government to Clause 1 at Third Reading.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, I welcome the amendment. However, I wish to comment on a remark made by the noble Lord, Lord Elton. He said that the amendment supplied the educational element in teacher training. I agree. But it is curiously out of step with the mechanism that the noble Baroness proposes for the training of teachers.
Teachers will be trained—not educated, but trained —in school. They will learn the craft of teaching. However, the amendment provides that they have to be taught,
"to promote the spiritual, moral, social, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils".
Can anyone envisage teachers in an ordinary school teaching teacher trainees such matters? Therefore, I
840
agree with the noble Lord, Lord Elton: the measure provides the educational side of teaching. However, that side cannot be met in the set-up which the Government propose.
The Earl of Radnor: My Lords, I have a great deal of sympathy with the remarks about special needs made by my noble friend Lord Campbell. I have read carefully the 1993 Act, as no doubt he has. My noble friend Lady Blatch has tabled an amendment to provide for someone in the agency who has special knowledge of the subject. However, perhaps she will reassure me that under Clause 4(5) (c) the institutions which will provide the special training for the teachers who must teach children with special needs will be adequately provided for. If that provision remains, the matter is adequately covered. I notice that an amendment has been tabled which will remove the provision, which of course I shall resist when the time comes.
Lord Elton: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, will he confirm his reference to Clause 4(5) (c), which I cannot find?
The Earl of Radnor: My Lords, I am sorry, I read the line number. I refer to Clause 4(2) (c), which reads:
"any other institution or body designated by order of the Secretary of State".
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, in joining others in welcoming the general thrust of the amendment I hope that it will not be seen as too churlish or cynical if I examine its wording a little more closely. Perhaps I may ask my noble friend for clarification as to exactly how she believes the wording will be interpreted by the teacher education fraternity.
My doubts are inspired, as I have mentioned previously, by my experiences during 10 years as the representative of commerce on the Council For National Academic Awards. As many noble Lords are aware, it was the validating body for more than half the teacher education courses in the country. When 1 joined the CNAA in 1983 it had the responsibility for validation and accreditation to the Secretary of State It was my view that CATE (the Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education) was brought into being in 1984 because my noble friend Lord Joseph, then Secretary of State for Education, had reached the same conclusion that I had reached; that the CNAA was not doing its job at all well.
As I visited the courses and validated them, my difficulties, which relate specifically to this amendment, were inspired by the aggressively anti-Christian and anti-religious nature of the attitude that we brought to our validation. I have mentioned previously in your Lordships' House, and will say so again on the occasion of this amendment, that nearly all our courses had an exaggeration —I would call it an academic bias, although I am not sure that one would use the word "academic" about these courses —towards issues of gender, race and class.
In 1983, never having been in the world of education apart from some rudimentary schooling, I was surprised and even shocked to learn the extent to which politics —and in this area the politics of the Left—had entered

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into education. Indeed, when my honourable friend Mr. Waldegrave asked me to join the CNAA in 1983 it was supposed to be an honour to represent commerce on that body. I said to him, "How long do you think it will take? How much time will it take per annum?". He said, "It meets four times a year so it will take four days a year". It was when I got inside teacher education that I decided that it had to take very much more of my time and for two or three years it became almost full time.
I had thought that politics stayed out of education but I was wrong. The Centre and the Centre Left and Right of British politics obeyed those honourable rules and stayed out of education. But that left a vacuum. The Left or the hard Left entered education and nowhere was that more successful than in our teacher education courses. I am aware that in speaking like that one is accused of seeing the Loch Ness monster. All I can say is that I did walk the shores of Loch Ness and that that is the monster I saw. I am sure that the influence came out of the sociology courses and related activities of the 1960s, but they took a deep root in our teacher education courses.
I went on many validation exercises and read a great number of course profiles in considerable detail. As I shall be doing in respect of later amendments today, I must ask this of those who want school-based teacher education to be strongly influenced by higher education: how many of these courses have they validated personally and how much time have they spent talking to the students who are taking them?
With specific reference to the amendment, I have no difficulty with the laudable intention of promoting the spiritual, moral, mental and physical development of pupils. However, because of the situation that I have described there is a real dearth of teachers in the system who have the ability and the ambition to promote those laudable characteristics. My difficulty with this amendment—and it is one that I should like my noble friend to dwell on when she replies—is with the words "social" and "cultural". How will social matters be promoted in future by the teacher-training fraternity? It seems to me to open not just the possibility but a firm invitation to the culture of which I have been speaking to concentrate on matters of gender and class in a way that the courses already do. I do not want to see that confirmed in this amendment.
Likewise, I have some difficulty because in the hands of our teacher educators there could be ambiguity in respect of the word "cultural". It seems to me that nowhere has more damage been done to race relations in this country than in the aggressive promotion of one-sided, anti-racist policies throughout our teacher-training courses. Our guidelines, which we followed for many years, required the promotion of issues of gender and class and, as far as the word "cultural" is concerned, of anti-racist policies to, in the jargon that we used, "permeate the whole curriculum". That was our aim and that is what we achieved. In supporting the amendment generally, I wish to be sure that we are doing nothing to further those unworthy aims.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I too welcome the amendment; not on political grounds, as my noble friend has done, but on educational grounds. In doing so I wish to make a small point that has not yet been made. One of the problems of implementing in schools the educational policy on religious education, sex education, health education and in other areas is the fact that many teachers do not know how to handle such issues. Quite often teachers who are not qualified in those specific subjects do not know how to handle them, particularly when they crop up unexpectedly.
Education, particularly at secondary level, has to be divided into subject areas with specialist teachers. But opportunities to help young people in the areas covered by this amendment crop up unexpectedly when any subject at all is in hand. It may be reading, maths, geography, science, history or whatever. Teachers need to know just how to use the situation which crops up unexpectedly to put over a bit of teaching. That is not at all easy. It requires education and training.
The noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, made the point that he has often made during discussion on this Bill; namely, that it is about training and not about education. That is a distinction that we must not make. One cannot train teachers without educating them. Training teachers is all about education. The argument has been used to support all sorts of points. But a blurring of the two is absolutely unavoidable. Teachers not only need to know enough about the subject to be sure of their ground when the opportunity crops up, but they also have to have the craft skill (to use the noble Lord's words) to use the opportunity when it crops up to get a discussion going and make various points. That must be part of the agency's remit. It must make sure that teacher training courses include those aspects.
Although one may learn the subject away from a school, it has to be said that the way to learn the craft side of teaching is to watch experienced people doing justice to the subject, taking the opportunity when it crops up and using it well, and then practising doing that oneself. I believe the noble Lord would agree that that craft aspect can only be learnt in schools. It cannot be done anywhere else. That is well known.
I agree with the noble Baroness who said from the Liberal Front Bench that this matter should be on the agenda of the general teaching council. Of course it should. But highlighting it with this amendment on the face of the Bill is of extreme value. I hope that my noble friend will be able to confirm that the particular skill of bringing in a subject as it crops up under other subjects will be encouraged and will be possible.
3.30 p.m.
Baroness McFarlane of Llandaff: My Lords, I welcome the addition to this clause. Along with the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, I served on the Council for National Academic Awards, and latterly on its teacher education committee. I too have paid visits of validation. There are times when I hardly recognise the description that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, gives of what was happening in teacher education. I believe that there were indeed some places where there was an overemphasis on matters of gender and class. But my

843
general impression of the teacher education committee of the Council for National Academic Awards was that it was doing an excellent job of work, one from which my own profession, namely nursing, benefited greatly. In our most recent syllabuses this matter of the spiritual care of patients—and therefore the spiritual education of nurses—was put at a very high level. Yet we have found that, as nurse-teachers have taken that up, they have not been able to give any definition to what is meant by spiritual or moral education. I believe therefore that there is a great need for teachers to be educated in what is meant by spiritual and moral education.
Lord Peston: My Lords, I welcome the amendment. But I have two points to make. First, I take it that the words "spiritual", "moral" and others are adjectives which modify "development of pupils". Can the noble Baroness confirm that that is her reading of the matter? Therefore the points raised by her noble friend Lord Pearson simply do not apply. It has to do with the development of pupils rather than society and culture in the sense in which he used the words. I also ask the noble Baroness if she will clarify whether she really means the amendment to read in the precise way that it does. It refers to "teachers". That is all. It does not refer to "new teachers" or to the teachers for whom we understand the new body to be responsible. In other words, as it stanch, the amendment looks flawed in terms of what I understood the noble Baroness was trying to do. Can she confirm that the agency is not responsible for all teachers in the sense of this amendment. Alternatively, could she bring another amendment before the House?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, perhaps it is easier if I take the last point first. It is pertinent to much of what was said during the course of this debate. This is one piece in the jigsaw. We hope that it completes the jigsaw, in that the 1988 Act makes it central in Clause 1 to all teaching. The 1992 and 1993 Acts refer to it so far as inspection is concerned and so far as the development of the 1988 Act is concerned. Now we are talking about those teachers for whom the agency will be responsible. It is related to the functions of the agency. If the noble Lord has any improvement on the wording he may like to come back to it on Third Reading. If the national curriculum requires that these matters be addressed, it is important that teachers who are trained to deliver the national curriculum should be aware of them.
I thank my noble friend Lord Elton, who spoke first in the debate after myself, for his warm comments. I thank him also for speaking in the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne—who informed me that he would not be here today. He is to be involved with the committee on the family, which is an all-party Back-Bench committee, and therefore has very important business to attend to this afternoon.
The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, thought that the words in the amendment ought to apply to a general teaching council. The House well knows my views about 4 general teaching Council. The establishment of a general teaching council as proposed on a number of occasions in this House would not necessarily impact on
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the professionalism of an individual teacher in the classroom. These words in this Bill will indeed impact upon individual teachers in training to deliver education for our young people.
My noble friend Lady Cox asked whether basic skills and basic literacy would be covered. Again, I have to refer to the analogy of the jigsaw. That is another piece in the jigsaw. There is the national curriculum; the system of assessment and testing; and inspection. All of those will make sure that those basic skills are covered.
My noble friend Lady Perry asked about the meaning of the last sentence, and the preparation of young people for work as well as for adult life. Indeed preparation for adult life subsumes the importance of work in adult life.
My noble friend Lord Campbell pointed to a defect in the amendment and asked whether it could be implemented without reference to children with special needs. It could not, in that the whole of this Bill and the work of the agency would be directed at teachers who were to be concerned about the needs of all children —which again would subsume the importance of serving the needs of children with special learning difficulties.
The noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, made reference to the point that teachers are to be trained, not educated. We are talking here particularly—I believe this is what the noble Lord hinted at—in relation to school based teacher training. We are talking about young people who have been through the school system, who have done their GCSEs and A-levels, who have gone into higher education and have achieved a higher education degree; then they do one year's postgraduate training, either in a higher education institution or together with a higher education institution and school, or indeed solely in school. We are not talking about uneducated people. All aspects of their training and preparing them to do a very demanding job have to be attended to by the agency.
I am not absolutely certain of the point that was being made by my noble friend Lord Radnor. I wonder whether we could talk about it. If there is a deficit in the amendment, perhaps I could address it at Third Reading.
My noble friend Lord Pearson and the noble Baroness, Lady McFarlane, were both concerned about life under the CNAA and life as it was in teacher training. I cannot believe that any Member of this House would set his face against an understanding that there is good, bad and indifferent teacher training just as there are good, bad and indifferent teachers and good, bad and indifferent people working in any walk of life.
Again, with reference to the jigsaw, what is absolutely essential is that teacher training reforms, the criteria for teaching training, the national curriculum reforms, systems of assessment and testing, the publication of information, inspection systems and the requirement of schools to publish in a very clear way information to parents should all come together to make sure that we have more of good practice than of poor and indifferent practice.
I was asked how the social part of the amendment would be implemented. Again, it will deal with matters such as citizenship, responsibility, understanding of constitutional government and so on. They will all help

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young people to live competent, confident and, if I may use the word, wholesome lives—in other words, making sure that they understand that whatever action they take usually impacts on someone around them—and will inform a proper respect of their role as they move in adulthood.
My noble friend Lady Carnegy referred to the very important point of blurring. There is a positive blurring in this area because it includes subject competence as well as teaching young people. There is the moral and spiritual underpinning of education and, as I mentioned before, citizenship—young people working together and understanding the world into which they will move after school.
I have already dealt with the special needs aspect and probably also with all the individual points.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: My Lords, perhaps my noble friend will allow me to interrupt her. There is one point that I would have raised had my noble friend not been so nimble on her feet as she began her concluding remarks. It seems to me that there is one word that is notably lacking in this amendment; namely, "intellectual". Surely learning and indeed teaching should be an intellectual adventure and not simply a mental adventure. I hope that at Third Reading it may be possible to introduce that concept into the Bill as well as all the others, which we very much welcome in this amendment.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I am not sure whether that is subsumed when one takes all those aspects together. I shall make sure, as I always do, that between now and Third Reading I shall look carefully at what my noble friend said. However, I believe that this amendment is consistent with the 1988 Act and the 1992 and 1993 Acts. I am grateful for the positive comments that have been made and hope that the House will accept the amendment.
On Question, amendment 'agreed to.

European Union: Qualified Majority Voting
3.43 p.m.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, with the leave of the House I should now like to repeat a Statement that is being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary as follows:
"The new presidency proposal which I brought back last night is for a transitional arrangement before a root and branch review of qualified majority voting in the 1996 Inter-Governmental Conference. In this transitional period the presidency and all members of the Council will be legally bound to work for an agreement on the basis of a 23 vote minority. No specified time limit is set, though the Council will be expected to reach a decision on the basis of a 23 vote blocking minority within a reasonable time.
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"Let me explain more fully. There was a constructive discussion at the informal meeting of Foreign Ministers at Ioannina at the weekend. The presidency has circulated a compromise proposal to resolve the issue. I have placed a copy of this text in the Library of the House. The presidency has asked all member states to tell it by tomorrow evening whether or not they can accept this proposal.
"The Cabinet will discuss this question at its meeting tomorrow morning. Let me explain the nature of the compromise which has been proposed and on which we shall have to take a decision tomorrow.
"The original presidency proposal was for a blocking minority of 27, to apply from 1st January next year, to last indefinitely, without any restriction or qualification. What it now proposes after discussion and argument is as follows.
"First, a transitional arrangement between the date of accession of Austria, Finland, Norway and Sweden and the end of the 1996 Inter-Governmental Conference. At the IGC, there will be a root and branch review of the system of qualified majority voting, including not only the weighting of votes between countries as agreed at the Brussels European Council in December 1993 but also the threshold for agreement, i.e. the definition of 'majority' and 'minority'.
"Secondly, the proposal is contained in a legally binding decision of the Council. This requires the presidency, with the assistance of the Commission, to do all in its power to reach agreement on the basis of a 23 vote minority, taking 'any initiative necessary' to achieve that objective.
"Thirdly, there is no time limit for this procedure, though once all initiatives are exhausted, the Council will be able to take a decision on the basis of a blocking minority of 27.
"There have been three misconceptions which I should like to correct. First, we are not talking here about any threat to the UK's veto. The most important decisions in the European Union can only be taken by unanimity. These include the power of the Commission and the European Parliament, the amount of money available to the European Union and foreign and security policy initiatives. That is and remains the position. Even where the treaty specifies qualified majority voting—for single market legislation, for example—the UK retains the right to continue discussions indefinitely when our vital national interests are at stake. That right—the so-called Luxembourg Compromise—is not affected by the debate over QMV.
"Secondly, a change in the treaty to create a 27 vote blocking minority is not always contrary to our interests. For example, reform of the common agricultural policy, which still consumes 52 per cent. of the European Union's budget, will be more easily achieved with majority voting.
"Thirdly, some have asked why this difficult issue has been addressed now. Why could the QMV issue not have been left alone? The answer is that the treaty specifies the level of the qualified majority at 54

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votes out of 76. Had the treaty been unamended, the qualified majority would have been 54 votes out of 90—a blocking minority of 37. I am not sure that many in this House would have supported that. The issue had to be tackled.
"I cannot prejudge the view which the Cabinet will take tomorrow. There are still matters on QMV which deeply concern the Government, particularly in the social field where measures have been taken against our interests, sometimes on a questionable basis. The presidency proposal is a compromise and one which the Cabinet will need to weigh carefully.
"I am sometimes asked whether qualified majority voting is more or less important than the enlargement of the Union to include Austria, Finland, Sweden and Norway. The answer is that there are major British interests at stake in both. We want enlargement to go ahead while adequately protecting our interests on QMV. That is what the Cabinet will aim to do tomorrow."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
3.48 p.m.
Lord Richard: My Lords, perhaps I may say that I am a little surprised that I did not receive the usual courtesy of a copy of the Statement before it was made. As I understand it, the Government are making a Statement in this House although the matter was raised as a PNQ in the other place.
My first reaction to what the noble Baroness said is that it is a great pity that the Government did not recognise that the time to raise this issue would have been the Inter-Governmental Conference of 1996 rather than now. My second reaction is that I have very little sympathy for the position in which the Government find themselves. It is entirely of their own making and nobody else's. They raised the issue, they raised the stakes on the issue and I have no doubt that they were told what the result would be if they did. They persisted and went to a conference of the Council of Foreign Ministers over the weekend and predictably they have come back with what they have.
All that the Government have succeeded in doing is incensing our prospective allies in the four new applicants and infuriating our existing partners. They created the maximum of confusion with the minimum of effect. Confusion is a perfectly legitimate diplomatic weapon if one wants to confuse one's enemies. But here we have been confusing our friends. Frankly, it has been one of the most crass pieces of British diplomacy certainly that I can remember and of which I am conscious.
I presume it was a clever wheeze no doubt thought up by the same person who thought of the phrase "back to basics" in some governmental conference or conclave. It was probably said, "Wouldn't it be a good wheeze to have a good argument about the voting in the Council of Ministers? That is sure to help the party". It has not helped at all. They have tried to put a Band-Aid on a gaping split. It is time that the Government recognised that their party is savagely and irredeemably split on this issue.
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The Government's handling of the whole affair has been a national disgrace. It is not often that [ can say that I have been ashamed of the way in which our Government have been behaving. But the way this matter has been handled, particularly over the past week, is frankly shameful. Whatever one thought of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher—one thought about her a great deal when she was Prime Minister—at least one felt that she believed what she was saying. She had a firm point of view which she argued with consistency and commitment. No one knows what this Government's position is on many issues. If this is meant to be a government at the heart of Europe, heaven save us all from a government on the periphery.
The priority in this issue, which I hope the Government now recognise, must be to secure enlargement. That is the main priority, which has been the expressed priority of the Government for a long period of time. It is certainly our view that that is the point on which the Government should be concentrate-ing. I hope that the Cabinet recognises that tomorrow and clears up this sorry mess.
Lord Jenkins of Hillhead: My Lords, I begin on a non-controversial note. When I first heard, to my surprise, that this Private Notice Question had been accepted for Answer in another place and would therefore come here in the form of a Statement, I felt a stab of sympathy. I can imagine how unwelcome to the Government that decision must have been this morning. Midmorning information—mostly occurring on a Monday—that one has an unwelcome PNQ is the sort of chorus of doom which accompanies ministerial life. Having said that, I am bound to turn to something a little more controversial.
The Statement of the noble Baroness was more obfuscating than clarifying. One had to be a careful listener to realise that she was about to defend a move to 27 votes rather than sticking at 23 votes. which was the figure constantly mentioned at the beginning. But it is also the case that the indefensible position which the Government created for themselves--nobody else created it—over the past three weeks has been not merely unwise, but incomprehensible. To engage in a battle for a worthless piece of ground which cannot be won, and in the course of losing the battle to achieve the maximum of ill will and endanger the Government's major previously proclaimed British policy objective, is not patriotism; it is an inability even on a clear day to see two inches ahead of one's nose.
It endangers the policy objectives for the following reasons. Mr. Major's contention, "Britain at the heart of Europe", has long since become a bad joke. Since then, as I understand it, enlargement has been Britain's major objective. We are currently engaged in the easy move to enlargement—the EFTA four. My guess is that as a result of the shenanigans of the British Government we shall probably lose two of those four and maybe three. But this is a preface to the difficult but still more important step, which is the enlargement of the Vi seg rad 3, or 4 as they have now become. That is still more important for the stability of the continent and the

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reputation of the European movement. Yet having made such a meal of the easy bit, that in itself has become substantially less likely.
The arguments deployed in this matter are some of the most horrifyingly bad that I have ever heard. For a British Government to argue that, on an unlikely combination, 41 per cent. of the population of Europe —or at any rate the governments of the population—might be overruled when that Government have been overruling 58 per cent. or 59 per cent. of the British population where all the unwanted, undesirable, ill-thought-out legislation mostly amended by your Lordships' House has been imposed upon us, is fantastic. I hope that the Government are capable of realising that, because they seem incapable of realising the most obvious of facts.
Furthermore, it points straight to the Germans having 15 votes to our 10 when we come to discuss these matters in the future. It is impossible to escape the conclusion that these rivallings—for such they are—have nothing to do with British interests in Europe and everything to do with the internal politics of the Conservative Party. They are a desperate effort by the Prime Minister to preserve his own skin at whatever the cost. Those who are equipped to step into that skin are not behaving very edifyingly either. If ever a government looked past their sell-by date, it is this one. At the centre is that most pathetic of all spectacles; that is, a weak man trying to behave like a strong man and as a result looking even weaker.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, as I understand it, since this was an Answer to a Private Notice Question in another place the noble Lord, Lord Richard, would not normally have been given the text in advance. I received it only moments before I entered the Chamber and would have shared it with him had I found him.
I turn to the points in hand. As I understand it, the noble Lord, Lord Richard, said that if we had known that the issue was coming up, surely we should have solved it long before. I can only say that we always knew that the issue would arise, as with previous enlargements. The issue has been around for a number of months. The Foreign Secretary made our position clear on the institutional aspects of enlargement, including qualified majority voting, in his evidence to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee as long ago as 23rd November. The matter was discussed again in December. It has not suddenly arisen.
Nevertheless, throughout that time it has been necessary to look after the needs of this country. If there is one point I can emphasise to your Lordships, it is that we have benefited considerably from the weekend at Ioannina. The original proposal was 27 from 1st January 1995, indefinitely. Now the decision of the Council, which will be legally binding, requires the Commission and the presidency to work for agreement on the basis of 23, taking "any initiative necessary" to achieve that.
As I said in repeating the Answer to the PNQ, there is no time limit after which a decision would be forced through on the basis of 27. All 12 nations acknowledge
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that the position is temporary and it must be reviewed in 1996. I happen to believe that the debate was valuable not just for the safeguards we appear to have secured but also in changing the terms of the 1996 debate so that it can deal with the enlarged community (which I am convinced there will be); it can deal with the needs of further enlargement. That is something to which we should certainly be turning our minds.
The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, was wrong when he said that we have put the current enlargement in jeopardy and made the Visegrad enlargement less likely. It is up to the Community to grow with time, and I am convinced and know that that is exactly what the Government are working for.
This has not been an easy period, but I know from first-hand knowledge that my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has done what is best for Britain. What he is recommending to the Cabinet is most certainly the right balance between looking after our interests with a 23 blocking minority and allowing enlargement to go forward.
4 p.m.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, would my noble friend be slightly surprised to hear me say that I agree with much that was said by the noble Lords, Lord Richard and Lord Jenkins, on the tactics with which this negotiation has been conducted? Does she not agree that it seems a little odd to say that we have an arrangement by which discussion can go on indefinitely until an issue has been resolved on the basis of a blocking mechanism of 23 but that we have an ultimatum that we must make up our minds on this issue by five o'clock tomorrow evening? The two things do not seem to gel well together. Does she further agree that if the Government were going to give overriding priority to the admission in the near future of the four applicants, they should have known that they could be turned over on any particular matter in the negotiations? Did it not only confuse the issue when our right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary made it sound as though he was going to stand absolutely firm on 23 as opposed to 27 votes and then it seems has conducted a negotiation which I do not think has quite come out in that manner?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, not for the first time I find it hard to agree with my noble friend, particularly when he seems to put agreement with political opponents before loyalty to his own party.
Noble Lords: Oh!
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I find it very hard, when I know that my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has indeed worked all this time to get agreement on the basis of a blocking minority of 23, to take what my noble friend has just said. The fact that no time limit is set for a decision to be forced through on the basis of 27 is an important gain; the fact that we have enlarged the decision to be taken in 1996, by which time we hope the EFTA countries will be members of the European Union, is a gain. Above all, the thing that has worried my noble friend for so many years—that we will still have the Luxembourg Compromise—is a vital

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agreement which is still there. That is what my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has achieved. I do not believe that my noble friend is right to say, as he did, that he could agree with the comments that were made by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, about my right honourable friend the Prime Minister.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, the noble Baroness has presented a Statement today which she says comprises the recommendations of the Foreign Secretary to be made to the Cabinet tomorrow. It would seem to me—and I do not know how far I share this feeling with other noble Lords—that not only was she doing that but she was at the same time indicating in advance what the Cabinet decision was likely to be, because there was a strong advocacy of the course recommended by the Foreign Secretary.
During these many months since Maastricht I have been wondering, and still wonder, when the Government will have the courage to say no to something that is proposed by the Brussels Commission and followed out into the Council by its faithful servants —the Dutch, the Belgians and the Luxembourg ones. I have been wondering when they would ever say no. It may well be that tomorrow the Cabinet will say no and insist on the terms forecast by the Prime Minister himself as the essence on which he would take his stand on behalf of the United Kingdom. I hope that that will still prevail. But in the absence of any indication at the moment, will the Government please bear in mind that even as the noble Baroness is talking here this afternoon the Brussels bureaucracy is still making plans together with the European Parliament for yet further concessions to be made at the 1996 Inter-Governmental Conference, to which she has referred? Will the noble Baroness give the House some indication as to the point upon which the Government in this field, which is vital to the United Kingdom, are prepared to take a firm stand for the United Kingdom as distinct from making concession after concession in some of the weasel words, I regret to say, in which the communiqué has been presented to the House?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, the noble Lord should understand that the recommendations which the Foreign Secretary is putting to the Cabinet tomorrow come not only from him but from his 11 colleagues in the Council of Ministers. That is the basis. Therefore, in accusing me of advocating this solution, I am simply saying that I believe that this is a way forward. It will be entirely up to the Cabinet whether or not it accepts that way forward.
The noble Lord went on to ask when the Government would say no. He knows full well that we have indeed referred the difficult questions on the working time directive to the European Court of Justice because we believe that the directive was taken on the wrong basis. It should not have been taken by majority voting. He asked when else we had said no. We said no to the social chapter. That was why we negotiated the social protocol.
Most noble Lords have looked forward to enlargement. I believe it is right for the European Union that we should continue to look forward to enlargement,
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but not at any price. That is why I believe that my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has come back from the meeting in Greece with a sensible proposal which is workable and which allows us to change the terms of the 1996 debate, which is something for which the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, has often. argued.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, will my noble friend say whether, as there is apparently to be a Cabinet decision tomorrow, a further Statement will be made in your Lordships' House tomorrow afternoon embodying and reporting that decision?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I cannot tell my noble friend for certain whether that will be so but I have a funny feeling that I might be standing at this Dispatch Box tomorrow afternoon, too.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that I, at any rate, welcome the fact that her noble friend Lord Tebbit was prepared to pay attention to his common sense, to his conscience and to his loyalty to this country rather than to party advantage when he asked relevant questions of her from the Dispatch Box this afternoon? Is she further aware that it is still not clear to many of us exactly what has been agreed? Have the Government agreed to 27 votes being the blocking minority, or is the figure 23? Whichever it is, from when does it operate? If the Commission and the Council are going to examine the matter further between now and 1996, will it then be possible, if 27 votes has been agreed, to go back to the 23 votes which apparently has not been agreed? If the agreement reached has been so good, will the Minister say why the Foreign Secretary has had to come back and consult the Cabinet about it? If he had achieved what the Cabinet had said it wanted to achieve, does the Minister agree that he would not have needed to consult the Cabinet again and could have signed any agreement yesterday? Finally, can the noble Baroness say exactly who is "Monsieur Oui" now, the "poodle of Brussels"?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I believe as I believe your Lordships' House and the other place believe, that it is in the United Kingdom's interest to secure enlargement. That has long been a united purpose of both our Houses of Parliament. The Government are not yet in a position to agree what was a proposition brought back by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary yesterday following his discussions with 11 colleagues. If it is agreed tomorrow then the proposals which have been made would begin at the time of enlargement —in other words, there would be no change right now.
Perhaps I may recap for the information of the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart. First, the original proposal was 27 votes. We now have a proposal from all 12 Foreign Ministers that the decision of the Council will be legally binding and will require the Commission and the presidency to work for agreement on the basis of 23 and, I quote from the document, taking "any initiative necessary" to achieve that. Secondly, there will be no time limit after which a decision will be forced through on the basis of 27. All 12 acknowledge that this position

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is temporary and will have to be reviewed in 1996. As I said some moments ago, by then we hope that Austria, Sweden, Norway and Finland will be members of the Community.
We still have the Luxembourg Compromise where vital interests are at stake. I believe that is why the Foreign Secretary is putting this recommendation to the Cabinet. He agreed with the Cabinet before he went to the meeting in Greece that he would return to the Cabinet with the detail of the discussions. That is why he did not give agreement in Greece and neither did any of the other 11 Ministers. The matter will go to the Cabinet and a decision will be made.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that there are behind her a number of noble friends who have a great deal of sympathy with my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary in the very difficult negotiations in which he has found himself taking a leading part? There will also be a measure of sympathy with him in the fact that his position has been made much more difficult by a lot of opportunistic posturing on the part of those who might have held their tongues for a little while.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for what he said. I rarely remember a time when there was so much opportunistic chuntering from people who do not even really understand the detail of this matter. I speak for some within my own party.
Baroness Castle of Blackburn: My Lords, I am sorry to be stupid, but I am trying very hard to understand. Could the Minister tell us what figure will operate between the accession of the new members and the review conference of 1996? Will it be 23 or 27?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, it will initially be 23 with no time limit to it. That means it will be 23. I say "with no time limit" because the proposal which my right honourable friend put to the Cabinet is that the decision of the Council would require the Commission and the presidency to work for an agreement on the basis of 23. No time limit is set on the basis of achieving it at 23.
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, as the treaties contain no reference whatever to a blocking minority, it is not at all surprising that there should be a degree of confusion in this matter. But what the treaties define are the number of positive votes required to pass a proposition. Having said that—I believe that that is what underlies a great deal of the exchanges which have gone on—perhaps I may make this point. It is not uncommon for a particular country to take a strong line and then, as a result of a protracted period of negotiation, to accept some sort of compromise. We are not the only country to take that line.
At the end of the day what matters is that the Community goes ahead together. We now have a reasonAble chance that that should be the position; namely, that if the proposition which is now being considered by Her Majesty's Government, the Cabinet,
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or whoever takes the final decision, is accepted, then it follows that enlargement can go ahead. Enlargement is more than just being a policy that the Government have supported. It is a policy of immense advantage to the European Union as a whole and to this country in particular. What is more, we have to look forward to the end of this century and the early years of the next when the peace, stability, security and prosperity of Europe as a whole is going to depend on the Community enlarging its frontiers to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
So what we all ought to do is not so much rake over the embers of the past, but turn our minds to the future and to devote our efforts to constructing a sound and durable future.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, as time is short, perhaps I may say that I agree in principle with what my noble friend said. Enlargement is a very important matter for the whole Community, particularly for this country and for many others who want to apply in future.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: My Lords, can the Minister explain why the Government have been so very stubborn about reducing the size of the arithmetical blocking fraction for the enlargement of the EFTA countries when they were perfectly ready to accept the normal enlargement of the fraction for the accession of Spain, Portugal and Greece?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, we have always believed that we should not allow majority voting to bulldoze minority interests, but to build on consensus. I believe that we did that in the case to which the noble Lord referred. We must make sure that we are able to resist unwelcome proposals.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, can my noble friend the Minister repeat—perhaps in other words—the answer which she gave to the noble Baroness, Lady Castle? If it is the case that, until 1996, 27 continues to be the figure
Noble Lords: My Lords, the figure is 23—
Lord Beloff: My Lords, no. We were told that 27 continues to be the figure. In that case it is not so much a compromise because it would suggest that the other countries have totally given way to the British position. I cannot believe that that can be the case. Therefore, can we know exactly what happens if a proposal is made between now and 1996? Which blocking minority is valid?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, the original proposal was 27 from 1st January 1995. It is perfectly true that the treaty says 27, but what was proposed yesterday and what my right honourable friend has put to the Cabinet is the decision of the Council, which is legally binding, which would require the Commission and the Presidency to work for an agreement on the basis of 23, with no time limit.
Lord Jay: My Lords, do the Government take the view that the Luxembourg Compromise is now legally binding?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, the Luxembourg Compromise has never been legally binding, but it has always been accepted. We still have the Luxembourg Compromise where vital interests are at stake.

Education Bill [H.L.]
4.20 p.m.
Consideration of amendments on Report on Clause 1 resumed.
[Amendment No. 2 not moved.]
Clause 2 [Membership, &c. of the agency]:
Lord Dainton Lord Dainton moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 2, line 2, after ("whom") insert ("at least two shall be members of the Higher Education Funding Council for England and").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the sole intention of Amendment No. 3 is to assist the functioning of the teacher training agency by ensuring that standards of judgment in policy making and in the allocation of resources in the teacher training agency are of the same high quality as those used by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, thereby helping to ensure that the activities of the teacher training agency which it supports will give better value for money. Perhaps I should say in passing that the money involved is not negligible. It amounts to about £150 million per annum.
It seems to me that the arrangements proposed in the Bill as it now stands do not ensure that. To explain how that comes about I am afraid that I shall have to take your Lordships back to the Second Reading debate last December and to our debates in Committee on Part I on 10th March.
I then adduced general arguments to show that to transfer the responsibility for the funding of teaching and research in education from the higher education funding councils to the teacher training agency would have certain deleterious effects—I am sure that they were not intended. Prominent among them is the fact that, whereas at present educational studies have to compete for money with studies in other subjects, such as science or medicine, both at the funding level—that is, within the funding council—and at individual university level, under the Bill as it now stands, those healthy competitions at such informed levels will not occur. I also pointed out that, for the same reason, it would be difficult for the Secretary of State to arrive at an appropriate sum of money to allocate to the teacher training agency which would stand the test of time.
I cannot stress too positively that formula funding, which the Minister considered would solve some of the problems, is not driven exclusively by counting student heads. Even as far as teaching alone is concerned, in building up the grant for a university the unit of resource, which is the sum paid for one full-time equivalent student year, not only differs in, for example, non-science subjects as compared with science, but it can also be varied. Indeed, the Higher Education
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Funding Council for England has already—for very good reasons, I have no doubt—decreased the non-science unit of resource quite significantly. There is no doubt that the funding council could also vary it up or down for any subject category in the future.
In fact, the higher education funding councils build up the grant for each university by a process of summation of elements such as those for all academic subject categories. The grant also takes account of the demands which a given level of activity in each category of subject makes on other departments—for example, in those courses where a student is taking English with education or chemistry with education:, there are many such examples—as well as the demands which are made by that educational course on central facilities such as libraries.
When each university is notified of its allocation (reached in that way), it is, however, told and reminded firmly that the total sum for that university is a block grant. That means that it is for the university to dispose of internally as it wishes. That internal allocation of resources among the various activities involves intense competition—again at the university level—depending upon, among other factors, each university's distinctive academic policy. That is an essential feature of academic autonomy.
More could be said, but I think I have said enough to show that establishing the teacher training agency, to which this House agreed in Committee and which it therefore considers has merits, also has serious disadvantages. For brevity, I summarise them as follows: first, under the arrangements of the TTA, there will be a lack of desirable competition at the highest and best informed levels between the teacher training agency for resources for its restricted purposes and for those resources which will be allocated by the funding council in other academic subject areas.
Secondly, there will be a lack of desirable competition for resources at the institutional level--by which I mean the university level—for the reasons that I have explained.
Thirdly, to the extent that a university receives funds from, and is therefore accountable to, the teacher training agency for part of its work, there could well develop among those staff and others who are financially supported from the TTA source a sense of peculiarity and separation from university staff in other fields. A belief would soon grow that the criteria of standards would differ between those two fields and, consequently, intellectually and practically valuable connections of teacher training with areas of teaching and research cognate with other subjects would suffer and some academic coherence would be lost.
That difficulty could, of course, be partially overcome if the allocations to university departments by the teacher training agency, which the Minister correctly said on 10th March would be on a formula basis to departments, were made according to formulae which were the same as presently used by the higher education funding council both for teaching and research in this field. That would clearly be advantageous, but it would not be enough because it would not be a complete
solution because teaching and research in education would still not benefit from internal university competition for resources.
Amendment No. 3 is designed to minimise those disadvantages by making two members of the higher education funding council (with all their background knowledge of the procedures used there and all their knowledge of the differences between subjects) members of the teacher training agency. In my view, that would ensure some degree of conformity of standards of assessment and research across all higher education areas, including educational studies, and would retain some considerable degree of desirable competition between education and other subject categories at the national level. I beg to move.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, perhaps I may ask a question for clarification. As drafted, it looks as if a member of the HEFC has to be chairman. Is that the intention?
Lord Dainton: My Lords, no, it is not the intention.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, it is unfortunate that we are discussing this—
4.30 p.m.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, I shall not keep the House long. There is just one point I wish to add to what the noble Lord, Lord Dainton, said in favour of the amendment. It has become recognised, I think, in the course of our debates, that educational research, which is one of the responsibilities of the new agency, is a multiple thing; that is to say, some of it relates to classroom teaching and its methods, and some of it relates to wider questions of how education is organised and financed and its relations with other aspects of government policy. One might wish to alter the balance between the two because it could be thought that one or other was pursued inadequately in this country. If responsibility for teacher education is hived off completely through being given to a separate body, then the problems involved in discussing such an issue will become harder to solve.
The proposal that there should be overlapping membership is fairly straightforward and simple. I am sure it is not intended that one of the members should necessarily be a chairman. In fact, it would be peculiar because they have great responsibilities of their own in the funding council. I hope that the amendment is acceptable.
Lord Judd: My Lords, if we are to proceed with the establishment of a teacher training agency, I have heard nothing in our deliberations so far to suggest that that should be in total isolation from what higher education has to contribute to the quality of the preparation of our teachers. It seems to me that whether or not one is thinking of education itself as a discipline—the insight, the analysis, the reflection, the educational psychology, and the rest—it is tremendously important that that teacher training agency should have a natural dialogue
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with higher education about the immense responsibili-ties that it will be carrying. It is not a case of the immediate sphere of the discipline of education in its narrow sense; it is about the subject matter of education.
I should have thought that it was a pretty forlorn prospect for our children if the agency responsible for preparing their teachers was to conduct its activities in some way separate from all the research and latest thinking going on in higher education about mathematics, history, science, and all the other subject disciplines which are the substance of education. We can make all sorts of formal arrangements for ensuring that there is some sort of liaison, but all of us who have been in real situations know that there is no substitute for constant human dialogue for those carrying responsibility in different spheres. Therefore I beg the Minister to take this wise amendment seriously and to see that it becomes a creative and positive contribution.
In support of the noble Lord, Lord Dainton, and what I thought was a powerful introduction of the amendment, I recall the question asked in Committee by the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles—it is not the first time that I have been impressed by his wisdom and experience during our deliberations—who has of course carried the responsibility in the past of Secretary of State for Education. The question put by the noble Viscount as being the one question that we had to ask ourselves is: will the Bill enhance the status of the teaching profession or will it not?
My contention is that to insist upon proceeding with the establishment of an agency, devoid of a natural human link with those involved in higher education, will lead inevitably to a diminishing of the standards of the profession of teachers and of education. I am therefore delighted to have heard the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Dainton, and supported powerfully by the noble Lord, Lord Beloff. I am glad to put these Benches and myself firmly behind it.
Lord Walton of Detchant: My Lords, I am in favour of the amendment. As the Minister knows, I was unable to be present for the first two days of the Bill's Committee stage. I am sure that everyone in your Lordships' House shares the objective of doing whatever we possibly can through the Bill, and through other measures which may arise later, to improve the quality of teacher training and education. Although I would hesitate to agree with the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, when he criticised the quality of teacher education, it is true that there have been islands in this country where the standard has not been satisfactory. Equally, there have been areas of high standards of education in many of our university departments of education. Through my experience of chairing the National Commission on Education, I was very impressed by the quality of some of the education that I saw being provided for our teachers of tomorrow.
Much of that education is already helping to meet the spiritual, moral, cultural and social issues so eloquently referred to on the first amendment we discussed this afternoon, leading to the development of the character and ability of the young people whom those teachers

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teach. Of course in the past few years, there has been a striking change in that the teacher training colleges increased slowly but progressively the quality and standard of education provided and sought, very properly, the validation of their degrees by the universities and the former polytechnics. Many departments of education are now working in close partnerships with schools.
There are many in your Lordships' House, I am sure, who will regret that the proposal relating to the possible establishment of a joint teacher training committee of the higher education funding councils was not accepted in Committee. I cannot however forbear mentioning the article published just this morning by Mr. Michael McCrum, the former headmaster of Eton, now Master of Corpus Christi College Cambridge, and former chairman of the Independent Schools Joint Council, where he says how important it is to recognise that whereas practical experience in classroom technique and learning by example from senior teachers in schools is a crucial part of the education of our teachers of the future, it is in the university departments of education and other comparable bodies where the subject content of teacher education, the legal knowledge and the awareness of the latest research findings, are to be found that help to nurture and nourish the quality of that teacher education.
I was glad to read in Hansard that the Committee on the Bill, in its wisdom, passed an amendment which would make it binding that teacher training being conducted in schools would be validated or carried out in partnership with a higher education institution. That is a crucial issue. Mr. McCrum went on to say in today's article that even one of the most prominent and well known of our independent schools had been involved in the education of teachers although the primary purpose of schools is to teach children and not to teach teachers. That particular school had found that the workload involved in educating trainee teachers proved so excessive that the school had reluctantly felt bound to withdraw from the scheme.
The amendment, although in many ways not as good as would have been the establishment of a joint teacher training committee, goes a long way towards meeting many of the concerns that have been expressed by some in your Lordships' House. I hope that it is one that can be accepted.
Lord Skidelsky: My Lords, the proposal in this amendment that at least two members of the teacher training agency should be members of the Higher Education Funding Council is one way of addressing the fact that educational research is multifarious, as my noble friend Lord Eleloff said, and that there are other interests involved in educational research apart from the teacher training agency. I accept that, but this is only one method of trying to square that circle. I believe that there is a better way in which to achieve that; namely, as I propose in Amendment No. 17. That does not disturb the existing arrangements for funding educational research except in specified cases. I believe that that is a superior way of dealing with the matter. If this
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amendment is accepted, it will lead to many crossed wires and much confusion as to where responsibility lies.
Lord Dainton: My Lords, there is another amendment—I believe that it is Amendment No. 16 —which deals with research and, therefore., this matter would naturally arise on our discussions on that amendment.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, as a non-educationist, perhaps I may be forgiven for intervening in the debate. I do so in the hope that on this occasion my noble friend will find it possible to answer the questions which worry me, which she did not manage to do in Committee.
This Government set up the Higher Education Funding Council last year and I believe that [ am right in saying that the council for England became fully operational only in April of last year, which is less than 12 months ago. Therefore, my first question is to ask what the funding council has done or not done that it now deserves to have its neck so summarily wrung.
My second concern is that the teacher training agency will be manned by the nominees of the Secretary of State. I have two worries in that regard: first, it means that the Government will be entirely responsible for teacher training and will be responsible for anything that goes wrong; and secondly—and this is a problem which worries their supporters more than their members—whether the Government ever think about the use which will be made of such proposals by a successor government of a very different mind and of different habits.
I hope that noble Lords opposite will forgive me for dwelling on that point for a few moments. Many Members of the present Government have never been in opposition. They have not faced the frustration and dismay of seeing measures carried out by people to whom they are opposed. I believe that this proposal is one more step along the path of the Government saying, "We are in office; we shall remain in office; we shall continue with these appointments; and there is no fear that somebody else will use them in a very different way in future".
I conclude my remarks by reiterating what has been said very much better by the noble Lord, Lord Dainton, in moving the amendment. Since the Government had their way in Committee and defeated a similar amendment, I hope that on this occasion they might allow the possibility that they are wrong to have some place in their thinking. I hope that they will accept this extremely modest compromise. That would be an act of grace on their part which I should welcome.
4.45 p.m.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I have come round to the view, unlike my noble friend, that the establishment of a teacher training agency is a sensible approach which will bring about much needed change, provided that it is given the power to do the job properly.
The noble Lord, Lord Dainton, explained the reasoning behind his proposal that two members of the

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funding council should also be members of the agency. I believe that many of us have discussed the use of such a device and have also had experience of it. I have had experience on a number of occasions of committees on which there was cross-membership. It looks good but I believe that it limits to too great an extent the co-operation that can be brought about by the two bodies. I am sure that the noble Lord would not expect the two members to be mandated to have a point of view. He would merely expect that they would bring their understanding as members of the funding council to bear on those various issues.
I doubt whether that would be effective; and I say that based on my experience. I can understand the thinking behind the amendment but I do not believe that it would work in practice. There is a larger problem which is addressed by Amendments Nos. 16 and 17. We must discuss that in more depth when we reach those amendments. Those amendments deal not only with the question of research and how that may be handled in the Bill but they deal also with the question of what should be the responsibilities of the agency beyond initial teacher training.
I do not imagine that we shall resolve that issue today. I hope that we do not because there is movement in that regard; but we shall return to it later. I do not believe that Amendment No. 3 will be effective and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Dainton, will reflect on the matter. I ask him to think about the responsibilities that those two people would have and what they could offer. Any member of the agency who is involved in higher education would have the same knowledge. It is inconceivable that the agency would exclude from its membership people experienced in higher education. I hope that my noble friend will confirm that, because that is basic to our view of the amendment.
I do not believe that this amendment is the right way forward. I hope that we shall have an in-depth discussion on this important issue when dealing with Amendments Nos. 16 and 17.
Earl Russell: My Lords, Amendment No. 16 is in my name and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dainton, that that amendment raises different issues from those which arise on this amendment. Indeed, I believe that the two amendments are perfectly compatible.
Amendment No. 16, and Amendment No. 17 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, deal with issues involving research and higher education. But Amendment No. 3, which we are discussing now, involves making a connection between the work of the Higher Education Funding Council and the work of the teacher training agency. It is what one might describe as the Howards End amendment. It demands that those two should connect. The two bodies will have to understand each other's activities in a great many fields other than just those of higher education. If the communication between the two is not adequate, there will be confusion.
I agree entirely with the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, that there is no suggestion that anybody should be mandated to express a particular point of view. What is at stake is the availability of particular
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information. To that end, this is a practical, small and helpful amendment. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, will accept it.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I was rather puzzled when my noble friend Lord Peyton spoke of the HEFC having its neck wrung because it is only having some of its powers removed and it will go on running about for a long time. However, I hope that my noble friend will tread with some delicacy on this issue because plainly in principle it is right that the two organisations should be closely in touch with each other and that their policies should be in accord with each other.
I must remind noble Lords of the practicalities involved which have not been mentioned so far. That is why I have risen to my feet. We are talking about a body consisting of about eight to 12 people. The amendment would pre-empt the appointment of two of those members—that is, one-quarter of the whole body. If such a body is to work, it is necessary to bring into it all the numerous interests—which is more than eight or 12 —by some other means than prescribing perhaps one-quarter of the total number of places.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, I also believe that the amendment is taking us even further away from the original spirit of the Bill; namely, to increase the number of routes into teacher training and to bring about much more professional and school-based teacher training. The amendment that was passed two weeks ago moved that way as regards higher education. However, when thinking about the membership of such a body, the amendment would, as my noble friend said, pre-empt those two places. Moreover, bearing in mind the spirit of the Bill, there are many other people who might legitimately be considered appropriate and, therefore, the options should be kept as wide as possible. For example, some later amendments which might find favour with your Lordships are those referring to denominational position and/or special needs. To give two places to higher education seems to me to be extremely pre-emptive.
In so far as one of the purposes of the movement towards the change in teacher education is to make opportunities for more professionally based practician education for graduates in school-based policies and to open school-based apprenticeship training schemes for those graduate students who would like that kind of professional practice, I believe that there is a strong case for having representation by practising or recently retired teachers and also those representing academic subjects. The higher education lobby itself—to be slightly provocative for a moment—is not always totally disinterested.
Perhaps I may also draw a parallel with one thing that has been worrying me ever since the other amendment to which I referred was passed. When my own profession of nursing began to move directly into higher education, very often the higher education institutions had their own agendas and interests and were not always directly in favour of the professional practice and the professionalism of my profession as such. I was chairing the health studies committee of the Council for National Academic Awards at that time. When that profession

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moved into higher education, in some of those courses the higher education representatives had their own staff interests and their own funding interests to such an extent that some of the courses that I was asked to validate were totally unacceptable in terms of the amount of clinical competence that was left on those proposals.
I am very worried that, if the particular proposals for teaching move into higher education institutions, the very valuable apprenticeship aspect and the autonomy of the schools over the professional practice aspect of the new training schemes may be severely eroded. If we have two representatives of the Higher Education Funding Council on the agency it will, again, tilt the balance away from the schools and away from the new schemes in the direction of that particular party to those partnerships. I very strongly resist that pre-emption of those two places in the way suggested.
My noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway pointed out the phrasing of the proposed amendment. I believe that it reads, as set out at present, that one of those people would be the chairman. That would be an even further move in the direction I suggested and one about which I would be deeply unhappy. As I said, I am unhappy about the proposed pre-emption. I very much hope that noble Lords will not accept the amendment.
Baroness Lockwood: My Lords, I should like to express my support for the amendment. If higher education is to be involved in teacher education and training as the Minister has assured us on numerous occasions it will be, and as this Chamber determined two weeks ago through the amendment which was passed, I think it most important that we look at the matter from the point of view of the institutions involved.
The Higher Education Funding Council already makes very considerable demands on universities in terms of administration, in terms of the way it requires information and in terms of the standards that it imposes. If we were then to have a second body which, quite independently, was funding its own part of higher education and imposing different standards and different requirements, the universities would be in an absolutely impossible position.
It is essential that the new agency and the Higher Education Funding Council should work together and co-operate in the matter so that there is as much convergence in their methods as is possible. Therefore, I believe that the first priority on the membership of the teacher training agency should be that it has representatives from the Higher Education Funding Council. I hope that that would not obviate co-operation at other levels. I believe that it would ensure co-operation at that level and the provision of information which could be shared by the two bodies.
Lord Lucas: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Dainton, referred to the healthy competition between departments, by which I take it he means the continuation of the current practice of some universities of raiding the budgets of their teacher training departments to move the money over to other activities. One of the great things that the teacher training agency
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will do is to prevent that practice completely; it will bring with it the independence and status that we now enjoy in further education which has preserved many of those institutions from the depredations of their local authorities.
The noble Lord, Lord Dainton, also referred to the separation—that is, the disbenefits, as he sees them, of the funding to the teacher training departments coming from a separate source. Universities, schools and further education colleges at present deal with funds from many different sources. I simply do not believe that they value one source less than another; for example, that they regard a researcher funded by ICI as having lesser status than one funded by the Government. If anything, surely it is the opposite.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, perhaps I may add a few words to the debate. I have grave doubts about the wisdom of the amendment now before the House. All professions—and teaching is, above all things, a profession—have two quite separate sides to the training which is necessary to become a professional. I have been trained in more than one profession, but, as I said, they all have two sides. First, there is the academic side which must be dealt with on purely academic lines. For example, if you are a lawyer you have got to know some law —strange as it may appear, and unpopular as it often is. However, you must also know how to cross-examine a witness and how to address the court. Moreover, you must know how to advise on evidence or draft a pleading.
It is the practical side that requires attention. I agree that teaching is exactly the same mutatis mutandis—and, there are a good many mutandis—as any other profession. There is a purely academic side which ranges from education as a subject to the actual subject competence that you are going to teach, whether it will be mathematics, science or history. However, there is also the practical side regarding how you handle your pupils. To pre-empt two places and say that they must come, above all things, from the funding council of the academic side seems to me to beg almost every question that there is to be begged.
I have grave doubts about the wisdom of travelling down the road suggested, even if one of the two most eminent professors not on the funding council proves to be one of the eight or 12 members nominated by the Secretary of State. As for the fear expressed by my noble friend Lord Peyton that a Labour government would be so corrupt as to put its own nominees into a place of authority, looking at the Benches opposite I like to think that that is quite unthinkable. However, they would probably be able to do so even if the amendment were accepted.
5 p.m.
Baroness White: My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down, I wish to refer to the wording of line 1 of page 2 of the Bill. Should not "less" be written as "fewer"? I was always taught that "less" applied to quantity whereas if one is talking about numbers one should use "fewer". As we are discussing an Education Bill, it seems worth making that tiny point.
Viscount Eccles: My Lords, as I cannot speak after the Minister has spoken, I rise to speak now. I believe there are two questions here. One is: how can teachers be trained so they can teach as well as they can be taught to teach? The other is: how can one raise the teaching profession in society to bring it to the level of all the other professions so that it will attract the right kind of young man and young woman? At present I suppose that many universities do their part of teacher training pretty badly. In my day they performed that part of teacher training pretty badly, if they did it at all. However, some universities perform that function well. The question before us, surely, is whether we should build on those which do it well and establish whether we cannot encourage many more to do it well, or whether we must cut them out.
When I was young I was told always to keep a hold of nurse for fear of something worse. I believe this teacher training agency is worse than the universities. Therefore I would keep hold of the universities. We will never reach a situation where teachers are respected in the way that doctors and lawyers are unless teachers are associated with universities. I am not clear what the amendment states as I have hardly read it, but I believe I will have to vote against it.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, my noble and learned friend raised a point that goes wide of the amendment. We are talking here about membership of the agency and not about the content or the nature of training. That is dealt with through certain criteria and the way in which the agency has to operate. There will be amendments later which address the particular concerns of my noble and learned friend. It is disappointing that we are not dealing with this amendment together with 15 amendments that follow. We are talking about the membership of the agency. Somehow or other this amendment has pre-empted the debate on what will follow.
My noble friend Lord Elton made a point that I was going to make at the outset; namely, the body we are discussing comprises between eight and 12 members. Noble Lords are talking about filling between 16 and 25 per cent. of the available places from just one interest group. From what I have heard, noble Lords appear to be ignorant of the fact that we will take into account teacher trainers, academics, who are not involved directly with teacher training, and teachers and lecturers. It is simply inconceivable that we would have a board without higher education input.
The noble Lord, Lord Judd, made a similar point when he said that somehow or other higher education was being ignored. However, those involved in teaching and lecturing, teacher trainers and also academics who are not directly teacher trainers all comprise categories of people who will need to be taken into account when these appointments are made. In appointing members to this body, I imagine that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education will consider carefully the case for overlapping membership of the two bodies we have discussed. We expect them to work closely together and joint membership would be one way of securing that.
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The noble Lord, Lord Dainton, referred to ring-fencing leading to fragmentation. Universities commonly receive funding from a whole range of sources. As regards research, for example, many receive funds from the research councils as well as from the funding council and that does not appear to have led to fragmentation. If it has, there have been no complaints about it from noble Lords in this House. The noble Lord, Lord Dainton, also addressed the issue of assessment. Assessment in teacher education is largely a function of Her Majesty's inspectorate and will continue to be so under our proposals. There is no question at all of downgrading that aspect. The funding council was more than happy to use Her Majesty's inspectorate's full report as the main source of assessment evidence.
The noble Lord, Lord Dainton, also referred to competition for funds. Ring-fenced funds for teacher training will not be able to be spent on other disciplines. I have no worries about that. The agency will make sure that funds go to high quality provision. The competition will arise between institutions which deliver the provision. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, made the comment that there was no higher education representation on the agency or representation from those with knowledge of higher education. There could be no question of establishing a body without members who were knowledgeable of and about higher education. Indeed Clause 2 makes all this clear when it refers to the experience that would be required. We shall be strengthening those references in later amendments which, as I have said, unhappily, are not grouped with this amendment. However, that is not the same as overlapping membership.
I note the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady White. Anything that improves the grammar of an Education Bill will be taken seriously. My noble friend Lord Peyton admonished me for not dealing with his questions in Committee. However, I have considered the entirety of what was said in Committee and I confirm that I answered his questions although I may not have referred directly to his name in the course of debate when answering them. On this occasion he asked what the Higher Education Funding Council had done wrong. It has done nothing wrong but it does not have the combination of powers which we believe will increase standards and efficiency as regards the funding of schools as well as higher education and as regards the promotion of the Teaching as a Career Unit and the accreditation of institutions. That will be an important and valuable role. I repeat what I said in Committee. This agency is subsuming the role played by the Teaching as a Career Unit, the Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education and that part of my department which is involved directly with teacher training, none of which came under the umbrella of the Higher Education Funding Council.
My noble friends Lord Campbell of Alloway and Lady Cox were concerned about ambiguity in the amendment. I hope I may be presumptuous and answer that question on behalf of the proposer of the amendment. I do not believe there is ambiguity here. If one considers it as a whole, it is tolerably clear that the one who is to be chairman is one of the 12 and not of the

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two Higher Education Funding Council representatives. My noble friend Lord Beloff made the point that Higher Education Funding Council members are busy people. That is indeed so, and it would therefore be impossible to know in advance whether two of those members would be free to be members of both bodies. That is another flaw in the amendment. We are talking about busy people and if they were not prepared to take membership of two national bodies under their belts, there would be vacancies on the agency and that would be unthinkable.
The noble Earl, Lord Russell, was concerned about joint information. That is an important point as regards links between these two bodies. The provisions for joint working in Clause 9 are designed to ensure that necessary flows of information occur as well as other joint activity whenever the council and the agency can see value and benefit from that arrangement. It is important not just that the board members of each organisation should come together formally but that the two bodies should work together for the benefit of promoting good teacher training.
The noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, referred to his friend Mr. McCrum. He also referred to the experience of Eton and said that schools were not the place for teacher framing. He gave an example of some of the difficulties which could arise. I submit the analogy of a patient lying ill in a bed surrounded by a number of medical students. Such a patient may well think that a hospital is no place for people to learn their trade. However, I believe the noble Lord, Lord Walton, would argue that a hospital is a proper place for medical students to learn their craft and to be educated in the whole business of being good doctors. My noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham has also said that once a lawyer has the subject of law under his or her command, he should receive practical training in applying that knowledge.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, was anxious about the one-way membership from the HEFC to the teacher training agency. I would have more respect for that argument and the incredible efforts being made to promote the amendment if there had been a clamour for a member of the Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education to be a member of the Higher Education Funding Council, but I do not remember any pressure for teachers to become involved in a world which almost totally controlled teacher education.
My noble friend Lord Skidelsky made a point that I would have made. We must not confuse the amendment to include two members of the HEFC among the members of the agency with the debate that we shall have later on research. While that is an important subject they are very different issues.
I am anxious that we should not write more and more detailed rules into the Bill. We need to allow the best people for the job to be chosen at any particular time. We cannot always guarantee that there will be those who are willing and able to be members of both bodies. If no current funding council member had the time or inclination to serve also on the agency the Secretary of
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State would have to remove a member from the council and appoint somebody who was willing to do so. Is that what the noble Lord wishes?
Those objections would be powerful even if only one member of the agency was at issue, but since the amendment would require two joint members the difficulties would be doubled. The scope for meeting the increasingly detailed requirements which your Lordships wish to see in Clause 2 while at the same time finding two places for existing funding council members would be very limited. I hope that, on reflection, noble Lords will withdraw the amendment.
Lord Dainton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her reply. I thank her for making it clear that the amendment is not concerned with research. We should be clear about that. That subject will be dealt with later under Amendment No. 16.
I can assure the House that I never had in mind—and I hope that no one had in mind—the notion of mandating people from one committee to another. In my experience that never works.
I have seen this work, and I have seen instances where it has not worked. I have seen the flaws. I shall mention two bodies which are different in their characteristics—the Old University Grants Committee and its successor bodies, on the one hand, which are responsible for a great deal of research in universities, and what was the Council for Scientific Policy, of which I was chairman, and its successor body the Advisory Board for the Research Councils, on the other. Later the cross-membership which existed, in particular with the chairman of the University Grants Committee being a member of the Advisory Board for the Research Councils, was lost. Everyone is agreed that that was a great mistake. In fact, the Minister said so when we were taking evidence in the Science and Technology Committee. Under the new arrangements that cross-membership is to be restored.
The argument that people who are busy cannot do the job well and cannot move from their original parent body and bring a fresh mind and the necessary knowledge to the second body of which they are a member is not valid in any way.
Nor do I accept the argument—which I find rather disreputable—that a hidden agenda would somehow he brought by a member of one body to another body. The people we appoint to bodies of this kind in this country are not of that quality. If they were they would not be of the quality that we ought to have.
In her summing up, the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, agreed about the confusion with research. She left me a little confused about overlapping membership. I evidently failed to explain to your Lordships that I want to see competition at a high level of quality which does not sink when we have the teacher training agency but is sustained at a high level. That is the purpose of the amendment. That competition is with other areas of study, both at the national level and at the institutional level. That is the key point. We shall lose that as matters stand at present unless we can be guaranteed some cross-membership of this kind.

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I noted what the noble Baroness said about taking account of these matters in the membership, but I feel that we need to go further. I am anxious to retain tough criteria of quality and standards. This is one way of helping that forward without having people who are representative of one body serving on another but instead having people who bring their knowledge and experience and their judgment to the problems of the second body.
After hearing the other speakers I am left in a good deal of confusion as to where opinion lies in this House. This is a matter of such importance that, although there were moments when I was tempted to withdraw the amendment, I do not feel that in the circumstances I can do so. I therefore wish to test the opinion of the House.
5.15 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 3) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 119; Not-Contents, 142.

Division No. 1

CONTENTS

Addington, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Airedale, L.

Hooson, L.

Ardwick, L.

Howell, L.

Attlee, E.

Howie of Troon, L.

Aylestone, L.

Hughes, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Beloff, L.

Irvine of Lairg, L.

Blackstone, B.

Jay, L.

Bonham-Carter, L.

Jeger, B.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Jenkins of Hillhead, L.

Brain, L.

Judd, L.

Bridges, L.

Kilbracken, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Carter, L.

Kirkwood, L.

Castle of Blackburn, B.

Lawrence, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Lester of Herne Hill, L.

Clinton-Davis, L.

Listowel, E.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Dacre of Glanton, L.

Lockwood, B.

Darcy (de Knayth), B.

Longford, E.

Dainton, L. [Teller.]

Lovell-Davis, L.

David, B.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Mallalieu, B.

Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde,

Mason of Barnsley, L.

Desai, L.

Mayhew, L.

Donoughue, L.

McFarlane of Llandaff, B.

Dormand of Easington, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Elis-Thomas, L.

McNair, L.

Ennals, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Falkland, V.

Molloy, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Morris of Castle Morris, L.

Fitt, L.

Mulley, L.

Gallacher, L.

Nicol, B.

Geraint, L.

Ogmore, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Park of Monmouth, B.

Glenamara, L.

Peston, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L. [Teller.]

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Greene of Harrow Weald, L.

Plant of Highfield, L.

Greenway, L.

Redesdale, L.

Grey, E.

Richard, L.

Halsbury, E.

Ripon, Bp.

Hamwee, B.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

Hanworth, V.

Rochester, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Russell of Liverpool, L.

Haskel, L.

Russell, E.

Healey, L.

Seear, B.

Henderson of Brompton, L.

Sefton of Garston, L.

Serota, B.

870

Shannon, E.

Tonypandy, V.

Shepherd, L.

Tordoff, L.

Sherfield, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Simon of Glaisdale, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Stedman, B.

Walton of Detchant, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Warnock, B.

Strabolgi, L.

Wharton, B.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

White, B.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Wigoder, L.

Thomson of Monifieth, L.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Thurlow, L.

Winchilsea and Nottingham, E.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

HolmPatrick, L.

Addison, V.

Hothfield, L.

Allenby of Megiddo, V.

Howe, E.

Annaly, L.

Huntly, M.

Archer of Weston-Super-Mare, L

Kenyon, L.

Ashbourne, L.

Killearn, L.

Astor, V.

Kimball, L.

Balfour, E.

Kinnoull, E.

Barber of Tewkesbury, L.

Lane of Horsell, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Birdwood, L.

Leigh, L.

Blatch, B.

Long, V.

Blyth, L.

Lucas, L.

Borthwick, L.

Lyell, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Mackay of Ardbrecknish, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.[Lord Chancellor.]

Braine of Wheatley, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Mancroft, L.

Cadman, L.

Manton, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Marlesford, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Marsh, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Merrivale, L.

Carnock, L.

Mersey, V.

Chalker of Wallasey, B.

Middleton, L.

Charteris of Amisfield, L.

Miller of Hendon, B.

Chelmsford, V.

Milverton, L.

Chesham, L.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Clanwilliam, E.

Mottistone, L.

Clark of Kempston, L.

Cochrane of Cults, L.

Mountgarret, V.

Courtown, E.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Cox, B.

Moyne, L.

Craigavon, V.

Munster, E.

Cumberlege, B.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Davidson, V.

Northbourne, L.

Dean of Harptree, L.

O'Cathain, B.

Dixon-Smith, L.

Orkney, E.

Donegall, M.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Downshire, M.

Palmer, L.

Dudley, E.

Pearson of Rannoch, L.

Eccles, V.

Perry of Southwark, B.

Elles, B.

Prentice, L.

Elton, L.

Quinton, L.

Faithfull, B.

Radnor, E.

Ferrers, E.

Rennell, L.

Flather, B.

Renton, L.

Fraser of Carmyllie, L.

Rodger of Earlsferry, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Gainford, L.

Seccombe, B.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Shrewsbury, E.

Geddes, L.

Skidelsky, L.

Gilmour of Craigmillar, L.

St. Davids, V.

Goold, L.

Stewartby, L.

Goschen, V.

Strange, B.

Gridley, L.

Strathcarron, L.

Haddington, E.

Strathclyde, L.

Haig, E.

Strathmore and Kinghorne, E. [Teller.]

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L

Sudeley, L.

Harding of Petherton, L.

Swansea, L.

Hardinge of Penshurst, L.

Swinfen, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Teviot, L.

Harmsworth, L.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Harrowby, E.

Torrington, V.

Haslam, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Hayhoe, L.

Trumpington, B.

Henley, L.

Tugendhat, L.

Holderness, L.

871

Ullswater, V. [Teller.]

Westbury, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Whitelaw, V.

Wade of Chorlton, L.

Wise, L.

Wakeham, L. [Lord Privy Seal.

Wyatt of Weeford, L.

Wedgwood, L.

Young, B.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
5.24 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, before I call Amendment No. 4, I have to say that if Amendment No. 4 is agreed to I cannot call Amendments Nos. 5 to 7 inclusive.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 2, line 6, leave out from ("in") to ("or") in line 8 and insert ("—

(i)the provision of education in schools,

(ii)the training of teachers, or

(iii)the provision of higher education other than the training of teachers,").

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 4, I speak also to Amendments Nos. 5 to 12. 27 and 44 to 48. The group includes a number of government amendments which deal with points on membership of the agency raised by noble Lords during the previous stage. I shall start by saying something about each of them and some linked amendments in the group, before turning to the other amendments on membership also before us.
In the government amendments we hold to the principle that members should be chosen for the personal contribution that they can make and not in any representative capacity. But we have been glad to accept that there is a range of areas of experience and expertise to which it would be right.—
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, I wonder whether my noble friend could give way. Could she kindly either speak a little more loudly or could other noble Lords refrain from joining in? I need to know what she is saying and I have not yet been able to hear a word. I am very sorry.
Baroness Match: My Lords, I start again. I am moving Amendment No. 4 and speaking to Amendments Nos. 5 to 12, 27 and 44 to 48. Again the group includes a number of government amendments which deal with points on membership of the agency raised by noble Lords during the previous stage. I shall say something about them and some linked amendments in the group before turning to the other amendments on membership also before us.
In the government amendments we hold to the principle that members should be chosen for the personal contribution which they can make and not in any representative capacity. But we have been glad to accept that there is a range of areas of experience and expertise to which it would be right to require the Secretary of State to have regard in considering possible members.
My noble friend Lord Pearson has tabled a further amendment drawing attention to the value of experience of providing higher education other than teacher training. I hope my noble friend will agree that
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Amendment No. 5 secures his intention equally well by making separate references to teacher education experience and wider academic experience.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, I am sony to interrupt again, but does my noble friend in fact mean Amendment No. 4?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I have to say that;I am not sure. The amendments were tabled so late that in order to improvise over the weekend I have been dealing with one set of numbers. I now see that I am dealing with another set of numbers. I understand that Amendment No. 4 is my amendment; Amendment No. 5 is in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Judd; Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 are in the name of my noble friend Lord Pearson; Amendment No. 8 is in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Judd; Amendments Nos. 9 and 10 are in the name of my noble friend Lord Pearson; Amendment No. 11 stands in my name; Amendment No. 12 is in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford; Amendments Nos. 27 and 44 to 48 stand in my name. I believe that the amendment to which I have just referred is Amendment No. 7. Is that right, or is it Amendment No. 6?
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, I think that the amendment to which my noble friend alludes is Amendment No. 4, which has the qualities that she seeks.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, my noble friend has tabled a further amendment (which I understand is Amendment No. 6) drawing attention to the value of experience of providing higher education other than teacher training. I hope that he will agree that Amendment No. 4 secures his intention equally well by making separate references to teacher education experience and wider academic experience. It is indeed important that the agency should be able to draw on a breadth of experience of higher education in its deliberations.
My noble friend has also pursued in his Amendments Nos. 9 and 10 his concern that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State should draw on the recently retired in making appointments to the agency and not just current practitioners in any field. II is to avoid the danger of bodies like the agency being entirely composed of retired people who have the time to offer to such endeavours that the reference to current experience is commonly written into legislation of this kind. I should be loath to excise the reference to current experience, as Amendment No. 9 would do. I must stress again that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State will be able to appoint retired people as well as current practitioners; and he has very recently done so for the schools funding agency which is governed by similar provisions to those in Clause 2. I can say to my noble friend that recently retired members of the profession can indeed make a very real contribution to such a body.
Amendment No. 10, which tips the balance in favour of recently retired teachers, has some consequences which I am sure were not intended. As drafted, it would require my right honourable friend to take account of the

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desirability of all appointees being recently retired teachers, which would cut across my noble friend's desire to include academics with no links with teacher education. If the intention is that those chosen for their teaching experience should be recently retired, I have to say that this would limit the Secretary of State's discretion too much. My right honourable friend must have the ability to choose the best person from any background, regardless of his or her current status.
As my noble friend knows, I have every sympathy with the case for allowing the agency to draw on the wisdom and experience of the recently retired. Indeed, it is because this is such an obvious group to use on bodies of this kind that I am confident that we do not need to put their claim on the face of the Bill.
In Committee, I assured the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford that I accepted the principle behind his amendment to ensure that the important role played by the Churches in teacher training was also taken account of in appointing members to the new agency. But I could not accept his amendment as drafted because I was advised that it might have untoward effects on the clause as a whole. I hope that he will feel able to endorse Amendment No. 11, which I believe will secure the outcome that he wished to see and ensure that the large body of denominational providers is not overlooked. Amendments Nos. 27, 44 and 47 are consequential on this aspect of Amendment No. 11 and ensure that the definition of denominational provision is appropriate for use in both Clauses 2 and 6.
I am not, as the right reverend Prelate knows, persuaded that the Churches should be given the right to be consulted about every single appointment to the agency and every subsequent vacancy. I know that that is what the 1993 Act secures for the Funding Agency for Schools, but if I may quote the noble Earl, Lord Russell, that does not necessarily mean that we should do it again. There will be occasions when an ad hoc vacancy occurs when it would be a waste of everyone's time to require consultation with the Churches as the gap in knowledge and experience which needed to be filled was of a very different sort.
I am afraid that limiting the duty to consult to the appointment of members filling a Church place on the agency is not a possible way forward. As I said earlier, there are no "representative" places on the agency and no group has a claim to them. I must therefore resist the suggestion that this issue should be dealt with on the face of the Bill. However, I should like publicly to reassure the right reverend Prelate and place on record our intention to consult the Churches both about initial appointments and any future appointments in which the Churches might be thought to have a legitimate interest.
I hope that Amendment No. 11 will also answer the points made during the Committee stage by the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), when speaking to an amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Rix. It will require the Secretary of State to take notice of experience relevant to teaching those with special educational needs when he considers the agency's
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membership. The amendment underlines our determination that the agency should have equal regard for the interests of those with special educational needs as for all others.
Amendments Nos. 45, 46 and 48 are consequential to this aspect of Amendment No. 11. They insert in Clause 17 a definition of persons with special educational needs. The definition covers both pupils and others with special educational needs. Therefore the Secretary of State will be able to take account of experience in providing further and higher education to those with learning difficulties as well as those working with school pupils with special educational needs and those training teachers for that role.
Amendments No. 5, 6 and 7 clearly indicate an anxiety about the drafting of Clause 2 which is shared by some of my noble friends and noble Lords opposite. It is that the provision of education as the Bill has it cannot be equated with teaching and so we might find ourselves with an agency full of bureaucrats rather than school or higher education teachers. In the context of the clause, I do not believe that there is any reason for anxiety on this score. It is teachers who provide education in school for all our pupils, and lecturers and supervisors who provide higher education. Those at one remove—governors, LEAs, even vice-chancellors and non-teaching heads—are governed by the second limb in the subsection; those "having responsibility" for the provision of education as opposed to those actually doing it.
I imagine that experience of educational research might indeed be a very good attribute for a member of the agency. Those responsible for the training of teachers often have research experience; those with other higher education experience will have their own research background. I resist Amendment No. 8 because it adds again unnecessarily to the detail in the Bill and runs the risk of seeming to add two new categories—education researchers and other researchers—to those we have already included. It seems to me that if the law governing the Higher Education Funding Council, with its £3 billion budget and larger membership, does not require us to have regard to research experience in appointing members, there is no case for doing so explicitly for the agency. Higher education is, for this Bill as for the 1993 Act, a broad enough term to cover all that is required. I ask the House therefore to accept amendments Nos. 4, 11, 27, 44, 45, 46, 47 and 48 and to reject Amendments Nos. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 12. I beg to move Amendment No. 4.
Lord Judd: My Lords, I wish, first, to express my sympathy to the Minister for having to cope with many amendments at the last moment. I understand her difficulty. We have had the minimum amount of time between the two stages and I recognise that that was to meet the convenience of us all. However, I express my gratitude for the way in which she has coped; I too have found myself going boss-eyed on these occasions.
Our deliberations on this part of the Bill illustrate the problem. If there is to be a TTA, which is what the Bill is all about, the self-evident case for having it should be the additionality and the improved quality that it will

875
bring to the whole realm of education. As we get down to defining the TTA, we are beginning to discover a host of anxieties about how far it can possibly represent the interests that will be affected. From that standpoint, a vast question-mark exists about the validity of the whole enterprise, and it becomes clearer as we proceed.
Perhaps I may apply myself to the specific amendments. I do not often say this but I very much welcome the spirit of Amendment No. 7, which stands in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch. He will readily realise that it deals with many of the anxieties about which I spoke earlier today. I am glad to see it on the Marshalled List. I should also like to say in a charitable frame of mind that I am glad to see the Minister's Amendment No. 11 in so far as it relates to special educational needs. That is a vital and important provision.
I hope that the right reverend Prelate will forgive my following observation—I am always inclined to irritate him by these observations. I worry about language in this context and am worried about references to "denominational". I know that there can be a broad interpretation of the meaning of the word "denominational". Prior to reaching the Report stage of this Bill today the House was dealing with the fact that we are a multi-faith, multi-cultural society. We need to use language which suggests that in our consultations we are taking into account the interests of the widest possible cross-section of people of different faiths and religions. When we do not, people are, understandably and with reason, inclined to react with anxiety.
As regards Amendment No. 5, my memory has been jogged. The distinguished father of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said in The Function of a Teacher:
"No one would consent in our day to subject the medical man to the control of non-medical authorities, except where they depart criminally from the purpose of medicine, which is to cure the patient. The teacher is a kind of medical man but he is not allowed to decide what methods are suitable to this end".
In the Minister's amendment reference is made to, "the provision of education". I am not sure what that phrase means. It could mean many things. We believe that on this body there ought to be the experience of teaching. Therefore our Amendment No. 5 sets out to make that point categorically clear; namely, that what we are looking for is the experience of teaching.
It is true that during the Committee stage—I believe I quote her accurately—the Minister specifically said that she expected that we would see on the teacher training agency those who qualified as teachers. But we do not see that as a firm enough commitment. Hence, we tabled this amendment.
Amendment No. 8 in a way relates to what has just happened in the House in relation to the previous amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Dainton. We are saying here that it is essential, if the quality, status and standing of the profession are to be preserved, to have people on the TTA who have experience of and have shown capacity in research in higher education, including research into the theory, practice and management of education. I do not think that we can have it both ways. If we are being assured that the new agency will not diminish the standing, status and role of the profession—indeed, I presume that Ministers will
876
continue to argue that in their view it will enhance them, and that is why they want it—surely the whole process must have at its disposal that kind of experience as an integrated part of the operation. To exclude it raises the danger that we shall see a sort of ghetto area which is there at a lower second-class status for the preparation of our teachers. We therefore see Amendment No. 8 as also central.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, I must apologise if I have tried the patience of the House by interrupting my noble friend two times, but it seemed to me that she was supporting Amendment No. 5 at one point, which is very similar indeed to my own Amendment No. 6, whereas the rest of her remarks led me to believe that she was about to refuse it, as indeed she did.
My name is to Amendments Nos. 6, 7, 9 and 10. If I could start with Amendments Nos. 9 and 10, I would say that I am very happy to accept what my noble friend has already said on this matter to the effect as I understood her that there probably will be people with teaching experience on the teacher training agency who have recently retired from teaching in schools. The purpose of my amendment was to try to remove the emphasis which there seems to me to be in the Bill at the moment in Clause 2, lines 11 to 13, which gives in my view too much of an emphasis to people who are currently engaged in the provision of or carrying on the matters referred to earlier. As I think I understood that, when the time comes I will be very happy to withdraw those two amendments.
But I think that Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 are perhaps more serious and go a little further than my noble friend has gone in tabling Amendment No. 4. I welcome what she has been able to do in that sense at Committee stage. She has been able to put into the Bill that people with experience of provision of higher education other than the training of teachers will be included. That is certainly a step forward. But I am not sure that it goes quite far enough. I would hope that my noble friend might be able to say that she will consider her Amendment No. 4 and Amendment No. 5 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, and my own Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 in the name also of my noble friend Lady Cox.
The reason I say that is that I think the Bill, even as amended by my noble friend's Amendment No. 4, talks of putting people onto the agency who have experience of,
"the provision of education in schools".
There I join with the noble Lord, Lord Judd, in wondering what "the provision of education" might mean. I would fear —and I imagine it might not be a fear shared by the noble Lord, Lord Judd—that this might include local authority education officers and others whom I would like to see in a rather diminished number on the agency.
What I am trying to get at in Amendment No. 6 is indeed that people who have experience of teaching in schools rather than the provision of education in schools should be on the agency; and that also when one comes

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to higher education people who have experience of teaching academic subjects in higher education other than teacher education or training should be on this agency. I do not believe that this is widening the categories very far. I think that my noble friend the Minister and I, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, are very close on Amendments Nos. 4, 5 and 6. Therefore I hope that my noble friend will be able to say that she might have a further look at them before we come to Third Reading.
5.45 p.m.
Lord Rix: My Lords, I support most warmly Amendment No. 11, and particularly paragraph (b), which ensures that a member of the teacher training agency shall have relevant experience or responsibility for the provision of special educational needs. I also support Amendments Nos. 44, 45 and 46. As the Minister is aware, an amendment very similar to this one was tabled in my name during the Committee stage of the Bill. Unfortunately I had to be absent because of a family funeral. I am delighted that the argument was put forward so cogently and well by my noble friend Lady Darcy (de Knayth) and also the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, and other noble Lords. I am very grateful to them, and I am grateful to the Minister for her acceptance of this particular amendment.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, I hate to disagree with my noble friend on my own Front Bench. He is my noble friend—and is a very good friend. But I support the amendment of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford.
It is a very great pity that hardly anybody knows anything nowadays about the history of education in England and Wales. If one looks at the growth of the education system in Britain, it was largely brought about in the early years, and indeed throughout the whole of the 19th century, by the Churches. The two great societies provided schools throughout the country. They were financed by the Privy Council. But when the Forster Act was passed in 1870 and the school boards were established, the great majority of schools, (even after that,) were Church schools. Of course they have persisted to this day.
It is not only in relation to schools but also teacher education in which the Churches played a major part. Until very recently I think probably a majority of training colleges, before they were absorbed into higher education, were owned by the Church of England, and some by the Free Churches. It is a very great pity that that vast amount of experience and knowledge should not be consulted. That is all that the right reverend Prelate asks—that they be consulted about appointments to this board. I therefore have very great pleasure in warmly supporting the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford.
The Earl of Radnor: My Lords, perhaps I may say very briefly how pleased I am to see Amendment No. 11 on the list of amendments. It seemed a terrible omission that there was no mention of special needs in the original Bill, coming just at a time when it is recognized
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that children with special needs are in far greater proportion in the school population than was ever thought to be the case. Now at least it seems that we shall have people on the TTA who will have some knowledge of this matter. That in itself is very important. It is important that those particular words were put on the face of the Bill. I am very grateful indeed.
I realise that "teaching" as written in the Bill must presumably mean all sorts of teaching, including the teaching of those with special needs. Past history has always been that special needs and specific learning difficulties have always been somehow "fudged up" when it came to the classroom and teacher training. I hope that this matter will be carried a little further when we come to Amendment No. 24, which relates to funding and representation, to see whether perhaps that idea is also acceptable.
I appreciate that it is difficult to be specific in such a Bill and that it is much better to use general terms. But in view of the numbers of people involved and the fewness of the teachers, it is not a small affair at all. My experience, as a non-educationist but perhaps on the fringe of the situation, has been fairly long. In the Bill we have a funding agency for teacher training. We have always missed trained teachers in that area and the money to train them.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): My Lords, let me echo the thanks given by my noble friend Lord Rix and the noble Earl, Lord Radnor, and welcome most warmly Amendment No. 11. Once again the Minister has listened. I seem to be saying "Thank you" rather more often than "Please". It is a pleasant experience for both of us. I am particularly pleased with the Minister's amendment because it is linked to subsection (2), which refers to current experience. That is very important if the evaluation of the quality of special needs teaching is to be as informed as possible.
I listened to the Minister when she commented on the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, with regard to recently retired teachers. During a meeting that we had last week on the Bill, one very well known professor with vast experience in special needs teaching —I shall not name him because I comment on the spur of the moment and have not checked with him that I can mention this matter; I do not wish to indulge in special pleading but it is important to stress the point at this stage—said that he was due to retire next year and did not believe that he would be in a position to offer the required up to the minute expertise to be a member of the agency. Special needs teaching is a fast moving field and it is important for people to be currently engaged in the profession. I am therefore particularly pleased that the amendment is related to subsection (2) and I welcome it wholeheartedly.
The Lord Bishop of Guildford: My Lords, I should like to speak to Amendment No. 12 in my name. First, let me express my warmest thanks to the Minister for the statement that she made a few moments ago. I welcome her Amendment No. 11, which makes explicit reference to the institutions of a denominational character. I also bear in mind that in Committee she said that it was

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inconceivable that the Church colleges would not be considered in appointments to the teacher training agency. Also, during the course of her remarks this afternoon she made a public statement giving the assurance that the Churches would be consulted. That is very reassuring and I am immensely grateful to her.
In the light of that, it seems almost churlish to push her —no, I would never do that—or rather to encourage her to go a little further. She can give that assurance that the Churches will be consulted, and so I wonder whether that should not be on the face of the Bill. I have no wish to rehearse what I said in Committee but I had to tell the House then that our experience of consultation when a matter was on the face of the Bill was none too happy. Therefore it is a somewhat anxious moment for me now to have to rely on the Minister's statement when the provision is not on the face of the Bill.
I do not want to repeat what I said in Committee but I must add one comment. Noble Lords will remember that in Committee the Minister regretted that I did not refer to the letter from the Secretary of State in which he apologised for not informing me of the appointments. Subsequently, I made reference to that letter. I have responded to it, indicating that, although I am grateful for the apology, the letter totally failed to meet my concern about lack of consultation. I offered to meet him, his Minister or anybody else to resolve those issues. I have not had a reply.
I do not wish to rehearse that again but that is our experience. For that reason I feel that I ought at least to press in principle the matter of consultation being on the face of the Bill. It seems to me that the purpose of consultation is twofold. It is in order to ensure that those with experience put their heads together in order to secure the best and most appropriate people to serve on the teacher training agency. The second reason is in order to ensure that those who are very much in the teacher training field have full confidence in the membership of the teacher training agency.
I am enormously grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Glenarnara, for giving such an effective trailer to what I wanted to say. It is perfectly true that the Church colleges largely pioneered the whole area of teacher education in the 19th century. They are still in that business today. The Church and associated colleges currently have 43,000 full-time students and 18,000 part-time students, approximately half of whom are studying education. That is an enormous stake in the business of teacher education. The fact that we have been historically in that field and are still there merits the provision that we should be fully consulted on the future of teacher education.
I should like to respond to the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Judd. I do not use the word "denomination". It is not a word that I like. It has a narrow and slightly 'exclusive ring to it. That is not the situation. The word is only used because that is the legal language that is used in order to define institutions of a denominational character. If the noble Lord looks carefully at my amendment, he will notice in paragraph (c) that it asks the Secretary of State to consult not only the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church, which have the principal colleges, but also other
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denominations—the Free Churches have colleges of education as well—and representatives of other religions. We are sensitive to the fact that we live in a multi-faithed society, although historically the principal religion in this country is Christian and it is the Church colleges which have taken such a major part in teacher education.
I am immensely grateful to the Minister for the assurances that she gave. However, I am sure she will understand when I ask, if she can give those assurances so clearly, firmly and publicly in the House in that way, whether there is not an argument for saying that that provision should be on the face of the Bill. I do not ask for that in the rather wide terms of my own amendment. I recognise that I have replicated what is in the 1993 Act. But we probably made a mistake in that Act—I believe that is what the Minister is saying—in requiring consultation to be too wide. I feel that, when taking into account the denominational interest, there should be the fullest consultation with the Churches and that should be on the face of the Bill.
Baroness Young: My Lords, I deeply sympathise with my noble friend the Minister over the great complexities about who will be on the teacher training agency. I fully appreciate that she does not want to be too prescriptive because that would make the agency other than the Government would wish.
I very much welcome Amendment No. 11, which I was glad to hear was welcomed by the noble Lord, Lord Rix, and the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth). I also appreciate the welcome given to that amendment by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford and I intervene to answer one of the points made by him. As I understand it, with Amendment No 12 he wants to have consultation written on the face of the Bill.
We have to recognise that it is possible to refer to what is said in Hansard. That record does make a difference and has been upheld in the court in that way. It is not just a matter of considering an issue in a rather interesting, slightly academic way without the debate having some effect. That needs to be borne in mind. Having said that, I hope that the point made by the right reverend Prelate is one with which we all agree and that it is subsumed in Amendment No. 11.
My other point is that I hope very much that my noble friend will look at the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Pearson about teaching. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, will no doubt be astonished to find that I agree with him on this point. One of the underlying principles of the Bill is the importance of teaching. If my noble friend looks again at any of these matters, I hope that is one which she feels is important to include in Amendment No. 4 in some way.
6 p.m.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, while I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Young, in saying that since, a recent judgment statements made in the House and reported in Hansard will be taken into account in cases, nonetheless I wish to support the point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford that the matter should be placed on the face of the Bill. That judgment

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may not always stand. It may be modified at a later stage and it would not surprise me if it were. Problems can plainly arise from leaving the matter as it stands.
If it is accepted that consultation should take place —and I believe that it should—it is difficult to believe that it is not possible for it to appear on the face of the Bill. That would be much more satisfactory than it simply being left as a reference in Hansard.
Lord Desai: My Lords, there are many points in Amendments Nos. 4, 11 and 12 which clearly make them inclusive. I hope therefore that I do not sound churlish when I say that what stands out by its omission is any reference to equality of opportunity.
At the Committee stage I tabled amendments saying that experience in implementing the policy of equality of opportunity, and in general the whole question of the multi-racial nature of society, should be taken on board. One must have qualifications in every other field—industrial, commercial, financial and practical matters or in any profession. One must have higher education experience. Yet when it comes to the question of the multi-racial character of the society we omit it. That is a pity. I cannot say anything stronger.
I do not believe that allowing for multiple faiths resolves the issue. We may be encouraging certain communities, which do not maintain their own religious schools, to start them. That would not be a healthy trend. We should say that somewhere along the line the question of the multi-racial nature of society will be taken on board and people with experience in that field will be heard. The clutch of amendments before us does not allow that.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: My Lords, these are very much matters of balance. Though I take the point of the right reverend Prelate that he does not insist on sticking by the wording of his amendment, nonetheless, when we are talking of writing something on the face of the Bill, the wording is relevant. Whereas one can accept that it is appropriate to consult the Churches in a general sense when talking of the membership of the teacher training agency, in my view it is too strong to say that before appointing any member of the agency the Secretary of State shall consult. There would be endless cycles of consultation.
I have great sympathy with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Desai. He is not suggesting that we table an amendment whereby the point is written into the Bill in an explicit way; we do not want endless cycles of consultation. But he drew attention to an extremely important area which is not covered in any of the amendments and is not explicitly covered in any of the texts before us. I sometimes wonder whether we are sometimes careful to protect the interests of those who are already to some extent protected—I take the point of the right reverend Prelate that they must continue adequately to be protected—and overlook areas which have become important in our society but which are not yet adequately covered or protected.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I am extremely grateful for the positive comments made during the course of the debate. I do not believe that too much divides us on these amendments.
Perhaps I can deal first with the points made by the right reverend Prelate and pray in aid the points made by my noble friends, Lord Renfrew and Lady Young. They made the points very clearly that I wanted to make. If Amendment No. 11 is accepted we will have built in the specific interest of recognising that there are institutions of a denominational character other than secular schools. I might also say to the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, who made the point about recognising the history of education in this country and the part played in it by the Churches, that I remember studying the subject for 0-level and I believe also for A-level. I found it to be a fascinating subject. I do not know if it is still studied.
One of the difficulties of putting something as specific as this on the face of the Bill is partly because of the words in the amendment that:
"Before appointing any member of the agency the Secretary of State shall consult".
Implicit in that statement is not just the initial appointments but also all subsequent appointments. For the purposes of this debate I must repeat the assurances I gave earlier. The difficulty of putting something on the face of the Bill means that we will have to go a long way down the road of considering the Church membership representative rather than the interest of denominational education being recognised by the whole body.
I said that there will be occasions when an ad hoc vacancy occurs when it would be a waste of everyone's time to require consultation with the Churches as the gap in knowledge at any particular time and experience which needed to be filled was of a very different sort. I said I was afraid that limiting the duties to consult to the appointment of members filling a "church" place on the agency is not a possible way forward. As I said earlier, there are no "representative" places on the agency and no group has a claim to them. I said that for those reasons I am resisting the amendment in this case and added that, however, I should like publicly to reassure and place on record our intention to consult the Churches both about initial appointments and any future appointments in which the Churches might be thought to have a legitimate interest.
I can say to the right reverend Prelate, treading a thin line between representative in membership and the interests of the Churches or the interests of denominational education being accepted, that if there were a vacancy or vacancies on that body which meant that the interest or expertise that could be brought to bear in protecting the interests of denominational education were at issue, then that is an occasion when consultation would be highly appropriate. I hope that the right reverend Prelate will read my words and consider whether he feels so strongly that he wishes to bring the matter back at the next stage.
With regard to the points made by noble friends on providers of education, when I addressed that point initially when speaking to the amendment I said that I thought there was no reason for concern because we had

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made the distinction between providers of education and teachers. I went on to say that it is teachers who provide education in schools for all our pupils and lecturers and supervisors who provide higher education. I am persuaded and attracted by the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and my noble friends behind me that if a way can be found to make it more explicit that the first provider of education referred to subsumes teaching as well, then I will look for ways of addressing the matter before Third Reading. It is an important point.
I conclude by reminding the House, subsuming my own amendments that are to be accepted today, that we are talking about providers of education in schools. I made the caveat that I will look again to make sure that that explicitly addresses teaching. That includes the training of teachers, or the provision of higher education other than the training of teachers; and some members shown to have experience of, and to have shown capacity in any position carrying responsibility for such matters. The people involved in the provision of education other than teaching will be industrialists, commercial and financial people, people from other professions, the institutions of a denominational character and persons providing for those with special educational needs. 'Those are all interests which will be taken into account when my right honourable friend makes appointments to this body.
Lord Judd: My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down perhaps I can say that I am grateful for her positive reply. However, perhaps she can make clear —it may be my hearing—that in her list of people she has not forgotten local authorities.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I was reading out categories. Local authorities, if they were to come in anywhere, would be among those who have held and shown capacity in any position carrying the responsibility for such matters—such matters being the provision of education.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 5 to 8 not moved.]
The Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Boston of Faversham): My Lords, I should point out that if Amendment No. 9 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment No. 10.
[Amendments Nos. 9 and 10 not moved.]
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 11:
Page 2, line 13, at end insert:
("( ) In considering the appointment of members in accordance with subsection (2) the Secretary of State shall have regard to the desirability of including persons whose relevant experience or responsibility is, or was, in or in relation to—

(a)institutions of a denominational character, or

(b)the provision of education for persons with special educational needs.").

On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 12 not moved.]
Schedule 1 [The Teacher Training Agency]:
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 13:
Page 16, line 13, at end insert:
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(" —(1) Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools in England, or a representative of his, shall be entitled to attend and take part in any deliberations (but not in decisions) at meetings of the agency or of any committee of the agency.
(2) The agency shall provide Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools in England with such copies of any documents distributed to members of the agency or of any such committee as he may require.").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving this amendment I shall speak also to Amendment No. 14. Both amendments deal with different aspects of the workings of the teacher training agency 'which were discussed in Committee.
Amendment No. 13 requires the agency to grant access to a representative of Ofsted to meetings of the agency and to any papers that Ofsted may require. As I said in Committee, it is essential that there be a close working relationship between Ofsted and the teacher training agency. The two bodies have complementary roles to play in ensuring that standards in initial teacher training are maintained and improved. Because of the closeness of that relationship, I believe it right that this should be written on to the face of the Bill to ensure the free flow of information between the two bodies.
Amendment No. 14 requires the agency to provide the Secretary of State with an annual report, which he will lay before Parliament. It was always our intention that the agency should publish a full range of information relating to its activities, including an annual report. This is essential to ensure that the agency follows the principles of openness and accountability.
Given the agency's distinctive role, and the interest which Parliament and the wider public wi II take in its activities, I am happy to bring forward this amendment which puts on the face of the Bill a requirement to produce an annual report. I beg to move.
Lord Judd: My Lords, I should like to say very sincerely from these Benches that we are very grateful for the way in which the Minister has responded to our points. We think it is a wise measure. We are glad to see it there. Thank you.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 17, line 3, at end insert:
("Annual reports
The agency—

(a)shall make an annual report to the Secretary of State, who shall lay a copy of it before each house of Parliament; and

(b)may arrange for any such report to be published in such manner as the agency consider appropriate.").

On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 4 [Qualifying activities and eligible institutions]:
Lord Judd Lord Judd moved Amendment No. 15:
Page 2, line 37, after ("teacher") insert ("education and").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the noble Baroness will remember that at a late hour during the Committee stage we had quite an altercation about education and training. I was holding very firmly to the thesis that, while training could be part of a wider approach to education, it was impossible to confine the concept of education to being part of training. I was very glad today to hear the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, who

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I am afraid is no longer in his place, making my point with the eloquence we have come to expect of him. He said that in his experience in any professional training there are two elements: the academic element and the practical element. But what I found important was that he said "in any preparation for a professional career". Sometimes there is a tendency to confuse the issue of insisting upon people of graduate level coming into the profession and the educational content of the preparation for becoming a teacher as such. They are not exactly the same because there is an academic dimension to the specific task of preparing one's self for the responsibility of teaching.The Minister said in Committee that teacher training is already a term used in legislation and that it has been so used since 1944. In a sense, that is absolutely correct. However, if one is making that observation it is important to remember that when the term "teacher training" was coined it carried with it the assumption that history and research which are supportive of training were part of that teacher training. What we are so concerned about in our deliberations on the Bill is that they are now being separated out. Therefore, it seems a good time to make the point about the importance of education as well as training in the preparation of our teachers. In fact, if the Minister reads Hansard carefully—I hope she will forgive my making the point—she will see that she herself used the term "teacher education and training" during our Committee stage deliberations.
The purpose of the amendment is to make clear that education and training are complementary activities. It will be vital for the teacher training agency to define the twin strands of education and training for any school which is to provide such courses. Teachers involved in school centred initial teacher training may not, for example, be aware of the immense variety of approaches, nor of the most pertinent and relevant research, which provide the background for the practical skills of pedagogy, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, so rightly drew our attention at earlier stages of the Bill.
The term "teacher education" will spell out the essential perspective that is needed to put what I might call the practical tips for teachers, for which there is a vital need, in context. I really believe that this would strengthen the Government's case. It is not my role to act as a consultant for the Government but I believe that it would help tremendously to reassure everyone if the noble Baroness could find a way to accept what is a small but significant amendment in terms of the whole quality of approach to teacher preparation. I beg to move.
6.15 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, the addition of "teacher education" in front of teacher training, as Amendment No. 15 would secure, is unhelpful and potentially damaging. We cannot split funding responsibility on the basis of the current employment of individual students who turn up to take the course—leaving the agency with the power to fund those students on M. Ed courses who
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are teachers, but not those who are otherwise employed. We need to divide course types in a sensible way, looking at the general picture of students catered for, as well as course content. That means we need wide enough powers for the agency to fund courses which would not pass the legal test of being "teacher training" or even "teacher education"—even though nine times out of 10, that is what they are.
Since the addition of the word "education" to Clause 4 does not have this effect, would it have any purpose at all? I am not convinced that it adds anything of substance to the Bill, and for that reason I ask the House to reject the amendment.
Lord Judd: My Lords, I am very sad at the Minister's response. I am afraid that the more I listened to her the more I realised that it is not just a difference of nuance but that there really is a narrow view. I do not believe it is the Minister herself but I am not quite sure to whom she is being loyal or whom she is interpreting. The message now coming across is that there is almost a determination in the department to reject the concept of well educated teachers being what we want to see and education being the context in which we approach training. I am very sad indeed, but because I have a great deal of respect for the Minister's independence of mind and her willingness to look carefully at suggestions that are put forward, I shall, with the leave of the House, withdraw the amendment in the hope that she will be able to come back at Third Reading with something to meet the point. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Earl Russell Earl Russell moved Amendment No. 16:
Page 2, line 38, leave out paragraph (b).
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness both for what she said about this amendment in Committee and for the letter which she has since written to me. I understand that the door is not locked, but in pushing on an open door I do not know whether it opens inwards or outwards and I do not know whether there is someone pushing on the other side. It therefore behoves me to walk warily.
The difficulty is that we have here a collection of objectives which are good ones but which are ultimately incompatible with each other. We are concerned that a great deal both of teaching and research in departments of education has nothing to do with initial teacher training and therefore would not necessarily go competently with the agency. We are concerned about keeping together the seamless robe of higher education. That is not just a figure of speech because we have questions about comparability, about library facilities and about compatible or incompatible systems of funding.
Perfectly properly, we are concerned with preserving the unity of the funding category, which is obviously a good thing if it can be done. We are also concerned, in the words used by the noble Baroness in Committee, with not isolating teacher training from other educational provision. The difficulty about that last objective, good though it is, is that it is inevitably to some extent threatened by putting initial teacher training in schools. I do not think that we can avoid that by

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keeping together research and the initial teacher training if it involves wrenching out the research from the context in which it works and transplanting it into soil in which it will not grow.
I agree that there needs to be communication between education and initial teacher training. We tried to address that in Amendment No. 3. The noble Baroness felt that that amendment was unduly prescriptive. But I was encouraged to hear her say that it was by no means impossible that the Secretary of State might wish to have overlapping membership between the two funding councils. That seems to me to be the way in which the noble Baroness's objective, as she addressed it in Committee, could be most usefully pursued.
Perhaps I may speak a little further to those four objectives, all of them good but not ultimately compatible. A great deal of the research in education clearly has nothing whatever to do with initial teacher training. For example, let us consider someone who wants to do a PhD on Rousseau's Emile. That is a perfectly proper subject of academic study. But I do not believe that the noble Baroness would recommend Rousseau for a guide to initial teacher training.
There is a great deal of research which people might wish to do studying the way in which education in the 20th century has been the last refuge of belief in the perfectibility of man. But that again is not particularly suited to initial teacher training. The teacher training agency simply would not have the information; it would not have the context for judging either research or the provision of lectures or tutorials in that field. But that is the sort of thing which departments of education ought to be doing.
There is also the question of research not in higher education but on higher education. That is part of educational research which is not by any means going to be adequately addressed by the teacher training agency. In fact, as I understand it, in the research budget of university departments of education, only 8 per cent. of the research is currently relevant to initial teacher training. That is why I do not believe that the teacher training agency will necessarily be the most competent body to deal with it.
There are of course other cases where research which may be vital to education needs the assistance of another department; for example, scientific research on the basis of memory. I agree that that is something which teacher training needs, but it is something which may need also the services of perhaps a geneticist or a psychologist. It is the sort of research which belongs inside a university context. Where it is done jointly by people on different funding systems, with different priorities and different instructions, there must be at least the possibility of confusion.
Another example is religious education, which regularly concerns this House. Were there to be work done on improving the teaching of religious education, it would make sense to have that in the same place as departments of theology, of Jewish studies and of oriental studies. That is something again which, relevant though it may be to the teacher training agency, goes way beyond its remit and could not be very easily handled competently by the agency.
I do not know whether the phrase "blue skies" research is appropriate in fact to anything in education. I sometimes suspect not. But it was research in the departments of education at Oxford and Sussex which gave the Department for Education the idea for this Bill. If that had been going on along ordinary bureaucratic lines, I do not believe that it would have happened.
So what do we do about all these incompatible objectives? I do not believe that we can take the whole of the higher education system in departments of education and give it to the teacher training agency. I understand the case for not splitting up the academic subject category. It seems to me that the most sensible way out of this dilemma is the one suggested in the amendment to be moved next by the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, and the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy. I have not supported that before because I was still hoping that we would get the teacher training agency out of the Bill altogether. I do not believe that the noble Baroness is under any illusions about my views on that subject. But since it is in the Bill, the interlocking between research and the teacher training agency would be best. addressed along the route that the noble Lord and the noble Baroness are about to put forward. It is vital in educational research, and especially in research relevant. to initial teacher training, that there should be plurality in this matter.
That is also perhaps vital to some of those who fund research. My noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby, who is unfortunately unable to be here today, has asked me to report that she is a board member of the Rand European Advisory Council and the US-based Educational Research Center. She has asked me to tell the House, as I understand she has already told the noble Baroness, that both these institutions, which have the highest respect for British educational research, would be a good deal more reluctant to commission research under the teacher training agency which they would see as being directly government patronised. Although the noble Baroness may say that they are wrong about that, in this kind of thing a perception is a fact. Whatever that would do to our educational research, it would certainly be bad for our balance of payments. I beg to move.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Skidelsky: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Earl for what he has said about our amendment. I very much appreciated the eloquent way in which he put forward his own arguments, which I entirely endorse. The purpose of our amendment is not to abolish Clause 4(2) but to amend it. As it stands, it is much too wide in scope. It gives the teacher training agency functions which go well beyond its responsibilities for providing initial teacher training. Above all, it uses a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
There is wide agreement that there is a problem which paragraph (b) tries to address. That problem is that the teacher training agency needs good research in order to underpin its funding decisions, but there is no guarantee that research spontaneously generated in the universities will meet those requirements. Different. research agendas are pursued by different researchers. The answer is not for the teacher training agency to take

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control of all educational research but to give the power to the teacher training agency to commission the research that it needs to underpin its responsibilities. That is the whole purpose of the amendment.
There is no need for the teacher training agency to have anything at all to do with other kinds of educational research or with courses in education which are not intended to lead to qualified teacher status. University courses in education include academic studies in education which are part of modular humanities or social science degrees, courses in the management and organisation of education, courses in sports science, teaching English as a foreign language, distance learning and so on. Most of those have, at best, only an indirect and tenuous connection with initial teacher training. Similarly, I may wish to do research into an aspect of the history or philosophy or even the anthropology of education. What on earth should the teacher training agency have to do with that? It is not relevant to initial teacher training yet, as presently drafted, Clause 4(2) gives the teacher training agency responsibility for funding all those educational studies, irrespective of their relevance to teacher education.
We ask, therefore, that the present funding system in respect of academic subject category 11.2—that is, the non-initial teacher training part of education in the universities—should be left undisturbed, with the single exception which our amendment allows: that is, the power of the teacher training agency to commission research into initial teacher training which it wants to have done.
I am grateful to the noble Earl for accepting that our amendment is the most sensible way forward in order to secure that most of the valid activities in education research remain undisturbed and subject to the present funding arrangements, with this particular exception. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will accept the logic of what we are saying and bring forward an appropriate amendment at Third Reading.
Lord Dainton: My Lords, I want to do no more than reinforce what has been said by the two preceding speakers. Indeed, I could not possibly match the flights of eloquence of the noble Earl, Lord Russell. I should like to say simply that I regard the teacher training agency as a body established with work to do. Like any such body, it needs to have access to research and it needs to commission research. It is in the position of being a customer for it, but the contractors may be found almost anywhere. In the light of what has been said and from my own experience, I think most of those contractors will be found within the universities. The advantage of removing from the teacher training agency the aspects referred to in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, is that there is then a linkage of basic and strategic research—not that directly commissioned by the teacher training agency—with the other disciplines which are so relevant, to which the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, referred. Many others can be added, such as physiology, child psychology, linguistics and philosophy. The list is long.
The other point that I should like to make is that the
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people there have the resources to carry out the work. I would therefore add my voice to the suggestion that the amendment which stands in the names of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, myself and others might be replaced by that which stands in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky.
The noble Lord, Lord Walton, referred to an article in today's Independent. As he was speaking, I got hold of a copy of it. It is interesting to note that only today Michael McCrum, the former headmaster of Eton and chairman of the Independent Schools Joint Council, states succinctly:
"The teaching profession needs to benefit from fundamental research in education, and the minister responsible needs to hear impartial advice based on that research".
That is what we all want to see established. I do not think that it can be provided by having the driving force in the selection of research projects and so forth exclusively in the hands of the teacher training agency. Therefore, I support Amendment No. 17.
Lord Walton of Detchant: My Lords, I too very much welcome Amendment No. 17. The Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals pointed out that in the 1992 research assessment exercise, 12 of the 86 education units in our institutions of higher education were rated "five", indicating that the quality of their research was of high international standard. The range of that educational research is huge. Only 8 per cent. of it is directly relevant to teacher education and training. It would, I think, have been a mistake to have left the Bill as it stood originally, which would have had the effect of separating educational research from the mainstream of research in all other fields of higher education.
I should like briefly to give a medical analogy because I am a former teacher of medical students and of postgraduates in medicine. I was absolutely convinced that the results of research and research techniques nourished and enlivened teaching. I often said that today's discovery in basic medical science brings tomorrow's practical development in patient care.
Of very great significance, I believe, in pursuing the aim that we all have of improving the quality, standing and status of teachers in our society is the fact that the inspirational example of teachers who have been nurtured in a research setting and atmosphere and who have been trained in research techniques is something which is likely to improve recruitment, particularly in the areas in which we are short of specialist teachers at the moment, such as science and modern languages.
Finally, postgraduate education is crucial. Last week, I had the privilege of attending degree day at the Institute of Education at the University of London. I was greatly impressed by the very wide range of advanced diplomas and masters degree courses in such topics as the assessment and development of reading, child development, special educational needs, computing and educational technology, music, counselling, art and design, religious education, languages, science education and many more. Those courses were based upon research. The role of research in teacher training in those and many other courses is paramount, while for

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doctorates it is fundamental. That part of research must surely stay with the higher education funding council. Nevertheless, the amendment which has been proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, and the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, seems absolutely right. I hope very much that the House will accept it.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, having listened to four very distinguished academics talking about this subject, I wonder whether I might say a word as a lay person who does not pretend to understand all the interlinking processes that go on when higher education funding is being discussed in the funding council or elsewhere. However, as a lay person, I regard Amendments Nos. 16 and 17 as a very important pair of amendments. They are linked, but they deal with two subjects. I am not sure whether that has become clear in the discussion. They are about the extent of funding the teaching which the agency needs to fulfil its main function of initial teacher training. They are also about the amount of research that the agency will need to be able to bring about if it is to be able to fulfil its function.
If the agency is to do its job properly, it seems to me that the allocation of responsibilities between the new agency, the higher education funding council and the higher education institutions must be such that the new arrangements operate smoothly and effectively. It is clearly crucial to avoid damaging and wasteful duplication or fragmentation of higher education teaching or, indeed, of research. It is important to do as we are in the amendment so far doing—to look objectively, and, if possible, not to confuse the desirability, or otherwise, of having a teacher training agency at all. I believe that we are succeeding in doing that, arid that should be helpful to my noble friend the Minister.
The nub of the question was raised by amendments discussed in Committee, at col. 1645 of Hansard of 10th March. I was sorry that because I had to catch an overnight sleeper I could not take part in that discussion. I regard the amendment as important. My noble friend undertook, as has been said, to reflect upon the matter. She has since written to interested noble Lords to say that she remains open minded on Clause 4 (1) (b) and will be glad to listen to further discussion. That discussion we are now having. I am sure that my noble friend is wise to take time to look at the issue.
Viewed objectively, the complicated balance of advantage and disadvantage in the Bill's approach in Clause 4, compared with the alternative suggested by the amendment, is complex and not altogether easy to assess. The Bill makes what, on the face of it, looks a clear cut and tidy proposition; that the funding of the whole of what the Higher Education Funding Council for England has grouped as academic subject category 11.2 should be transferred from the funding council to the new agency, and the council's related research assessment with it. The trouble is that the area of initial teacher training forms one section only of academic subject category 11. In the other sections, there are, as the noble Earl, Lord Russell, indicated, all sorts of teaching subject areas, some of which form part of
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courses which do not lead to an initial teacher training qualification, and others which have very little or nothing to do with initial teacher training.
Likewise, the linked research assessment exercise is spread across all those areas. That means that under the Bill as it stands the new agency would find itself involved in complicated negotiations about funding courses which have little to do with its main function, and in funding parts of courses which are paid for jointly by higher education institutions running, for example, social work or humanities degree courses. Since initial teacher training is the main responsibility of the agency and is identifiable in one distinct part of the HEFC's academic subject category, surely it would be simpler by far, for that reason if for no other, to limit the responsibility of the agency to initial teacher training and the commissioning of related research as indicated by Amendment No. 17.
The Government could identify with the funding council's help the funding required for initial teacher training and transfer that to the agency. As to research, the Secretary of State already commissions research, I understand, from his own budget. That money could be transferred to the agency. It seems a simpler approach. It may have flaws which worry my noble friend. I can understand that, but I believe the alternative in the Bill has greater flaws. The balance of the argument may well be found to be with Amendment No. 17 on purely objective grounds, and as seen by lay persons. So I hope that my noble friend will look carefully at that.
6.45 p.m.
Baroness Perry of Southwark: My Lords, I believe that there is general agreement in the House that what we are all seeking is high quality research in the field of education. There is no doubt that that is what every noble Lord who has spoken wants to see. There is no doubt also that we all want high quality initial teacher training. That is an extremely important aim of the Bill. We have all signed up to the importance of the way in which teachers are trained and for the quality of what happens in schools.
The issue in question in the clause arid the two amendments is how the funding arrangements for research and initial teacher training can best further the high quality of research and initial training. If the Bill remains unamended, then all the funding of research relating to education would be transferred to the new agency. Although a substantial minority of educational research is not related to practice in schools and not relevant to what happens in schools, to what teachers are doing day by day, and to what the administrators are doing day by day, nevertheless the vast majority of educational research, quite rightly, bears upon the quality of what happens in schools. It is helpful and right that that should be so. There is therefore a strong argument for putting together the places where the funding of the training and the funding for the research are to be found.
One part of my heart is very much with the Bill as it stands and the wish to see the teacher training agency take over responsibility for the funding of research so that the research can inform and enhance the quality of

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initial training. My fear is that initial training will become divorced from academic excellence and academic bite. If that happens, we shall have made initial training worse and not better. Therefore I am inclined to feel, although I wholly support Amendment No. 17, that the agency must have the right directly to commission research. My inclination also—it is a finely balanced argument—is to leave the agency with the ability to develop its own expertise in knowing where good educational research is to be found and bringing it close together with the training.
The fear, of course, of doing that and leaving the Bill as it stands is that we could, in a different way, by cutting the seamless robe at the research point as well, diminish the quality of the research that is done; make it somehow less than it was before; and take it away from the academic mainstream and put it only with initial training. We need to examine the issue not, as we have been inclined to do so far, at the national level and on the basis of agencies co-operating with one another —the HEFC co-operating with the TTA and so on—but at the institutional level. We should concentrate on the departments where teachers are trained and ask whether being able to gain their funding from the same single agency gives power to the quality of what those departments do or whether it might not be better, within the structure of higher education, to allow the research to remain in the mainstream of the HEFC's remit so that it can be spread across the whole of higher education.
I believe that the arguments are finely balanced. They do not divide along party lines. On balance, I am inclined to try to give the TTA the maximum power to develop its own academic base and bite. If that can be achieved by leaving the research funding for area 11.2 with it, then so be it.
Baroness Warnock: My Lords, I support Amendment No. 17. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, for putting the case so clearly, as I believe she did. She showed that there is a fine balance in this regard. However, it seems to me to be clear and helpful to put side by side the two functions of the new agency.
If Amendment No. 17 gained favour, the agency would have the great advantage of being able to use the enormous amount of research that is currently taking place where teachers practising in schools and universities are working together. The possibility of commissioning such research would be an extremely important advantage for the new agency.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, I had the pleasure of being at the London institute last week. I spoke to Dr. Peter Mortimore, who has just embarked on an enormously ambitious collection of research exercises which, interestingly enough, is based both on Glasgow and South of the Border—in particular, in London schools. I believe that the findings of such research will improve schools and also the training of teachers. If you know what is needed to make a good school, you know what is needed for the training of teachers who will teach in those schools. I believe that mixed research which is taken on by teachers under the guidance of an extremely experienced research team of
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a university would be just the kind of work which the new teacher training agency could helpfully commission.
Much of that research is taking place at present. If we accept Amendment No. 17 we shall not waste all that good work which is taking place jointly between schools and higher education institutions. That is why I support Amendment No. 17.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, I support Amendments Nos. 16 and 17. I wish to make only one point that was called to mind by the communication via the noble Earl, Lord Russell, from the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, about the credibility of some kinds of research that appear to be funded directly by an agency which is thought of as an arm of government for particular and perfectly respectable purposes.
I say that because, in the widest sense, educational research almost inevitably involves conclusions about policy. Those conclusions are likely to be highly controversial. The example that I give was the remark made by the noble Baroness, Lady Cox—and I am sorry she is not in her place—when she reminded us of the rather distressing statistic (I never remember figures) that up to 20 per cent. of young adults have difficulties with literacy or numeracy. She used that as an argument to show how ineffective teacher training must have been hitherto.
It called to my mind a statistic that was very close to that on the proportion of young adults in that position arrived at by a commission of inquiry in France three or four years ago. Therefore, that statistic cannot be attributed wholly to our own failings because it is a matter of international significance and scale. The United States, or some states there, can certainly provide similar statistics. Such matters need to be investigated before we can be clear about our path forward in education. It seems to me that it will have greater credibility if it is investigated in independent institutions of higher education.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: My Lords, in many ways I am surprised that this matter does not seem clearer to some of your Lordships. The Government and the Bill propose the establishment of a teacher training agency whose primary concern will be teacher training. We shall still have a Higher Education Funding Council whose primary concern will be higher education.
Normally the conduct of research falls clearly within the scope of higher education. As Amendment No. 17 suggests, and as the noble Earl, Lord Russell, conceded when moving Amendment No. 16, it makes perfect sense for the teacher training agency sometimes to fund research into teacher training, in particular initial teacher training. But to start thinking of the whole field of educational research as the province of a teacher training agency seems to me quite absurd.
Moreover, it pains me to suggest that my noble friend may have found herself to be inconsistent, but only a few moments ago in relation to Amendment No. 15 she argued with great eloquence that it would be inappropriate for the provision of teacher education and training to qualify for funding under this part. She objected to the words "education and" in response to the

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amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and she wished to restrict the matter to the provision of teacher training.
If you are not willing to put money into the provision of teacher education and training, how bizarre it is to wish to put money into the provision of research into that broader field. That is a complete inconsistency. The case has been elegantly made by the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, that research into education goes far beyond the field of teacher training alone; for example, there may well be research into university education or education into other lands, a point that has already been made on the other side of the House.
The teacher training agency will not necessarily have the competence to judge those matters. Who will judge whether or not the money being put towards PhDs is well spent? It is true that the agency can provide funding for people to judge such matters but it is surely the case that the Higher Education Funding Council should have a competence in the area of research but that is no part of the teacher training agency.
With the instrumentalist aim of improving the teacher training agency's policies, it can fund research in the areas which are of specific concern to it. That is suggested in Amendment No. 17. The whole field of educational research in general, which is a very wide field involving higher education, primary education, infant education, growth of children and growth of perception, some of which are theoretical fields, surely goes far beyond the scope of anything that we should consider to he the primary concern of a teacher training agency per se.
Baroness David: My Lords, perhaps I could intervene now because we on these Benches have waited quite a long time. I feel quite nervous speaking among all the distinguished academics who have contributed to the debate but I think the voice of common sense has just come from the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, and I support every word that he said.
It seems to me that the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, gives the best of both worlds. It allows the teacher training agency to ask for research into initial teacher training and it would be commissioned, according to that amendment, by the funding agency, which I think perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, did not say when she spoke. In fact, she seems to be the only one who has not fully supported the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky. But it does seem to me that it strikes the right balance and certainly we on these Benches support him. I hope very much that the Minister has reflected on it and with the strength of feeling in this Chamber tonight will agree to accept the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky.
Baroness Perry of Southwark: My Lords, with the leave of the House, perhaps I may, first, ask the noble Baroness to acknowledge the fact that I did say that I agreed with the concept of the agency being able to support research related to teacher training. Further, does the noble Baroness really believe that research
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which bears upon the quality of what is good education is irrelevant to teacher training? Surely the noble Baroness is not of that view.
7 p.m.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, perhaps I may say briefly that, of course, such research must be relevant to teacher education and training. However, I reiterate what my noble friend and many other speakers have said. The real issue is whether it would be right for a teacher training agency to have the responsibility for commissioning and funding research on such a wide range of educational issues. Some of those issues do not have a direct relevance for the provision of initial teacher training and education, although they may well be drawn upon by those who are responsible for providing teacher training and education, That is the distinction that we are discussing so far as concerns the amendment. I very much hope that the Minister will feel able to support the amendment tabled in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky.
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I, too, am in favour of my noble friend's amendment, apart from the inclusion of the word "initial". It seems to me that one of the main symptoms of the failings of the teacher education system at present is that, although it provides the great bulk of initial training, it provides so little of the continuing education which teachers require and for which the noble Lord, Lord Walton, pointed out the need in his report.
Once the teacher training agency is in existence—and if the analogy with the Further Education Funding Council is anything to go by—I would expect the teacher training departments of universities and the: independent colleges quickly to become involved in the continuing education of teachers on a large scale. If that is to be the case, I hope that the ITA will be able to commission research to support that activity as well as the initial training of teachers.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I shall certainly reflect on all that has been said, and especially the remarks just made by my noble friend Lord Lucas. In fact, I could add yet another variation; namely, research relevant to teaching commissioned by the agency. The whole issue highlights a number of questions which have been raised during the debate.
Lord Skidelsky: My Lords, with the leave of the House, perhaps I may say a few words on that point. Unfortunately, there is a misprint in the amendment. It should refer to research,
"commissioned by the teacher training agency",
whereas, it actually refers to "the funding agency". I am sorry if that error has misled my noble friend the Minister or, indeed, other Members of the House. We have proceeded on the correct assumption that it is research commissioned by the TTA.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I would not qualify as a proof reader because I had in mind what I believed to be in the amendment rather than the words that are actually there. However, that just adds to the number of reasons why I believe I should take the matter away and

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reconsider what was said in today's debate and in Committee with a view to reflecting upon the arguments raised.
Those noble Lords to whom I have written will know that I had hoped for a full debate on the important issues in order to see whether the views of noble Lords were closer to consensus than they appeared at the previous stage. We have had a full debate and there seems to be a growing consensus among those who have spoken. I shall certainly reflect fully on what has been said with a view to considering whether amendments to the Bill are necessary in order to meet the views expressed. Essentially at issue, I believe, are points of practicality rather than principle. I also believe that the arguments about non-initial teacher training courses are different from those about research.
My understanding is that the CVCP considers that the division of responsibility for courses now found within academic subject category 11.2 would best be dealt with by administrative rather than legislative means, taking into account advice from the Higher Education Funding Council and following consultation with institutions. I shall also reflect on that aspect.
It may also be for the benefit of Members of the House present in the Chamber this afternoon—although I suspect there are not many—who are not familiar with academic subject category 11.2 if I explained what is involved. It is the category of funding for all education studies other than initial teacher training and research. It ranges from MEds and other higher degrees intended primarily for serving teachers, to education modules within undergraduate humanities degrees for people with no intention of becoming teachers. It also includes sports studies. We are discussing with the HEFCE at present whether to untangle that academic subject category and, if so, how.
That approach would allow courses which are obviously not sensibly linked with the responsibilities of the agency—medical ethics is just one example—to be left with the funding council, while courses like masters degrees in education, which are often taken by serving teachers, are transferred. That is in fact almost exactly what we were always proposing. Officials have been in discussion with the funding council for some time about how to secure a sensible split. But it would not be possible to do what the CVCP has suggested if the only power left to the agency were the funding of "teacher training" and Clause 4(1) (b) were deleted, as suggested in Amendments Nos. 16 and 17.
The arguments about the funding of research seem to me more complex than those about education courses. There is the question of whether a teacher training agency should have responsibility for funding research which does not have any direct relevance to teaching and learning in English schools. Those are very like the arguments about non-initial teacher training courses—some of the research will clearly be highly relevant to the agency's work, some will not. Perhaps the funds could be split in the same way by inspection of current practice.
While I am on that point, I note that Amendment No. 17, tabled in the names of my noble friends Lord
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Skidelsky and Lady Carnegy, would seek to make explicit the agency's power to fund research which was clearly intended to support its functions. On that point, I can give my noble friends a categorical assurance: the agency already has that power by virtue of its general powers in Schedule 1, and that would not be a necessary addition to the Bill whatever the scope of the agency's powers under Clause 4.
Turning back to the wider issues, there is also the question of accountability for research funds—the wish of higher education institutions to be able to move research funding between categories rather than have any element ring-fenced for education research. Those in education departments may not be so worried about that. As I have said before, the funding "earned" through education research ratings is public knowledge for each institution, so the flows into other disciplines are probably not that great.
On the question of research assessment, I am certainly happy to agree that it would be sensible for the agency to buy into the research assessment exercise run for all the funding councils by the funding council for England. As for the other councils, the split of funding and assessment need not be a problem. The agency might choose to apply the common gradings in a different way, with greater rewards for excellence, for example.
It still seems to me that overall the arguments point to an administrative solution to those questions—which we can adjust in the light of experience—rather than an amendment on the face of the Bill. However, as I said, I shall certainly continue to hold discussions about the right way ahead so that we can reach a conclusion which addresses the important concerns which were raised today and in Committee. With that, I hope that the noble Earl and my noble friend will feel able to withdraw their amendments on the understanding that there will be real discussion between now and Third Reading.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I thank the Minister most warmly for her promise to take the matter away for further consideration. We are a great deal closer to agreement than we were in Committee. I agree that we have not quite got there yet, but it seems to me likely that we will do so with a little more talking. On that basis, I shall agree to withdraw my amendment. However, before doing so, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, and the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour, who have contributed so much —as, indeed have other speakers—towards finding a point where we can secure a means of settling the matter which is acceptable to all of us.
It is not just higher education as a whole. The noble Baroness suggested that departments of education might be slightly less keen to stay within the existing framework than the rest of universities. That is certainly not true of my own department of education which wrote to me most eloquently to the opposite effect only this morning. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 17 not moved.]
Lord Judd Lord Judd moved Amendment No. 18:

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Page 3, leave out lines 6 to 8.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving the above amendment I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 19, 20, 21 and 25. These amendments define the vital partnership between schools and higher education. Both sets of institutions have a role and I should emphasise in this context the vital contribution made by special schools catering for special educational needs. The Department for Education recognised in paragraph 2 of its own circular 14/93 that there should be,
"a greater role for schools, which are best placed to help student teachers develop and apply practical teaching skills; a continuing need for study in higher education institutions of the subject knowledge necessary for sound teaching of the primary curriculum".
Our amendments therefore reflect the Department for Education's own definition in its own circular 14/93 and they also underpin the amendments to Clauses 11 and 13 carried by the Chamber in Committee.
I now turn to Amendment No. 25. Following the debate at Committee on Clause 11, schools will be allowed to provide courses in partnership with higher education institutions. This amendment removes the provisions for the teacher training agency to establish and maintain,
"an appropriate balance between school-centred courses and other courses".
Also it removes the ability for schools to conduct independent fund raising, including charging students additional fees on top of those defined by the teacher training agency. As it reads, Clause 6 encourages the teacher training agency to introduce school centred courses by suggesting there must be a balance and that to promote such courses is desirable. What, of course, any teacher training agency should be doing is to ensure that every course has an appropriate balance of input from schools and higher education institutions. Again, in arguing this I emphasise that the Department for Education itself recognised the essential involvement of higher education for initial teacher training—as it was then called—in circular 14/93.
Before I finish speaking to these amendments I hope I may quote from some authorities which have not so far been conspicuous in our deliberations. We have talked a lot about the experience of people in higher education and in other relevant areas of our national life. However, I think it is good to turn to the views of students themselves as they respond to their preparation. The Association of Teachers and Lecturers has commissioned some interesting research in Warwick University which was undertaken by Linda Evans and Ian Abbott. In looking at the research, I am intrigued to find that among those students questioned who were enrolled either in schemes which involved a partnership with higher education or in schemes administered by schools, the number who more or less agreed with the principle of the involvement of higher education ranged between 87 per cent. and 100 per cent. It may be helpful if I refer briefly to the comments of some of those students. Among those giving an unqualified "yes" to the involvement of higher education, some interviewees focused on practical issues such as the availability of resources. One said:
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"Yes, definitely, so teachers have a wealth of research information to draw from. Access to library and computing facilities … Better preparation before an actual teaching role. You have a home".
Another student said:
"Yes, higher education institutions have resources, i.e. a wide range of personnel with different skills, who can be timetabled An environment which is designed to teach us rather than one whose priority is school teaching. Has resources to compile more in-depth courses".
Another student said:
"Yes. Teacher training raises ability, skills and knowledge through application of techniques in practice, thus coping better. Higher education helps to cross many levels through to college—also helps older students feel at ease—raises levels of expectation".
I refer to two other quotations which I believe are relevant to this part of our deliberations but also to other matters we have discussed this evening. One student said:
"I think that in the first place the teacher should have a strong academic background: broad information—general education, as well as sound specific specialisation (if applicable) before presenting before a class, at any level. Professionalism can only be gained through education".
There are many other such comments that I could quote but I shall share one final quotation with: your Lordships this evening. Another student stated:
"Higher education can offer a broader base to teacher training, including teaching/learning philosophies and approaches. As students go into a variety of schools and can then compare experiences, such a scheme broadens the outlook of the trainee. Having a higher education element to a PGCE also maintains professionalism and the status of the teacher in society, compared with professional training for law and accountancy".
Those remarks reflect how students view their experiences. It is because we feel that that is a pertinent set of observations and because we feel that these amendments are designed to strengthen the partnership which we think is essential that we put them forward. I beg to move.
Earl Russell: My Lords, we on these Benches strongly support these amendments but I will not stand between the House and its dinner by saying so at any length.
7.15 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I say at the outset to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, that I have no dispute at all with what he has just said in quoting the perceptions of students. But why should we be so mean as to cut off the other students who have chosen of their own volition to undertake school centred training? Why should we cut off schools and consortia of schools that have chosen of their own volition to provide those courses'? The noble Lord may have found one group of satisfied students but it is our wish that all students should be satisfied. I throw out an open invitation to the noble Lord. I am prepared to accompany him, if he wishes, to a course of school centred teacher training and let us both talk to students on that course. That will address all the gaps in such training that the noble Lord has hinted at.
The noble Lord referred to circular 14/93. The study of subjects in higher education as required in that circular is fully covered and fully secured by the requirement that those entering school provided courses are graduates, as the Bill secures.

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Amendments Nos. 18 to 21 would limit the agency to funding schools only where they were in partnership with a higher education institution. The real purpose of the amendments is clear from Amendment No. 25, which takes away the duty of the agency to set a balance between school-centred and other courses. There would be no need for such a balance in the noble Lord's approach because he does not want there to be any genuinely school-centred training. There may be an effective and willing group of schools, and there may be Ofsted evidence about how well those schools could provide training, but still the noble Lord would block their way.
Schools which want to work in partnership with higher education have the power to involve themselves in school-based courses. The reform of courses to require genuine working with schools—higher education not just placing students in a passive school, but involving serving teachers in their training and assessment—has been widely welcomed. All secondary courses should be operating on such a model by this September. Noble Lords opposite appear to believe that as this model works we should make no further changes. But the Government wish to build upon that success and widen the training models. It is often schools which have worked in the most effective partnerships that have the confidence and the will to play a leading role. We do not want to stop them from doing so.
These schools will be training students who have already graduated from courses validated by higher education. It is as well to remember that there will be that important safeguard. Quite apart from anything else, it means that students will themselves be well placed to judge whether a course run by schools without higher education validation is the right course for them; and the way is clear for schools that wish to seek higher education validation. We do, however, want them to have the choice, subject to the vital point that accreditation by the teacher training agency and inspection under arrangements made by Ofsted, will be ensuring common standards.
So we are happy to allow schools the freedom to choose whether or not they work with higher education partners. Noble Lords opposite must fear—for what reason I do not know, for there is no evidence I am aware of—that large numbers of schools would choose to go it alone, without any involvement of higher education. and that higher education would therefore be marginalised in teacher training. That is the only reason that I can think of for making it a requirement in law that higher education should have the whip hand. If they believe—as we have heard—that schools do not want to be diverted from their main business and that all representative bodies for teachers and schools are strongly in favour of higher education involvement, then what is there to fear?
I can imagine the riposte: what have we to fear from requiring higher education involvement if it is likely in any event? It is those who want to stifle choice, not those who want to widen it, who must bear the burden of argument. What incentive will there be on higher education to be accommodating to schools and to play
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a supportive role when schools have no option but to work with them? If those in higher education are to be the sole gatekeepers they will be able to make the rules of involvement to suit themselves. There will be no safety valve for a group of schools which wants to take a different approach.
It has been suggested that we are inconsistent in allowing schools to run courses without higher education involvement but through the criteria not allowing higher education to offer courses except in partnership with schools. I do not think that anyone really believes that higher education institutions could prepare teachers for their professional role without close involvement with schools. Nor do we believe, as I have said a number of times in previous debates, that it is possible to have a competent teacher with no experience of higher education. But I believe that some groups of good schools are well able to offer a fourth, professional training year, building on three years' previous higher education without necessarily drawing on a higher education institution for help.
In Amendment No. 25, which removes schools' power to attract private funding or to charge fees, the noble Lord, Lord Judd, has mistaken one of the intended effects of that amendment. I have to tell him that it does not remove the power of schools to attract funds or to charge fees; nor could schools provide initial teacher training without charging fees exactly as higher education institutions do.
The noble Lord, Lord Judd, spoke about the views of students. Students will be free to apply for courses based on their own priorities. The current school-centred courses are oversubscribed. Indeed, at this moment there are students clamouring for courses. When I first met graduates attending school-centred courses I asked each of them why they did not apply to a higher education institution. In many cases they had applied to a higher education institution and then decided to set that place aside in favour of a school-centred teacher training course because it better met their own priorities. Therefore, I believe that if the noble Lord will accept my invitation it might be a fruitful sojourn for both of us to make between now and Third Reading.
The amendments are a sign of the noble Lord's lack of trust in Ofsted, in schools and in the agency's ability to meet its remit. It is those bodies and their procedures which will ensure quality whenever courses are provided. I fear that the noble Lord simply wants to return us to the monopoly provision by higher education with no scope for those schools which want to play a role and offer a little competition on equal terms.
Lord Judd: My Lords, I should be delighted to accompany the Minister on the mission she suggests. I look forward to that.
The quotations I gave were taken from students who were attending school courses as well as from those on courses in partnership with higher education. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 19 to 21 not moved.]
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, I beg to move that further consideration on Report be now adjourned. In doing so I suggest that the Report stage begins again at 8.25 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

Israeli Occupied Territories
7.24 p.m.
Lord Gilmour of Craigmillar Lord Gilmour of Craigmillar asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether the Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention; and if so, what steps the United Kingdom as a signatory of the convention is taking to remedy this breach of international law.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, subject to what my noble friend the Minister and other noble Lords have to say, there is little doubt about the answer to the first part of the Question. Article 49 of the Geneva Convention states:
"The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own [civilian] population into the territory it occupies".
Nothing could be clearer than that. If the illegality of the settlements is flagrant both the ethics and the politics of those settlements are similarly clear and reinforce the case for the enforcement of international law.
The 1967 borders of Israel—the internationally recognised borders—give Israel 67 per cent. of the land of Palestine. It follows that the indigenous population of Palestine have just 23 per cent. of their own country. That is not, one would have thought, an excessive proportion.
Unfortunately, Israeli governments, ever greedy for more land, have pursued an illegal programme of colonisation which has gone far further than is generally realised. If Jerusalem is included, as it plainly has to be, there are no fewer than 280,000 Israeli settlers in the Occupied Territories. The Gaza Strip is the most heavily populated place in the world. More than 800,000 Palestinians live there, in conditions which a leading Israeli journalist has described as living on a garbage heap.
In addition to those 800,000 Palestinians there are some 4,000 Israeli settlers and the Israeli army. I need hardly tell your Lordships that those settlers are not overcrowded. Nor is the occupying Israeli army. The reason is that those 4,000 settlers and the Israeli army occupy no less than one third of the land area. When I was in Gaza last year I was told by a reliable Palestinian source that that proportion has now risen to 43 per cent. However, as I am relying in these remarks on Israeli sources and largely on Israeli language I shall stick to the figure of 33 per cent. The 4,000 settlers and the army have at least half as much land as the 800,000 Palestinians. How anybody can have allowed that to happen, still less defend it or seek to perpetuate it, defies understanding.
As Israel's most respected military commentator, Ze-ev Schiff, wrote in Haaretz last year:
"We have continued to steal the Strip's water, even though its quality deteriorates from year to year. We have continued to steal
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the Strip's tiny land resources in order to found more and more Jewish settlements, as if we deliberately wanted to make the inhabitants despair".
So the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip are not only illegal, they are indecent in their extent and ostentation and they are a denial of rudimentary justice.
Unfortunately the situation is no better on the West Bank and East Jerusalem. There, too, Israel—to use Mr. Schiff's word—has "stolen" Palestinian land and water on a massive scale. The distinguished Israeli politician, Mr. Meron Benvenisti, wrote last year:
"Two million Palestinians of the Territories, who amount to a little less than a third of the total population of Palestine, now control no more than 8% of the water resources and 1:3% of the land".
That means that Israel has stolen some 43 per cent. of the Occupied Territories—the same figure that my Palestinian informant gave me.
Shortly after he resigned as head of the civil administration of the West: Bank, Brigadier General Ephraim Sneh observed that the amount of water pumped for an Israeli resident on the West Bank is 12 times as much as the amount pumped for a Palestinian. Palestinians have been prevented from digging any new wells since 1967 in order to give the Israelis as much water as they want. "Robbing" the Palestinians of their water is also, of course, illegal under the Geneva Convention.
There is a widespread delusion that the Rabin Government have stopped the building of settlements and have given up stealing Palestinian land. Regrettably, although the present Israeli Government, unlike their predecessors, want peace, thank heavens, of a sort, anybody who goes to the West Bank will see that that is quite untrue; and indeed the Government pinched another 9,000 acres in the Jerusalem area as recently as last December. Indeed the Rabin Government, like their predecessors, seem intent on stealing all East Jerusalem and greatly extending their boundaries. Yet no amount of propaganda about Jerusalem being Israel's "eternal capital"—which is historically complete rubbish, as noble Lords realise—can alter the fact that East Jerusalem is legally and rightfully Palestinian, as indeed incidentally was a good deal of West Jerusalem until the Israelis ethnically cleansed it in 1948.
As is now notorious, the Rabin Government have been wholly negligent in controlling the settlers' violence. Long before the atrocity at Hebron last month, an Israeli journalist accused the settlers there of being "a racist conquest regime" relentlessly seeking "domination". I must admit that I gained a similar impression last year. At the same time, an Israeli paratroop unit serving in Hebron was so incensed by the settlers' treatment of the Palestinians that it sent a petition to the Defence Ministry. Also, apparently, the settlers' children are taught to call the Israeli soldiers Nazis. Even if brutal—the Israeli army has killed something like 300 Palestinian children aged 16 and under since the Intifada began—the Israeli soldiers are certainly not Nazis. If anyone is Nazi it is the extremist religious settlers. Indeed the distinguished dissident Professor Heshayahu Leibowitz has said that the mass murder in Hebron was a consequence of "Judeo-Nazism".
Before the massacre, Jewish settlers had often shot Palestinians, yet the Israeli army was forbidden to shoot back at them and the Israeli courts scarcely punished them. The extremist Rabbi Levinger, unusually, was found guilty in 1990 of murdering an Arab and then suffered the draconian penalty for the murder of 85 days in prison. The Jewish settlements have thus produced a racist apartheid regime in the Occupied Territories.
The massacre in the Hebron mosque was the direct consequence of that system and of Israel's illegal policy of colonisation and theft. I very much doubt whether Dr. Goldstein was mad. I think that he was all too representative of a familiar settler attitude, which was demonstrated again by the widespread settler support for his action. And Goldstein's grave seems now to have become something of a shrine for those of his ilk.
The settlements are not only illegal; they are moral, political, aesthetic as well as legal monstrosities. Their continuance will make peace impossible—and that, after all, is why most of them were established.
Having previously lost 75 per cent. of their land, the Palestinians cannot be expected to accept the illegal expropriation of nearly half of the small part of their country which still remains to them. Furthermore, the settlers and the settlements are an endless source of violence. International law must prevail and the settlements must go.
I hope that Her Majesty's Government will now play a more active part. That is all the more necessary because of the shamelessly one-sided behaviour of the Clinton administration. A few years ago it was said that the American Senate and Congress were "Israeli-occupied territory". The sheeplike obedience to the Israeli lobby of 82 senators over the UN resolution on Hebron recently confirmed that truth. Unfortunately, under the Clinton administration, as under the Reagan one, the White House and the State Department are also Israeli occupied territory. The Clinton administration's stance is one of submission to Israel, and the current State Department negotiators are more Israeli than the Israelis and more Likud-oriented than Labour-oriented.
No contest—legal, sporting or anything else—can properly work if the supervisor, umpire or judge comes down completely on one side against the other. That is why it is imperative that Britain and Europe should now play a major role in ending the illegal settlements and standing up strongly for what is right.
7.35 p.m.
Lord Haskel: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Gilmour, has clearly stated one interpretation of Article 49. Others take the opposite view. They say that the movement of population into the territory under control is prohibited only to the extent that it involves the displacement of the local population; and the Israeli section of the International Commission of Jurists takes the view that Article 49 has not been contravened because the establishment of the settlements has not meant that the local population has been displaced.
However, it is the question of land held by settlers which is most contentious. According to my sources, only 7 per cent. of the West Bank land is held by settlers
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and it was acquired legally. Prior to 1967, only about half the land had been registered and classified. So there is uncertainty over the ownership of some parcels of land. Some land in the West Bank had been acquired prior to 1948 by Jews who had registered it in their names.
Most of the land used for Jewish settlements was registered as government land belonging to the Jordanian Crown or the British High Commissioner. The Jordanian Crown and the British High Commissioner's title is still expressly recorded in the Land Registry. In the few instances where private land was involved, it was acquired in accordance with Jordanian law and full compensation was paid. Similar laws providing for the acquisition of land exist in Israel and most other countries.
As ever, there are two sides to the matter. The answer to the second part of the Question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Gilmour, is "support the peace process" because from that will come normality. First and foremost, normality means better functioning of the rule of law. I believe that the rule of law in Israel is paramount. But I am not a lawyer so I consulted the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, knowing that he had been involved recently in two Anglo-Israeli judicial exchanges. He has authorised me to quote him as follows:
"After the two Anglo-Israeli judicial exchanges, and in particular the British party's visit to Israel, which included myself and Lord Taylor, as well as members of the Court of Appeal and the High Court, the impression left on the British participants was that judicial standards in Israel were of a very high order indeed.
"There can be no doubt that they have developed judicial reviews so as to control the actions of Government further and to greater effect than we have in this country, and that they are great defenders of the Rule of Law. In relation to those in the Occupied Territories, they provide a remedy which is a valuable safeguard, but it is fair to say that the powers of the Israeli Supreme Court are not as great in the Occupied Territories as they are within Israel itself'.
Normality would mean that those high judicial standards would then apply to Israelis and Arabs alike, in Israel and in the territories. Meanwhile, residents of the territories have been able to bring before Israeli courts claims against the state of Israel, the military government and all their authorities. Indeed, such a position allowing residents of administered areas access to the courts of the occupying power is unprecedented in international practice. Your Lordships may recall the episode of the gas masks during the Gulf War.
The second part of normality to be brought about by the peace process is co-existence. It is the fate of Arabs and Jews to live together in Israel and in the territories, and the question of the settlements is being discussed with the Palestinians in the negotiations on the permanent status of the West Bank and Gaza.
This agreement demonstrates Israel's resolve to seek a lasting and peaceful co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians. It is a complex problem and it is best left to the three-stage framework agreed. This agreement does not require the dismantling of the settlements but will provide a way for some settlers to leave. This is already happening without government encouragement. Settlers who find life hazardous, inconvenient or

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unsatisfying or who feel betrayed by the peace process are already moving back into Israel with modest help from the housing authorities.
Since the Oslo Agreement was signed, the negotiations have been carried out under a cloud of continuous terrorism. Many Israelis have been killed and so have many Arabs. In no way does this detract from my utter and complete condemnation of the Hebron massacre. The act of this depraved and fanatical Jew leaves me with mixed feelings of pain, anguish and disgrace. I too send my heartfelt condolences to the families of those who were murdered and to the injured. As a result of this terrible crime, Israel has outlawed two groups living in the territories as terrorist organisations. I am sure that the whole House would like to see the result of this terrible event to be the rapid acceleration of the implementation of the agreement with the PLO.
Tragedies often make us review our fundamental principles. But here we should be steadfast and not let that tragedy deter our fundamental support for the peace process.
7.40 p.m.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, the views of the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, are not widely shared; that is, the legality of the settlements or the degree of justice meted out to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Although sincerely advanced, the views are not accepted by any government in the world except the Israeli Government.
The noble Lord, Lord Gilmour, has done the House a service in raising this Question today. The horror and evil of the Holocaust should not inhibit us from speaking plainly about Israel's crimes against the Palestinians. Article 49 was conceived after the war to prevent recurrence of the policy of Aryanisation during the war by which German nationals were transferred to the occupied territory in order to help lay claim to it. It is extraordinary that Article 49 should be breached by, of all people, the Israelis.
Many Israelis settled in the Occupied Territories for purely pragmatic personal reasons. Given the right incentives, they might well be persuaded to return to live in Israel. Indeed, I see no reason in principle why Jewish citizens should not live alongside Palestinians in the Palestinian state, as Palestinians live alongside Israelis in Israel.
The trouble does not arise there. The trouble comes from Israelis who have settled in the Occupied Territories for religious and ideological reasons. They claim quite unconvincingly that the land is theirs. They are armed. Not only do they refuse to move but they are dedicated to destroying the whole peace process, which they are now doing with some success.
In theory, the Israeli Government, who want the peace process to succeed, should disarm those people. They should evict them from at least two places; first, from the middle of Hebron and, secondly, from the settlement of Netzarim in the middle of Gaza. It was agreed in the latest exchanges that monitors should be sent to the area and that armed Palestinian guards should help to patrol Hebron. We hope that that will help but in my view it is not nearly enough. The Israeli Government
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lack the political will and the political clout to take this action. Indeed, they are unsure about whether the Israeli army will obey orders.
If the British army is probably the best peace-keeping force in the world, the Israeli army is unquestionably the worst. We know that until recently it was authorised in emergencies to shoot Arabs but forbidden in emergencies to shoot Jews. The noble Lord, Lord Haskel, spoke about regretting the massacre of the 30 Palestinians in Hebron. He did not say that he also regretted the shooting of the 36 Palestinians by the Israeli army since Hebron. Since then it has, of course, shot no Jews. The Israeli army has no idea of even-handedness or restraint. It is a complete failure as a peace-keeping force.
The right thing to do is to have United Nations intervention. The United Nations has every right: to intervene. The situation in the West Bank is a plain threat to peace. In addition, the destruction of the human rights of the Palestinians has gone way beyond any tolerable limit. Therefore, a United Nations peacekeeping force should be sent to protect both the Arab and Jewish residents of the Occupied Territories. Compared with the Serbs, the Moslems and the Croats, the Arab and Jewish terrorists are few in number and poorly armed. Let General Rose be sent to Jericho, Gaza and Hebron to sort out the terrorists and to enable the peace process to proceed. I believe that to be the best way forward in this critical time.
7.45 p.m.
Lord Thomas of Gwydir: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, says that the views of the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, are not widely shared. Listening to the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, it is clear that his views are widely shared by those who have an aversion to the state of Israel. For many years he has demonstrated his views on that matter. I applaud what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Haskel. I thought his contribution important.
However, I am somewhat anxious about the way in which the debate is going. I understand that the Question before the House is:
"whether the Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention".
In anticipation of my noble friend Lord Gilmour giving the reasons why he was asking the Question, I obtained a copy of the Convention for the Protection of War Victims. I assume that my noble friend is referring to the last paragraph of Article 49. It states:
"The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies".
That is the end of the article. It begins by dealing with individual or mass forcible transfers as well as the deportation of protected persons from occupied territories. It was put into the convention at the end of the war as a result of the dreadful activities of the Nazi administration, in particular the mass transfer of population in order to get rid of people regarded as being unacceptable; in name, the Jews. They were taken to be liquidated from one country to another and were moved from one place to another. That is why we have Article 49 in the convention.

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I remind the House of Article 2. It states that,
"the present convention shall apply to … armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties".
The convention applies,
"to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party".
I therefore ask the House to consider this question: which is the high contracting party whose territory is occupied? In other words, which state has sovereign title to the West Bank?
In 1967 Jordan was in occupation. It is generally accepted that after its annexation of the territories, Jordan had no sovereignty in international law. Its presence in Judaea and Samaria was only given de jure recognition by two countries out of the whole international community. Therefore, if one is dealing with points of law, as my noble friend's Question seeks, it seems clear that the West Bank, at present occupied by Israel, does not belong to any other state, and the convention therefore does not apply. The answer to the first and dominant part of my noble friend's Question is therefore no.
I shall raise another matter if I have time. The last legal sovereignty over the territories was that of the League of Nations mandate of 1922. It can be argued that its provisions still hold legal weight. The mandate stipulated that the area was to be part of the Jewish homeland, and that Jewish settlement there was to be encouraged.
I have referred the House to those two matters, namely, the effect of Article 2 and the mandate, to indicate how ridiculous it is even to contemplate that major national and ethnic issues can ever be solved by raising legal points.
7.52 p.m.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, what I have to say very much follows on the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gwydir. In order to understand the present position—which all of us agree is tragic—it is necessary to look at the course of events. The West Bank territory was occupied as a result of the assault on the new state of Israel by its neighbours; it was occupied by Jordan. As the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, said, it was formally declared to be part of the kingdom of Jordan in 1950 and was recognised as such by the United Kingdom Government and by Pakistan. But the assumption at the time of King Abdullah, and the assumption of the Israeli Government with which he was negotiating, was that that was a prelude to a peace agreement between those two countries in which settlements and other issues would have been dealt with.
The assassination of King Abdullah put an end to those prospects, and we then went on to the period of Jordanian occupation during which there was ethnic cleansing of the Jewish population of the West Bank. That population was small but it did exist in a number of centres and it was removed. There was the occupation of the ancient city of Jerusalem, when the Jewish quarter was destroyed and Jews were not allowed to fulfil their religious obligations there.
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In the 1967 war, those territories then fell under Israel. The problem that we now face is that of the peace process. And a part of the peace process must be to disentangle what has happened.
The noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, is to some extent correct in assigning some of the problem to recently arrived fanatical religious elements on the Jewish side. But numerically and physically they are perhaps not the most difficult part of the problem. The major number of settlers, if we exclude the arguments over East Jerusalem, are in what are called the security settlements along the highlands west of the Jordan river, which have been thought to be necessary as part of the protection of Israel. The importance of that security being guaranteed was emphasised by the attack on Israel by Iraq during the Gulf War.
We come back to whether we believe in the peace process. If the peace process is successful, the security settlements will cease to have a raison d'être. They have very little economic value. They are, as it were, military outposts. The religious settlers are very likely, in view of the rejection of the settlement, to be constrained to move. The Israeli Government will at some point feel that it must exert pressure upon them. Then one can hope for the coexistence which—as the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, reminded us—is the purpose of the peace process itself.
That process is bound to take a long time. We have already seen the obstacles that have arisen despite the activities of the Norwegian and other governments in bringing the two sides together. I would have thought that the last thing that we want to do now is to go into an examination of fallacious (if I may say so) and at any rate obsolete arguments about circumstances on the legal side many years ago, and ask Her Majesty's Government, in so far as they have influence, to help in the peace process—that is to say, to look to the present and the future. That is the only excuse that this House has for debating anything at all.
7.56 p.m.
Lord Moyne: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Gilmour, has raised a timely Question. He may have raised it—as the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, implied—in too legalistic a form. It is nevertheless an urgent practical question, whatever the position is under the Geneva Convention. The recent mass murder in the mosque shows that the presence of fanatical settlers in Hebron and elsewhere is a present and obvious danger to the local population. It is one that must cause very considerable resentment. After all, the Palestinians there are in danger of death. A man went into the mosque and massacred them. Then his fellow settlers told the press that they wished that more people had been killed. That is the mentality of those settlers. Their presence is not only illegal; it is a clear danger. That is the mentality of Auschwitz. It is genocide, and it has to be called by that name.
The regret expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, to the families of the victims took me down memory lane. It high-lighted to me the fact that the state of Israel

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has always been Jekyll and Hyde. We have to urge the state of Israel to see that its long-run survival depends upon Jekyll winning against Hyde.
In 1944 my grandfather, the first Lord Moyne, was murdered by terrorists of a group led by Yitzhak Shamir. The reaction of the Zionist movement was one of horror. Weizmann himself sent letters of condolence. There was general revulsion. Every year my father used to get a postcard from the Israeli embassy. There is no question that the general view of that murder was that it was an atrocity. That was Jekyll. Then, after Camp David, Hyde took over. When Menachem Begin received back from Egypt the corpses of the murderers, he re-buried them with military honours and issued stamps in their honour. That is not particularly relevant. It is history and we have to think of the future.
But the future of Israel itself depends on that spirit being disciplined and, in the end, destroyed. It depends on the respectable Israelis coming out on top. It depends on the removal of the murderous settlers. If that does not happen, Israel may well win military victory after victory, but in the end it is no more likely to survive than the Christian state during the crusades survived in Palestine. That is the historical precedent that must be considered. For Israel's own sake let the settlers be removed.
8 p.m.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, it is difficult to come to the winding-up of the debate on this short Unstarred Question without wanting another 20 minutes to develop the subject. After the moving intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Moyne, and the passionate words of other noble Lords, perhaps I may try to calm things clown a little, if I possibly can.
It seems to me that what the Government are being asked is quite simple. Do Her Majesty's Government still maintain the position that they have always maintained in relation to the settlements in the Occupied Territories? Indeed, do the Government still accept that they are occupied territories? Tonight we have heard speeches which suggest that that is a wrong description. It is quite clear to me that they are occupied territories and that the people living in them should be treated within the terms of the Geneva Convention. If the question has to be asked, it is because both the British and American Governments seem to have been pussyfooting—I cannot put it more clearly than that—in the past months because of the peace process.
We are all anxious to see the peace process succeed. Let there be no mistake about that. We are all anxious to do everything in our power to ensure that the peace process succeeds. I do not believe that it will help that process to forget the situation in the settlements. But after the massacre at Hebron, who can forget the situation in the settlements?
There is a total imbalance in the situation. There are Palestinians who are shot because they are terrorists. Some of them are terrorists and people in the settlements deserve to be defended from them. The Israeli army is right to defend them. But the truth is that Palestinians also deserve to be defended by the Israeli army as the occupying power from terrorists on the other side.
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Clearly, that has not happened. Not only did that person get into the mosque and shoot people at prayer; after that, Palestinians were shot by the Israeli army because they were demonstrating. To me that shows the total imbalance in the situation.
It is quite a simple question that the noble Baroness has to answer tonight. Do the Government stick by their avowed policy of past years and are they prepared to come up front and say, "We believe that these are occupied territories, that the settlements infringe the Geneva Convention and international law and we are prepared to stand up and say so"?
I do not accept by any means the view that all the settlers are terrorists. After the massacre I heard settlers speaking on the radio in terms that were extremely pacific, expressing their horror and shock at what had happened. Obviously, they were as shocked as many of us outside the country. But the truth is that the settlements are a provocation. They are still extending. They are not static. They are being extended as we speak. While that is going on, Palestinians understandably feel affronted, frightened and threatened. I hope that the Minister, when she replies, cart give some reassurance that at least this Government—and it AS to. be hoped that the American Government will do the same—are prepared to stand up and speak for them. Ii is their duty to do so as one of the powers which is responsible for the situation.
8.5 p.m.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Gilmour, for introducing this debate on a most important subject. I am only sorry that we have so little time in which to debate it.
It is a tragedy that the progress which had been made toward a settlement between the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and Israel is now being jeopardised by Jewish extremists in the settler population on the West Bank in particular. It seems to me that the Israeli Government must now take urgent action to deal with those settlers, so that progress towards peace can continue. That point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Beloff. That such settlements were ever allowed in the first place is a blot on the record of successive Israeli Governments. The price now being paid is indeed a heavy one.
The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gwydir, and my noble friend Lord Haskel, questioned what the Fourth Geneva Convention states on this matter. I am not a lawyer and cannot answer the Question put by the noble Lord, Lord Gilmour. However, it seems to me fairly clear that no occupying power—Israel is an occupying power so far as concerns those territories—should allow the transfer into such territories of parts of its own civilian population. Since the 1967 war there has been a very substantial increase in the numbers of settlers both on the West Bank and in Gaza. Indeed, in 1972 there were only 1,200 settlers on the West Bank. There are now 120,000, which is a tenfold increase. I can only express surprise that Israeli leaders in the past did not recognise the problem that that would pose in any future peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, whatever might be the legal position.

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There is not and never has been consensus in Israel about the settlements policy. Many thoughtful and well informed Israelis have been critical, recognising the strategic threat that is posed—I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, used the word "provocation", which seems to me to be a very appropriate term—and questioning the morality of that policy. Again, it is absolutely right, as the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, said, that the world community, including the United States Government, have condemned the settlements. The events of the past few weeks have confirmed the worst fears of those liberal Israelis who have criticised the policy. It struck terror into their hearts to hear some extremist settlers praising Dr. Goldstein's cold-blooded gunning down of Arabs at prayer in the Hebron mosque. It also demonstrates, as the noble Lord, Lord Gilmour, said, that the man was not just a madman on the rampage with a gun but a creature of the despicable ideology of the community of which he was a part. Those noble Lords who perhaps saw the television programme last week featuring young boys in that community being imbued with the most appalling racial hatred will have shared my sense of shock.
Can the Minister tell us what pressure the Government are now putting on the Israeli Government to take more robust action? So far the measures announced, such as the banning of Kach and Kahane Hai, although welcome, do not go nearly far enough. The carrying of lethal weapons continues. There are still armed settlers on the streets in the Occupied Territories, some of whom are reservists in the Israeli army. Less than 100 of those people have been banned from carrying weapons under new government restrictions. No settler should be allowed to carry weapons outside his home. All the Palestinians in those areas are subject to strictly enforced gun controls; the same should apply to the settlers.
It can hardly have helped the peace process to have restricted the Palestinians to their homes after the mosque massacre while settlers are subject to no such restrictions. Settlements in the most sensitive areas where there are large Palestinian populations should be closed, as the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, suggested. Some Israeli settlers in the new territories want to leave. I understand that they have asked for government compensation and support to help them resettle in Israel. Perhaps the Minister could tell us whether or not that has been refused. My noble friend Lord Haskel implied that it had not but I have read reports that indicate otherwise.
Perhaps I can end by asking the Government what action is now being taken to promote an international presence in Gaza and Jericho, which I believe was accepted by the Israeli Government and is in accord with the Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles. Will the Government accept that such a presence would be of great value not just in Gaza and Jericho, but also in the other sensitive areas of the Occupied Territories? It is difficult for the Palestinians to have confidence in the Israeli Army after what happened in Hebron. Moreover, the attitude of the Israeli soldiers towards the
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extremist settlers has been both equivocal and ambivalent, even when those people were behaving in a way which clearly jeopardises the peace.
It is in the interests of peace, desperately wanted by hundreds of thousands of moderate Israelis and Palestinians, that urgent action must be taken to deal with the settler problem. I hope that the Government will press for that with the Israeli Government and in the wider international fora in which we participate.
8.12 p.m.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Gilmour of Craigmillar for asking his Question and all noble Lords who have spoken in our short debate. It is a welcome chance to discuss such an important and topical subject. I shall seek to respond to the questions raised by attempting to put them in the context of the Middle East peace process more generally. After all, that is what every speaker, though from different viewpoints, has been asking for in our debate.
Nothing will ever diminish the horror of the massacre of innocent Palestinians in Hebron on 25th February. That appalling tragedy underlined the importance of pressing ahead with negotiations to secure a just, lasting and comprehensive peace in the region. The European Union Foreign Ministers issued a declaration on 7th March which called on all parties to resume negotiations and discuss the question of security of the Palestinians. European Union Ministers reiterated that Israel is responsible for the security of the inhabitants of the Occupied Territories, and that means all the inhabitants.
The declaration also supported the establishment of an international presence in the Occupied Territories in which the European Union is willing to participate. On 18th March, with our co-sponsorship, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 904 condemning the massacre and calling for an international presence in the Occupied Territories. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary said that if the parties agree on a civilian international presence in the West Bank, Britain will play its part.
In our debate my noble friends Lord Beloff and Lord Moyne underlined the huge dangers of fanatical settlers leading to even worse disasters than we perhaps have already seen. The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, made it clear in his remarks that law-abiding citizens deserve to be defended. We do not disagree with any of those comments. My noble friend Lord Gilmour and other noble Lords asked whether the Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories violate the Fourth Geneva Convention. The British Government have stated on many occasions since 1967 the view that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies to the territories occupied by Israel in that year, 1967, and that the Jewish settlements are illegal and contravene that convention. My noble friend will recall a Statement he made in another place in May 1979 when he underlined,
"the Government's firm opposition to Israel's policy of settlement in the Occupied Territories. These settlements are not only contrary to the provisions of the Geneva Conventions, they are a truly major obstacle to the building of trust in the area, and, therefore an obstacle to peace".
No one could have put it better.

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I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, and to some extent with my noble friend Lord Thomas. There is absolutely no doubt that our position, which I have just repeated, is clearly shared by our European partners as declared at the Lisbon Council in June 1992. Over a period of many years the United Kingdom has repeatedly sought to try to ensure respect for the Fourth Geneva Convention. We have frequently supported condemnations of violations at the UN and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, asked, in other international fora. We have made representations both bilaterally and in conjunction with others. We continue to urge the Israelis to administer the Occupied Territories in accordance with international law and accepted standards of human rights, as I referred to some moments ago.
According to the Declaration of Principles signed in a fanfare of hope last September by both Israel and the PLO, the general question of settlements will be covered in the permanent status negotiations which will commence,
"as soon as possible, but not later than the beginning of the third year of the interim period".
That will begin upon Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the Jeri& o area. We warmly welcomed the signature of the Declaration of Principles. We hope that it will be implemented as soon as possible. That is why the resumption of talks between the Israelis and the PLO following the Hebron massacre was so important. We believe that direct negotiations in the framework set out in the Declaration of Principles offer the best hope of producing a just and lasting settlement of all aspects of the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians, including the question of settlements. I am glad that the high level talks will resume tomorrow after the break for Passover. I sincerely hope that sufficient progress will be made so that the formal talks can begin very soon thereafter.
Let me say something in regard to settlement building. The Israeli Government have curbed settlement activity in the West Bank, on the Gaza Strip and on the Golan Heights. While that is welcome, it falls far short of the total ban on settlements in the Occupied Territories which we among many in the international community have called for. We are particularly concerned about the continuing settlement activity in the so-called "greater Jerusalem area"—an area of some 100 square miles. The British Government and our European Union partners have made repeated &marches to the Israeli Government expressing our view that all settlements in the Occupied Territories, including East Jerusalem, are illegal and an obstacle to peace.
My noble friend Lord Gilmour asks me about land confiscations and I have to say that I share his concern at the reports both about land being confiscated and the cutting off or diverting of water. Those issues must be addressed in the peace process negotiations. It is obviously urgent that they should be so addressed and makes the peace process negotiations all the more urgent. We have taken as many steps as we can. My noble friend Lord Gilmour asked Her Majesty's Government to be more active. It has not simply been a question of making démarches or persuading others to
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support the action which will helpfully get the peace talks back on the road. We have given emergency aid to the Hebron victims. We have certainly been involved in seeking to create some stability in the area, although stability will come only when settlement ceases and indeed persons withdraw.
The noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, and my noble friend Lord Moyne both spoke about disarming the settlers. That is one of the most important steps that has to be taken—to disarm all settlers, particularly the extremist settlers. But there are grave difficulties in all of this because we know that some of the settlers who did not agree with the Hebron massacre and who are ashamed of what has happened feel their own lives to be at risk. In that I can have some sympathy with what the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, and my noble friend Lord. Thomas of Gwydir said. We welcome the actions that have been taken by Prime Minister Rabin to disarm and detain the extremist settlers, to outlaw two extremist settler organisations, to set up the commission of inquiry headed by the President of the Supreme Court, to release some Palestinian prisoners and to offer to compensate the families of the victims of the massacre. But all these measures must be carried through, and until the settlements are removed they will continue to be an obstacle to peace.
The noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, asked me about the resettlement of settlers. I cannot give her an exact answer at this moment but I shall look into the detail, write to her and copy my letter to all other noble Lords who have spoken in the debate. It is an important point and it is one with which I am sure the international community should be helping in order to get stability across the whole of the area.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 904 called for measures to protect Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, including a temporary international or foreign presence. With our European Union partners we have supported that idea and, as I mentioned earlier, have announced our readiness to contribute to such an international presence once agreement is reached between the parties on its features. The presence should consist of unarmed civilians whose main tasks would be to observe, liaise and mediate in all the sensitive areas. As we said in the UN Security Council, it is important not to promise more than we can deliver, but it is the responsibility of the Israeli authorities to provide protection for all those inhabitants in the occupied territories. Their action is urgently needed to bring an end to all acts of violence in line with their obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention, as my noble friend Lord Gilmour said. An international presence could certainly help to defuse the tension but it cannot detract from Israel's obligations, which she must fulfil.
My noble friend Lord Thomas asked about sovereign titles. The final status of these territories has to be addressed in the final stage of the peace process negotiations. As my noble friend Lord Beloff so rightly said, we must look to the future. It is the peace process that can do that and try to resolve the long-running disputes rather than dwelling on the past.

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This has been an excellent debate. Neither Barukh Goldstein, nor those who share his views, must be allowed to succeed in their object of wrecking the peace process. The resumption of contacts between Israelis and Palestinians is urgent and greatly needed. We hope and believe that these may soon lead to formal negotiations. We welcome the announcement that Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are ready to resume their negotiations with Israel in Washington next month. I have no doubt that the renewed efforts by the parties to negotiate a just, lasting and comprehensive settlement is the best way to respond to the Hebron tragedy and to bring to an end the problems and suffering which we have discussed so well today.

Education Bill [H.L.]
8.24 p.m.
Consideration of amendments on Report resumed on Clause 4.
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendment No. 22:
Page 3, line 18, at end insert:
("( ) No course in teacher training or teacher education at any eligible institution shall qualify for funding under this Part unless that institution publishes and makes available to each student undertaking such a course a prospectus providing details of the content and management of that course.").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this is a simple and straightforward amendment and I cannot believe that the Minister will have any difficulty with it. It proposes that any course in teacher training or teacher education at any eligible institution will qualify for funding under this part of the Bill only if that institution publishes and makes available to all the students who might attend such a course a prospectus providing details of what the course is about, both in the way in which it is run and what its content might be.
All schools are required to have a prospectus under a previous piece of legislation and those prospectuses have to be lodged in public libraries. Higher education institutions always have a prospectus as well. It must be the case that students should have a right to know the details of any course on which they are about to embark or even to know the details of a course they are considering enrolling for. They should know a little about the components of the course, including what kind of teaching practice might be available and for how long; whether they will have tutorials; what kind of requirement there will be to undertake a piece of research or to write a short dissertation; how a course is run, including what kind of administrative support it may have; whether there will be mentor teachers, who are now increasingly being used; what kinds of lectures will be provided; and what the external higher education input might be to such a course.
At the moment, as the Bill currently reads, there is no mention of any requirement for a school providing teacher training to have a prospectus. The Government have, in their Citizen's Charter approach to such matters, required as much information as possible to be made available to students who are embarking on any
course in an institution of higher education. The same ought to apply with respect to teacher training that is to be carried out in the schools. I beg to move.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, as my name is to Amendment No. 23, which is grouped with Amendments Nos. 22 and 26, I should like to speak to it. I am quite encouraged by the amendment in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Judd and Lord Peston, which was recently spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, but I do not think that Amendment No. 22 goes quite far enough. As the noble Baroness said, there is already a requirement for prospectuses to be published. I am not sure that the details of the content and management of the course, as set out in a prospectus, are sufficiently in evidence for students to find out exactly what they are going to be doing if they join one of these courses. Likewise, Amendment No. 26 in the name of my noble friend Lady Blatch hands the duty of saying what the details of the prospectus shall be over to the new teacher training agency. I am not entirely happy with that. I hope that when my noble friend speaks to her amendment she will be able to give some assurance of the degree of detail which the teacher training agency will require from governing bodies funding these courses.
I come to my own amendment, Amendment No. 23, which your Lordships will notice is exactly the same as the one I tabled in Committee and which I dare to hope may have inspired Amendment No. 22, to which I have already referred, and indeed the amendment in the name of my noble friend the Minister. I confess that some of the detail which my amendment asks for may be a little too exact. I shall be quite happy not to see displayed the teaching workload of those teaching the course and the number of hours worked per week. I shall also be prepared to see the workload of those teaching the course and any other activities relating to the course, such as the marking of students papers and so forth, not displayed. I put those in because I believe that it would not do students and the rest of us any harm to see exactly the workload of the teachers who are teaching these courses. I have a rather different view to that of many Members of your Lordships' house who speak for higher education in this country.
Paragraph (b) in my Amendment No. 23 reads:
"where appropriate, the amount of time which will be spent teaching students to teach children how to read and write English, and by what methods".
Although that is very important, it is perhaps inappropriate in this particular amendment.
However, I hope that my noble friend will feel able to go a little further than she has gone in her own amendment in meeting the other items of my amendment. For example, it is important that a profile of the academic content of a course should be set out in reasonable detail. From my experience of these matters I believe that a student should know each fortnight what is going to be happening otherwise it is too easy for the institution and the academics to say, "We are going to cover this general area and goodness knows whether we shall be doing so this month, next month or whenever" or indeed, sometimes never.

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By the same token it is important that the reading list should be on display so that students know what it is. It should be a matter of public record what the books are which they are expected to read and what slant, if any, there is in the reading list. Likewise, the names of the external examiners are important. In this area in the past there has been a certain amount of mutual back scratching between examiners examining one course and then having the professors or teachers of that course examining their own course, and so on. If that is not going on then there is no argument. The provision will simply be in the open for everyone to see.
it is important to know the publications of the people who teach these courses. If I were a student joining one of these courses II would want to know what my professor or lecturer had published. I know that it is now a requirement that teachers spend time teaching in schools. But it should be set out how much time they have actually spent doing so and in what schools. I do not believe that it would do any harm for students, thinking of joining a course, to be able to find out where their prospective lecturers and teachers had been and how successful they had been in carrying out the trade which they propose to impart to the students in question. I hope that my noble friend will be able to give me some assurance on these matters.
Lord Addington: My Lords, I rise briefly to support Amendment No. 22 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and to which the noble Baroness also spoke. There are three amendments covering similar ground. The noble Baroness championed the middle way, which is probably the most sensible course. It provides enough information for the students to get a rough idea of what they will be dealing with without being overly prescriptive. The noble Lord, Lord Pearson, is trying to tell them exactly what they should do, which I suggest would be more appropriate to people at primary school than for students who are supposed to be disciplining themselves to a degree. A certain element of flexibility must be built into higher education, or at least aspects of it, because situations have to be adapted as they occur. However, I shall be very interested in the reply which comes from the Government Front Bench.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I am indebted to my noble friend Lord Pearson who, at Committee stage, suggested that the provision of information for students should be dealt with in this Bill. This was an idea so obviously timely and wise that it is now the subject of no less than three alternative amendments; my own, that of my noble friend Lord Pearson and that moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone.
Openness about what is provided for students is an essential charter principle. It should be followed by all higher education institutions, including those which provide initial teacher training. To put this principle into practice, it is right that institutions should provide clear and detailed information about their provision to students and to applicants. We are setting in place arrangements to maintain a wide diversity of initial teacher training provision. For potential students to
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make an informed choice between courses at different institutions they need to have access to full and accurate information.
As I said in the debate in Committee, while I find much to commend in my noble friend's list of information to be provided, I do not believe that we shall be able, during the passage of the Bill, to give this matter the attention that it needs to ensure that we get all the details exactly right. I have no doubt that we would all want to add or subtract from the list. Nor could we amend such a list in the light of experience.
That is why I hope my noble friend will allow us to meet his point through Amendment No. 26, which requires the funding agencies to take steps to ensure that all providers of initial teacher training make available the information the agencies think appropriate. We have deliberately not specified the precise information to be provided, for the reasons I have just given nor have we specified the recipients. My noble friend's amendment covers only students enrolled on courses, while we want to be able to include potential students.
We believe that the funding agencies will be well placed to decide on the precise details of the information to be made available and to adjust that over time as necessary. They will no doubt wish to discuss this with the institutions concerned and other interested bodies. It would not surprise me if the requirements set by the agency have much in common with my noble friend's suggestion.
I recognise that the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, is an attempt to meet my point about flexibility. But it goes rather too far in another direction. Institutions would be under a direct obligation to provide details of the content and management of the course without any definition of what that means. The only test would be the view of the courts. We prefer to let the agency set specific requirements and enforce them as necessary through its funding role. The noble Lord's amendment also has the same limitation to students already on the course, not just those wishing to make an informed decision; in other words, potential students. But that is all pretty far fetched. I believe that the agency will seize with enthusiasm the opportunity to operate in this way.
We believe that the points made in my noble friend's amendment cover the kind of information which ought to be available to all students. It is right that they should have more than simply the content and management of the course as stated in Amendment No. 22. A profile of the academic content of the course is essential as is the amount of time to be spent teaching students to teach children how to read. That is part of the criteria which could be picked up in that way. The reading list proposed for the course is a very good point; certainly in view of some of the reading material which I have seen as part of teacher training courses. It is also important to know who the external examiners are and their suitability to do the examining.
In paragraphs (f), (g) and (h) of Amendment No. 23 my noble friend makes some interesting points about the workload of those teaching the course. If the student knew in advance what the workload was to be at least he or she would be able to make some judgment about

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those lecturers who do not turn up for lessons; a point made in letters which come to me, as the Minister, from students or students' parents who are pretty disgruntled at the laissez-faire attitude of some lecturers. If the details are set out in advance then students at least know what to expect. They will know something of the workload of the teachers teaching the course and about any other activities in which they are involved, so they know that they are going to be available to do the job of both teaching and assessment and the testing of the students.
The final point about the amount of time spent by the course teachers teaching in schools—especially as we go towards both school-centred and higher education teacher training—is important and should be covered. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State will send a remit letter to the agency when it is established. It will be important that this aspect of the agency's work is addressed in that remit letter.
Again, I thank my noble friend for raising this issue. However, I hope that he and the noble Lord, Lord Judd, whose amendment was moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, will not press their amendments, but will agree with my amendment, which is Amendment No. 26.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I thought that I was going to be able to agree entirely with what the Minister said, but as she continued I became slightly more concerned. I accept that precise details of the information that should be provided in prospectuses should not be on the face of the Bill and, for that reason, I cannot support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, although I accept some of the things that lie behind what he said. Nevertheless, it seems inappropriate to list such things in a piece of legislation.
What concerned me about what the Minister said was that it ignored the fact that school or higher education prospectuses are produced by institutions without there being some higher body to instruct those institutions about what to include. I feel that there should be some flexibility for the institutions in deciding what it is appropriate to cover. There are obviously a number of matters which any prospectus would cover and which I have no doubt that any institution concerned with teacher training would include. Under the Bill, such institutions will be school governing bodies. When the Minister said that she thought that the funding agency should require institutions to include in their information for prospective students matters such as the names of external examiners and the details of reading lists, I thought that was going a little too far. As any academic knows, reading lists have constantly to be updated and changed. They sometimes have to be updated and changed during the course of a single year. If we were to ask for such matters to be included in the information that is provided for students prior to starting such a course, that could lead to some confusion and difficulty because the information might have to be modified.
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I cannot really believe that it is necessary for students to be told in advance who their external examiners will be. The names will not mean anything to most students. Again that is something that may have to be changed during the course of any one year because, for example, the prospective external examiner changes his or her job, leaves the country or whatever.
It seems to me, therefore, that the amendment which stands in the name of my noble friend Lord Judd and which I have just moved has some advantages over the Government's amendment because the information that prospectuses normally provide is clearly understood. They normally contain details of the courses that the students will take, the subjects that they will be asked to study, and how much teaching practice they will have to do. I am willing to accept that the government amendment is an improvement on not having anything at all on the face of the Bill, but I should like to put down a marker. I hope that, when it is set up, the teacher training agency will not end up being too prescriptive in the way that the Government have been—and have had to run away from—with respect to the national curriculum. However, I have no intention of pressing my amendment and I beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave withdrawn.
8.45 p.m.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch Lord Pearson of Rannoch moved Amendment No. 23:
Page 3, line 18, at end insert:
("( ) No course in teacher training or teacher education at any eligible institution shall qualify for funding under this Part unless that institution publishes and makes available to each student undertaking such course:

(a) the profile of the academic content of the course, set out so that each student shall have reasonable expectations as to what he will be required to study in each fortnight of the course in question;

(b) where appropriate, the amount of time which will be spent teaching students to teach children how to read and write English, and by what methods;

(c) the reading list which is proposed for the course in question;

(d) the names of any external examiners appointed to report on the course to the institution at which the course is proposed;

(e) the publications, if any, of those who are to teach the course;

(f) the teaching workload of those teaching the course, giving the number of hours per week and the number of weeks per annum that teachers on the course are contracted to teach their students either in lectures or in tutorials or other small groups;

(g) the workload of those teaching the course in any other activities related to the course, such as the marking of students' papers; and

(h) the amount of time which the course teachers have spent teaching in schools, together with the names of the schools in question.").

The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 23, I rise with great trepidation to take issue with the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone. I must tell her, in fact, that she is out of date with her objections to, at any rate, paragraphs (a), (c) and (d) of my amendment because these requirements were requirements of the validation procedure of the Council for National Academic Awards for many years and therefore—
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I was not objecting to those paragraphs of the noble Lord's amendment. I was more concerned about some of its other elements.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, I was only going on the particular parts of my amendment which the noble Baroness chose to mention. I can assure your Lordships that none of these three items caused difficulties over many years in our validation requirements. I would certainly expect to see them in the letter which my noble friend has informed the House that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State will in due course be writing to the teacher training agency.
As for the rest of my noble friend's reply to Amendment No. 23, I can but say that I am very grateful for the information that she has given us as to the guidance that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State may feel able to give. Upon the assumption that that guidance will indeed be given in, I think, something of the detail that is required by this amendment, I beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 5 [Grants, loans and other payments]:
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth)Baroness Darcy (de Knayth) moved Amendment No. 24:
Page 3, line 46, at end insert ("and
(c) to the needs of students having learning difficulties.").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, with Amendment No. 24, we turn briefly, as we did in Committee, to trainee teachers with disabilities. I appear to be going back to saying "please" to the Minister now, but I say straight away that this is a probing amendment which seeks reassurance that any assessment of the quality of ITT will address the needs of disabled students. It is very important that the TTA has a commitment from the outset to ensure that trainers have the appropriate arrangements in place and an ongoing commitment. Obviously, one cannot change things such as buildings overnight.
When I moved a similar amendment in Committee, I said that disabled students have limited choice because either buildings are not accessible or they find the course itself inaccessible. In her reply at col. 1666 of the Official Report, the Minister cited the practical help that is available in the form of disabled students' allowances and the HEFC's power to improve access. They are most welcome in themselves, but I leave it to other noble Lords who put their names to the amendment to explain briefly why they do not solve the problem.
In Committee, I also mentioned the concern about plans to replace the traditional four-year B.Ed with a new fast-track three-year course. I welcome the Minister's assurance—again at col. 1666—that all students with the necessary ability should be enabled to enter ITT and her recognition that students with disabilities may take longer to complete a course. However, I was not at all reassured when the Minister said that LEAs could be relied upon to fund the extra year. RADAR and SKILL have evidence that discretionary awards are increasingly difficult to secure and depend on the authority having the necessary funds.
Can the Minister give an assurance that colleges will be funded equally for their work with disabled trainees who take four years to complete a course and that they will be guaranteed access to funds for those students from the LEA?
I am not looking to put anything on the face of the Bill, but merely seek a commitment by the TTA to take account of the additional needs of disabled students in terms of any funding formula, and a reassurance that there will be no disincentive to enter teacher training.
I said that this was a probing amendment. Perhaps it would be better described as a "prodding" amendment because I hope to nudge the Minister into issuing guidance on this issue. A precedent exists because paragraph 26 of the Secretary of State's launch letter to the HEFC requires the funding council to facilitate access to higher education for students with learning difficulties. That followed an undertaking that was given in this House by the noble Lord, Lord Cavendish of Furness, during the passage of the Higher and Further Education Bill. I look forward to hearing the Minister's reply, which I very much hope will be positive. I beg to move.
Baroness David: My Lords, I should like to support the amendment strongly. As the noble Baroness said, it is a probing amendment. We hope that we can get some sort of commitment from the Minister at the end of it about what guidance will be given. I hope that she is listening.
Baroness Blatch: Yes, I am listening.
Baroness David: I want to show that disabled people are grossly under-represented on courses and in the profession and that disabled students have much less choice in deciding which college or course to attend. Figures from UCCA over two academic years (1989-90 and 1990-91) show that disabled students on ITT courses accounted for only 0.7 per cent. of all students enrolled on university undergraduate ITT courses. The old PCAS (dealing with polytechnics and colleges) did not keep such statistics. A survey by RADAR in 1991 showed that teachers registered as disabled people accounted for only 0.1 per cent. of all teachers in 51 LEAs.
Few LEAs kept figures on the number of teachers who chose not to register as disabled people, but only 9 per cent. of the school buildings covered in the survey were built or adapted with the needs of disabled people in mind. I shall describe one case which is indicative of the problems disabled students face when choosing an ITT course. Christopher is 19. He is a wheelchair user who has cerebral palsy. The original B.Ed course of his choice was no longer an option as he discovered before applying that much of the campus was accessible but not the education department. His three subsequent preferences had to be vetoed. It took him three months to find a suitably accessible college. His choice though was dictated by access arrangements and not by academic preference. So disability organisations are calling for incentives to ensure that disabled people have wider scope for choice.

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Clearly, disabled people have less opportunity to become qualified as teachers, and that is particularly sad as the Warnock Report which led to the Education Act 1981 saw them as the key to successful integration strategies. Can we have an assurance, as the noble Baroness asked, that that will be rectified by the new agency in terms of its formula funding and guidance to colleges? I remind the Minister that the code of practice says that all teachers should have some special educational needs experience. So for students who are trying to follow ITT courses to have other disabled students there would be very helpful in their own training. I hope for a very positive response, at any rate about the guidance to be issued, from the Minister.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, my name is to the amendment, as is also the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rix, who has unfortunately been unable to stay because he has an important family commitment. He has asked me to say that he strongly supports what is behind the amendment and hopes to be able to read some encouraging news from the Minister when he receives Hansard tomorrow.
Many able candidates are denied the opportunity to take up a teaching career. As the noble Baroness, Lady David, said, they cannot physically get into some of the colleges to undergo the necessary training. Those colleges are also reluctant to take on students who may cost more in advisory services and who may need more spacious accommodation or teaching and learning materials—for example, in Braille —that are not normally used.
Colleges need to be encouraged to consider disabled candidates for teacher training alongside other potential candidates. It has to be recognised that a commitment to widening access to students with disabilities is often a financial commitment. As such, the impetus needs to come from the funding agency, the TTA. As the noble Baroness said, the Warnock Report highlighted the importance of disabled people playing their part in schools, especially now that pupils with disabilities are educated alongside other pupils in an integrated setting. It provides considerable education for life for able-bodied pupils to be taught by teachers with disabilities. They become accustomed to people with disabilities and being able to understand them and recognise the occasions when they need help. Able people with disabilities who want to train are unable to train because of their disabilities. That we need to avoid. The incentive needs to come from the TTA. I support the amendment strongly.
Lord Addington: My Lords, I support the amendment. The amendment relates,
"to the needs of students having learning difficulties".
Basically, all we are saying is that we should give a little extra help to those students who require it. The noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, put the matter clearly. Some people need a little help with things such as access to buildings. That is usually comparatively easily achieved, but as the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy, said, unless we give a
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prod, people will not receive that help because it costs a little money, even if it is only for installing ramps on stairways.
When it comes to the restructuring of courses for people with different learning curves, because they need to use sign language, Braille or any other learning aid, we must ensure that pressure to change is applied to people, because they do not change unless some pressure is applied. It is usually only necessary to open the eyes of those involved to the possibilities of training other students. I hope that the Government will be able to respond favourably to the amendment, as they have to many other similar amendments.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I shall be brief for two reasons. First, I believe that I owe it to your Lordships to be brief because, having taken my eye off the prompt for a moment, I missed the noble Baroness moving the amendment. Therefore, out of courtesy, I shall not speak for too long. The other reason is that I always feel myself in difficulty when I ask people to think twice about doing something which would appear prima facie to be for the advantage of disabled people. I am a little puzzled by the use of language because, as the noble Baroness said, the amendment refers to "learning difficulties" whereas my noble friend is talking about disablement. It seems to me that there is a difference between the two.
Lord Addington: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. I believe that the amendment is correct because people with disabilities usually have learning difficulties. They are not different things. One is the result of the other.
Lord Elton: My Lords, if it is that inability to get into a building to learn is a learning difficulty within the meaning of the statute, then I have no difficulty with that. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will bear in mind that the people for whom all this legislation is being drawn up, and who must always have first call, are the children, and that where it is to the advantage of children to be taught by someone with a disability, that is fine, but one should never use a school as a means of giving an advantage to someone because they are disabled to enable them to teach, for their benefit.
I see that for a deaf teacher to teach deaf children is to produce something valuable all round, especially for the children, but teaching is a difficult job. I merely ask my noble friend to bear in mind that what we are seeking is the best education we can provide for the children who are to be taught. I hope my credentials of taking the Mental Health (Amendment) Bill through the House and my sympathy for the disabled are good enough for me to say that, without appearing hostile to them.
9 p.m.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, does he not agree with me that someone who is disabled because he has a spinal injury therefore has a learning difficulty because he has difficulty getting into the building? But he may very well make an extremely good teacher of history, mathematics or a

927
language. Therefore, he would be a better teacher than an able-bodied teacher who is not so good at teaching those subjects.
Lord Elton: My Lords, obviously a teacher who teaches better than another teacher is the better teacher. I accept that there may be occasions when disabled teachers—if disablement is the right word in these circumstances—may have an advantage. I am merely saying that it is the excellence of the teacher as a teacher, with or without the disablement, which must count because it is the education of the children that is important.
The Earl of Radnor: My Lords, I support the amendment, but rather like my noble friend Lord Elton, it may be that I did not quite understand what it is about. I saw the amendment as a neat and logical follow up to Amendment No. 11 which the Minister moved and which was concerned with special needs. It was suggested that there should be members of the teacher trainer agency who have expertise in that area. I thought that if such people were to be represented on the agency, the funding that goes with that should be available. Such provision has been missing for a long time.
We have heard already from the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, and the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, about literacy. I interpreted the amendment as a move towards rectifying that situation. Although I agree with much of what I have heard, I did not understand that the amendment was in connection with disabled teachers. I did not follow that. Perhaps I have got the wrong end of the stick. However, if I have not got the wrong end of the stick, I strongly support the amendment. I believe that the two references in the Bill which provide that special attention be given to children with special needs are extremely important. They are advisory measures and do not force anyone to do anything. However, they mean that the problem—and it is a major problem—is kept under review by those who must administer the system.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I must admit that I too had some difficulty as regards the wording of the amendment. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Elton for pointing out that there is a distinction to be drawn. A person with learning difficulties is generally understood to mean somebody who has difficulty with learning. They may be slow learners or may have limited abilities and potential for learning. I am not certain that they are the most suitable people to be teaching children.
On the other hand. we understand that students who wish to enter the profession may be thwarted from doing so because of difficulties as regards access. That may be in connection with access to courses as well as physical access to buildings.
Lord Addington: My Lords, in the past people have been considered to have a learning difficulty whether it was a difficulty in movement, which may give them a learning difficulty, or a difficulty in acquiring learning. If we go down the path suggested by the noble Baroness, we shall be entering new territory. Somebody who has lost a limb may as a result of that have learning
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difficulties. I believe that the noble Baroness is now using a new definition of that term. I know that the noble Baroness has been helpful in the past in this regard but I believe that we are moving towards new territory.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I should like us all to be clear about what is meant here. The amendment refers to students with learning difficulties. I understand what the noble Lord, Lord Addington, the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth) and my noble friends Lord Elton and Lord Radnor are saying. We want the young people who are being trained to be teachers of our children to be effective. They may be prevented from entering the profession because they have a physical disability and there are no physical facilities which allow them access to the buildings. Some young people—for example, ethnic minorities—may need extra help to arrive at the stage at which they can take full advantage of the courses. I agree that those problems need to be addressed. Therefore, I wish to be sure about what we mean when we talk about a student with learning difficulties. A child with a learning difficulty may not grow up to be a suitable person to teach children.
I fully understand the concerns which have led the noble Baroness and her supporters to table Amendment No. 24, and I hope I can offer her the reassurance that she seeks. We fully accept the need for the agency to be sensitive to and take account of special educational needs not only as they affect school pupils but also students with learning difficulties. Indeed, that is one reason why we used a suitably wide definition of persons with special educational needs in support of the amendment on membership which we have already debated.
The need for wide access to the teaching profession, and for flexible approaches to training in order to encourage that, are central to our policies for teacher education. We want the best teachers—those with the right personal qualities and abilities to help their pupils reach their full potential. Such people will come from a range of backgrounds and may well include those who have tackled learning difficulties of their own in order to reach the necessary standard for entry to teacher training.
My right honourable friend's latest criteria for teacher training, because they focus on the cornpetences which new teachers must have acquired rather than course content, are designed to encourage a flexible approach which can readily be adapted to meet the needs of students with learning difficulties. I know there is concern that a shorter course length, for example, might not be so appropriate for students with such difficulties. But whatever length of course institutions choose to offer to the generality of their students—arid I believe shorter courses will prove popular and cost-effective—they will be able to make whatever special arrangements they feel are necessary for those whose progress is slower than the average.
I know that the noble Baroness wants us to make clear that the amount and quality of access for students with difficulties should be one of the factors which the agency needs explicitly to consider in making its

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judgment about which institutions to fund, and that it may make additional funding available to help courses meet that aim.
I am sure that we shall indeed want to remind the agency—as we reminded the funding council in its launch letter—of the need to pay careful attention to the issue of access for students with disabilities. Indeed, I shall go one step further, and give the noble Baroness an assurance that that kind of guidance will be given to the agency. Like the Council, the agency will be able to use its funding powers to that end. Action on access issues certainly fits well with the objective of promoting teaching as a profession. The agency would not be able to pursue the objectives of high standards and cost effectiveness if it did not encourage good students with a vocation, and the ability to do well as a teacher, to enter the profession. Informed by Ofsted's evidence of how these issues are handled on the ground, institution by institution, I am sure that the agency will be a further force for improvement in this important area.
I was asked by the noble Baroness to give an absolute guarantee that long courses would be funded. I am not able to give such an absolute guarantee because I would, for example, be trying to give a guarantee for, say, a local authority which may be funding a course. Four-year courses will continue and the appropriateness of the course to the needs of a student must also be taken into account. All I can say is that, where provision is made for someone who will need an extended course for one reason or another, I am absolutely certain that that will be taken into consideration. However, for all sorts of legal reasons, I am not allowed to give a guarantee that that would be the case.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): My Lords, I thank the Minister for her full reply. I was absolutely delighted to hear the firm commitment that she gave that something like the launch letter to the funding council will go out in guidance. I must tell the noble Lord, Lord Elton, that I am glad for his sake that he missed my opening speech. However, I actually said that all I was looking for was guidance as regards the amendment. The guidance to the HEFC has in fact proved to be most useful according to SKILL. Therefore, the Minister has given a very valuable assurance. I should like to thank all noble Lords for their support.
It seems to me that we are in a terrible muddle as regards the definition of "learning difficulties". If one looks back to the 1981 Act, it will be seen there that a student has a special educational need if he has a learning difficulty. He has a "learning difficulty", first, if he has a physical disability which prevents him from making use of the buildings and, secondly, if he has more difficulty learning than other pupils of his age. I cannot remember the third qualification.
The noble Baroness mentioned ethnic minorities. The whole point of subsection (4) is that you do not have a learning difficulty if you come from a family whose language is not English. That shows the whole dottiness of the definition. In higher and further education, reference is not made to special educational need; reference is made to a learning difficulty.
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However, the latter equals special educational needs. I apologise for lecturing and shall now stop doing so. As I said, we are all in a terrible muddle. I thank the Minister again for her most positive reply and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 6 [Provisions supplementary to s.5]:
[Amendment No. 25 not moved.]
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 26:
Page 4, line 31, at end insert:
("( ) In exercising their functions a funding agency shall take such steps as appear to them appropriate to secure that the governing body of any institution which provides a course of initial teacher training funded by the agency makes available such information relating to the course, in such manner and to such persons, as the agency may require.").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the above amendment was grouped with Amendment No. 22. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 27:
Page 4, line 32, leave out subsection (5).
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the above amendment was grouped with Amendment No. 3. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 9 [Joint Exercise of Functions]:
The Bishop of Guildford The Bishop of Guildford moved Amendment No. 28:
Page 5, line 44, at end insert:
(" ( ) The Higher Education Funding Council for England shall not permit the Teacher Training Agency or any other relevant funding body to exercise on their behalf their functions under section 65 of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992.").
The right reverend Prelate said: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 28 and 29 rise out of the concern of the voluntary colleges, especially the Church colleges, that they may, in effect, be severed from the Higher Education Funding Council. The Church colleges of education began as teacher training institutions but, over the years, they have diversified and many of them now have about half of their students undertaking education courses with a view to teaching and about half doing other higher education degrees.
The colleges are essentially part of the higher education provision, they intend to remain there and they want to be recognised as being there. They do not wish to be seen as a mere subdivision of higher education. I believe that the colleges of education will be content if the Minister can assure the House that teacher education will not be divorced from higher education; that funding for teacher education will be proportionately as favourable as for other higher education courses; and, that there will be no severance of the colleges from the HEFC.
The anxiety is that the Higher Education Funding Council might, in the interest of co-operation—which, of course, is important—delegate all its functions to the teacher training agency and so cut off the colleges from day-to-day contact with the HEFC. It is because of that concern that I look to the Minister for some assurance. I beg to move.
Lord Judd: My Lords, I should declare an interest because I am a governor of such a college as we are discussing; namely, Westminster College in Oxford. I think this amendment of the right reverend Prelate is helpful. It demonstrates how valuable it is to have in our midst the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford, with his experience. Incidentally, if he reads Hansard, he will discover that I was not trying to get at him or his amendment earlier in our discussions today. I was discussing a government amendment that purported to deal with his area of concern. However, this is a very real issue for a place such as Westminster College. We are hearing from the heart of the operation and it will be of great relief and great significance to many people who are giving dedicated service in such colleges to hear the Minister utter, if possible, reassuring comments tonight.
9.15 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, Clause 9 as drafted is designed to allow the range of funding bodies covering schools, and further and higher education in England and Wales, to work together where that would be more efficient or effective. It does not allow any funding body to delegate its functions to another. Therefore, Amendments Nos. 28 and 29 would have no effect.
I can assure the right reverend Prelate that his concerns are groundless. For the great majority of Church colleges in England the teacher training agency will provide only part of their grant. The rest will come from the Higher Education Funding Council. It will not be possible under the Bill for the council to say to the agency, "We are the minor funder so you must take over the funding for, say, humanities degrees at such and such a college". The agency would have no power to comply. In addition, the council will remain just as accountable to Parliament and the Secretary of State for its grant payments to Church colleges in future as it is at present.
There may, of course, be cases where a college wishes to diversify its provision and move away from a mainly teacher training role. In that event, it would approach the Higher Education Funding Council in future exactly as at present. Again, as now, the council would have to look at any request on its merits and in the financial and student number context of the higher education sector as a whole, of which all Church colleges will remain part. The council could not say "You are an agency college so we cannot consider this proposal".
Another area where we envisage valuable continuity is with the Advisory Committee for the Church Colleges. The Higher Education Funding Council has itself proposed that this committee should in future advise both the council and the agency. I see considerable merit in this kind of co-operative development and I hope and believe this proposal by the council will command general support in your Lordships' House.
Let me leave noble Lords in no doubt that I wish to see the voluntary colleges continue to play the important role which as specialist providers of teaching training they have played in the past. I would hope that the very
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fact that there is to be a specialist funding agency in this area will give colleges every assurance that their particular contributions will be recognised.
I am sorry that the right reverend Prelate is concerned that the Higher Education Funding Council could give up any responsibility for Church colleges. That is far from the case. The council will continue to have lead responsibility for most Church colleges. We envisage that it will only be a handful of colleges where the agency would take over lead responsibility during 1995. Lead responsibility here in any case means essentially the performance of light touch monitoring. I can assure the right reverend Prelate that there would be nothing to fear in the agency having this role. Colleges should not notice any significant difference. The funding council simply cannot delegate this function and the agency simply cannot accept it. I hope these reassurances will be helpful to the right reverend Prelate. As I said, the amendments are unnecessary both in practice and in law.
The Lord Bishop of Guildford: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for that response. I shall certainly want to study what she said and get in touch with the Church college representatives. However, as I understood her reply, it gave us all the assurances that we were hoping for. I am immensely grateful to her for responding so fully. 1 beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 29 not moved.]
Clause 10 [Efficiency studies]:
Lord Judd Lord Judd moved Amendment No. 30:
Page 6, line 5, after ("person) insert ("approved by the Audit Commission").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving this amendment I wish to speak also to Amendment No. 31. The teacher training agency will be involved with schools providing initial teacher training courses. Many of those schools, especially primary schools, will be funded directly by local education authorities for their normal activities. Local education authorities are already subject to regular efficiency studies by the Audit Commission and the district auditor, as are the schools. In providing teacher education courses, schools will of course be using two separate budgets—one for the school and one for the course.
Schools are still in the early days of managing their budgets, as the Audit Commission report Adding Up the Sums reveals. With the experience it is gaining, the Audit Commission has an indispensable role in monitoring and advising the teacher training agency on its own efficiency and on the best types of efficiency study which should be carried out in relation to schools.
When we put forward an amendment along these lines in Committee the noble Baroness was fairly robust, as is her style, and responded in the following manner. I hope she will forgive me if I quote her words. She said:
"Equally, [the TTAJ may want to do work, such a s a study of good purchasing practice like the one recently published by the HEFCE, which may be better done by another body. Because of that unduly restrictive constraint, 1 hope that the amendment will not be passed".—(Official Report, 10/3/94; col. 1674.)
I hope that in looking at the draft of our amendment tonight the noble Baroness will see that we have gone out of our way to meet her anxiety. This amendment certainly leaves the teacher training agency free to choose from a range of approved bodies. I beg to move.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: My Lords, I wonder whether we are not becoming a little obsessed with accreditation or validation. I am open to correction because I am not familiar with all the activities of the Audit Commission, but I am not at all sure whether it is in the business of an accreditation agency to approve particular individuals for this kind of work.
It is clear that the funding agency may want somebody to examine a specific institution in terms of efficiency. That person may be an efficiency expert, an accountant, or someone of that kind. The Audit Commission itself is able to undertake such studies, and, if we are talking about studies of an entire field, then that makes perfect sense.
If the amendment were accepted the Bill would read:
"A funding agency may arrange for the promotion or carrying out by any person approved by the Audit Commission of studies designed to improve economy, efficiency—… or operations of an institution".
The Audit Commission could be very busy approving all kinds of individuals up and down the country if the funding agency wanted efficiency studies to be made of individual institutions. I am a little uneasy about that aspect, which seems to leave a great deal of power in the hands of the Audit Commission in relation to very specific operations.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 30 and 31 seek to narrow the scope for investigation by the agency in an unfortunate and, I believe, undesirable way. This is not a major area of the agency's functions, but it is entirely right for the agency to be able to commission value for money studies by the right person into the appropriate area of work of an institution.
There is no question of the agency intruding into matters which are not its business, but it will have wider funding responsibilities than simply initial teacher training. Even in order to conduct studies into the teacher training operations of an institution it would be necessary to look at much more than the course itself. If there is an efficiency gain to be made, it may lie outside the training course and the course may stand to benefit as a result. For that reason, Amendment No. 31 would be unduly restrictive in confining studies to teacher training courses.
Amendment No. 30 is even more tightly drawn. It would mean that the agency could turn to just one source when planning to conduct an efficiency study. That is a poor look-out, not because people approved by the Audit Commission will necessarily be poor, but because it creates a monopoly and monopolies are generally best avoided. I am sure that it would be right for the commission itself to tender for some of the studies funded by the agency, but it would be wrong for it to have an absolute monopoly over who does the work.
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Amendment No. 30 would also be restrictive compared with the freedom which we gave to the Higher Education Funding Council in the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. The Council has made good use of that flexibility, as evidenced by the study of good purchasing practice which it recently published.
I hope that, in the light of that response, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Judd: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Baroness is so unyielding on this point. I hope that we shall not live to rue a lack of insight here.
First, I should like to deal with the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew. We are dealing with a suggestion in the Bill itself relating to the arrangements that an institution may want to make. We merely go on to suggest how those institutions might be advised and monitored.
The point is that the Audit Commission already has insight and wisdom about what is happening. It seems a great shame to waste that. It also has to be recognised that there will be a vast range of institutions up and down the country which will be able to make their own more or less off-the-cuff decisions about who they will commission to do certain work for them. When that wisdom is available it would be a great shame to waste it by not calling it into play and asking those who are already so experienced to have a look at the people who are being proposed and to say whether those people are suitable and they are happy with them. That would provide some shape and reassurance about the whole operation.
I have a fear that the situation will get out of control and that some years down the road we shall find that very convenient bodies have been asked by certain institutions to undertake surveys, and so on. Because they will not be challenging or professional enough and will not have sufficient insight, I believe that they may be deliberately invited—perhaps not overtly but tacitly —with such an assessment in mind.
Our amendment would have met the need for high standards. I hope that the Minister will consider the seriousness with which we put it forward. It involves maximum flexibility; all sorts of people can undertake the work; but they must be approved. That is the only factor that we suggest. I hope that the Minister will consider the matter again and return to the issue at Third Reading.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, the noble Lord spoke of hundreds of institutions commissioning research. Under the Bill it is only the agency which can commission such studies, not hundreds of institutions.
Lord Judd: My Lords, if the Minister considers the amendment, it states,
"approved by the Audit Commission".
That does not suggest that the Audit Commission has a static list of people who are its agents. It provides that, if the institution proposes someone, that person or organisation will be approved by the Audit Commission.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, it is an important point. That was not the point to which I responded. I responded

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to the noble Lord. He waved his arms about saying that there would be hundreds of institutions or many institutions up and down the country commissioning research. For the purposes of the Bill we are talking about only the agency commissioning research. In his amendment, the noble Lord is not prepared to take on trust that the agency will commission research from an appropriate body. He insists that one organisation, and one organisation only, shall have accreditation rights over any body which the agency wishes to commission.
Lord Judd: My Lords, I take the point that the Minister makes. The Government are completely mesmerised about the over-centralisation of everything into the one agency, so I doubt very much whether her officials in the department will have time to work out who will do what in every institution up and down the country. The Minister laughs, but she knows perfectly well how matters operate. A few years down the road I am sure that one will have various institutions suggesting that this or that organisation might do a little survey. That is what occurs. Then her officials will be overburdened with monitoring the situation.
We say that there is a perfectly adequate, highly respected organisation with much insight operating in the field already. We could have maximum reassurance that the matter was being undertaken properly with a great deal of flexibility. A great deal of wisdom could be brought into play, with good comparisons being made. Our amendment would ensure that there was proper quality and reliability in the future.
However, the Minister is not prepared to yield tonight. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment this evening. However. I hope that she will consider seriously the point that we make. I do not like to allude to it, but already we know that there are anxieties in the sphere of secondary education about what is being encountered as people take more responsibility for managing their own affairs. We are building on a secondary education system which is already encountering difficulties. I do not believe that there is room for complacency. We have to take seriously the danger that there are people who do not have adequate experience or the right background to understand the issues with which they are dealing as regards management and so on. The public is entitled to be reassured that we take seriously the need for high standards.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 31 not moved.]
Clause 11 [Power of schools to provide courses of initial teacher training]:
Baroness David Baroness David moved Amendment No. 32:
Page 6, line 18, after second ("school") insert ("in consultation with the teaching staff of the school").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 32, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 33 and 34.
The three amendments relate to consultation with teachers, parents and governors, and the holding of a ballot. I begin with Amendment No. 32. Governing bodies, under pressure from the TTA and in the light of possible financial incentives, need to be made aware of the need to ensure that all the teaching staff, not just the
936
head, are consulted on the feasibility and desirability of providing initial teacher training courses. The provision of ITT will impact upon teachers' conditions of service and contractual arrangements.
As it stands, the initial training of teachers is not one of the specific professional duties of a teacher set out in the statutory teachers' pay and conditions document. In 1993 the Secretary of State asked the School Teachers Review Body (STRB) to recommend that it should be so included. However, the STRB determined to examine the full implications of the proposal for its next report, which cannot now be operative until 1995. It is, therefore, imperative that teachers are consulted.
Teachers will quite rightly want to know what arrangements will be made for their preparation and training as the mentors of student teachers, whether and how additional responsibilities will be remunerated and whether and what additional non-contact time they will be given for intensive work with student teachers and to support student teachers in the planning and evaluation of their teaching. Governors will need the views of the teaching staff on the feasibility of undertaking a range of wholly new and intensified responsibilities.
Undertaking the responsibility for the training of adults as teachers is a very different activity from teaching children. Teachers have not in general been trained as mentors of student teachers, nor generally have they the breadth of expertise and understanding in relating the practice of teaching to the theoretical framework that underpins it.
For other teachers there will be new administrative and managerial responsibilities, involvement in the personal and professional counselling of student teachers and liaison with higher education institutions and the TTA. Existing job descriptions will have to he renegotiated. A proposal that a school should undertake an ITT will have a radical effect on the current job description of teachers. Teachers must therefore be consulted before the governing body makes such a decision. It is appropriate for this to be confirmed in legislation.
I turn to Amendment No. 33. During our debates in Committee the Minister argued against the amendment which I moved which sought to make schools provide teacher training courses subject to the procedures for a significant change of character under the Education Reform Act 1988 and the Education Act 1993. The Minister said on that occasion:
"In the light of our wider reforms … I do not think that any school would embark on a school-centred scheme unless it were able to convince and in due course demonstrate to local parents that the effect would be beneficial to their pupils".—[Official Report, 14/3/94; col. 36.]
The first amendment ensures such consultation takes place by, at the very least, providing those affected with information relating to the proposals so that comments can be made before final decisions are made.
The second amendment relates specifically to consultation with parents. The Bill contains no requirement on the governing body to consult with parents before a partnership scheme is introduced. Parents need to be consulted for the following reasons (I gave these when I was trying to move the: change of character amendment); the scheme could mean a

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significant change in the timetable; classes could be subject to higher teacher turnover because mentor teachers will have increased time out of the classroom; a significant number of student teachers will be in schools and classes; parents should be forewarned of any teacher training scheme before the course is introduced so that they are able to raise questions and concerns with the school. I can say that the wording of this amendment is in line; the phrasing is taken from Schedule 2, paragraph 6, to the 1992 Act.
Amendment No. 34 deals with a possible ballot. All parents should receive an annual report. Motions can be passed at the school's annual parents meeting if 20 per cent. of the registered parents attend. However, the reports and meetings usually take place in the summer and early autumn term and are only required annually. A teacher education course may be introduced before the annual report can be considered. There must be a mechanism for parents who object to the school itself providing a teacher education course if their fears are not allayed by any consultation that may occur.
The Minister argues that in setting up a teacher education course,
"governors will not take such a decision without considering the views of all concerned—those of the teaching staff and parents in particular. Both groups are of course represented on the governing body and will be well able to make their views known".—[Official Report, 14/3/94; col. 36.]
However, the Government provided the mechanism of a parental ballot in previous education Acts and this amendment reflects the importance of parents' views, which the Minister acknowledged during Committee stage. I hope that the Minister will agree that this change justifies a ballot if sufficient parents so request.
Again, similar wording has been used in this amendment relating to the ballot procedure relating to GM status in Section 26 of the Education Act 1993. So I hope that the Minister will back up the words that she spoke in Committee and will be agreeable to getting the parents' and the teachers' views, and allowing them if necessary to go to a ballot. I beg to move.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I am happy to support this group of amendments. If a school takes on the responsibility for initial teacher training, it will be taking on quite a big responsibility. In fact, it will produce a change in the character of the school that is very like the concept of change of use in planning law. It will be very different afterwards from what it was before.
It is common knowledge that at the moment schools are pretty heavily burdened. Taking on initial teacher training will create a demand for space, which is not something that many schools have too much of. It will create a demand for library facilities. I do not think that the Government have any idea whatsoever of quite how inadequate most school libraries are at the moment. I know about this. It is a matter about which we ask every entrance candidate who comes to us for interview. If schools take on initial teacher training, a very large slice of the library budget, which is already minuscule, will
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necessarily be taken up by the new responsibility. I shall not dwell upon the point about teachers' time. That is obvious enough.
In response to the changes there will be a big risk that the staff of the school will, as it were, play with the new toy. They will be excited by the new responsibilities —possibly at the expense of the old. Indeed, even if that does not happen, there could well be a perception among parents, and even more among the children, that people are more excited by the initial teacher training than they are by looking after the children. If such a perception were to gain ground it would be a very grave handicap to conducting any initial teacher training in that school. That is why the procedure laid down by these amendments is quite important. It is vital that consent should be got beforehand; and that the whole school, including the children, should feel involved in what is being done and should feel a will to co-operate with it and to share responsibility for it.
It is rather like the situation of a GP who is a senior lecturer in clinical medicine. He has his students in while he is seeing patients; but if he is a good GP—as mine is —he regularly asks their consent before he does so. That, again, is quite vital to making any procedure work. We have been used through previous education Acts to seeing a great deal of development in the standing of parents in schools. That is not a party issue, certainly not in principle—and certainly not, I hope, in relation to this amendment.
We also all agree that ultimately the interests of the children in the school must come first. If they do not consent beforehand, the schemes simply cannot work. That is why I believe that these are rather important amendments. I hope that the Minister will accept them.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I suppose that with a great effort of imagination one can just conceive that a school with parent governors would undertake to become a school of this nature without involving the parents and obtaining their agreement. It is a degree of folly which is difficult to imagine, but I suppose that one has to provide for the unimaginable in legislation. I should not have thought it was necessary. I say that in regard to the second amendment.
The first amendment suggests that it might be within the grasp of the school—whatever a school is, if the teachers are not included—to embark on one of these schemes without the support of the teachers who have to do the work. I find that incomprehensible. I do not feel that Amendment No. 32 could possibly be needed and I doubt whether Amendment No. 33 is required.
I believe that we disposed in Committee of the question as to whether this was a change in the character of the school and decided that it was not. To an extent I sympathise with the remarks of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, that there would be, for instance, a greater reliance on the resources of the library. But I hope that, when the school prudently went to the parents to talk about it, it would be pointed out that the school would be getting more money which could be spent on the library to meet that call. I hope that my noble friend will not call up such a vast engine for what will perhaps be no use at all.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I hope that I can take as read what the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said and perhaps the noble Lords on the Opposite Benches will agree with him. My understanding is that they are far from agreeing and addressing the needs of parents. Those parents who have opted for self-governing status would not enjoy that status if either of the noble Lords' parties were to come to power. So much for saying that parental wishes should be properly recognised and addressed.
I recognise that these amendments do not have quite so many serious defects as the amendment moved at the last stage which sought to align the decision to run a course of teacher training with a significant change in the character of the school. But they are no more appropriate, building, as they seem to do, on provisions which relate to school inspections and the acquisition of grant-maintained status.
Taking first Amendment No. 32, it requires the governing body wishing to provide a course of training to do so,
"in consultation with the teaching staff of the school".
Of course, it will be quite impossible for any governing body to run a course of training without the full and wholehearted co-operation of the staff of the school. They will be involved in a number of ways: the staff representatives on the governing body, those involved in course design and those involved in teaching and supervising the students. But the responsibility for providing the course must rest with the governors alone, as the clause secures. That gives us the clear line of accountability that we need. The amendment would either be meaningless or blur that clear line.
Amendments Nos. 33 and 34 require consultation with parents and others, and make arrangements for a ballot to be requested, before a school can provide a course. We must not get the provision of a course of teacher training out of perspective. It is an important matter. But the way in which the school is run and funded, the number and nature of pupils it will accept and the obligation on governors to offer all children access to a curriculum which meets the requirements of the law and spend their entire school budget to that effect are all completely unaffected by the running of a school-centred course.
It is those matters that require consultation before schools become self-governing or change their character. In the case of a school inspection, it is the central question of how the school caters for its pupils which is at issue. But in this Bill we are talking about activities which must not detract from the school's central purpose but can and will enhance its strength.
I am confident that governors will volunteer to take on this new task only when it benefits the school as a whole. With the spotlight increasingly on standards, with greater choice for parents—
Lord Judd: My Lords, perhaps the noble Baroness will allow me to intervene at this point. Is she saying that there will be no disruption when the headmaster of Harrow has withdrawn from a partnership agreement because he says that it is so disruptive to the ongoing teaching by staff in his own school? What sort of nonsense is the Minister talking?
9.45 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I totally refute the accusation that I am talking nonsense. I ask the noble Lord to come with me to witness school-centred courses and see the impact, which is not negative and disruptive but positive, and the beneficial aspects of the life of the school. Indeed, governors, staff, parents and heads would not go along with the process if it were as the noble Lord said. The noble Lord has been bigoted and biased against grant-maintained status and school-centred training. He is simply hurt that we happen to be winning the argument.
Lord Judd: My Lords, I thank the Minister again for giving way. I have already said this evening that I shall be delighted to go with her. I hope that she will agree to come with me to see some of the schools where quite the contrary conclusion has been drawn.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I am talking of school-centred teacher training, which is what we are discussing here. I am talking about schools which are precisely operating under the conditions we would like other schools to operate under if the Bill should become law.
As I said, it is notable that the noble Baroness only wants these extra requirements to apply to schools providing their own courses; schools which, as now, put considerable effort into working as partners with higher education courses will not be affected. Those are the schools that the noble Lord wishes me to visit. I wish him to visit the schools where there are proper school-centred courses.
It appears that, as with many of the other amendments before us, these are motivated by a desire to put further obstacles in the way of schools which want to take the initiative in this respect. I hope that they will not be pressed. But if they are, I hope the House will reject them.
I have not dwelt on the technical defects of the amendments. As I explained, Amendment No. 32 is not clear in its impact; Amendment No. 33 is not effective because there is no timescale attached or power to prescribe what must be prescribed and the power to run the course does not depend on any specific outcome. The ballot requirements in Amendment No. 34 are not effective because there is no matching duty to hold a ballot or abide by its results. We should not add such highly defective provisions to the statute book.
The noble Lord, Lord Judd, referred to the partnership in the Harrow school, a school already mentioned today by the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant. Harrow withdrew from a partnership which could not trigger any action under the amendment. It was not a school-centred course and the noble Lord should make the distinction between school-centred courses and those schools which are co-operating to meet requirements of the primary and secondary circulars. As I said, the budget of a school—in other words, the library provisions of the school referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Russell—is protected in law in the Bill; school budgets cannot be used to fund initial teacher training courses.
Lord Judd: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. But will she not accept that distinguished educationalists, including the headmaster of Harrow, have made the point that it is not possible for serious members of the teaching staff to keep the same relationship with the children they are teaching if they have to take on increased responsibilities for looking after student teachers as well?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, at the risk of boring the House on this matter perhaps I can say once more to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, that he constantly refers to courses under the primary and secondary circulars. In those courses all the money goes to higher education institutions. The higher education institutions hand over a portion of that money—sometimes not very much—to the schools. Many of the schools are saying that with the money they are given by higher education they are finding it difficult to meet their commitments in schools. That must be a matter between them.
The Bill does not concern those courses. The Bill is concerned with school-centred courses. Those schools receive all the money for teacher training—all of it. In the Bill as proposed there is a safeguard in law for the school budgets so that budgets will not be used to cross-fertilise the cost of courses for initial teacher training. They are therefore very different. If some schools, perhaps Harrow, had a little more of that higher education money they could perhaps meet the commitments under that partnership. But for every Harrow there are many schools where the partnership is a fruitful one and one that benefits both primary and secondary school teachers under the remit of the circulars.
Lord Judd: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister, and I recognise that she is trying very fully to respond to my point. I appreciate that, even if it is a slightly heated exchange. My point is that if a parent has a first class teacher who is giving excellent service in a subject to his child and then the school becomes involved in a scheme of any kind in which that teacher will be giving time and attention to preparing students, there will be a fundamental change in the nature of the experience of that child at school. That is what my noble friend was referring to in moving the amendment. To suggest that there is not a significant change for the school is palpable nonsense.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, with the leave of the House, the noble Lord continues to pose questions to me. A school that is applying to be accredited to provide teacher training is, first, not allowed to use the money for the school; and, secondly, each of the schools in any consortium providing teacher training under these proposals would have a primary duty to provide as good an education as possible to its pupils. That is also an obligation in law. Ofsted has a requirement and remit under the inspectorate system to see that schools are visited and revisited once every four years, and the quality of the teaching and the learning in those schools will be properly assessed. An evaluation of these schemes is going on. The noble Lord referred to a disruptive and negative impact. I am saying that that is
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not the evidence so far; and if it were the evidence, under the system as we propose it would be very exposed and we would soon know about it. It would be an irresponsible school, an irresponsible governing body with parental representation on it and a fairly passive parent body that would allow such a negative and disruptive impact. However, I am afraid that the noble Lord's pessimism will not come to pass.
Earl Russell: My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down, I know it is late at night but perhaps I may remind her that if she claims she has won the argument she risks prolonging it.
Baroness David: My Lords, the noble Baroness the Minister has spoken with great conviction but her statement is based on very little evidence. My understanding is that about 250 teachers are involved in this school-based training—we must remember that there is a difference between school-based and school centred training—and that about 60,000 teachers are not involved, so I think we are quite right in asking for certain safeguards. I agree with my noble friend Lord Judd that it is almost bound to make a difference to the school. If it is really going to be extended vastly I think that parents and teachers should be consulted, as we request in these amendments.
I confess at once that the amendments may well be technically deficient but that can always be remedied if the principle of them is agreed to. However, it is clear that the noble Baroness is not going to concede that we have any point at all. I am grateful to the noble Earl for his support. All I can say now is that I disagree with the noble Baroness completely. I shall read with great care what she said and we shall very likely come back to the matter at Third Reading. I am not convinced because the noble Baroness's case is based on so little evidence to date and because of her remarks in Committee that parents would most certainly be consulted. And that she is not prepared to accept. But, for tonight, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 33 and 34 not moved. ]
Clause 13 [Qualification of teachers, &c.]:
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 35:
Page 7, line 44, after ("person") insert ("—
(a) holds a degree or equivalent qualification granted by a United Kingdom institution or an equivalent degree or other qualification granted by a foreign institution, and (b)").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving this amendment perhaps I may speak also to Amendment No. 36. We believe that, as at present, all those who successfully complete courses of initial teacher training should also be required to have a degree or equivalent qualification in order to be granted qualified teacher status. Amendments Nos. 35 and 36 reflect that belief.
During the Committee stage the noble Lord, Lord Judd, proposed an amendment in the same territory. Noble Lords will recall that we agreed with the principle of his amendment but were able to accept it as drafted. I have therefore, as I said I would, brought before the House these amendments which I hope will command the support of your Lordships. I beg to move.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, these amendments meet the principle behind the amendment tabled in the name of my noble friend Lord Judd which I moved at Committee stage. I am grateful to the Minister for bringing them forward and they are acceptable. There is also an additional improvement in that the term "United Kingdom" has now replaced "England and Wales". I hope that that will satisfy the Scots and the Northern Irish.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I too wish to thank my noble friend the Minister. I do not want to say it too strongly, but this provision should have been in the Bill in the first place. I am very grateful to the Minister for putting this matter right.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 36:
Page 8, line 1, at beginning insert:
("For the purposes of this sub-paragraph—

(a) a "United Kingdom institution" means an institution established in the United Kingdom, other than one which is, or is affiliated to or forms part of, an institution whose principal establishment is outside the United Kingdom;

(b) a "foreign institution" means any institution other than a United Kingdom institution; and

(c)")

On Question, amendment agreed to. Baroness David moved Amendment No. 37:
Page 8, line 1, leave out from second ("accredited") to ("by") in line 4.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the purpose of this amendment is to ensure that only the Secretary of State, and not the teacher training agency, can accredit a higher education institution, a school or some other body in order to enable a student who successfully completes a teacher training course there to obtain qualified teacher status.
When it appoints teachers a governing body needs to have confidence in their suitability, including that they fully merit the QTS which they have obtained. At present a course leads to QTS either because the Secretary of State has approved it or because he has accredited the institution which provides the course. Either way, he is accountable for a decision which critically affects the quality and reliability of QTS. This accountability should not be shuffled off onto a body having no experience of accrediting institutions for teacher training, which the Secretary of State appoints and can influence by formal and informal means, but for whose decisions, which could not readily be challenged in Parliament, he could disclaim responsibility.
It is particularly important that the Secretary of State should have to justify a decision to accredit or to refuse accreditation when it relates to a school or other body without previous experience of providing initial teacher training. Under the amendment, the Secretary of State could still obtain advice from the teacher training agency on whether or not to accredit, but he would have to account for his decision to Parliament and those directly affected by it. I beg to move.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, we are once again going over ground already covered in earlier amendments today. It is vital that institutional accreditation as we have proposed is performed by a
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body that is external to the institution offering teacher training. Unlike validation, it is not appropriate for there to be self-accreditation by the course providers, whether they be in higher education or in schools. That would not give the necessary assurances about quality. And that is why we need a teacher training agency to take the decisions, and not merely advise, on both accreditation and funding.
In the case of initial teacher training, the teacher training agency will fund and accredit in England; and for Wales it will be the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales that will both fund and accredit Welsh initial teacher training. Both will have regard to the initial teacher training criteria of the relevant Secretary of State; that is, for England or for Wales.
We start from the position that it is right to bring together all the important functions which affect the quality of teacher training and which will benefit from a concerted approach. In particular, these are the funding of teacher training and the accreditation of those who provide courses.
We must not split funding and accreditation. They must go together. That is how we shall get high quality teacher training and this will in turn raise standards. We are already making improvements through revised criteria for training courses. But the teacher training agency will ensure that all training meets the criteria and will concentrate its funding on the highest quality courses.
Under our approach we shall bring together the funding and accreditation work done currently by three separate bodies: the Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education, which advises the Secretary of State on individual courses; the Department for Education, which approves all courses of teacher training; and the Higher Education Funding Council for England, which funds all higher education courses.
The Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education will close when the teacher training agency is set up and the Department for Education will have reduced functions. Indeed, the Secretary of State is giving up the decision-making in this area. The Bill does not alter the Secretary of State's long-standing involvement in initial teacher training through the setting of course criteria and student number targets. But the reforms mean he is giving up decision-making over course approval, which will translate into the institutional accreditation function of the teacher training agency; and giving up decisions on the funding of school-centred training, which will pass from the Department for Education to the teacher training agency.
The Government's approach rests on fundamental principles which have inspired so many of our reforms: quality, efficiency, choice and accountability. The time is ripe for the funding and accreditation functions to be brought together. This will provide the new and independent machinery to support our other reforms. The various bodies which now have responsibilities in these areas have all done useful things. But what is needed now is for one vigorous and independent body, dedicated to teacher training, to address both the

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funding and the accreditation aspects. This is the most effective way to achieve the necessary gains in clarity, accountability and effectiveness.
Under Clause 13 as originally drafted the teacher training agency has the statutory role in the accreditation of institutions. It will have to satisfy itself that universities, colleges and schools that wish to offer teacher training have the necessary commitment to the Secretary of State's criteria and the systems in place to deliver quality courses. All courses will as now be subject to inspection by Ofsted—and the agency will be able to withdraw accreditation if courses fail to meet the criteria.
I should say at this point that the idea that the agency should have accreditation joined to its funding role was not one that we originally proposed but was actually proposed by the Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education, the body of experts which currently has the accreditation function. We accepted its proposal gladly because it so clearly meets the key objectives of clear lines of accountability and high quality without bureaucracy.
As I have said, the agency will accredit courses provided by universities and colleges, as well as schools. It is worth repeating, partly to underline yet again that we expect higher education to continue to provide teacher training and partly to demonstrate what folly it would be for higher education to be in the business of accreditation when it would actually remain a requirement for higher education itself to be accredited. It would then be an accreditee and an accreditor—and that cannot be right for accountability.
The agency will encourage diversity by supporting courses run by schools as well as by higher education. The agency will also be able to ensure there is increasing choice among courses of different lengths and design, as well as those provided by different bodies. We look forward to a steady increase in school-centred training. Numbers will certainly grow beyond the current pioneers, in secondary schools in particular. But neither the Government nor the agency will be forcing schools to take on extra responsibilities. The schools will have to meet the Secretary of State's criteria, meet Ofsted's inspection standards and meet the accreditation standard of the teacher training agency. Given all that, there is simply no need in the approach we have advocated for schools to pass a mandatory further test of validation or accreditation by higher education.
10 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, I wonder whether she could answer a question. She said that courses are to be accredited by CATE, but I thought that CATE was going to be abolished. What will happen after that? How will the eight or 12 people —busy people, as the Minister said—who will serve on the teacher training agency have the time and ability to accredit all those many courses?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I am sorry if I did not make it clear. I said that CATE would close when the
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agency was established. At the moment, CATE advises on course approval. It is the Secretary of State who actually approves the courses. Under the new arrangements, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State will pass the accreditation powers to the agency. It will be the agency that will be responsible for accreditation in future.
Baroness David: My Lords, but the Minister has not explained how the agency —with eight or 12 people —will accredit all the courses in all the schools. Could she explain a little more?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, it will use the evidence of Ofsted, which is used at the moment. Ofsted's staff will be the people who will know and be able to give information about standards and about whether a school or group of schools is suitable for the purpose of providing training. Ofsted will also be responsible for inspecting and monitoring standards as the courses continue.
Baroness David: My Lords, I thank the Minister for her further clarification, but I must say that I find it hard to follow. She goes rather fast. I should like to read what she said to see whether that convinces me more than I am convinced at the moment. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but I may come back again on it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 38 not moved.]
Clause 14 [Duty to provide information, etc.]:
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 39:
Page 8, line 18, after ("State") insert ("(in such manner as he may from time to time determine)").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 39 and 40 are grouped with Amendment No. 41 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Russell.
We believe that it is essential that the teacher training agency is able to give the Secretary of State independent and objective advice. In Committee, my noble friend Lord Elton moved an amendment to remove the power of the Secretary of State to determine the form of advice or information given by the agency which he has not himself requested. Following further consideration, we have concluded that such a change would indeed be beneficial. It will be seen clearly that there is no restriction upon the ability of the agency to communicate as freely and openly as it wishes with the Secretary of State.
Perhaps, given the time of night, I may be presumptuous and address Amendment No. 41. The noble Earl could then pick up anything I say. The amendment would go further than we have done. It would remove the power of the Secretary of State to determine the manner in which he was given information which he has specifically requested from the agency. As I said in Committee, I believe that such an amendment would go too far and prevent the Secretary of State from requesting confidential information on important issues such as an individual institution's financial health. If he could not add the requirement for confidentiality, the Secretary of State

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might be inclined to ask the agency for less information than he really needs, which could lead to a breakdown in communications and a loss of accountability.
I think that the solution suggested by my noble friend., which we have reflected in our amendments, strikes the right balance between confidentiality and openness. I hope that on reflection the noble Earl, given that he has not even spoken to his amendment, when he has, will consider withdrawing it. I beg to move.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Skelmersdale): My Lords, since Amendments Nos. 39, 40 and 41 are grouped, I should point out that if Amendment No. 40 is agreed to I cannot call Amendment No. 41.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I speak to Amendment No. 41 which is included in this group. It would remove from the Bill the words that the agency shall provide advice:
"in such manner as the Secretary of State may from time to time determine".
I thought that the Minister was going to point out that those words had been in education Bills since 1988. Had she done that, I was going to point out that I divided the House against those words when they first appeared in 1988. I thought that they were wrong then; I think that they are wrong now. That is absolutely crucial as to why there is a growing lack of confidence in administration by quango.
The Minister said that the agency was to give independent and objective advice. She must have picked up a certain scepticism about whether that is in fact what the Secretary of State is going to get—because of course the key to independent and objective advice is that it is sometimes unwelcome. That is in the tradition of giving counsel to rulers, which goes right back into the depths of the Middle Ages. A counsellor who did not sometimes give unwelcome advice was a bad counsellor. Indeed, he was a flatterer.
If advice is to be given only in such manner as the Secretary of State shall from time to time determine, it is difficult to give independent and unwelcome advice because unwelcome advice is usually given on things where the person does not know that he needs any advice. Indeed, that is why it is particularly important that it should be given. I understand what the Minister says about confidentiality. That is a point that I would not wish to dispute with her. If the Minister wishes to ask for a form of words which allows advice to be given confidentially on a particular question at a particular time, I should not argue with that. However, it is important that the agency should be in a position to give unsolicited advice and, even more important, like the old University Grants Committee in the days when it enjoyed a confidence that agencies do not, I regret to say, enjoy now, give its advice in public if the Secretary of State is not willing to listen to it in private.
Without that capacity to advise in public, an agency will simply not enjoy the confidence of the public. If the noble Baroness wishes to convince me that the agency is a genuinely independent force, then she must let the dog off the lead. If she does not trust the dog off the lead, then it is not independent.
Lord Elton: My Lords, with the greatest respect I believe that the dog is off the lead because, under the formula proposed by my noble friend, which I warmly welcome because it is based on a proposal I made in Committee, the agency is able to give any advice that it wants on any subject it chooses in any form it likes. If that is what the noble Earl means by independence, it is met by the formula proposed by my noble friend.
When the Secretary of State has asked for advice in one form, the agency cannot give that advice in another form. I am persuaded by my noble friend, although I had not expected to be, that there are occasions on which, for reasons of confidentiality and the effect that it might have were it made public and shared, the advice must be given in a particular form. That does not preclude the agency from giving other advice in the form it wishes.
I hope that the noble Earl will repent of his enthusiasm for releasing the dog further. It seems to me that the dog is as free as it should be, and I am grateful to my noble friend for accepting what I humbly suggest was my advice.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 40:
Page 8, leave out lines 23 and 24.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 41 not moved.]
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendment No. 42:
Page 8, line 34, at end insert:
("(4) The Teacher Training Agency or the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales shall provide such information for the purposes of teacher education and training as may be required by:

(i) The Higher Education Funding Council for England;

(ii) the governing body of an institution under subsection (3) (a) above;

(iii) any local authority;

(iv) the Office for Standards in Education;

(v) the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority; and

(vi) any other body deemed appropriate by the Secretary of State.").

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this is a straightforward amendment designed to ensure that information is provided to facilitate the provision of teacher education and training. As the Bill is drafted, organisations and bodies associated with teacher training must provide information for the new teacher training agency. The amendment ensures a two-way flow of information.
In responding to the debate on Amendment No. 3 earlier, the Minister repeated more than once that she expects the teacher training agency to work closely with the Higher Education Funding Council. The amendment has been tabled with just that in mind. To work together in a spirit of co-operation, it is essential to ensure that the different bodies are all properly informed.
I regret to say that when the Government establish new agencies they tend to make a statutory requirement for other bodies to provide information to the new agency. However, they omit to ensure that the new agency should also provide information. Indeed, the new agencies seem to go scot-free when it comes to reciprocating. Surely that is wrong. We want a two-way flow of information so that we can achieve the highest

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possible quality of teacher training and education. I very much hope that the Minister can accept the amendment. I beg to move.
10.15 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, Amendment No. 42 would impose a wide-ranging and ill-defined requirement on the funding agencies to provide information on any aspect of teacher education and training to any or all of the bodies listed in the amendment. I defer to no one in my belief in the importance of the frank and frequent interflow of information. But the amendment takes an unwieldy hammer to the nut.
The amendment is not only ill drafted, it is also unnecessary in many respects. Ofsted, for example, is already given rights of access to teacher training agency meetings and papers under a government amendment discussed earlier. Naturally there will be a good and close relationship there. The Higher Education Funding Council will need to work closely with the funding agencies. But that is allowed for explicitly in Clause 9. It would be curious—and, indeed, unfortunate for the working relations of those bodies—if there needed to be a legal power to require information. Why would the agency simply not provide anything that was reasonable? Why would the Secretary of State not step in if there were problems? Does it really require the attention of the courts? If relations are to be so poor as to require such a provision, why is there no reciprocal power here for the agency to require information from the funding council?
I turn now to the reference to the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority. I am sure that it and the agency will want to exchange information, although the working links will be less close than with Ofsted and the funding council. Again, I see no case at all for regulating that exchange in the Bill. The same will be true of local education authorities and schools, with both of whom, I can assure the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, the agency will wish to be on good terms. Again, I hope that the amendment will not be pressed.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, if one looks at Clause 14(3) (a) as presently drafted, it will be seen that,
"the governing body of any institution receiving … grant",
has to provide such information, and that "any local education authority" has to provide information as required by the TTA; yet, apparently, the reverse is not required. It is somewhat puzzling. After all, LEAs will, for example, continue to play a role in the provision of schools and may from time to time need to have information from the TTA. I have no doubt, as the Minister said, that the agency will normally be willing to provide such information. No doubt that will also be true as regards providing information to the other bodies listed in the amendment.
However, it seems to me that the Minister's response is a little odd, in that she suggested that it is heavy handed to ask the new agency to provide that information but, on the other hand, she does not think it heavy handed to ask the other bodies mentioned in
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Clause 14 to provide the information for the new agency. Nevertheless, I have no wish to press the amendment tonight. I beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 15 [Additional, supplementary and ancillary functions]:
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 43:
Page 9, line 3, at end insert:
("( ) Before making an order under subsection (1) or (2) the Secretary of State shall carry out such consultation as appears to him to be appropriate.").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, Amendment No. 43 places a requirement on the Secretary of State to consult before he makes an order about additional functions of the teacher training agency and supplementary functions of the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, made the case for such an amendment through one of his own at the Committee stage. I hope that he will find that the thrust of his concern is met by the amendment now before us. I beg to move.
Lord Judd: My Lords, after our liveliness earlier, I am glad to be able to finish on a positive note. I should like to thank the Minister for having responded to our point on the matter. We are most grateful for the amendment that she has now brought forward. However, perhaps I may make one observation. If the Secretary of State is to consult with the people whom he feels to be appropriate, much will depend upon his attitude towards consultation. My conclusion—and I am sure that the Minister really agrees with me—is that the Bill with which we have been unhappily dealing for some time now is a classic example of how a Secretary of State can shoot himself in every available limb by failing to consult fully before rushing legislation into print.
The time, the energy, the anxiety and the money which have been wasted quite unnecessarily in trying to contain the damage which otherwise would have gone almost out of control are really quite extraordinary. Therefore, I am delighted that the noble Baroness has responded so positively—I am not surprised that she has done so—to this matter. I am sure she will understand when I say that we hope we will see an administration which will follow this measure through in the spirit in which it is intended, and which will want to build a consensus on sound legislation and sound policy on the basis of taking the advice of people who really are involved in this matter and who are not just managing the money. I am referring to the people who understand what goes on in the classroom and understand the pressures that teachers face.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 17 [Interpretation]:
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendments Nos. 44 to 48:
Page 9, line 11, at end insert:
(—denominational character", in relation to an institution, shall be construed in accordance with subsection (IA) below;").
Page 9, line 20, leave out ("and").
Page 9, line 21, at end insert:
(—special educational needs" shall be construed in accordance with subsection (1B) below.").

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Page 9, line 21, at end insert:
("(1A) For the purposes of this Part an institution is of a denominational character if—

(a) at least one quarter of the members of the governing body of the institution, or in the case of a school at least one-fifth, are persons appointed to represent the interests of a religion or religious denomination, or

(b) any of the property held for the purposes of the institution is held upon trusts which provide that, in the event of the discontinuance of the institution, the property concerned shall be held for, or sold and the proceeds of sale applied for, the benefit of a religion or religious denomination, or

(c) any of the property held for the purposes of the institution is held on trust for or in connection with—

(i) the provision of education, or

(ii) the conduct of an educational institution, in accordance with the tenets of a religion or religious denomination.").

Page 9, line 21, at end insert:
("(1B) For the purposes of this Part persons with special educational needs are

(a) children with special educational needs as defined in section 156 of the Education Act 1993, or

(b) persons (other than children within the meaning of that section) who—

(i) have a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of persons of their age, or

(ii) have a disability which either prevents or hinders them from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided for persons of their age.").

On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 18 [Meaning of "students' union"]:
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 49:
Page 9, leave out lines 35 to 37.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 49 I wish to speak also to Amendments Nos. 51, 54, 59 and 61. These amendments concern which sections of the student body in any particular institution are affected by the requirements in Clause 20. When that clause was inserted in Committee I said that we would need to come back to the interaction between that clause and Clause 18: that is what these amendments do.
First in this group Amendments Nos. 49, 51 and 54 delete the references to "all students" in Clause 18. Clause 18 identifies different types of student union, and these references were needed to determine which group of students was concerned in each case by the various provisions in what was Clause 21. With the recasting of those provisions in what is now Clause 20, these cross-references no longer quite work.
Instead, these definitional matters are sorted out within Clause 20. That is the function of Amendment No. 61. This provides a new subsection (5) in Clause 20, which determines the effect of the term "all students" as it is used in that clause. There are various matters on which it is appropriate for all students to receive information about the conduct of their student union. These are set out in subsection (2) of Clause 20 which specifies in paragraph (h) that they should have access to financial reports on union expenditure, and in paragraph (i) to a description of the procedures for allocating resources to clubs and societies. Paragraph (k), as amended by Amendment No. 59, requires that all students should have access to complaints procedures in relation to the union. Subsection (4) in Clause 20
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establishes that information about charity law and freedom of speech legislation as it relates to student: unions should also be made available to all students.
Finally, there is a connection to Amendment No. 58., which we will address shortly, which sets out a requirement that all students should have access to reports on external affiliations. The effect of the new subsection (5) in each case is that these 'requirements relate separately to each type of student union identified in Clause 18. Thus a graduate union, for example, would be required to make available copies of its financial accounts to all graduate students at the establishment, but not more widely.
The effect of these provisions is to ensure that students have access to the information that they need. Even students who are not union members have an interest in knowing that the union is making proper use of the institution's resources. In some instances they may also be members of clubs or societies that the union funds; and they could be affected by abuses of free speech or of charity law by the union, which could drag all an institution's students into disrepute whether or not they are union members.
Amendment No. 61 also addresses some related issues. The requirements in Clause 20 for voting in elections and on affiliations relate to members of the union. But in the case of a student representative council the members are the representatives, not the students who are represented. The new subsection (6) therefore makes clear that in those circumstances it is the students who are represented who should have voting rights in the election of officers and in ballots on external affiliations.
A new subsection (7) acids a definition of external affiliations referred to in subsection (2) (j). This includes any form of membership or formal association with external organisations undertaken by the student union. We shall debate shortly the revised requirements that we propose in relation to affiliations.
Finally, a new subsection (8) to Clause 20 implements my undertaking given in Committee that the requirements for ballots should not apply to distance learning institutions. I trust that that will meet the point of noble Lords, and in particular of my noble friend Lady Carnegy of Lour, who expressed anxiety about the implications of the reforms for the Open University.
This group of amendments clarifies how the provisions of Clause 20 will apply to different kinds of union defined in Clause 18. I commend them to the House. I beg to move.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I should like to thank my noble friend for all the trouble she has taken in going into the matters in all the amendments. In particular I should like to thank her for the new subsection (8) to Clause 20 which she has just mentioned.
The Open University will appreciate enormously the trouble she has taken to find out exactly what are the problems for the university in terms of cost and the mechanics of carrying out secret ballots. As she knows, it has its own arrangements, which are very democratic. The university will appreciate the amendment, which is

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tailor-made for it and any other similar institutions in the future. I am sure the Open University will be very grateful. I certainly am.
Earl Russell: My Lords, we owe even further thanks to the noble Baroness beyond those that we expressed to her last week in Committee. She has taken an immense amount of trouble with the amendments. They appear to me to be consistently improvements. If I probe one or two points in detail I do so in full sympathy with the general objectives of the amendments.
I share the general pleasure at the resolution of the question of open and distance learning. I want to raise one point about paragraph (b) in Amendment No. 61 and the reference to:
"all students at the hall of residence in question".
That leads me to wonder how much thought has been given, in a very busy time, to the effect of the newly amended Bill on the junior common rooms in Oxford and Cambridge in terms of which parts of the Bill impact on them and in what ways, and the ways in which there may be differences from the effects on an ordinary students' union.
I also have one general question, of which I have given the noble Baroness notice. I am not sure whether this is the correct place to raise it. I have been asked what is the effect of the Bill on those students' unions which elect their women's officer by a ballot of women only. People of my generation who remember the Warren judgment may not feel quite comfortable with that arrangement. But we are not the electorate here. It is perhaps a question in which we would be unwise to intervene from outside. My main purpose is to know simply what is the effect of the Bill on that practice. My purpose in asking is to know, as A. E. Housman had it.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, the JCRs are subsumed in the definition of student unions. They will be student unions in their own right.
As regards the women's officer, the noble Earl may have noticed that we have left it to the institutions themselves to determine which shall be the main offices subject to secret ballot. Therefore, if the institution itself determined that the specific role of women's officer was one of the major appointments, then that would be subject to secret ballot of all members. If it was not one of the major offices then it would be for the union to determine how to appoint a women's officer in any way prescribed internally by that organisation.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 50:
Page 9, leave out lines 38 and 39 and insert:
("(2) References in this Part to a students' union include an association or body which would fall within subsection (1) if for the references to the generality of students at the establishment there were substituted a reference to—").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 50, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 52, 53 and 55. These amendments are essentially consequential amendments. They arise from the insertion in Committee of the opting out provision that
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is now in Clause 20. In introducing those provisions I mentioned that we would need to return to the consequences in Clause 18.
The main amendment in the group is Amendment No. 55. It is designed to ensure that a union is subject to the provisions of the Bill even if the majority of student bodies are not members of the union, provided that membership is open generally to all students. The main definition of a student union in subsection (1) of Clause 18 relies on its covering the generality of students. But in some circumstances a union might not embrace the generality. This could arise if large numbers opted out in a particular case, as I have mentioned. Where there are parallel unions, as at Glasgow University, it cannot be the case that both cover the generality of students, but both are open to the generality. I understand that Glasgow University has a union for men and a union for women. And in further education, it is not uncommon for part-time students to be ineligible for union membership. Where they make up a major proportion of the student body, again, the union could not be seen as covering the generality of students. The new subsection (5) accordingly provides for student unions to fall within the definitions in the Bill if they are open to the generality of students and if they cover the generality of full-time students whether or not they actually embrace the majority of students at the institution.
The other amendments in the group are consequential on the first amendment. Amendment No. 50 adjusts the lead-in to subsection (2) so as to reflect the treatment of the generality of students in the new subsection (5). Subsection (2) ensures that unions which serve only a distinct part of the student body—graduate students, or students in a single hall of residence—fall within the definition. I believe that that answers the noble Earl's previous question about JCRs.
Amendments Nos. 52 and 53 simply adjust the cross-references in subsection (3). The effect is that where a union is a conglomerate of the types of union identified in subsection (1) or (2), it falls within the definition. An example is the university-wide student unions at Cambridge and Oxford universities, which bring together the college-level junior common rooms.
We would not wish to exclude any student union from our proposed reforms simply because the majority of the student body were not members. These rather technical amendments can be summarised as dealing with that possibility. I therefore commend them to the House.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
10.30 p.m.
The Deputy Speaker: My Lords, if the noble Baroness wishes to move them, I shall take Amendments Nos. 51 to 55 en bloc.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendments Nos. 51 to 55:
Page 10, leave out lines I to 4.
Page 10, line 8, leave out ("(1) (a) or (b)") and insert ("(1) or (2)").
Page 10, line 10, leave out ("(1) (a) or (b)") and insert ("(1) or (2)").
Page 10, leave out lines 12 to 15.
Page 10, line 19, at end insert:

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("(5) References in this section to an association of the generality of students, or of any description of students, include

(a) any association which the generality of students, or of students of that description, may join, whether or not it has in membership a majority of them, and

(b) any association which would fall within paragraph (a) if the references there to students were confined to full-time students;

and references to a representative body whose principal purposes include representing the generality of students, or of any description of students, shall be similarly construed.").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 20 [Requirements to be observed in relation to students' unions]:
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 56:
Page 11, leave out lines 33 and 34.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, these are technical amendments on one level, but they also deal with an important point of substance raised in Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Flowers. The amendments adjust the provisions of Clause 20 so that only union members will have voting rights in ballots for union offices and on affiliations. As the Bill was amended in Committee, the term "non-member" was given the special sense that appears in subsection (2) (c) of Clause 20. This meant that a student who chose not to be a member of the union could not vote, as is right. But it also meant that a student who was not a member of the union by virtue of its constitution would be entitled to vote in union elections and on union affiliations. I said in Committee that that anomaly needed to be sorted out. These amendments remove the special sense given to the term "non-member". The effect will be to enable each institution and union, as now, to determine which categories of student are eligible for membership of the student union, and which in consequence are eligible to vote.
These amendments thus also deal with the point raised in Committee last week by the noble Lord, Lord Flowers, in his Amendments Nos. 85A and 85C. He proposed that in the ballots required for elections of union officers, students on courses lasting less than three months should be unable to vote. As I said then, I accept that it would not be sensible for students whose link with the institution was minimal, for example, students on very short courses, to have voting rights. With these amendments, and the later Amendment No. 58 on affiliations, each institution will be able to decide for itself which categories of student should be able to vote. Some may adopt the three-month rule, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Flowers; others will devise other rules to suit their own circumstances. In particular, further education colleges running franchise higher education courses will be able to decide whether the franchise students on site should be able to take part in these votes in the light of the details of the individual franchise agreement.
I have been in contact with the noble Lord, Lord Flowers, as I undertook to do in the Committee debate. He told us that he accepts that the approach that I proposed will meet the problem that he identified or, even better, will allow each institution to meet it in its
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own way. He has also asked me to convey his regret that another engagement prevents him from being here and saying that in person today.
I have given some thought to the point raised in Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, that graduating students elected to sabbatical office might no longer be students on taking up their posts and therefore not subject to the two year tenure limit. It is unlikely that such graduate sabbaticals would want to continue in office indefinitely, or that students would want to elect someone who had ceased to be a student several years previously. But for the avoidance of doubt I propose to bring forward an amendment at Third Reading to make clear that tenure of sabbatical office is limited to two years at any one establishment, whether or not the officer is a student.
Amendments Nos. 56 and 57 ensure that discretion over student union membership and the associated voting right is exercised where it belongs; at the institutional level. I commend the amendments to the House. I beg to move.
Earl Russell: My Lords, this sounds a sensible way of resolving the difficulty raised by the noble Lord, Lord Flowers. I heard what the noble Baroness said in Committee about the European convention I wondered how on earth she was going to play Houdini. I think that she has succeeded in doing so and has retreated from an attempt to prescribe in detail a situation a bit like the Irishman's pigs; he could not count them because they would not stay still. The categories are so infinitely various.
This is a prudent decision and I welcome it. I also welcome what the noble Baroness said about two year sabbaticals. I do not think anyone in the student union movement who advised me argued for a time longer than two years. I believe that this is the right way of resolving the matter and I hope that it will work. I thank the noble Baroness.
Lord Judd: My Lords, these are helpful amendments which move in the right direction. I believe that the Minister and I might have a meeting of minds. I hope that we do not let the evening go by without making the observation that for those students who want to opt out it is not always just a matter of principle. Frequently in the reality of the situation there is also a kind of social idleness. There are students who want to enjoy all the facilities provided but who do not want engage in the responsibilities of organising what should be provided, the way in which it should be provided, and so forth. I should hate any message inadvertently to go out from this House condoning that kind of exploitative attitude among some students.
I have met students, as has the noble Baroness, who when carrying office and responsibility have discussed at length their great frustration about the way in which many students complain about what is not right and the way things could be better done but give precious little time to putting themselves forward to shoulder such responsibilities. We should take the opportunity tonight, before the Bill leaves us, to put on record how much we in this House appreciate the dedicated work carried out by many students throughout the country in providing

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services and amenities not only for those who are full members but, in future, for those who will not be members under these provisions. We should never take that for granted and it is special to the quality of the institutions concerned. It is also an important part of their wider education. It would be good if that message could go out. Students who carry that kind of responsibility and manage to mould it well with their studies frequently become special members of society.
Perhaps I may also take this opportunity genuinely to thank the noble Baroness for what she said about sabbaticals. That is tremendous news. The way in which she has approached the matter is very wise and commends itself to all concerned. Again, I thank her most sincerely for having responded to the anxiety that I raised in Committee.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, I join in thanking the Minister for the degree to which she has advanced towards the positions that we took up earlier. I have only one question. It is perfectly genuine and is not intended to introduce discord into our proceedings. I am not quite certain about what is meant by "affiliation" in this clause. We have a provision that 5 per cent. of members of the union could trigger a ballot, which is expensive and elaborate. Does that apply to the affiliation of the whole union—for example, to the National Union of Students--or would it apply to any club which is sponsored by the union for a specific purpose? In other words, could 5 per cent. of the members demand that there be a general ballot on whether the tiddly-winks club could remain part of the national, or indeed international, tiddly-winks association?
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I add my thanks to my noble friend the Minister for the great increase in flexibility which these clauses and the previous amendments bring, and which answer fully all the concerns that I expressed in Committee.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: My Lords, before my noble friend replies I should like to be clear whether or not we have proceeded to Amendment No. 58. I plan to speak to that Amendment and I would not wish to speak in the wrong place.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I understand that we have not reached Amendment No. 58.
First, I thank my noble friend Lord Lucas for his comments. Indeed, I thank all noble Lords for their comments, particularly the noble Earl, who embarrasses me more and more each time he is so profuse with his generous remarks. It has been a team effort. There has been an enormous co-operation from other people in all of this. I am grateful and accept all the kind comments on behalf of all of those who have helped me.
Perhaps I may answer specifically the important point made by my noble friend Lord Beloff. It gives me an opportunity to make it absolutely clear that we are talking about affiliations made by a student union in the name of the generality of the students of an institution. Therefore, if the tiddly-winks club wishes to affiliate to
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its national (or indeed international) body, it may do so, and no percentage of members may trigger a secret ballot as to whether or not it should do so.
The 5 per cent. trigger point means "up to 5 per cent.". Again, it will be for the institution to determine what that trigger point shall be, up to 5 per cent. It will be affiliations such as to the National Union of Students; or it could be another national or international body, but affiliated by the student union in the name of the generality of all students.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 57:
Page II, line 36, leave out ("students other than non-members") and insert ("members").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 58:
Page 12, line 6, leave out paragraph (j) and insert:
("(ja) if the union decides to affiliate to an external organisation, it should publish notice of its decision stating—

(i) the name of the organisation, and

(ii) details of any subscription or similar fee paid or proposed to be paid, and of any donation made or proposed to be made, to the organisation,

and any such notice should be made available to the governing body and to all students;
(jb) where the union is affiliated to any external organisations, a report should be published annually or more frequently containing—

(i) a list of the external organisations to which the union is currently affiliated, and

(ii) details of subscriptions or similar fees paid, or donations made, to such organisations in the past year (or since the last report),

and such reports should be made available to the governing body and to all students;
(jc) there should be procedures for the review of affiliations to external organisations under which—

(i) the current list of affiliations is submitted for approval by members annually or more frequently, and

(ii) at such intervals of not more than a year as the governing body may determine, a requisition may made by such proportion of members (not exceeding 5 per cent.) as the governing body may determine, that the question of continued affiliation to any particular organisation be decided upon by a secret ballot in which all members are entitled to vote;").

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, on introducing what is now Clause 20 at Committee stage I said that I was continuing to reflect on the requirement for affiliation ballots in paragraph (2) (j). This amendment now reduces the need for ballots in the way that I undertook to provide.
The amendment requires in paragraph (ja) that the union should publish details of new affiliations, including the costs, to the governing body and to all students. A report listing all affiliations and their costs should also be published at least annually: that is required in paragraph (jb). The amendment further requires in paragraph (jc) that the list of affiliations should be subject to annual approval through the union's normal democratic processes. Finally, it enables a specified percentage of the members of the union to requisition a ballot on any particular affiliation.
It is only right and proper that student unions should make contact outside their immediate academic community in order to benefit from the mutual

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enrichment that that can bring. But, regrettably, under current arrangements many students are not aware of the actions taken, or of the frequently substantial fees paid, by student unions on behalf of their members in that regard. Such costs appear frequently as no more than a budget line in financial reports, or are even subsumed with other items of expenditure under generic headings. Students are not able to register their disapproval (or indeed their approval) of particular affiliations easily when the facts are not clearly or widely known.
Students should have a greater say and more control over affiliations, some of which will be controversial. This amendment provides increased transparency so that union members know what is bought on their behalf and at what cost. But it requires ballots only when affiliation is disputed. The requirement in Clause 20, as it stands, for annual ballots on all affiliations is therefore removed. This approach to reducing the possible burden of balloting was suggested by the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals. There will be ballots only where members themselves see the need.
The noble Lord, Lord Addington, asked previously about the effect of the requirement on affiliations to sporting organisations. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Beloff mentioned tiddly-winks. Maybe tiddly-winks is a sport—I do not know. It is certainly sporting to play it. Let me confirm, for the avoidance of doubt, that the requirement applies to affiliations undertaken by student unions, as I said a moment ago. Where an affiliation is made to a sporting association by a club or society it will not be included in the requirement. Where it is undertaken by the student union it will be included.
I note the concerns of noble Lords about the Open University. Amendment No. 61 proposes a new subsection, subsection (8), which secures that the requirement for ballots will not apply to the Open University, although the requirements for publishing information about affiliations and democratic approval will do so.
The provisions of this amendment represent a significant advance on present arrangements. Students will gain full and clear information about affiliations and increased democratic control. But there will be no automatic requirement for annual balloting on each and every affiliation. The amendment provides a framework for workable but sound surveillance of affiliations undertaken by student unions. I commend it to the House and beg to move.
10.45 p.m.
Lord Judd: My Lords, as has become very clear in this part of the evening, there is widespread relief at the amendments that the Minister has introduced. Again, I should like to say how much that is appreciated.
However, there are some remaining anxieties surrounding this amendment. Perhaps I may just briefly rehearse them. One is that the mechanics for securing assent by student union members to affiliations to external organisations should, in the spirit of the other provisions in Clause 20, be a matter for local determination. If that is the Minister's view, it would be interesting to hear why that should not be the case.
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There is also some feeling that there should be safeguards against too frequently balloting on affiliations. Some people would argue that rather than specifying intervals of not more than a year, it would be more acceptable to provide for intervals of not less than a year or more than three years. The reason is that it would enable each cohort of students to express a view.
Another matter which concerns those who will he dealing with the consequences of this legislation is that safeguards may well be needed against what might be described as vexatious calls for ballots for affiliations either to contentious organisations or to others. Specifying a minimum proportion of student union members who can require a ballot in this context is a sensible safeguard. But it can be argued that the size of that proportion should again be locally determined. Spelling out a limit on the face of the Bill could unduly restrict governing bodies, particularly in small institutions, where only a very small number of students could be the source of over-frequent and indeed expensive balloting.
There is one other matter that would benefit from clarification this evening. Paragraph (jc) (i) is the centre of concern. What will "submitted for approval" boil down to? There is a worry that it could be an invitation to over-frequent balloting. Surely the intention ought to be the publication of a list which will be assumed to have the membership's assent unless it is challenged in respect of affiliation to individual organisations. It would be helpful if the Minister could give us this evening some of her thinking on those matters.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: My Lords, as this is the last of my noble friend's amendments to this part of the Bill, I too should like to express my appreciation and say how splendidly the concerns voiced at Second Reading and in matters of detail subsequently have been dealt with today. The noble Earl, Lord Russell, at. an earlier stage was generous in his praise of the way my noble friend handled those matters. I should simply like to echo what he said and express great satisfaction and gratitude.
Amendment No. 58 is perhaps the nub of some of the difficulties expressed in the past. Indeed, those issues are the source of the anxieties which gave rise to this part of the Bill in the first place. But we are extremely happy that they are being met in this manner rather than in the manner originally contemplated.
One tiny matter of drafting caught my eye at which my noble friend may like to look. Under paragraph (i) (ii) the amendment says,
"details of subscriptions or similar fees paid, or donations made".
It occurred to me that it would be better to say "of any donations made". Then I noticed that under paragraph
(a) (ii) the phrase,
"and of any donation made",
is in fact used. I am afraid therefore that somebody may have nodded off in the drafting, although it is not a substantial point.
I should like to refer to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Judd. It is understandable that the mechanics of this matter are made more specific than the mechanics of some of the other operations in the code of conduct precisely because this is the area about which so much

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anxiety was expressed in the past. I remember that my noble friend Lady Cox spoke at some length raising matters not all of which I agreed with. The satisfactory aspect in this regard is that I imagine her anxieties—I regret she is not in her place —have amply been met.
On the matter of the one or possibly three-year cycle of voting, I am sure we all agree that the cumbersome elements which originally threatened have been largely removed. But one fully takes the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, that one does not want voting to take place too frequently. On the other hand, the experience of many student unions and JCRs is that contentious matters arise annually. It would be tiresome if they came up more than annually. Each generation of students that comes in—after all, there is an annual intake, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, is well aware—wants to argue those matters out. There could be genuine frustration unless it were possible to call an annual ballot. I certainly take his point that it is not easy to know the precise figure, whether it should be 5 or 10 per cent., to trigger a ballot. That is probably a matter of judgment. But by and large my feeling is that my noble friend has got these matters right and I can only say how grateful we are that that is the case.
Lord Addington: My Lords, I wish to rise to my feet briefly, first, to thank the noble Baroness for taking into account the concerns I raised in regard to those bodies which form only part of the student unions. All the sports associations in all the universities throughout the country will be breathing a heavy sigh of relief for this final confirmation that we are not going to subject them to annual ballots.
Secondly, I want to say that under the circumstances the Minister has done an extremely good job of dealing with all the anxieties that were expressed. The point made a moment ago in relation to annual ballots must be borne in mind. It is not so much annually but in phases of fashion that issues are discussed. A fashionable issue will probably be voted on each year for three years, then dropped for 10 years and then voted on again for three years after that. Indeed, trendy theories tend to be trendy in a 10-year cycle, rather like the bottoms of one's trousers—narrow one year and flared the next. I believe those cycles will go on for ever.
With regard to the figure of 5 per cent., in some colleges that may not be sufficient during a certain period, and once again it will go in cycles depending on how politically active the institution is. The Minister has chosen a figure, but any figure may be wrong for a period of time and I am not therefore prepared to make an issue of it.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I am sorry if my congratulations have embarrassed the Minister. But they are not the only thing, so I think the noble Baroness will have to learn to take the smooth with the rough. This time the Minister has just about got it right. I listened carefully to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, that in some institutions which are small a very small number of people may trigger a ballot. That is true, but of course these are also institutions in which there are a very small number of people and therefore
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the organisation of the ballot is not a great financial or administrative burden; so I think there that we gain on the swings what we lose on the roundabouts. In fact, I have had a letter from the president of an Oxford JCR who says that his college has a ballot if one member requests it. He wants reassurance that the Bill allows him to continue that practice, which I imagine is the case.
The only question I have is: why 5 per cent.? I do not want to argue numbers but I should be grateful to know how that figure was arrived at.
Baroness Blatch: I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in what has been a constructive debate on getting the details of this part of the Bill right. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, asked about the mechanics of securing compliance. It is mostly a matter for the institution to determine the mechanisms.
Perhaps I may now deal with the ballots and why we have said that they should be held annually. Under the terms of the amendment the governing body may determine the appropriate interval between ballots requested by an appropriate number of members. We have said that this should not be more than a year. That is a reasonable maximum interval which I do not believe should be extended. Turnover in the student body, especially in further education, is quite rapid and I do not believe that a longer interval would catch each generation of students. Students should be able to ballot annually if they see the need. If the requisite trigger percentage is reached and they are dissatisfied for one reason or another about an affiliation, it seems important that they should be given an opportunity to exercise that rather than wait two or perhaps even three years before they could do so.
I was asked how the information could be issued. That will be for institutions to decide. The requirements for publication of information need not be onerous. The requirements allow reports on affiliations to be posted on a notice board. They do not necessarily require that all students receive their own copies but that they are made available—in other words, either posted on a notice board or placed in the library. Some such mechanism can be used to bring it to the attention of students.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Earl, Lord Russell, asked about the trigger threshold for ballots being no more than 5 per cent. and wondered how we arrived at that figure. I can only plead balance. The governing bodies have discretion to decide on the appropriate threshold, and it would allow the gentleman named by the noble Earl the opportunity, if he wished, to continue with his practice of allowing one student to trigger a ballot. We propose that it should not be more than 5 per cent. Under present arrangements it is often not easy to mount disaffiliation motions because constitutions call for a very high quorum. We wish to ensure that the voice of all students is heard and do not believe that an unrealistically high threshold should be demanded.
The noble Lord, Lord Judd, asked why arrangements for affiliations should not be subject to local discretion. A good deal of money is spent each year by student

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unions on affiliations. In some cases, one affiliation can cost an institution upwards of £70,000 or £80,000. It seems only right that students should know the details of the moneys spent on their behalf and should have the opportunity to decide whether those affiliations should go ahead. The noble Lord asked how paragraph (jc) (i) would work. The paragraph requires, as the noble Lord suggested, the publication of a list of affiliations. Approval of them must be obtained once a year from a student body. The form will be a matter for local determination. It could be at the annual general meeting. The point is that approval must be given by the membership, not just the union executive. I hope that I have answered the detailed queries.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 59:
Page 12, line 9, leave out ("individuals") and insert ("all students").
On Question, amendment agreed to. 11 p.m.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch Lord Pearson of Rannoch moved Amendment No. 60:
Page 12, line 19, at end insert ("and the code shall in particular give directions to ensure that unions allow non-members to participate in all academic, charitable, cultural, social and sporting activities financed through, or under the direction of, the Union,").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is a probing amendment at this stage and follows on from the debate which we had at Committee stage concerning the university facilities that should be available to non-members of student unions. At this late stage of the evening I do not wish to repeat all the arguments. It is suffice to remind your Lordships that the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals opined in a letter which reached me on 22nd March that student unions cannot by law be required to provide services for non-members. The CVCP went on to hope that these services could be left to agreement between the institution and the union.
I felt at the time that this was a little incorrect, in that the money for all these institutions does, as I understand it, go through the block grant to the institution. I felt that, if the institution wanted to, it should surely be able to have some influence on the facilities that were granted to students who were not members of unions.
When my noble friend came to sum up on this question, I thought her speech was a little disappointing, in that she also confirmed that non-members might not have access to all the rights that are conferred on members. One understands that non-members would not be involved in elections to the unions and so on, but I felt that surely they should have available to them the tiddlywinks club of my noble friend Lord Beloff, the rugger club and other matters.
My noble friend said again that she thought that that was something which should be left to the institutions and the unions to work out together so that students do not lose access to vital services such as welfare services. I felt, and I still feel., that that should go further. I am not entirely happy simply to leave a moral obligation on institutions to think about the matter.
My noble friend confirmed that the difficulty here is that we are up against the European Convention on
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Human Rights, which does not allow us to impose on a governing body or students' union a requirement that they make particular provision for any particular student. That is a statement which we were also given by the CVCP. I do not understand the root of that statement. As your Lordships will be aware, I have a deep suspicion of all things European. If this was the European Court of Justice I would be very much rougher with the ruling which has apparently been issued by the European Convention on Human Rights.
Be all that as it may, and coming to the amendment itself, it occurred to me and others who felt that non-members were perhaps being left a little exposed to what might conceivably be a student union which might wish to be vindictive against members who opted out that perhaps the code of practice could be used to give the rights which we seek. I confess that the amendment as drafted is probably still a little strong when it says that the code of practice,
"shall in particular give directions to ensure that unions allow non-members to participate",
in all these worthy activities, but I hope that my noble friend will be able to take the amendment away and consider that the code should in particular encourage: unions to allow non-members,
"to participate in all academic. charitable, cultural, social and sporting activities".
I am advised also that one should probably have included catering facilities, not to mention the welfare services which my noble friend mentioned in our last debate. I say this because these activities are all financed through, as I understand it, and very often under the direction of, the union. We should look for an accommodation in that respect even if the wording of Amendment No. 60 is not perfect at the moment. I very much hope that we can put something on the face of the Bill in the code of practice which will give a little more comfort to non-members in future.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, my noble friend will perhaps be happy to learn that I am not going to invoke European matters to explain my strong objections to his amendment. My objections are based on the remarks made a little while ago by the noble Lord. Lord Judd. Like many people, I admire students who are prepared to take an active part in the affairs of their community and I see no reason whatever why some students should be able to say, "We can't be bothered to become members of the union; we can't be bothered to stand for office; we can't be bothered to administer things; but we insist on having all the privileges." That seems to me the most outrageous proposal.
If the amendment were to be accepted, I give my noble friend Lord Pearson notice of the following. I understand that he is a member of White's Club. Next time I saunter down St. James's, I propose to go into White's Club and order myself a drink and if I am asked on what authority, I shall say, "Why, I'm a non-member. Isn't that enough?"
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, perhaps I may say to my noble friend Lord Beloff that he has not

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paid the subscription to White's Club as I understand it, whereas all these students have had the money sent to their institution by the taxpayer.
Lord Judd: My Lords, I was going to say that I should like to follow what the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, said because on this matter there is a very close meeting of minds. It seems to me that there is a danger—whatever the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, intended—of exactly what I was talking about earlier. If accepted, the amendment would send a signal to more indolent members of the student community that they can take all that is going and not shoulder any responsibility for ensuring that those services exist. Surely, citizenship anywhere involves responsibilities and if you are going to enjoy the benefits of citizenship, you need to shoulder the responsibilities of citizenship. That is something that we should encourage as part of the wider education of our students. I should be the first to agree that if there was a genuine, legitimate ground of conscience for somebody not joining the union—however difficult I might find it to get my mind round that instance—I would respect that. But there is a danger that many will say, "We'll just pocket what's going, but we won't get involved in providing it." That is a danger that needs to be looked at.
I should be grateful if the Minister could deal with one issue about which I am still perplexed. She probably has more good advice available to her on this matter than I have. I refer to the legality of this issue and whether a move in the direction suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, would, or would not, be legal and would, or would not, run into difficulties with international conventions, and the rest, to which we subscribe.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, as my name is on the amendment perhaps I may say a few words to explain the thinking behind it. It has nothing to do with the "indolence" of students in institutions of higher education and nothing to do with "irresponsibility". Noble Lords can perhaps be forgiven if they are unaware of the lengths to which some student unions can go in manipulating, filibustering and making life intolerable for responsible students.
As an honorary member of a student union—as a staff member—I have sat through endless hours of debate in which responsible students have been trying to put a point and to prevent a vote being taken on something with which they radically disagree, but the filibustering goes on and the vote may eventually be taken at midnight or 1 a.m. It is no good the noble Lord shaking his head because I have seen this happen time and time again. The minute that the responsible students go home—students who are responsible for work and family commitments—the vote is immediately reversed as the caucus had intended that it should be.
That may happen in a minority of cases, but it has happened and I can vouch for the fact that it has happened. I can give chapter and verse and first-hand accounts. I hope that it is increasingly a minority situation, but in those situations some students sometimes feel an obligation to dissociate themselves
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from decisions taken by the union. Perhaps the only way that they can do that is to dissociate themselves from membership. It is not always indolence or lack of responsibility. In certain extreme cases it may be responsible. It is precisely in such situations that one would not wish them to be precluded from cultural, social, sporting, welfare and catering activities and so forth. It is with that kind of potential situation in mind that students may have every right to opt out of association with the union. They may feel that the tactics being used are non-democratic, and that they should not be penalised for taking a principled stand.
Those situations have arisen. They are not unique. I hope that they will not happen again, but it is with that in mind that the amendment was put down. I should not like people to be left with the wrong impression, especially those who have been in rather more privileged parts of higher education and who have not seen some of the tactics of certain less reputable students' unions, with perhaps seven full-time students' union sabbatical officers who are politicking rather than being concerned with academic enterprises.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: My Lords, I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, about many things. I certainly do not agree with him about Europe, and I do not agree with his starting point on this amendment. I feel much more in sympathy with the observations made by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and my noble friend Lord Beloff than with those of my noble friend Lady Cox. But I should like to try to persuade the noble Lord, Lord Judd, my noble friend Lord Beloff, and, indeed, the Minister that an amendment of this general kind would be helpful to the general thrust of the Bill and constructive in overcoming anxieties which the NUS and others have felt.
In Committee, I raised the anxiety which I felt, and which I know that the NUS feels, that, on opting out, students might then suggest that their subscription was somehow going into the union enterprise, and wonder whether it would not be rather nice if they did not have to pay their subscription. In other words, there might be a pecuniary benefit from opting out and, in the same way, there might be a reduction in income to the union because some members were opting out.
My noble friend the Minister was kind enough to write to me subsequently to give me the assurance that the intention was that the block grant scheme should continue so that there would not be the suggestion that, if individual students opted out, the income to the union would thereby be reduced. I was glad to have that private assurance, which I hope that my noble friend will find possible to put on record more publicly tonight. But it occurred to me that it would be helpful for the stability of the system if there were to be some obligation, or, if that is not legally possible, encouragement that students' unions should continue to offer to students who had opted out the membership facilities that cost a good deal of money, such as catering, welfare and those listed in the amendment. I think, and hope, that it is the intention that they should. I shall give way if the noble Lord, Lord Judd, wishes to intervene.
Lord Judd: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. When he reads Hansard I believe that he will see that what I actually said was that there was a danger of the signal inadvertently being sent out, whatever the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson. There is quite a lot of strength in the argument that the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, is putting forward. But does he not agree that more judicious drafting would be appropriate, because this is almost an incitement or encouragement to people not to bother about joining because they can have all the rights without joining? Slightly more judicious wording, if there is to be any wording in that respect, would be appropriate.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: My Lords, I was going to comment about one or two aspects of the wording, though perhaps not relating to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Judd, is making. I believe that I take a more pragmatic view than the noble Lord. I share his admiration for student activities and his wish that students should continue to feel that it is beneficial for themselves and for all to take a full part in students' union activities. That is the view that my noble friend Lord Beloff was expressing also. We have similar views on this matter, but they are views not shared by every Member of the House, as we have heard.
In the last analysis, many students do not find it necessary to opt out of the student union. They simply take no part in its electoral activities or its management. It is a frequent criticism of all student unions that only a few students bother to shoulder the burden. The truth is that you do not have to opt out of membership to sit back and do nothing. In real terms, there is not a great deal of difference in our position.
I hope that I am making a comment which will help to safeguard the long-term future of student unions. If a significant number of students opt out, it is to be predicted that there will be a move towards those students being allowed to keep their fees and those union fees will no longer find their way to the student unions. There is bound to be an argument for diminution in income if there is a significant diminution in membership.
I hope that before Third Reading we may be able to agree upon an amendment which provides for the code to encourage unions to allow non-members. If it is not in order in legal terms—and like my noble friend Lord Pearson I do not fully understand why it is not—for directions to be given, at least encouragement should be given to allow non-members to participate in the full range of activities. That should certainly allow them to make use of amenities, which are not specified in the amendment but which are, in fact, the most important part of it. It should allow non-members also to have access to welfare facilities on a basis of equality with members. I believe that that would also be an important provision.
I very much hope that the National Union of Students and the CVCP would support such an amendment and would support the provision of such advice to governing bodies so that the code of practice would operate in that way.
11.15 p.m.
Lord Judd: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way again. Does he not agree that in any proposed amendment the use of the word "encourage" is unfortunate? I believe that a better way to approach the wording of the amendment would be by recognising that there should be a provision of this kind.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: My Lords, I take the point. Given that we are advised, rightly or wrongly, that directions cannot be given, I wished to express the view that one should "recognise that there should be", and the verb which I found to express that concept was the verb "to encourage". I should have thought that the difference between "encourage" and "recognise that there should be" is a very fine one. I would be happy to use a different form of words.
I do not wish to continue for too long on this point. I believe that for the long-term stability of the system —if there were significant opt-outs numerically--it would greatly benefit the student unions if those non-members were able to enjoy such amenities and welfare. There would then be no pressure whatever to diminish the income of the unions. That would also he an encouragement to the maintenance of the block grant system which I hope the Minister will support in her response to this amendment.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, this amendment requires governing bodies to ensure that unions allow non-members access to their facilities through instructions in their codes of practice. May I say straight away that I understand the concerns which underlie this amendment. We too are concerned that all students should continue to have access to services. including students who opt out and for whom funding remains available in institutions' budgets. But it is not for us to determine what non-academic services institutions provide to their students in support of their academic activities. Where institutions provide such services and use the union as the providing channel, they will need to decide how to ensure that services remain available to any students who exercise the right not to be union members.
We believe, and I think there is widespread agreement on this, that students should in a democracy have the choice over whether to join their student union and be associated with the political activities it carries out in their name. If students choose to opt out of the union because it campaigns on issues in which they are not interested or do not support, that may mean the loss of access to some services: students will need to weigh up the pros and cons in making that decision. But where the institution decides that its students need particular services, the decision not to be a member of the union does not take away that need. I think we are all agreed on that.
But we cannot, nor would we wish to, compel a union to provide services to non-members. Indeed., providing services for non-members is likely to be outside the powers of many unions under their current constitutions and could lead to a breach of trust. Students must also be free to associate and form unions as they choose, and

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to decide for whom they should use their resources to provide benefits; those principles are underpinned by the European Convention on Human Rights and are, we believe, vital. The provision of services to non-members must, therefore, be a voluntary matter. While I am not sure whether that it is absolutely illegal, noble Lords will know from what I have said so far that it would be improper for us to impose a direction upon unions in that way. The compulsion which the amendment would provide must not be applied: maintenance of services through the union must be by agreement with the union. The alternative is provision of those services by the institution itself.
We have had some fruitful discussions on the question and I am much encouraged by the expectation expressed by the representative bodies that institutions would maintain services for opted-out students either direct or through local arrangements with their student union. Our talks have also shown that many institutions see the value of setting out in writing what services are available to opted-out students, either as part of their information on student unions or in their institutional charters.
It is an important question and I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Pearson and Lady Cox for raising it. It reflects our general approach in the reforms that this is a matter for institutional discretion. I am confident that institutions, together with their unions, will be able to establish local arrangements to provide services for opted-out students which reflect their particular circumstances. Indeed, I understand that many institutions have already been considering how to do so.
However, there are other reasons why students may opt out. For example, there are conscience grounds for some students who may opt out. I find it almost beyond belief that any institution could look a parent or a student in the eye and say, "Because you opt out you will not be able to eat here, partake in rugby or join a club or society". A morality issue is involved. We intend to lay that moral obligation on the institutions.
Moreover, a very real point has been reinforced by my noble friend Lord Renfrew; namely, that it is important that the consequences of both being members and non-members of the union should be made known to students. It would be helpful if institutions themselves resorted to putting that in writing. Again, the considerations mentioned in the amendment and, indeed, one or two that I should like to add myself—for example, academic, charitable, cultural, social, sporting and, indeed, welfare and catering—are all important aspects for the student going up to college or university.
The way forward is that perhaps my noble friend may like to collaborate either with myself and my officials or with other Members of the House to find a way to add one principle to the code of practice so that institutions would at least know that that principle needs to be addressed by the institution involved. However, at the end of the day it must be for institutions to do it in their own way.
For the record, and in response to my noble friend Lord Renfrew, perhaps I may repeat what I said to him in a letter. My noble friend sought assurances that we
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had no plan to change the block grant system of funding student unions and that, consequently, there would be financial benefit to individual students who chose to exercise their right to opt out of membership. In the letter, I said:
"Though I spoke about the rights of non-members in answer to Earl Russell and Lord Pearson, I did not return to your concern in winding up the debate on the Government amendments.
On the general issue of funding, I can assure you that we do not propose to change either the way money is distributed, nor indeed the amount, on account of the student union reforms.
On your specific concern about financial benefits to individual students, where students exercise the right not to be a member of the union, institutions will no doubt want to consider how to ensure that services will remain available for them. Whether the student union remains as the channel for this or some other mechanism is adopted will be a matter for local decision. We do not wish to impose any requirement as to how services should be provided".
I think that that will suffice for the record. However, I repeat that the way forward is perhaps to address one more principle that could be added to the code of practice which would allow institutions to find a way of ensuring that they address the needs of both members and non-members of the union.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, I believe that my noble friend the Minister said that she would be prepared to consider before Third Reading some amendment to the suggested code of practice which might move in the direction that the amendment seeks to go and which, for one reason or another, has been supported by other Members of your Lordships' House. If that is so, and as I said this was a probing amendment in the first place, I would of course be happy to withdraw it on that understanding. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Blotch Baroness Blotch moved Amendment No. 61:
Page 12, line 28, at end insert:
("(5) In subsections (2) and (4) above the expression "all students" shall be construed as follows

(a) in relation to an association or body which is a students' union by virtue of section 18(1), the reference is to all students at the establishment;

(b) in relation to an association or body which is a students' union by virtue of section 18(2), the reference is to all undergraduate, or all graduate students, at the establishment or to all students at the hall of residence in question, as the case may be;

(c) in relation to an association or body which is a students' union by virtue of section 18(3), the reference is to all the students who by virtue of section 18(1) or (2) are comprehended by that expression in relation to its constituent or affiliated associations or bodies.

(6) In subsection (2) (d) and (jc) above (requirements as to elections and affiliation to external organisations) the expression "members", in relation to a representative body which is not an association, means those whom it is the purpose of the union to represent, excluding any student who has exercised the right referred to in paragraph (c) (ii) of that subsection.
(7) In subsection (2) (ja) to (jc) above the references to affiliation to an external organisation, in relation to a students' union for students at an establishment, include any form of membership of, or formal association with, an organisation whose purposes are not confined to purposes connected with that establishment.
(8) Subsection (2) (d) and (jc) (ii) above (elections and affiliations: requirements to hold secret ballot of all members) do not apply in the case of an open or distance learning establishment, that is, an establishment where the students, or the

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great majority of them, are provided with materials for private study and are not required to attend the establishment to any significant extent or at all.").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule 2 [Consequential amendments]:
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 62:
Page 18, line 31, at end insert:
("( ) In section 218 (school and further and higher education regulations)—

(a) the subsection (2A) inserted by section 291 of the Education Act 1993 is renumbered (2B), and

(b) at the beginning of that subsection for "The regulations" substitute "Regulations under subsection (2) above".").

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this amendment is purely technical. It corrects a cross-reference to the education Acts of 1988 and 1993. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
In the Title:
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 63:
Line 2, leave out ("funding and").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, since we have agreed that the proposals to regulate the expenditure of public money by student unions put forward in the original Clause 20 of the Bill should be deleted, it is necessary also to delete the reference to funding in the Bill's Long Title. This does not affect, in itself, the scope of the Bill as revised. [ commend this amendment to the House. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
House adjourned at twenty-six minutes past eleven o'clock.

  BOSNIA: GENERAL GALVIN'S VISIT
  BOSNIA: GENERAL GALVIN'S VISIT
  BOSNIA: HARASSMENT IN BANJA LUKA AREA
  BOSNIA: HARASSMENT IN BANJA LUKA AREA
  BOSNIA: PROTECTION OF MAGLAJ AREA
  BOSNIA: PROTECTION OF MAGLAJ AREA
  TURKEY: MILITARY EQUIPMENT SUPPLIED BY NATO ALLIES
  TURKEY: MILITARY EQUIPMENT SUPPLIED BY NATO ALLIES
  TURKEY: PKK CEASEFIRE PROPOSALS
  TURKEY: PKK CEASEFIRE PROPOSALS
  TURKEY: HUMAN RIGHTS
  TURKEY: HUMAN RIGHTS
  ISRAELI OCCUPIED TERRITORIES: PROTECTION OF CIVILIANS
  ISRAELI OCCUPIED TERRITORIES: PROTECTION OF CIVILIANS
  UN REPORTS: AVAILABILITY IN LIBRARY
  UN REPORTS: AVAILABILITY IN LIBRARY
  WAR CRIMES IN FORMER YUGOSLAVIA: UN TRIBUNAL
  WAR CRIMES IN FORMER YUGOSLAVIA: UN TRIBUNAL
  DoT EXECUTIVE AGENCIES
  DoT EXECUTIVE AGENCIES
  COPYRIGHT PROTECTION IN EU
  COPYRIGHT PROTECTION IN EU
  FIRE TUBE INDUSTRIAL BOILERS: EUROPEAN STANDARD
  FIRE TUBE INDUSTRIAL BOILERS: EUROPEAN STANDARD
  ECSC STEEL STATE AIDS RULES: ENFORCEMENT
  ECSC STEEL STATE AIDS RULES: ENFORCEMENT
  CYCLE ROUTES IN ROYAL PARKS
  CYCLE ROUTES IN ROYAL PARKS
  CIVIL COURTS: REFORM OF PROCEDURES
  CIVIL COURTS: REFORM OF PROCEDURES
  TURKEY: MILITARY EQUIPMENT SUPPLIED BY UNITED KINGDOM
  TURKEY: MILITARY EQUIPMENT SUPPLIED BY UNITED KINGDOM
  MR. KEVIN O'NEILL
  MR. KEVIN O'NEILL
  CRIMINAL INJURIES COMPENSATION SCHEME
  CRIMINAL INJURIES COMPENSATION SCHEME
  STUDENT FINANCES AND EMPLOYMENT: REPORT
  STUDENT FINANCES AND EMPLOYMENT: REPORT
  WASTE MANAGEMENT LICENSING: CHARGING SCHEME
  WASTE MANAGEMENT LICENSING: CHARGING SCHEME
  POLLUTION CONTROL: CHARGING SCHEMES
  POLLUTION CONTROL: CHARGING SCHEMES
  JOINT NATURE CONSERVATION COMMITTEE
  JOINT NATURE CONSERVATION COMMITTEE
  GENERAL PRACTITIONER DEPRIVATION PAYMENTS
  GENERAL PRACTITIONER DEPRIVATION PAYMENTS