Sitting of 26 April 1995

Preamble
The House met at Ten o'clock
PRAYERS
[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRAYERS

  Responsibility to Children
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Chapman.]
  10.4 am
  Mr. Andrew Rowe: I begin my remarks by saying that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) and my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Amess) regret that long-standing engagements prevent them from making the contribution that they had hoped to make to the debate and we are sorry that they are absent.
  "What on Earth Are We Doing to Our Children?" is the title of a pamphlet produced by the Maranatha community that is the inspiration for today's debate. It is not an original work; it is a compendium gleaned from newspaper articles, research reports and similar factual sources about children growing up in the modern world—a world which we in Parliament help daily to shape. The pamphlet tells us that every week 2,900 children are involved in their parents' divorce. By 1996 it is projected that 50 per cent. of children in the United Kingdom will be born to couples who will not be together after the children are 16. About 750,000 British children have no contact with their fathers. Every hon. Member who takes a surgery has seen fathers who are distraught at being cut off from their children altogether. I believe that we must find better ways of remedying that injustice.
  I suspect that the debate will concentrate on children in the United Kingdom, but let us not forget that beyond these shores 17 million children die each year from starvation and malnutrition. We in Britain spend more on our household pets than we spend on starving children abroad. Does that matter? If our own children are being brought up successfully and responsibly, why should we care about the rest?
  Parliament has a responsibility to do what it can for all of the nation's children. However, economics bolster the moral arguments in this case. For example, it costs the taxpayer £8.5 billion to pay the benefits claimed by 1.3 million lone parents and it has been predicted that that sum will increase to £11.9 billion in five years.
  In the 19th century there were two pressures on Parliament to improve the nation's drains. One was the moral outrage expressed by Members of Parliament and many others that fellow humans should live in conditions of such filth and disease. The other pressure arose out of the realisation that cholera did not recognise social class and that, if the new urban populations continued to live in such a state, their diseases would kill the rich as effectively as they killed the poor. The dereliction of our children is today's cholera and we ignore it at our peril, no matter how protected we may feel.
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  I could continue to draw on information in the pamphlet. I could show how physical injuries inflicted by children upon one another are increasing in volume and intensity as children witness more violence on television and try it out in the playground. I could cite the fact that there are more than 250 million copies of videos which feature child pornography, much of which is filmed live as real children are tortured and raped in order to provide a fat living for the film makers and increase addiction and depravity among those who buy those videos.
  Perhaps I should refer to the survey which found that 3 per cent. of 15 to 16-year-olds use heroin. I remind the House that most mainlining adults are not, as we often choose to believe, instantly recognisable zombies shuffling despairingly or menacingly along the streets. They are men and women who go to work in suits and who hold down jobs until their addiction one day gets on top of them entirely. We, their neighbours, are then amazed to discover that such nice, ordinary people are drug abusers on a journey to skid row that may well have started in school.
  It is not a crisis out there, or some civil war in a remote country in which we have no influence. It is a crisis here, among us and our children, yet it sometimes seems as if we exert as little influence as if it were happening in a remote country seen for a moment on our television screens.
  Others will make their own points in the debate and I hope that they will include drugs, prostitution and abuse. The rest of my speech will be in two parts. First, I shall try to reflect on the reasons for our crisis and then I shall suggest some modest ideas about what might be done as a start to turn the tide.
  We have to begin with ourselves. What do we value and what do we want? No previous generation of British people has ever been so rich. In 1971, a single female parent on average earnings with one child under 11 would have to work for 3,258 hours to pay for a Ford Escort. In 1994, it would have taken just over 2,100 hours. To pay for a pound of fish in 1971, she would have had to work for 37 minutes; in 1994 she would have to work for 27 minutes.
  We are much richer than we were. Christ once asked the question:
  "For what shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"
  That is the question that we have to reflect on today.
  If the result of prosperity is that a child of eight can have a portable computer in his room which gives him as much access to pornography, violence or explicit sex as the adult world can devise, and if he increasingly seeks refuge in the solitude of that room because his parents are fighting downstairs, why should anyone be surprised if he becomes, at best, introverted and withdrawn and at worst violent and ready to abuse other children or bully old people?
  We are caught in a tension that we seem prepared neither to recognise nor to resolve. On one hand, even if the secondary school heads want it abolished, 70 per cent. of the population support daily worship in schools because they want morality taught to their children. On the other hand, we adults behave as if we had no right at all to guide, advise or discipline our children. I can understand that, but it is none the less a mistake. We

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  should use our experience and our mistakes to help the young and our imagination to respond sympathetically to their need for support.
  Most hon. Members who have children accept that they are unlikely to enter the labour market until they are at least 22 years old. When our youngsters approach GCSEs with at least two more years of school ahead, and possibly five or six years of higher education to follow, we regard them still as children. Yet, if a poorly educated youngster leaves her abusive home to set up house with another teenager and has a baby which the boy then abandons because he cannot cope, we react to that single parent as being beyond the pale, an irresponsible burden on the public purse and the source of many of society's ills.
  That 16-year-old is only a child—a child who has less support and help available to her than most children. She may be so scarred by what she has already endured that she finds it difficult to accept help, particularly from official sources. We have to change the pattern of her behaviour and our response to it. There has to be a way of using the skills, experience and capacity for love of many of our citizens to help those children and we cannot be complacent when we consider what we have done so far.
  It is sometimes argued that we should return to the Victorian era. If that were to mean that Parliament became more effectively concerned with moral issues, I would agree, but other than that such nostalgia is not helpful. The world has changed and even though our values have not, their application must take account of those changes.
  Impermanence is now a way of life for many people. If neither marriage nor job nor home is expected to last, if fashions in music, clothes, pets or partners change every few weeks, how can a child hope to find the certainties that it craves? How can parents who receive almost no instruction in how to perform the hardest and most important task they will ever be required to do have the confidence to set standards for their children and to stand by them?
  In his Reith lecture, Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Sacks said:
  "our current lack of norms relating to sexuality and marriage precisely reflects the supreme importance we have given to the abstract individual, without a binding commitment either to the past or to the long-term future; open endedly free to choose or unchoose any style of life."
  I do not believe that when two young people get together they want their relationship to end in a year or two in bitterness and expensive anger, but we know how many do. I do not believe that parents want their children to be bullied at school, but it is reckoned that one in four now are. I do not believe that parents want their children to be exposed to endless and ever more distorted pornography, but in a study of 8,500 schools, 50 per cent. said that computer pornography had been available to their pupils, some as young as eight. I do not believe that parents want any of that, but they do not know how to reverse the tide. Neither do I, but I have some ideas of policies which might help, and I shall close my remarks with a few suggestions.
  First, in regard to computerised pornography, there are differing views about the effect of pornography on adults who choose consciously to buy it, but there is a great difference between that adult choice and the freely available filth peddled through information technology to anyone of any age who has access to a portable computer.
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  I hope that the Minister will agree that communication channels which are open to everyone regardless of age or income, without supervision or support, need to be regulated. I cannot believe that parents in any country in the world are happy that child pornography and graphic scenes of sex abuse, or torture for its own sake, are available to their children, no matter how young those children may be. That surely provides a basis for international agreement on regulation and control.
  Mr. Gyles Brandreth: I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, particularly during such a moving and impressive oration. I endorse everything that he has said about computer pornography and access by children, but does he agree that the matter is not confined to the dramatic dark end of the issue? There is also the problem of children being isolated in their homes, simply sitting in front of the television. The growth in the number of television sets within people's homes means that in some families children have their own television sets and the parents may watch television in a different room. They do not eat together, but they graze. That is also part of the spectrum. My hon. Friend was giving us examples from the darkest end of the spectrum, but the problem begins at the lightest end. Families can help by no longer existing in isolation in separate rooms in front of their own television sets.
  Mr. Rowe: My hon. Friend is quite right. In my own household, my wife has always insisted that any member of the family under the roof at a meal time has to come to the meal. If they are not there they cannot do so, but if they are in the house they have to attend as meal times provide interaction between parents and children. Those sensible ideas are followed by many families, but there are a whole host of families which may not comprise the parents of the children concerned. One of them may be the mother or the father, but there may be a new partner who is awkward with the child. There may be all sorts of pressures on them not to meet together. Such lack of support is the basis of much of the trouble, and the reason for that lack is the absence of any model of how problems can be overcome.
  Many young parents, be they 15 years old or 30 years old, would welcome—if only we could find a sensible way of doing this—an older mentor, lovingly prepared to give of their time and support in a host of informal ways to help a family work out the best ways of interacting. I cannot imagine that any parent would not like to know how to interact positively with his or her children. Many do not know—and we, through the statutory services, cannot teach them. That must be done in an informal, community-based family way.
  We should take a more positive stand on that which Parliament has already decreed and insist that an act of worship is central to the school day, with its clear message about the difference between good and evil on which all main religions agree. Most parents from the many minority faiths now found in Britain share the Archbishop of Canterbury's view and would far rather see the Christian Church standing firm for what it believes than Christians who are so keen to accommodate other religions that they put across no message.
  The Government should look again at the many voluntary youth organisations that reach out to the young and give them more support. What sense does it make for the Government constantly to cut financial support to the

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  National Association of Boys Clubs, for example, when the most common complaint of local communities is that their young have nothing worth while to do? It must be a source of hope that the Scout Association has a membership of more than 650,000 and as many as 90,000 voluntary helpers, yet it receives no money from central Government and local authority support is increasingly capricious.
  Mr. Hartley Booth: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way in his excellent speech. Does he agree that all the tentacles of Parliament and Government should treat children equally? Is not it a blatant anomaly that the children of widowers are treated much harder under our social security system than the children of widows?
  Mr. Rowe: I had not understood that previously. If that is the case, it seems nonsense. One strange paradox of a generation that has come increasingly to accept equality between the sexes is that the father who, quite properly, wants to care for his children from a broken family—whether from death or divorce—has an infinitely harder time achieving that objective than does a mother. We ought to consider whether that approach is even-handed.
  We should take seriously the exclusion of young people from opportunities to shape society. Each year, we extend the period for which the majority of young people remain in statu pupillari and use that as an excuse to exclude them from taking any serious responsibility. No wonder they play so little a part in politics or anything else. Football, for example, is a young man's game, played by young men, supported overwhelmingly by young people and dependent upon them. Is not it astonishing that the average age of the Football Association council's 89 members is 60, and that it does not include one member aged between 15 and 30? My researcher was told that the FA does not consider it necessary to involve young people in the decision-making process. The Lawn Tennis Association takes the same view. What a scandal. If the generation that runs the dealing floors in the City or commands troops in Bosnia is not deemed fit to play any serious part in activities that overwhelmingly concern that age group, is it surprising that members of the young generation turn to activities outside the establishment for opportunities to express themselves?
  It will come as no surprise to my hon. Friend the Minister when I say that another instrument to hand, if only the Government would pick it up, is citizen service—an opportunity for any young person who wishes to offer service to his or her community in a disciplined, supervised, challenging and accredited way. My hon. Friend knows my views too well for me to elaborate on them this morning.
  The time has come for the informal links between Government Departments, which proceedings on the Children Bill did much to foster, to be formalised. It is difficult for children's needs to receive the attention that would enable them to compete with adults' concerns if they are split between several Whitehall Departments and local authorities. Every special interest asks for its own Department but the magnitude of the crisis confronting children gives their cause a special claim on Ministers' attention.
  Mr. Julian Brazier: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way again in his excellent speech. At present, 11 Government Departments deal, to a greater or
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  lesser extent, with young people or children. One effect is that when splendid organisations, many of them small, try to pursue small sums of money, they must process forms through four or five central Government Departments as well as through local authorities. That must be a nonsense.
  Mr. Rowe: My hon. Friend supports my point admirably.
  This debate is above all about our personal responsibility for our children and for their children after them. If we are to turn the tide of pornography, sex abuse, violence in and out of school, nihilism and despair, we must each accept some personal responsibility. It is not enough to watch silently as the BBC, press and other media relentlessly go further down market. The editor of one magazine said, "The easiest way to sell magazines is to stick in another piece on sex. Sex sells, and that is the bottom line." It is symptomatic of our reluctance to stick responsibility where it belongs that the founder of Maranatha has been unable to get any reply from the chairman of the BBC to a serious complaint.
  One of the most destructive sounds in modern Britain is a journalist saying, "I am not concerned with the consequences. I am only after the story." If the editor of the Daily Sport or of any other journal were occasionally to ask if that which he was printing would make the world better or worse for his own children or grandchildren, we might take a major step to accepting our responsibilities to our children.
  If we go on as we are—confused but quiescent—it will be our children and grandchildren who will be bullied at school, pressured to try drugs, left alone to cope with the dangers of AIDS and paying the personal cost of broken relationships and damaged children. This debate is an attempt to bring into the cockpit of the nation the sharp realities of that which we are doing to our children day in, day out—here and overseas.
  10.28 am
  Mrs. Diana Maddock: I welcome the opportunity to speak on a subject that is potentially wide-ranging. I will address just a few of the responsibilities that Liberal Democrats and myself believe that the Government have to children. As Parliament and through Government we have a responsibility to act on behalf of all citizens and to spend their money wisely and in the general interest, while paying careful attention to the rights of all, and to lay down and enforce the rule of law equally and without prejudice. But it must be the particular responsibility of any Government to act on behalf of, and to help to protect, those who cannot help themselves. That is why the Liberal Democrats believe that our responsibilities to children are so important.
  The recognition that children are especially vulnerable is shared by all parties in the House, and some of our laws reflect it. It is why homeless families with children have priority status for housing—as a result of a Bill introduced by a former Member for Isle of Wight. It is why child benefit is paid, why a higher amount of family credit is paid to those with more children, why children are exempt from health charges, and why children's clothes are still exempt from value added tax.
  Despite all this, we are still failing to meet our responsibilities to huge numbers of children. According to the Family Welfare Association, 3.9 million children

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  live in poverty in the United Kingdom—that is to say, their families live on less than half the average wage. That applies to one in three of all our children.
  Of particular concern to me is the fact that families with young children suffer disproportionately in the housing market. A huge number of the million households suffering from negative equity are young couples who were first-time buyers in the mid-1980s and who now want to move house to accommodate their young and growing families. They find themselves trapped because their homes are worth less than their mortgages.
  How has this happened? I and many others believe that it is a result of the Government's boom-bust economics, which played fast and loose with the housing market and encouraged a growth in home ownership at an unsustainable rate. Mortgage interest relief at source—MIRAS—artificially pushed up housing prices when it was introduced and is now being cut, despite all the Government's promises to help home owners at the last election. It is being cut even for families who relied on it being there when they took out their mortgages, which they were strongly encouraged by the Government to do.
  At the same time, the safety net for home owners is being removed from beneath them. More than half the households officially deemed homeless each year have dependent children. Fortunately many of them are rehoused, because we give them priority, but many children languish in expensive but cramped bed-and-breakfast and other temporary accommodation. The effects on children's health and development of eviction and repossession, and of being shifted around various types of temporary accommodation, can be dreadful. We also know that they are long lasting.
  Last year I was privileged to take part in Select Committee hearings taking evidence on the United Nations Year of the Family. Many organisations told us just how detrimental moving from house to house could be for young people. If all I read is true, I fear that there is worse to come—in the shape of the Government's proposals for one-year tenancies for homeless families. It is possible that legislation on that will be introduced in the next Session of Parliament.
  The importance of security and stability to a young life is hard to overstate. As we have heard today, the most important ingredient of all is a loving family. But increasingly, families are breaking up. Many years ago my parents split up, when I was 11. Perhaps for that reason I have been very careful to keep my family together for my children because I know how family break-ups can affect children.
  We need to take a careful look at school curriculums to see what we can do to provide parenting classes so as to break the cycle and make people realise what it means to bring children into the world and to be a parent. I heartily agree with what the hon. Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) said about eating together as a family—that activity is probably one reason why my family has kept together so far, although this place is putting a great deal of pressure on it.
  Along with a safe and stable home, a high standard of education is crucial both to the quality of life and to the future development of our children. Here, perhaps even more than in the area of housing, the Government's irresponsibility towards children is plain. Compared with
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  last year, local education authorities across the country face cuts in real terms of more than £700 million in the amount of money that the Government tell them to spend. That amounts to £50 less spent on each primary school pupil and £194 less for each secondary pupil.
  It now looks as though as many as 12,000 teaching posts could be axed to allow councils to fund the teachers' pay award without going over their capping limits. It cannot be responsible behaviour when central Government starve education authorities of funds in this way.
  Mr. Brandreth: To inject a positive note, it is possible for certain wisely led local authorities to organise their priorities in such a way as to meet the teachers' pay settlement in full without reducing the quality or quantity of education provision. Cheshire is a shining example of that.
  Does the hon. Lady agree that, as well as proper funding for resources for schools—for things like school text books and books of fiction, funding for which has risen by 50 per cent. in real terms in the past 15 years—there is also a place for reading in the home? We should encourage families to read together as well as watching television together. Is the hon. Lady encouraged, as I am, by the latest public lending right figures, which show that in the past year the number of children's books borrowed from public libraries has grown? It would appear that, contrary to popular feeling, more young people are reading children's fiction borrowed from public libraries. Is that not good news?
  Mrs. Maddock: I am pleased to hear that lending to children is on the increase, but Dorset faces cuts in funding for public libraries—indeed, I am still waiting for an answer from the responsible Minister about that. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that it is important to read with children. Many reading schemes in schools now involve parents in children's reading. That is another reason why nursery education is important, too.
  This year's settlement for councils has not been easy, and parents, teachers and governors know the truth, whatever the Government may tell us. Local education authorities will be issuing redundancy notices to teachers and to essential support staff, carers, advisers and those employed to help children with learning difficulties. This is happening from Cumbria to Cornwall and from Barnsley to true-blue Buckinghamshire, where I understand that 122 teaching posts are to go.
  These job losses will serve only to exacerbate the problems that schools already have with overcrowding. In Dorset, 44 per cent. of primary school pupils are in classes of more than 30—an increase of a quarter on two years ago. The class sizes of no fewer than 96 of the 109 local education authorities have risen since the last election. Yet in 1983, the Government's manifesto proudly boasted:
  "The average number of children per teacher is the lowest ever."
  Responsibility to our children means ensuring that they are properly equipped with a decent education for adult life, and that they get the knowledge and support that they need to realise their potential. It is irresponsible to squander that potential and talent by inflicting cuts on schools, the effects of which can never be reversed. We believe that that is being done because the Government want to scrabble together enough money to cut income tax in time for the next election. That is irresponsibility personified.

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  There is not enough time to talk about other policy areas such as health care, crime, the Child Support Agency and the environment. The responsibilities that we owe run wide—but this is a short debate and others are waiting to speak.
  Before I finish I would just add that I believe that Government responsibility to our children entails three things: taking all reasonable measures to protect them from harm—
  Mr. Oliver Heald: Do not other political parties also share in this responsibility? Does the hon. Lady agree that suggesting that contraceptives be given out to young girls and that cannabis be legalised—as her party does—is the height of irresponsibility and is bound to damage children?
  Mrs. Maddock: One should not always take what one reads in the press at face value. If the hon. Gentleman were to read our documents, he would understand that they do not say that we favour giving contraceptives to 11-year-old children. Our conference also wanted a royal commission to consider the serious problem of drugs. If the hon. Gentleman talked to the police, they would tell him how much crime is tied up with drugs. It is responsible to set up a royal commission to consider that.
  In respect of protecting children from harm, I share the concerns of the hon. Member for Mid-Kent about computer pornography and about what happens to children when they go home from school. Today I shall be hosting an event in the House on behalf of kids' clubs and I hope that many hon. Members will come to hear how they propose to move forward.
  Secondly, in making decisions, we must wherever possible consider how those decisions will affect children. We have heard today of issues affecting several different Government Departments. We have asked for a debate in Parliament about those issues and I regret that time was not made available to debate them together, so I am grateful to the hon. Member for Mid-Kent for this opportunity.
  Thirdly, we must always keep the long-term view at the centre of our thinking. Most fundamentally of all, that means investing in the future rather than being tempted by the quick fix or temporary tax cut to win an election. That is the sort of responsibility that the Government should show for our children, who are, after all, our future.
  10.41 am
  Mr. Michael Alison: I should like to contribute briefly to the debate by drawing attention to a responsibility to children about which I believe that the House and the Government have a significant opportunity to do something immediate, practical and worth while.
  I refer to the terrible tragedy and scandal of child prostitution, which is prolific and, sadly, growing rapidly in parts of Africa and Asia but which has been powerfully nurtured and fertilised by western, and particularly British, tourist-based paedophile patronage and procurement.
  The key contribution that the House and the Government can make in this realm by way of remedy or prevention is to amend our criminal law so that a sexual offence against a child under the age of 18, though committed in a jurisdiction outside the United Kingdom, could be triable
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  and punishable in the United Kingdom. The offence would, of course, have to be an offence under the law of the country in which it was committed as well as under the comparable United Kingdom criminal statutes.
  The idea of prosecuting a British subject at home for an offence committed overseas might, at first sight, seem bizarre and impracticable, if not slightly sinister in its far-reaching implications. However, I am told that the principle of extra-territorial or extra-jurisdictional prosecution is not legally unprecedented or unrecognised. The war crimes trials are an obvious case in point and I believe that certain cases to do with overseas contracts and commercial activities also fall into that category.
  The real problem is that of ensuring proper and sustainable evidence for a prosecution. Certainly, that aspect clearly worried my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary, who was recently kind enough to meet me and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) to discuss the problem. My right hon. and learned Friend was adamant that declaratory legislation—legislation which postulated prohibitions and penalties in some area of human conduct without a realistic prospect of ever being effectively applied or operated in the courts—simply brought the law into disrepute and was counterproductive.
  I understand the uselessness of merely declaratory laws, but I must ask my hon. Friend the Minister to take note of the fact that Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Norway and Sweden have all passed legislation to prosecute their nationals who commit sexual offences against children overseas and that Japan and New Zealand are following suit. In Norway, there have been three prosecutions under this novel form of legislation and, in each case, the prosecution led to a conviction. Evidence does not necessarily present insoluble problems.
  I recognise the hesitation which must almost instinctively invade the minds of Home Office Ministers and officials in considering an outside initiative to extend our statute law in an uncharted, untried and, effectively, unprecedented manner, but new days call for new ways.
  Genuine, bona fide tourism is one of the giant revolutionary changes in our age and our environment and constitutes a massive, worldwide form of economic activity and output. If Britain welcomes tourism so gladly and assiduously—I believe that we are the world's sixth largest tourist host country—how much more must the less developed countries of Africa and Asia welcome western tourists for their spending power and hard currency. However, a ghastly appendage and by-product—child prostitution—overwhelmingly demanded by and provided for western tourists, is appearing and increasing in the fast-growing, uniquely 20th century industry of tourism.
  Lord Hylton has introduced and piloted through another place his all-party Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill. To his immense credit, he has devised a model legislative instrument, though it is probably not foolproof or flawless, to emulate the examples of our western neighbours in changing our law. He has also given us some horrifying facts and figures about the incidence and growth of child prostitution. There are estimated to be between 60,000 and 100,000 child prostitutes in the Philippines, between 15,000 and 30,000 in Sri Lanka, between 40,000 and 200,000 in Thailand and up to 100,000 in Taiwan, not to mention tens of thousands in Kenya and India.

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  There is substantial evidence that United Kingdom nationals are in the forefront of patronage of those overseas child prostitutes. In simple tourist terms, for example, the United Kingdom is the third largest source of European visitors to Thailand, where child prostitution is most rife. It is a shameful fact that the United Kingdom ranks fourth in the table of foreign nationals arrested in Asia for offences against children.
  Nothing horrified me more in learning about this fearful and inhuman abuse of children than the report by Father Shay Cullen, a leading campaigner against child prostitution, of a recent incident in a city in the Philippines where a fire broke out and burned down a massage parlour that was used for child prostitution. When it was cool enough for the firefighters to search the premises, they found the body of a dead child chained to a bed.
  Nothing that our Victorian forebears did to children in forcing them up chimneys as sweeps can compare with the abuse that I have described. We legislated against such Victorian malpractices; we should legislate against this uniquely contemporary abuse of children. I believe that Lord Hylton's Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill is an immediate instrument to hand and I very much hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will give very sympathetic consideration to giving it a fair wind or perhaps introducing, in due course, Government legislation to tackle this appalling and unacceptable feature of the world scene.
  10.49 am
  Sir Michael Neubert: On 25 April last year, almost a year ago to the day, I initiated a private Member's motion the theme of which was the safeguarding of the younger generation. I am therefore glad to have caught your eye, Madam Speaker, and be able to contribute to today's debate.
  I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) on securing the opportunity for us to debate this important issue and on the very impressive speech with which he opened the debate. His broad message to the House articulated the appeal to the nation's conscience, which is the subject of the Maranatha community's pamphlet. I, too, drew on the community's information last year and was able to relate a litany of abuse as proof of the breakdown of society in this country. Today's debate takes that much further, and the very sombre speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Alison) revealed that children are in peril and at risk everywhere in the world, not only in the United Kingdom. In the short time available to me, I can but add a few embellishments and the latest illustrations of the forces at work which are threatening children.
  Children are our country's most precious asset, yet they are vulnerable to assaults from all quarters, some unexpected. They are shamelessly exploited for their growing spending power and influence on family purchasing. Their sensibilities are brutalised by the adult world into which we bring them. These forces are at work in various spheres of activity.
  I mention in passing academia. In this context, I read with astonishment that the university of Dundee is to establish a chair in gender relations in education and employment. That in itself might seem mere political
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  correctness, but, by challenging the traditional role of women, and especially their role as mothers, the growing number of courses in so-called gender studies—the gender agenda—threatens the welfare of children and that threat, wherever possible, should be resisted.
  It is a short step from academia to the media where opinions that threaten the welfare of children are constantly voiced. I was surprised at the weekend when I read the views of the highly acclaimed comedy actress, Miriam Margolyes. She has appeared in an outstanding television production of "Little Dorrit" and has a one-woman show on Charles Dickens. She appears in the type of production that might well be the subject of children's studies in the English classics yet speaking about the family she said:
  "I think families are killers actually, particularly the nuclear family. There is something very off-putting to me about the state of marriage … I don't like children".
  Those views are extraordinary and out of place, but she is entitled to them. What concerns me is that the person holding them was the subject of a half-page profile in a major Sunday national newspaper. If such views are prevalent in our society, it is little wonder that the institution of the family, which is the greatest protection for our children, is under threat.
  Channel 4 is another cause for concern. I have a love-hate relationship with it. I admire its imaginative programming, and it has a remit to offer programmes not offered by the other three terrestrial channels, but there is a constant battle to ensure that it remains within reasonable limits. Although the Independent Television Commission does its best to keep it in check, the system that it has to administer is one of complaining about programmes after they have been shown. The drawbacks of such a system are self-evident because Channel 4's programmers are determined to push back the barriers of "good taste and decency", to cite the Broadcasting Act 1990.
  I give one of many examples. It was reported that Channel 4's late-night programme "Eurotrash" would show viewers how to make their own porn movies, so I have to tell my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Kent that the problem is not only that children have access to pornography but that they are now being shown how to make their own pornographic film if they choose to watch late-night television. As we have heard, if they have a television set in their own room and are isolated, they will watch such programmes.
  A senior Channel 4 source admitted:
  "We are certainly pushing at the boundaries of decency. The documentary is the most outrageous piece of TV viewers will see for a long time."
  The blatancy of such programmes increases daily and we have little power to resist, but I call on the Government to review once again the provisions of the Broadcasting Act 1990 and see whether they can be strengthened or enforced more effectively so that pernicious influences do not corrupt our children.
  I am sorry to say that children are often at risk from the Government, not by design but by chance. This week provided a pertinent illustration. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security was under pressure to allow the division of a couple's assets on divorce. Taken at face value, that might seem equitable but it is in fact a disincentive for a couple to remain together. If, as a result of family breakdown, people lose nothing, what incentive is there for them to keep the family together?

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  The Secretary of State pointed out that, even worse, such a policy would cost £300 million because of the extra tax breaks that would be available to a divorced couple over and above what would be available to a married couple. Fortunately, to his credit, my right hon. Friend resisted, and I pay tribute to him for his stalwart defence of the Child Support Agency legislation which was one of the major advances in ensuring responsibility in parenthood.
  There are, however, other hazards. In a publication from the Institute of Economic Affairs, Patricia Morgan points out the consequences of the new child care allowance. She states that
  "a single mother with two small children can work for 20 hours a week for £4 an hour and, including all state benefits to which she is entitled, will receive a net income of £163.99.
  A married father of two small children working for 40 hours at the same rate—and receiving all appropriate benefits—would get only £130.95 net."
  That is clearly a disincentive of the worst kind. If society is based on the family, we cannot allow such an anomaly to continue.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Kent said, there are 1.3 million lone parents bringing up children in Britain. That is a social catastrophe, not because the vast majority of those children and parents do not live happy, productive and fruitful lives, but because every child is entitled, wherever possible, to the love and attention of two parents.
  We are sowing dragon's teeth—unless we support the family and give children their entitlement to a stable home background and, wherever possible, the love and attention of two parents, these injured offspring will continue to rise up and strike us down.
  10.57 am
  Mr. Peter Thurnham: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) on securing this brief debate. Perhaps this is the time to ask for a longer debate in the future because it is clear that there are many issues to discuss.
  I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Home Office is to reply. I was not sure whether a Home Office Minister would attend. His presence reminds me that, in 1971, the children's unit was transferred from the Home Office to the Department of Health. One might wonder whether that move was carried out as wisely as it should have been. In that context, I refer my hon. Friend to Dick Crossman's diaries, which describe some of the scraps that took place, give a blow-by-blow account of how the unit was moved and tell of the battle with the then Home Secretary, Jim Callaghan, as he was. The diaries state that Jim Callaghan said:
  "You're going to win anyway, Dick. You'll get the Children's Department out of me. Why not be generous in this small thing and make a few friends."
  He went on to suggest how a deal could be done.
  We should pay more attention to the need for more central and local co-ordination. I know that a number of Government Departments are involved. Indeed, in an intervention, my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) said that he thought that 11 Government Departments were involved. Obviously, one is aware of the involvement of not only the Department of Health and the Home Office but the Department for Education and
  780
  the Lord Chancellor's Department, with the family law review that is under way. I understand that three Cabinet Committees are involved in children's issues: the Ministerial Committee on Home and Social Affairs, the EDH Committee; the Ministerial Sub-Committee on Women's Issues, the EDH(W) Committee; and the Lord Chancellor's Family Law Review Committee. Perhaps we should have a Children's Committee. If we look to the future of this country, nothing is more important than how we bring up our children. My hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Sir M. Neubert) said that children are our most precious asset. I would call for much stronger measures to co-ordinate children's issues, both centrally and locally.
  In my constituency, Bolton council recently set up a children and young people joint working party, in December 1994—tragically, only a fortnight before young 12-year-old Thomas Oakes was found dying from mutilation in his home. His plight was not known to anybody. He was not on any "at-risk" register. Although we still do not know what the inquiry will come up with, clearly, lack of co-ordination between all the agencies, both formal and informal, will be part of it.
  I am delighted to see my hon. Friend the Minister from the Home Office in his place, as I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the police on their work in Bolton. Crime has been reduced for the fourth year running. Nationally, we have seen the biggest drop in crime in 40 years. I was shocked recently when Chief Superintendent Bartlett told me that he thought that one of the areas of greatest concern in Bolton was heroin addiction among youngsters. My hon. Friend the Minister for Mid-Kent mentioned that 3 per cent. of 15-year-olds were heroin addicts. I had no idea that the figure was as high as that nationally, and am extremely concerned that heroin addiction should be growing among youngsters in Bolton. Clearly, that is an area to which we need to pay enormous attention.
  I believe that local authorities must do much more. The Government have devolved responsibility for children's issues, through the Children Act, to local authorities. Setting up a committee does not seem to me to resolve issues. Just this week, I received a letter from Mrs. Rita Lilley, the chair of Hallith Wood residents association in my constituency. If I may, I shall refer briefly to it. She says:
  "I feel I have to write because for the past two years things are not getting any better. I have made numerous phone calls to schools, Education, Social Services, Criminal Justice and the Police.
  The problem is persistent young offenders of which there are three on our estate at present. I am told that two of the youths' parents have washed their hands of them and I believe they are all in the care of social services … What the residents and I would like to know is who is responsible for these youths and what if anything is being done to try and get them back on the straight and narrow, because all I see is them roaming the streets day in and day out and frankly I am sick and tired of wasting my time and money contacting departments who don't seem to be bothered."
  It is atrocious that the chair of a residents association should be so despairing of being able to get a response from a council that has the devolved responsibility to deal with these issues. I would call on the council to decentralise its services as far as possible and to set up more neighbourhood units. Neighbourhood watch schemes are an excellent example of neighbourhood action and initiative from the Home Office. I think that we could have many more neighbourhood schemes, centred perhaps on schools.

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  I have just been on a visit to Switzerland, where a lot of voluntary work is done in schools on a local scale. Town halls are too large and too remote from the issues that they have to deal with. I call for much more devolution by local authorities into neighbourhoods, so that real action can take place. Indeed, we should look at the way in which central Government and local government could work more closely together.
  In France, child benefit is not paid if children are truant. I have raised that question with the Prime Minister and have been told that it would be difficult to implement, but I think that it would be a very good way to draw attention to the children who are truant, and to inquire why each child is not at school, and what should be done about that. I hope that only in a few cases would the benefit be withdrawn. Perhaps if the child benefit was paid by the schools themselves it would be another source of funding for them if some parents felt that they could leave the benefit with the school in the first place.
  If children are truant, it is a serious matter. I would like to see more conditionality of benefits. That occurred in the old days, before we centralised everything. We now have the most centralised system of local and central Government that we have ever had. We are losing touch with issues on a truly local scale. I commend two of the Government's initiatives—the local management of schools and, as I have mentioned, neighbourhood watch schemes—as examples of what can be done through working in a neighbourhood way. That is the way to give proper attention to children's matters.
  I commend my hon. Friend on having secured the debate today and hope that we shall have many more opportunities to speak on one of the most important issues for the future of this country.
  11.5 am
  Mrs. Llin Golding: I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) on raising this short but very important debate on the subject of responsibility to children, and also on his strong and compassionate speech. I was very impressed with what he had to say and the trouble to which he has gone to find the facts and figures concerning children in this country.
  Internationally, the most significant move for children must have been the drawing up of the declaration of the United Nations convention on the rights of the child, which, for the first time, established a universally agreed set of rights for children and, even more significantly, caused Governments to examine their legislation and priorities—or lack of them—with regard to children. It turned the spotlight on to children, and I hope that it will never again be turned off. It certainly influenced our Government to legislate to draw together our laws in support of children and led to the passing of the Children Act—a landmark in our Government's attitude towards children's rights. But it does need more than an Act to solve the problems of children. Almost 3 million children—nearly a quarter of all children in this country—live in families who are on income support. More than 4 million children in Britain live in families whose incomes are less than half the average.
  It is indeed time for further action. The Government should listen and respond to the criticism of the United Nations convention report, which, earlier this year, made
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  a devastating indictment of Ministers' failures to meet the rights of Britain's children on a host of fronts, such as poverty, inequality, homelessness, health, sex education, immigration and criminal justice. The answer to that criticism by Ministers, both in this House and the other place, was to deny the need for the House to give time to debate that report. Their silence speaks volumes about their compassion.
  Hon. Members from both sides of the House have taken the opportunity to speak up for children. I must especially congratulate the right hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Alison), whose knowledgeable and thoughtful contribution to the debate on child tourist prostitution is one that I strongly support. He will be pleased to know that, when I went to the Inter-Parliamentary Union conference in Madrid a few weeks ago, I devoted my entire speech to that disgusting practice and the need for something to be done. He will also be pleased to know that I was approached by delegates from a number of western countries, who asked what they could do, for a copy of my speech and the Bill that is currently going through the House. Delegates from countries which are doing something, such as Australia, told me that they would send me a copy of their Bill and that they would keep in touch with whatever action is taken.
  I agree entirely with the right hon. Gentleman that it is wrong that people from this country can travel abroad and behave in a disgusting manner and then come back and feel quite comfortable that nobody here has seen what they have been doing.
  I must also congratulate the hon. Member for Romford (Sir M. Neubert), who made a telling contribution about the late programmes on Channel 4. Last night in Committee we debated solvent abuse and the late programmes on Channel 4. There was a strong feeling that the Minister should consider the contributions to those late-night programmes. A recent programme seemed to support even drugs for children, which is very wrong. I call on the Minister to consider whether Channel 4 is operating within the terms of the legislation.
  Illegal drugs have been mentioned, but solvent abuse kills more children than illegal drugs. At the last count in 1991, 122 children died of solvent abuse—two children a week. Something can be done about that. Solvents could be labelled much more clearly. The Home Office should consider the conditions of sale of such products and the clearer labelling of products that can be bought over the counter and abused by young children.
  Libraries have also been mentioned. At a school in my constituency which I visited, the children are crying out for books. When teachers came here to see me about their disputes, they told me that the children had asked them to ask me for more books. It is not that children do not want to read—they do—but the supply and quality of books in our schools is so poor that something must be done.
  I have written to members of my local Labour party asking them to look for books in jumble sales that would be suitable for use in schools. Books in form libraries have been so well read and thumbed that they are worn out. That is one way in which we could get books back into schools for children to borrow and read in their spare time in schools.
  Those are just a few of the issues that have been raised to which I wish to refer, but the most important of all is the support from Conservative Members for the Government to follow the lead of the Labour party and to

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  commit themselves to an independent Minister for children, not to an afterthought Minister with that responsibility in the Department of Health.
  The Minister should not persist in spending time defending the Government's record having enacted the Children Act. He should look forward, listen to children and be their voice. We must all listen, but the Minister, more than most, has the power to change things.
  Mr. Brandreth: I am slightly concerned to hear the hon. Lady moving on to what I would call a top-down approach as though that was the total answer. My experience is that the good news when it comes is from a bottom-up approach. I do not wish to anticipate the next debate, but, for example, last weekend in my constituency I met parents who were organising a rugby tour involving 120 boys and girls aged between seven and 11. They were to set out from the rugby club in Hare lane to visit Preston and Fleetwood to play rugby. That was not a Government initiative from some Minister in Whitehall; it was the result of parents in the community deciding what was needed. It was much more along the lines of the community watch approach. That may deliver something rather more effective than the top-down approach that the hon. Lady seems to be advocating.
  Mrs. Golding: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but Governments have to show a lead. Without legislation, support and the money that has been mentioned, all the good will in the world cannot achieve what we need to achieve in order to make things right for our children.
  The debate has shown the enormous concern across a wide range of issues. The Government should take the lead and administer for children. The Minister has the support of the House for much stronger action than the Government have so far taken. For the sake of our children, the Minister should use that support.
  11.14 am
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. David Maclean): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) on obtaining the debate and on an excellent speech. It was moving, well constructed and full of valid information. It was probably one of the most telling speeches that I have heard in the House for a long time. I also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Alison) on his high-minded and moving speech and my hon. Friends the Members for Romford (Sir M. Neubert) and for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) on their contributions.
  My hon. Friends got to the core of the debate which, as my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth) has just pointed out, is the need for a bottom-up approach. Ministers sometimes kid themselves that we need only legislate, pass some great new initiative, make a speech and things will change. So much of what my hon. Friend said in his intervention is right. In many areas, what will make a difference is not great speeches by Ministers or new legislation, but a change in people's attitudes to their children.
  I am also grateful to the Maranatha community for producing the booklet "What on Earth Are We Doing to OUr Children?", which addresses issues of deep concern to us all, particularly those hon. Members who have spoken this morning.
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  Children are among the weakest and most vulnerable members of our society. We have a moral duty to protect them from all forms of abuse and neglect and to nurture and nourish them physically and spiritually. Nor should we forget that our children represent the future. It is the responsibility of the older generation to ensure that the next has all possible benefits of health, education, physical security and moral well-being. Those are the points made in the conclusions of the Maranatha community's booklet.
  First, I stress the Government's commitment to improving and protecting the rights and welfare of children both here and abroad. We are party to the convention on the rights of the child and support the work of the committee on the rights of the child in monitoring states' compliance with the provisions of the convention.
  I had not intended to mention it, but since the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mrs. Golding) did so, I shall refer to the review in Geneva in January. I have no comment to make on other Departments, but I have not been silent on the comments made by the United Nations on my responsibilities. I have said that the committee which carried out that investigation behaved like a kangaroo court, and treated British Government officials disgracefully. Its members asked us 48 questions in advance but did not have the decency to give our people the chance to reply to them. They then suddenly produced their conclusions without even listening to the evidence. That does not do the United Nations much of a service.
  The Government also work hard in international bodies such as the United Nations General Assembly and the Commission on Human Rights. We supported the adoption by the commission in 1992 of a programme of action for the prevention of the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, and we have urged all countries to implement the measures that it contains.
  On the domestic front, we have taken action across a wide range of areas to improve the standards of health and education of our children and to safeguard their moral and physical welfare. I am confident that our commitment will be borne out by what I have to say.
  I come first to the distasteful subject of pornography. Concern has been expressed that children are being exposed more and more to obscene and pornographic material and, most disturbingly, that the trade in child pornography, which by its very nature involves the sexual abuse and exploitation of children, is expanding. The Government share those concerns and took action in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 to strengthen our existing controls over pornography, already regarded as among the most stringent in the world.
  Britain has tough controls over child pornography, with its simple possession now attracting a possible sentence of imprisonment and the more serious offences that might be committed during the making of a film—actual sexual intercourse with a child—carrying a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, and quite right too. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act fills a gap in the law by ensuring that computer-generated pseudo-photographs of children are also caught by the relevant legislation, and it makes it clear that other indecent photographs of children stored on computer are caught by the law.
  Mr. Thurnham: Is my hon. Friend aware that concern exists in Bolton—I have just written a letter on this to my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary—about

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  the possible need for further controls on audio tapes, cassettes and compact discs? Apparently, explicit and pornographic audio material, tapes and CDs are around, and there are no controls on their sale to children.
  Mr. Maclean: I have not seen my hon. Friend's letter, but I would be surprised if what he said is correct. We do not have to describe pornography in the law as being a tape, a CD or a microchip. The law controlling pornography is so wide that any material, irrespective of how it is stored or produced, or through what electronic medium it is covered or generated, should be caught by it. I shall happily look into my hon. Friend's point, but, as I said, I would be surprised if there is any gap in existing controls.
  A new prison sentence exists for the mere possession of child pornography. That is a pretty draconian measure to have, but it marks our abhorrence of the activities of people involved in the evil trade in child pornography—including consumers who provide the market for that sort of filth.
  The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act extended powers to search for and seize child pornography and obscenity offences available to the police. Child pornography and the obscenity offences have been made serious arrestable offences. That will ensure that, if the police raid the premises of a child pornographer, he will be unable to telephone his clients or other members of a paedophile ring, after the police have gone, to warn them to destroy any pictures or evidence that they have. The investigation and control of child pornography and related paedophile activity are accorded a high priority by the enforcement authorities in the UK, and the Government whole-heartedly support that policy. We believe that the steps that we have taken in the most recent Criminal Justice and Public Order Act are sensible, practical measures that, taken together, will provide the police with significant additional weapons in the fight against child pornography.
  In addition to the increased powers of search, seizure and of arrest which have been provided for obscenity offences, the Government have taken steps to ensure that our legislative controls keep pace with advances in technology. We have ensured that computer transmissions are covered by the Obscene Publications Act 1959. I mentioned earlier that indecent photographs and pseudo-photographs of children stored on computer are also caught by the law.
  The Government, the police and Her Majesty's Customs and Excise, however, are aware of the risks posed by the growing ease of access to information super-highways. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Kent referred to that and to the possibility of linking into pornography on a personal computer through the worldwide Internet system. The law is adequate to deal with child pornography and obscene material generated and transmitted on computer in this country, but I accept that the global nature of such networks and their lack of regulation present particular difficulties. The Government and enforcement authorities are alert to those concerns and are working to ensure that they are as adequately and as effectively dealt with as possible, but I do not want to pretend to my hon. Friends that an easy answer exists and that we can easily plug some little loophole in the law. The problem is difficult.
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  One forum through which the development of computer pornography is being examined is the recently established inter-departmental working group on obscenity. The formation of that group reflects the Government's continuing commitment to the control of obscenity and pornography, and their determination not to become complacent in the wake of the measures already introduced.
  The group will monitor developments in obscenity, with particular reference to emerging trends in computer and child pornography, and will identify any actual or potential difficulties in enforcement, or weaknesses in the relevant law, considering possible ways of overcoming them.
  We must not be embarrassed or ashamed if, every year, or every other year, we must plug some gap in pornography controls. Some of our constituents may think that we pass one law and that is it. They say, "Why isn't it working? Surely, it should last for many years." We are aware that, with modern technology and worldwide telecommunications, we may have to make some changes to the law, every other year, to clamp down on such activity.
  I want to deal with child prostitution and respond to the moving speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for Selby. No one in the Chamber would dispute that child prostitution and the sexual exploitation and abuse of children is a loathsome and abhorrent activity that should be vigorously opposed. A wide range of criminal sanctions are available to deter and to punish people who use and exploit child prostitutes, and, rightly, the penalties imposed are severe.
  The police accord a high priority to the enforcement of laws protecting children, and all police officers receive training on how to deal with child abuse and other sexual offences. The Government are committed to doing what they can to prevent children becoming involved in the first place in harmful activities such as prostitution. The Children Act 1989 provides a framework of powers and responsibilities designed to ensure that children receive the care and protection that they deserve. Local authority social services have a duty to investigate where they have reasonable cause to suspect that a child in their region is suffering from, or is likely to suffer, significant harm. That would include information received suggesting a child may need protection against being drawn into prostitution.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Selby was especially concerned about sex tourism. Concern has been expressed in this country about British citizens who travel abroad, to countries where child prostitution is linked to the organised tourist industry, for the purposes of sexually abusing children. It is a disgusting traffic and my right hon. Friend is right to call for the strongest possible action against those perverts. An understandable desire exists to combat that evil trade through the extension of our courts' jurisdiction over such offences committed abroad.
  As my right hon. Friend said, that is the aim of Lord Hylton's Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill, which received its Third Reading in another place this week. The Government have considerable sympathy with the intention behind Lord Hylton's proposal, although we have grave, practical doubts about whether the measures that it proposes would be effective in practice. My right hon. Friend knows that, and he has talked about the matter with my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary.
  It would be difficult to bring prosecutions in this country against British tourists who have committed sexual offences abroad, and the measures would cease to be a deterrent once their ineffectiveness had been

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  demonstrated. The Bill would also fail to tackle the real problem: the tens of thousands of child prostitutes in the countries that my right hon. Friend mentioned.
  The police tell us that paedophiles are among the most devious and clever of the people with whom they must deal. If such people are travelling 12,000 miles to participate in that disgusting trade, they are clever enough to spot when we have passed a totally ineffective law, especially if we brought a prosecution that failed abysmally.
  Mr. Rowe: I hear what my hon. Friend says, and, of course, none of us wants to be party to passing a totally ineffective Act, but he said earlier that he felt that it was proper to keep returning to the House with measures to block various ways of eluding pornography legislation. It might be worth a crack at passing a law and, if it does not work, coming back to the House to strengthen it rather than doing nothing.
  Mr. Maclean: One would want a law that was as strong as possible, but I want to mention the practical difficulties that the House must consider in taking power to try British citizens for crimes that they have committed overseas, particularly in relation to sex tourism.
  If I may put the matter on a practical basis, we are all aware of cases where the police or serious crimes squad, in busting a ring of drug dealers, legitimately wire up a policeman with equipment. They may film him on the street participating in that drugs raid, and he may go into court and give evidence, yet defence lawyers are able, in some cases, to have that evidence excluded. We have grave difficulty in securing convictions in those circumstances. Even with the poorest defence lawyer, it is difficult to get any British court to convict someone when the victim does not give evidence in court, when British police officers are not witnesses, and when we do not have someone in court who has been at the scene. The best that we might be able to offer would be a video tape of someone going into a child brothel in one of those countries. I tell my hon. Friends that, much as I would love to get convictions for people who do such things, we would not have a hope of getting a conviction in a British court.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Selby mentioned countries that have taken extra-territorial jurisdiction; some have passed declaratory laws. Only Norway, we understand, has managed to bring one prosecution against three people. There was a conviction, although no oral evidence was given in court and no witnesses were called. How the Norwegian legal system could manage that I do not know; it could not happen in Britain.
  I am not, of course, closing the door to the possibility of such legislation. We want to take some action to try to deal with the trade either at an international level or through other means. I merely wish to point out to the House—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse): Order. Time is up.

Rugby League
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse): The next debate is on the future of rugby league. Before I call the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe), I remind hon. Members that court proceedings are to take place on Friday which concern the subject matter of the debate to some extent. I trust that hon. Members who wish to speak will be careful not to trespass on the specific matters of the court hearing and, in particular, on whether Keighley should or should not be a member of any proposed super league, but will concentrate on the general issues. This is a short debate and I hope that I shall not have to remind hon. Members of the sub judice rule. At present, nine hon. Members have indicated that they wish to speak in this hour and a half debate. The Chair will be more than pleased if they are all successful.
11.31 am
Mr. David Hinchliffe: I express my appreciation for the fact that this morning we have the opportunity for a brief debate on some serious developments in the game of rugby league football, specifically professional rugby league football. There are two separate organisations; the amateur game, run by the British Amateur Rugby League Association—BARLA—is largely unaffected by the issues that we are talking about this morning.
I declare at the outset an interest in this debate. As is declared in the Register of Members' Interests, I have 500 shares in Wakefield Trinity rugby league football club. I am not sure what they are worth at present.
The issues are simple and straightforward. Why should a battle between two Australian media magnates result in my constituents losing something very important which we have had for 122 years—Wakefield Trinity rugby league football club? Why should a power struggle on the other side of the world mean that I should lose the team that I have supported through thick and thin since I was a small child?
It is very appropriate that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, are in the Chair this morning. You have risen from humble origins in my part of the world to be a highly respected Member of the House. You have achieved a great deal politically but, most importantly to the people who matter, you once played for Featherstone Rovers. I have here your autobiography, "A Very Miner MP". The front shows a Castleford miner and a Featherstone miner together. There is a gap; perhaps a Wakefield Trinity miner should be included.
I refer to the book because it is clear from it that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, more than anyone understand the community in which rugby league is played. You more than anyone understand how the events of the past two and a half weeks have shaken some of us to our roots because your roots, like mine, have been intertwined with rugby league football from the word go.
On Sunday, I attended what may well be the last match that my team, Wakefield Trinity, will ever play. Grown men wept. That grief has turned to anger at the way in which those ruling the game of rugby league in this country—Mr. Lindsay, the chief executive, Mr. Walker, the chairman, the club chairmen and others—seem to have allowed us to be used.
As you well know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the root of the problem is that rugby league has become a pawn in a power struggle between Kerry Packer and Rupert

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Murdoch over first, television coverage of rugby league in Australia and secondly, the expansion of satellite television. When Packer won the right to show Australian rugby league on his Channel 9 station, Murdoch's News Corporation retaliated by planning a super league in direct opposition. Murdoch bought up many of Australia's and New Zealand's top rugby league players. When that strategy failed, he turned to Europe and to rugby league in this country.
After the £77 million deal between the rugby football league in Britain and Murdoch a couple of weeks ago, Packer's representatives came to Britain trying to lure our best players away. The prospect of Murdoch's money being stuffed into players' pockets to outbid Packer is clear; that is the reality of rugby league's present situation. Martin Offiah may become much richer than he is already, but the game of rugby league will be poorer as a direct result.
What could be achieved if the money being offered to some of the players was used instead to develop the game? As my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) said to me this morning, it could be used for balls, shirts, boots and the other equipment that the kids in the community who want to play the game need. I hope that the likes of Ellery Hanley, who come from a social background that is pretty deprived, do not forget where they come from and what the money that they may receive could do for kids who have origins like theirs.
The implications are clear for many of us who are deeply concerned with the game of rugby league. Mergers have been agreed by club chairs of certain teams which will combine to enter, supposedly, the super league. I am aware that we cannot refer to certain issues on this point, but I shall refer to one or two matters that are especially relevant to the Wakefield area. There have been proposals for the destruction of long-established teams. There are practical questions of particular concern, such as the implication for jobs in an area that does not have many jobs.
There are more than 2,000 professional rugby league players in this country whose family incomes are substantially dependent on what they can earn in the game of rugby league. Many of them will no longer have a job as a direct result of the changes. People such as the coaching staff, the groundsmen and the people who, at my local club of Wakefield Trinity, work behind the bar have asked me what will happen to them if the club folds.
It is proposed that Wakefield Trinity, Featherstone Rovers and Castleford should merge and be called Calder. I am ashamed to say that Trinity's shareholders voted 2:1 in favour of a merger; I argued against the proposal. Perhaps the fact that the club had lost 86–0 to Castleford two days before had an impact on their judgment that day. It is interesting to note that when the local paper, the Wakefield Express, conducted a telephone poll, the result was 9:1 against any merger and to keep Wakefield Trinity as a separate entity.
Mr. Kevin McNamara: I come from origins as humble as yours, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so I have only two £1 shares in Hull Kingston Rovers compared with the 500 shares that my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) has in Wakefield Trinity.
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When the question of the merger of the three clubs arose, was there any suggestion of a pecking order—of one club being more dominant than the others—or did the rugby league urge the clubs to go in with equal status and to merge their interests equally?
Mr. Hinchliffe: I cannot answer that question in detail. I have no information that any pecking order was ever suggested. My hon. Friend understands the passions in Hull which has a great history of rugby league, with Hull Kingston Rovers and the Boulevard. I suspect that he has shared in the debates, the arguments and the anger, as we have in Wakefield.
As you know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, a book has already been published, emerging from Wakefield, about the anger and the grief of people who are affected by the proposed mergers. The book talks of "the merger from hell" because that is the view of people in my area about the proposals. I congratulate the Yorkshire Arts Circus on its book, "Merging on the Ridiculous" and on its work to get across to people outside our area and in the game at high level just how passionately local people feel about what is going on and about the way in which they have been treated.
Mr. Spencer Batiste: As the hon. Gentleman has rightly said, the whole problem has arisen because of the battle between two Australian media magnates, Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer, over their interests in Australia. Does he agree that the right way to deal with the problem here is by a reference to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission?
Mr. Hinchliffe: The hon. Gentleman may be aware that my right hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) has already written to the Office of Fair Trading about the matter. Perhaps the Minister may reflect on that when he responds to the debate.
May I for a moment crave your indulgence, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and quote from the book that I mentioned a few moments ago to show the House the strength of feeling in my area about this matter, especially about the way in which people have been treated over proposed mergers? One anonymous supporter sets out passionate feelings about such treatment. The book quotes him:
"A couple of dozen suits making a decision on behalf of God knows how many followers of the game is a disgrace. It's a bit like coming home one day and finding that your walls have been knocked through, and from now on you and your neighbour are all sharing one house. What do you say? 'Thanks very much. Another time, perhaps you'd like to ask me first."
That sums up the feelings of so many.
If I may briefly stray into Featherstone, if my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Mr. Enright) will allow me, I would like to quote a comment about Calder:
"What is Calder to the people of Featherstone, but a river somewhere to the side of Normanton, as remote as the Ganges or the Volga … Why not call it Thatcher? She did more for the region than anyone else and you could really get some buzz on the opposition terraces when our team came out."
The central point of that comment is that 20,000 mining-related jobs have gone since 1979 in the Wakefield area; the area of Wakefield Trinity, Featherstone Rovers and Castleford. People have lost their identity, their self-respect, their standard of living and their way of life. For many, the one thing left which gives them pride is the local rugby league team. The same philosophy of greed is about to take away that as well.

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People in my area are fighting back. For the first time in history, in the pubs of Wakefield last night, people drank a toast to the people of Featherstone, because your members, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in Featherstone, voted by a large margin against the merger. I pay tribute to my many friends and colleagues in Featherstone for the way in which they have campaigned—rightly—against what has been handed down to them on a plate without any kind of consultation.
Mr. Kevin Hughes: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way while he is on the subject of mergers, relating to what is happening around Yorkshire in particular and describing the anger in the communities. He knows that in my community of Doncaster, it has been suggested that the Dons should merge with the Sheffield Eagles. The same anger prevails among the Dons' supporters about that proposed merger and 3,000 of them have signed a petition against it. A meeting in Doncaster last week with Gary Hetherington from Sheffield Eagles was attended by 400 supporters and only 16 voted in favour. The feeling is the same up and down Yorkshire on this issue. Local communities feel that they are about to lose their local rugby clubs and they will not have that. They will not sit down and take that and they are fighting against it.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I appreciate that the hon. Member wants to make a point, but interventions are supposed to be brief and not mini-speeches.
Mr. Hinchliffe: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for working hard to try to sustain Doncaster. I know that behind the scenes he has done an immense amount and he is as aggrieved as I am at the way in which the affair has developed. I think that Gary Hetherington is genuinely doing what he believes to be in the interests of rugby league in south Yorkshire, although I disagree with his strategy.
I shall move on to some of the wider implications of the recent deal and developments of which the House should be aware. First, I find it particularly galling, having worked hard along with many hon. Friends, given that rugby union has for more than 99 years disgracefully discriminated against rugby league, to find out, on the very day that I reintroduced the Sports (Discrimination) Bill, that my sport of rugby league will in future, through the Murdoch deal, be discriminating against people who are not involved with Murdoch. It is not on for people to say that the future Great Britain rugby league team will be exclusive to Murdoch.
I give a commitment here and now—the Minister is aware of the issues and that my Bill will, I hope get its Second Reading on Friday—that if the Bill goes into Committee, I shall certainly try to amend it to ensure that such discrimination is made illegal. Frankly, we cannot be hypocritical and say that union is wrong in doing what it is doing yet do the same in our own game.
Dr. Norman A. Godman: May I point out to my hon. Friend that many Australian rugby league fans have very deep reservations about these developments? A few days ago I spoke to two such fans on the telephone and they expressed their concern. Incidentally, before they migrated from Scotland they were Glasgow Celtic supporters so perhaps, now that they are in Australia, they have come to their senses.
Mr. Hinchliffe: Time spent in the south of England has taught me that rugby league is indeed a civilising
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influence and I concur with my hon. Friend's comments. Let us consider—this issue is being discussed in Australia—the wider implications, for example, for news management because of the way in which Mr. Murdoch has moved into rugby league. Indeed, he is moving into other areas too. [HON. MEMBERS: "What about Channel 5?"] Indeed, as my hon. Friends say, I was interested to note that Mr. Michael Grade, the chief executive of Channel 4, only yesterday demanded parliamentary action to check Murdoch's tentacles. Frankly, it is not his tentacles that we are after in my part of the world.
I spoke last week to a rugby league correspondent whom I have known and respected for a long time. He told me—and I believed him—that certain writers and broadcasters are no longer free to report the facts about the super league. I shall be interested to see tomorrow's reporting of this debate by certain television stations and newspapers.
There is another side to the coin which is worth flagging up. It is fairly common knowledge to a number of hon. Members that at least one non-Murdoch tabloid is planning a highly personal attack on a key figure in British rugby league. I shall say no more about that. I am sad to say that in rugby league we are involved in a dirty business.
I pay a sincere tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield for the way in which he has from the word go set out a principled position on behalf of the parliamentary rugby league group. My hon. Friend's line of opposition to the deal because of its wider implications was endorsed at a meeting of about 40 members—including hon. Members of another place—of the group last week. My hon. Friend, in particular, has pinpointed a number of implications.
My hon. Friend and I had a three-hour meeting on Monday with the chief executive and the chairman of the rugby football league, Mr. Maurice Lindsay and Mr. Rodney Walker. If my hon. Friend catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, he will no doubt talk about that meeting and cite some detail of the comments that we made and, indeed, their responses. In response to my belief that they were widely seen to have sold the game's soul, they said that they had had no alternative. Their response was about the current financial difficulties facing the game.
I concede that such difficulties have to be addressed at club and board level. There are difficulties arising from the contracting system, which of course came from Australia in the first place, and difficulties with the safety at sports grounds legislation. Soccer's problems have cost rugby league clubs such as mine £13 million since that legislation was introduced. With respect to the Minister's noble efforts, we are still waiting for some real help on that front and no doubt he will comment on that later.
Mr. Gerry Sutcliffe: Many local authorities have supported the development of rugby league clubs' grounds because of the esteem in which those clubs are held in the communities. Local authorities are hard pressed and they have spent money that they do not have.
Mr. Hinchliffe: My hon. Friend is right. I pay tribute to Wakefield district council for the effort that it has made to support the three rugby league clubs. Wakefield Trinity is certainly criticising the council at present, but I said at the shareholders' meeting last week that there is a lot to

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thank the local authority for in terms of the support that it has given to rugby league and Wakefield Trinity in the past.
I hope that the Minister will also mention the impact of the national lottery, which has wiped out the fundraising efforts at local club level for teams such as Wakefield Trinity. We have lost thousands of pounds as a direct result of the lottery, and the compensation that is supposed to arise from the lottery funds has not yet filtered down to the game of rugby league.
Following our discussions with Mr. Lindsay and Mr. Walker many questions remain unanswered, and I hope that we shall have further meetings with them and with the Minister. The central question that fans, supporters and people throughout the game ask me is how on earth a deal of such magnitude could be concluded without consultation with the various interested parties that surely have a role to play in the game. The players, in particular, are affected, as is the amateur game and as are a range of other organisations concerned with development.
The parliamentary group has worked hard in this place to press the interests of the game of rugby league, but we have been treated with contempt. For nearly a fortnight, no attempt was made to advise us about what was happening. The most important development in the game for 100 years was taking place, yet there was no fax, no telephone call, no letter. I feel rather aggrieved by the way in which we have been treated, and it is worth putting that on the record.
Much more important are the members of clubs, the people who pay for their season tickets and go through the turnstiles. Those are the people who fund the game where it matters—through the gates of the rugby league clubs. They feel that they have been treated with complete and utter contempt by the game's rulers, and in many areas they are angry.
I want to give my hon. Friends and Conservative Members the opportunity to make contributions, so I shall finish soon. But before I do I shall raise one or two specific questions that the Minister may be prepared to reflect on and perhaps to answer. My first question is: can the Government sit back and allow British sport to be taken apart in the power struggle that we are witnessing within the game of rugby league?
I know that the Minister's background is in rugby union, although I think that he has realised that there is a better form of rugby now that he has been to one or two rugby league matches. I am sure that he has worked it out for himself, but I must emphasise the fact that what is happening to rugby league now will be like a vicarage tea party compared with what will happen to rugby union. I do not think that many people involved with rugby union who know what is happening to rugby league are laughing about it. Despite the historic rivalries, when those people watch what is happening now they know that rugby union will be next. It will be hit in a big way and the game will be fundamentally changed.
What steps will the Minister and the Government take to defend British sport, and to alleviate the additional burdens imposed by the sports grounds legislation and by the national lottery, so that clubs such as Wakefield Trinity will be able to go it alone without Murdoch money and without the bribery that is bandied about to make people forget about their principles and forget about the history and heritage of the game of rugby league?
Mr. Barry Sheerman: Is that not the crunch? Many of us share my hon. Friend's reservations about the way in which the deal was done, about Murdoch and about the lack of consultation, but there is one thing that we all know. I represent Huddersfield, where the modern game began 100 years ago, and I know it. We have to grasp the reality that we desperately need money and more spectators, and that we probably need a super league of some kind.
Mr. Hinchliffe: We need money, but do we need to prostitute ourselves on the street? That is a simple question that many of us feel deeply about. Rugby league is a game of principle, which I have supported all my life, but there are certain questions to be asked about the way that we have left some of those principles behind this time. I hope that the Minister will support the calls for an independent inquiry into the way in which the affair has been conducted. I know that the Select Committee on National Heritage has already been approached by its own members to consider the matter, and many hon. Members here today would support that request.
To be fair to the Minister, he knows about the game of rugby league and its qualities. It is primarily a local game, rooted in local communities and based on family relationships. We do not have problems at rugby league matches, and we do not really need police, whether the crowd is 77,000 or 500, because people are well behaved and have decent values. One of the strengths of rugby league is that the game itself oozes the values of decency and friendliness, and I believe that those qualities are well worth defending.
Mr. Roger Stott: My hon. Friend will be aware that my local club, Wigan, will play at Wembley on Saturday.
Mr. Hinchliffe: Just by way of a change.
Mr. Stott: It is like playing at home. At last year's fixture Wigan were playing Leeds, the same club that they will play on Saturday. There were about 70,000 people at Wembley stadium last year for that cup final, and there was not one arrest.
Mr. Hinchliffe: My hon. Friend makes my point for me. There was a capacity crowd, yet I saw a police report on the match that questioned the need to police that Wembley event in future. For the record, even if Wakefield Trinity never appear at Wembley again, on the two occasions when we played Wigan we beat them.
This is an emotional issue for me—I make no bones about it. My team, Wakefield Trinity, began in 1873, based round the YMCA at Trinity church. It had its roots in Christianity, and I shall finish by quoting what one of that team's lifelong supporters, Elaine Storkey, said about the super league two weeks ago on Radio 4's "Thought for the Day":
"It concerns the central values of our culture. When everything can be turned into a commodity for financial gain, it seems that nothing other than money has any ultimate meaning. Jesus asked 'What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world but to lose his soul?'. It warns us that something of soul could be lost in the north if the pleasure of local contests between neighbours is exchanged for global commercialisation. The cost may be the very meaning of the game, for even rugby league can lose its heart before the tyranny of Mammon".
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before I call the next hon. Member to speak, I should say that the great interest in the debate is obvious from the number of right hon. and hon. Members present in the Chamber. I do not recall having been in the Chair for an Adjournment debate when there have been so many people here. Bearing that in mind, I hope that those fortunate enough to catch my eye will remember that many hon. Members want to speak.
11.56 am
Mr. Gary Waller: I am mindful of your reference to the sub judice rule, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so I shall choose my words with care. Recent days have seen much conflict and many expressions of anguish; indeed, there have been explosions of anger, and those are entirely understandable. The rugby football league has brought all that about by acting with unseemly speed and above all by failing to allow spectators to have their say, as they undoubtedly should.
Decisions have been rushed in a way unworthy of an organisation that celebrates its centenary this year. It took 100 years to create the rugby league in its present form, and surely it must be disloyal to those who have supported the sport week in and week out, year in and year out, to decide on revolutionary changes in a matter of hours.
Bearing in mind the origins of rugby league, and its creation in 1895 because of discrimination practiced against rugby league players in the north of England, I, like the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe), find it a matter for deep regret—indeed, I find it tragic—that the rugby football league has allowed itself to be drawn into a structure in which discrimination will be endemic.
I object especially to the element of the deal with Mr. Rupert Murdoch whereby a Great Britain team will not play international matches against an Australian team containing players not contracted to the Murdoch organisation. Some of us have fought against such discrimination, and will continue to do so.
Last year, the rugby football league published a far-seeing document entitled "The Way Forward", proposing better facilities and ways in which clubs should develop and promote themselves to a wider audience. We all support those objectives.
I want to say a little about my club. I shall not talk specifically about the composition of the super league, or give the reasons why my club should be part of it. As urged to by the rugby football league, the club has adopted a community-based approach. It has promoted in the ground every day what it calls the Cougars classroom, delivering the national curriculum to pupils. It has attracted families. It has admitted youngsters free of charge. It has initiated a scheme in which schools and pupils are encouraged to follow the pursuit of excellence. In two successive years, it has taken 1,000 schoolchildren in 20 or more coaches to Wembley to see an international match.
Now we see some of the results. Some 40 per cent. of spectators at home matches are women. Juvenile crime is said to have decreased in the town as a result of initiatives taken by the club. At Rochdale last Sunday, where the Cougars won 104–4 against Highfield, it was not just the achievements on the field that impressed. The stewards were amazed at the lack of problems among the huge crowd and the absence of litter after the game.
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That community-based approach, matched by the creation of a superb team, has led to a dramatic increase in attendances from an average of 445 in 1986–87 to an average of 4,119 in the present season. Indeed, attendance has quadrupled in the past four years. A top coach, Phil Larder, and top players such as Daryl Powell, have been willing to come to a second division club to share in the excitement of reaching for the top. Obviously, however the league is organised, they expect to operate and play in the top flight.
In general terms, the exclusion of top-class teams which are doing now what some clubs still aspire to, epitomises what is wrong with the proposals. It is surely ridiculous to include teams which in some cases do not even exist yet or are incapable at present of playing top-class rugby, merely because they happen to be in the north-east, London, Humberside, Wales or, indeed, France.
It is not surprising that the majority of the mergers which Maurice Lindsay has advocated for a long time are already breaking down. How does he expect people who have followed historic clubs such as Castleford, Featherstone and Wakefield Trinity all their lives to give their loyalty to something called Calder? The hon. Member for Wakefield spoke feelingly on the matter. I know how he feels and how so many clubs and supporters feel.
Mrs. Alice Mahon: It is interesting that, when the people who have supported the game all their lives were asked their opinion in a poll in the Halifax Evening Courier, in just an hour or two more than 3,000 voted against a merger with Bradford Northern and just 300 voted for a merger. So when they were given the opportunity to say whether they wanted to stay in Halifax, they chose to do so overwhelmingly.
Mr. Waller: I acknowledge what the hon. Lady says. Unfortunately, what she says is so accurate. Sadly, the chairmen of some clubs such as Bradford Northern and Halifax are among those who have been carried away by the hype that they have heard. Justifying the stance that he took in favour of the proposals, Chris Caisley, the chairman of Bradford Northern, wrote:
"now and again, there is a need to step out of Cougarland, put your feet on the ground, and get into the real world."
That was from the chairman of one of the clubs that have beaten a path to Cougars' door to find out just what Cougarmania is all about so that they can impart a little of it to their own promotion.
Mr. Sutcliffe: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is Mr. Caisley who ought to be in the real world and recognise that in 1985 there would not have been a Bradford Northern without local supporters and the local authority, just as there would not have been a Keighley Cougars without local supporters and the local authority? That is the real world. It is a bottom-up, not a top-down, process.
Mr. Waller: The hon. Gentleman is so right. He might be interested to know that Mr. Caisley, writing presumably about Members of this House who belong to the all-party rugby league group, many of whom are in the Chamber today, wrote:
"Don't be fooled by these wolves in sheep's clothing; they will disappear from the scene as quickly as they arrived. If they carry any real interest in rugby league they would be better employed minding their own business and looking after the genuine interests of their electorate."

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Well, I think I know my electorate reasonably well. My guess is that, in a contest between Chris Caisley and me or any of a dozen hon. Members who are here today, I or they would win hands down. I think that Mr. Caisley owes an apology to the supporters of the Cougars and an acknowledgement that the all-party group has been around for a good few years and its members are in touch with the views of rugby league supporters from many clubs.
There are many educationists who seem to devise plans for schools which would work splendidly without any pupils. There are health professionals who reckon that the health service would be wonderful if there were not any patients. There are also some rugby league administrators who have great theories about the organisation of the game, but attach scant importance to the need to keep the fans it has right now.
Rugby league is about emotion. It is about appreciation of skill. Above all, it is about people. After all, it is the people's game. So let us have some rethinking. Let the rugby league start listening and open up the super league to fresh applications. Rugby league can still be the greatest game.
12.5 pm
Mr. Ian McCartney: I am speaking as chair of the parliamentary group, in a debate which I hoped would never happen. I hoped that today we would be debating the National Heritage Select Committee report which concluded that, after 100 years, the rugby football league had been treated disgracefully by organised sports such as rugby union on the issue of sham amateurism. Unfortunately, that will not be the case because, days before that report was published, a secret deal was done between a small group of administrators who control the rugby football league and the Murdoch organisation. The deal that was struck was clearly and simply to undermine, damage and destroy the Australian rugby league—an affiliated international organisation legally standing on its own with a constitution and a right to manage the affairs of rugby league in Australia—and to pick up the pieces and control rugby league on a worldwide basis as a franchised outlet of the Murdoch organisation.
As a supporter of Wigan rugby league club, I could take a cynical approach and see the matter in the short term. A small but significant number of clubs which are already successful will gain access to huge sums of money in a short five-year period. I could say to hell with the rest of rugby league. However, if we are real supporters of rugby league committed to the ethos of community and the honesty of the game, we have a responsibility to ensure that, in promoting itself, the game cherishes the reasons why rugby league is anti-racist, why it does not have a criminal element and why it is a community sport.
It is an outrage that the Taylor report has bankrupted the game of rugby league. As a result of horrific incidents that took place in soccer, there was a need to change the law in Britain to make sporting stadiums safer. We all supported that. The report also covered rugby league, but no resources were given to bring its clubs up to the standards set out in that report. In the intervening years, football has received £130 million. Who says that crime does not pay? Until a few weeks ago, rugby league had been given a paltry £2 million. Yet the accumulated debt of the sport as a whole is
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less than the cost of implementing the report. That left rugby league unable to resist the way in which the Murdoch organisation moved in.
In this debate I shall not criticise Maurice Lindsay or Rodney Walker. Maurice Lindsay is a good friend of mine whom I have known throughout my public life in the north-west. I have been traumatised by what this matter has done to our friendship. My trust in the views of him and other people on the future of rugby league was wiped out in three days because of Murdoch's ability to move in and place a gun at their heads. The gun was simply that if they did not sign up the sport exclusively to him, once he had destroyed Australian rugby league and the international boards, he would be back for the UK game, would pick it up for nothing and would bankrupt it.
Players are to be cherry-picked and millions of pounds will flow out of the game in the coming weeks, both here and in Australia. A small group of players will become instant millionaires while the sport at the grass roots will wither away, clubs will be left to go bankrupt and communities will see their teams and players made redundant. How can Martin Offiah honestly hold up his hand and say that he did a deal because he wanted to play for his country? The money secured in that contract alone would be sufficient to plough into an investment programme for the clubs left in the first division.
If we are serious about a super league, why will the first division be starved of capital resources, sponsorship and income, as well as the right, even if teams are successful, to apply to join the super league? A head cannot survive if the body is destroyed.
If, in Great Britain today, the Football Association announced that Terry Venables' English international team could not play a country unless that country had secured a deal giving Murdoch exclusive rights to that international programme, there would be international and national outrage. But this deal means that Great Britain cannot play rugby internationally unless the game is with a team that has a contract exclusive to Murdoch. What would be the reaction if David Platt, the England captain, could not play for England ever again because the club that he played for did not have an exclusive deal with Mr. Murdoch? That is precisely the position for Great Britain players.
Phil Clarke from Wigan is a top international athlete, not just in the international rugby league. Last year, he signed a contract, of his own volition, to play rugby league in Australia. In the past two days, he has discovered that his club has not signed up to the Murdoch deal in Australia. So the best loose forward in the world today will be banned forthwith from playing for his country unless he breaks his contract and turns his back on a legally binding document. How could such an arrangement be allowed to happen? It means that the sport has been purchased lock, stock and barrel. For the first time in Britain's history, a media magnate has bought not just a sporting event but a sport and, with that purchase, he will manipulate that sport on an international stage for the long-term aspirations of his company at the expense of the short and longer-term aims of rugby league, both here and internationally.
There are serious implications for the United Kingdom outside rugby league. The House must consider whether it is right that Mr. Murdoch or any other media mogul can decide the shape, size and rights of any sport. Is it right that a media mogul from outside the UK can control

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virtually every major sporting event in the United Kingdom? Is it right that a media mogul can contract individual players and sports and, with those contractual arrangements, operate a virtual monopoly—a restraint of trade on individuals—which prevents access to that sport for any other sponsor or media agency without his prior approval?
If hon. Members want to surrender British and European sport to Mr. Murdoch, they should say so. He should not be allowed to use rugby league as a Trojan horse to undermine all those public issues.
Ms Kate Hoey: Does my hon. Friend share my concern that someone—it is difficult not to mention names and personalities—who is involved with this deal, namely Mr. Walker, is the chairman of the Sports Council? Does he feel that people are confident in how sport in this country will be handled when the same person so quickly sells out a major sport?
Mr. McCartney: My hon. Friend makes an important point. Rodney Walker is a man of integrity but the deal seriously compromises the whole of rugby football league and the ability of its administrators to be regarded as independent in their role in other non-governmental agencies. The Minister must be clear about the future for rugby league outside the super league. Rugby league outside the super league is massive, and not just on the, M62 corridor. With more than 50,000 players and thousands of teams, rugby league is played from Scotland to every constituent part of the United Kingdom. What happens to clubs that currently receive support from non-governmental agencies? They must not be treated as a franchise of Mr. Murdoch's and excluded from investment from other sporting bodies. Rodney Walker and others should consider whether, before making their hasty decisions, they should have thought the issues through more thoroughly.
If we are honest about the future of the game, we must also be honest about the fact that rugby league is virtually a bankrupt game. It is short of capital investment resources, and it is sometimes short of vision. But cherry picking and an international battle for a few players will cause millions of pounds to seep out of the game into the bank accounts of a few players, their agents and the lawyers who represent them, and the game will not be able to survive in the long run. The most damning indictment of the whole issue is how rugby league has lost control of events and the international rugby board has been smashed. The game can no longer be played unless Murdoch says that it can. Each day, the meter ticks on and the only people who ultimately will gain are the agents, a handful of players and a lot of solicitors.
The rugby league family must come together quickly. Some sanity must prevail in Australia and here to end immediately the cherry picking, bans and prescriptions. Unless that happens immediately, none of the £70 million will be left to invest. It will have gone for ever.
Several hon, Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I understand that the winding-up speeches will be at about 12.30 pm. Five hon. Members hope to catch my eye before then. I hope that they will be able to do so.
12.18 pm
Mrs. Elizabeth Peacock: First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) on raising this matter at such a crucial time. I offer my apologies to the House because I should be in a meeting which started at 12 o'clock and I cannot stay to hear the end of the debate. I apologise to my hon. Friend the Minister.
As a member of the all-party rugby league group in Parliament, I must add my support to the protests against the super league proposals. I also add my protests on behalf of Batley rugby league club.
Undoubtedly, the game needs an overhaul and, as we have heard, an injection of cash, which I believe could come from worldwide television coverage. However, it appears that the rugby league authorities—whose names have been mentioned—have been unable to resist, and have jumped at the first available cash and television deal that anyone has dangled before them, which happened to come from Rupert Murdoch.
I find that surprising, when the authorities know that Rupert Murdoch is in fierce competition with his Australian rival, Kerry Packer, and they know what has happened previously. I do not understand why they could not have given the matter more thought and had the courtesy to consult some of the many people in this country, especially in the north of England, who have supported rugby league for most of their lives.
The Murdoch proposals, which demand the merger of well-known clubs throughout Yorkshire and the north-west, deserve to fail because they completely disregard the traditions of many clubs, which are synonymous with our way of life in the north.
More important, those proposals are unacceptable to the people of Batley. We are not in danger of merger but, following what my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Waller) said, we would be following in the footsteps of Keighley for promotion next season.
Our club has shown great determination, in the past few seasons, to gain promotion from the second division and to meet the demands of the rugby league authorities with regard to facility improvements. The club has had good sponsorship. Fox's Biscuits, a very well-known company in Batley, supports rugby league and has been most helpful. The club has achieved all its targets and is a runner-up in the second division to the champions, Keighley.
The Mount Pleasant club in Batley has spent £1.5 million on ground improvements and hopes to spend a further £2.5 million. It has no debt; although it is always desperate for money, it is not that desperate and certainly, as the hon. Member for Wakefield said, its members will not sell their souls for some immediate cash.
I have had a great deal of contact from people. I shall quote from a letter from Mr. Myers who wrote to me and with whom I have also spoken on the telephone. He says at the end of his letter:
"Please forgive my rambling on, but it is difficult to write down my true feelings when, after 60 years of supporting Batley, 40 years of doing my best"
in working and volunteering
"to help them survive and keep rugby league going in Batley, it seems that now we face another difficulty. With the greed of Mr. Lindsay and others, it is all going to be taken away."
That epitomises what people in my district believe.

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If a super league format is to replace next season's planned premier league, clubs such as Keighley, Batley and others must be allowed to take part. They have fought and worked for it, and that achievement will be snatched away. They must be allowed to take their place somewhere in the transitional super league, which will be staged between August 1995 and January 1996. Better still, I believe that the rugby league authorities and Rupert Murdoch should reconsider their proposal, because the present one is unacceptable to us in Yorkshire.
Our message to Rupert Murdoch is, take your dollars back and have a rethink.
12.22 pm
Mr. Doug Hoyle: I echo what has been said today—that the issue is not about the domestic game. The offer was made, not because the domestic game is in financial difficulties but as a result of a row between Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch in Australia.
If I might say so to my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney), with whom I always agree, clubs have been forced into bankruptcy, not only by the Taylor report but by the contract system. That is why they were in a weak position when that offer was made to them.
I echo what has been said about the chief executive and the chair of the rugby league—that they were concerned about the future of the game, and when an offer came that was worth about £75 million it was awfully difficult to resist. However, the fact that they and the chairmen of the respective clubs took that decision at Wigan in a matter of three to four hours, and tossed away 100 years of development and community spirit, caused frustration and anger the like of which I have never witnessed among rugby league spectators.
Mr. Deputy Speaker, I must congratulate your club, Featherstone, on speaking out. The members have said that they want nothing to do with it. The same thing occurred in Warrington. Neither Warrington nor Widnes wanted to be known as Cheshire. They are the fortunate ones; they have retained their identity, and they have retained it in the super league.
I read this morning that Martin Offiah has decided to stay in this country, but I was worried by the remarks of Mr. Robinson, the chairman of Wigan, who said that the club was enabled to put the contract together because of help from the super league and the Murdoch organisation. Will that apply to other players and other clubs when they come cherry-picking?
I mentioned Warrington and Widnes, but other mergers, such as that between Salford and Oldham, have run into difficulty. That is happening not just in Yorkshire; I understand that, in Cumbria, Workington will more or less go it alone.
I have repeatedly asked what will happen at the end of five years, because that money will be taken on a short-term basis, for five years only. If Rupert Murdoch does what Kerry Packer did in relation to cricket—if he walks away at the end of those five years—where will rugby league stand? Will 100 years of heritage have been thrown away for a mess of pottage?
12.26 pm
Mr. Oliver Heald: I love all rugby, but I confess that I am a union man and I would not pretend to be anything else.
I was surprised to hear the hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) criticising rugby union. After all, it was the rugby football league that broke away all those years ago, and I believe that rugby union has been entitled to protect its amateur status over the years.
Mr. McNamara: Carling!
Mr. Heald: I can hear one or two ribald comments from Opposition Members, but I think that is unfair, and I believe that it is right that the rugby union is now seriously considering the issue of payments for top players. That is to be reviewed in August.
One of the sorrows that I share from that experience is that it is likely that the vultures will be at the world cup, trying to poach some of the best players from rugby union for rugby league. That will damage rugby union, and I regret that.
I realise that there is an argument for a super league. The argument is that 26 of the rugby league clubs are bankrupt and more money is needed. We have witnessed already what money does. Wigan is a fantastic team. In the past three or four years, it has been in a league above.
Mr. Stott: Ten years.
Mr. Heald: The hon. Gentleman tells me that it is 10 years, but certainly in the past three or four years Wigan has been something very special. I believe that the reasons are that it picks the best athletes, it is able to have them as full-time players and it is able to train them at the highest level. Many rugby league clubs cannot do that. If we could have a league in which everyone could reach the standard of Wigan, what a spectacle it would be.
It is easy to criticise the authorities in rugby league and say that they lack a vision for the future, but if one were attributing to them the best motives for what they have done, one would say that they can envisage what it would be like to have a league in which all the teams were as good as Wigan and in which Wigan even found it necessary to raise the standard of its game further; what a splendid thing that would be.
An opportunity exists for rugby football league. I am not saying that the way in which it has been handled is right or that it could not be reconsidered. However, if it is possible to obtain £77 million—£1.1 million a year for each of those clubs in the next few years—it would be a tremendous thing for rugby league. I hope that those people who oppose that do not do so mindlessly and are prepared to consider options and ways forward that would not damage that opportunity for the sake of a history, which, I accept, is a proud one.
Mr. Ian Davidson: Given that the hon. Gentleman, like me, is predominantly a rugby union man rather than a rugby league man, does he recognise that the precedent that is being set in rugby league might be followed in rugby union? Indeed, in the Evening Standard today I read that a Euro-cup is about to be launched. I read that the only team that they have from Scotland is Boroughmuir. If amalgamations of Scottish clubs result, that would be inappropriate and unwelcome.

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I hope that the hon. Gentleman will support me in urging the Minister to recognise that that would be an unfortunate precedent for rugby union.
Mr. Heald: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I accept that the arrangement creates real difficulties for rugby union.
I am pulled in two directions, as I think many hon. Members will be, given the sort of spectacle that can be achieved when the best athletes play the game to the very highest standard. There is no doubt that money has a lot to do with that. In American football, the teams with the most money play the game to an incredibly high standard and they are able to maintain that standard because of the vast sums of money involved. Therefore, although I would like to protect rugby union, I can see a role for a rugby league super league—even if it damages union in the process.
12.29 pm
Ms Liz Lynne: I am also very concerned about the future of rugby league. However, I am even more worried about the secret deal to form the super league that was stitched up behind closed doors. The Rochdale Hornets were not invited to attend the secret meeting that was held in Manchester and they are extremely upset about that.
Rugby league spokesmen said that all the chairmen of the proposed super league clubs were invited to attend the meeting. However, that was not the case. Rochdale is calling for a judicial review and I support the club in its bid, which also has the backing of a number of smaller clubs. It is asking the rugby league to consult properly about the proposals because it has certainly not done that up to now. The club is also requesting the league to consult financially. It is not too much to ask that the rugby league governing body should meet some of the smaller clubs.
The Rochdale Hornets have not seen any written proposals. What is the league afraid of? If rugby league splits in two—which is inevitable—the smaller clubs will definitely go to the wall. They must be safeguarded. We cannot allow Rupert Murdoch and his News International corporation to buy out the sport and have sole television coverage rights. The league should comply with its own byelaws.
The Rochdale Hornets are arguing for certain conditions and compensation. First, the club has requested a five-year deal, including £100,000 per annum to upgrade some of the stadiums. Secondly, it wants to retain the Challenge cup in broadly its current form—of course, Murdoch will want to scrap it. Thirdly, it favours a revised transfer tribunal scheme to provide a predetermined formula for disputed transfer deals which would stop the bigger clubs buying out the smaller ones. Fourthly—this will not benefit the club directly—the Hornets want to see a trickle-down of transfer fees to amateur league clubs to assist the development of the sport at the grass roots level. That is essential. The league must take account of the views of smaller clubs, otherwise it will be responsible for killing off rugby league as we know it.
12.32 pm
Mr. Derek Enright: Mr. Deputy Speaker, you not only have had a distinguished relationship with Featherstone Rovers as both a player and a supporter over many years but have supported
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Castleford. In our area it is very rare, if not unique, to support both those clubs. It is therefore with a degree of diffidence that I shall outline a few points about the way in which our sport has been attacked.
I turn to the question of Mr. Maurice Lindsay's involvement in the proposal. Just one month ago wesupported the principles that he enunciated in his evidence to the National Heritage Committee when he said:
"The discrimination continues … players who represented Japan, Morocco, the USA and Italy were effectively told that if they competed … they would be debarred from Rugby Union on their re-entry into their own country."
Yet that is precisely the effect of the agreement that Mr. Lindsay brought back from Mr. Murdoch. As my hon. Friend the. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) pointed out extremely well in his speech, that is what will happen to those people who play for non-Murdoch teams. That is scandalous. Mr. Lindsay's evidence continued:
"That discrimination … is based on hypocrisy."
No matter how one looks at it, that clearly amounts to a restraint of trade and it must be examined from that perspective.
We are also concerned about the arbitrary way in which the members of the super league have been chosen. No reason was given for debarring the whole of the second division. Mr. Murdoch has made selections within the game; he has cut people out and put people in in a totally arbitrary and unacceptable fashion.
Who is Mr. Murdoch? He is a man who was prepared to change his nationality because he wanted to buy a slice of the media in the United States of America. If a man is prepared to sell his origins in that way, how can we possibly trust him with the future of our game? If he will sell his origins, will he not sell rugby league if it happens to suit his purpose at any given time? Mr. Murdoch will control the television broadcasting rights of rugby league, which adds to the weight of the argument advanced by Mr. Michael Grade about the dangers of a Murdoch bid for Channel 5.
I should like the Minister to consider also the role of Mr. Rodney Walker. As has been said, he is the chairman of the Sports Council and he has overall authority for the sport. It was quite wrong for him to be involved in the manoeuvrings, and the Minister should address that issue in his remarks. I have a warm regard for Mr. Rodney Walker, but he has been wrong in this case.
I celebrate the results of both the Featherstone members' ballot and that conducted by the Pontefract and Castleford Express, which revealed that more than 90 per cent. of the voters opposed the current proposals. It may be that it is a case of David against Goliath—but David won in the end. The heart will not be ripped out of the Featherstone community. We will stand and fight for rugby league and for the interests of little people everywhere.
12.37 pm
Dr. Norman A. Godman: Some hon. Members may wonder why I, as a Scottish Member of Parliament, wish to speak in the debate. However, I played rugby league as a boy—I was too slow to be a wing three-quarter and not big enough to be a forward—and I number among my family friends the

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late Mick Scott, Johnnie Whitely, Harry Markham, Tommy Harris, and many others whom you would recognise immediately, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
My father was a bit of a bigoted supporter. He always went to the Boulevard and he refused to enter Craven Park, even when Hull played there. As someone who played the game as a boy and who follows it still, I am deeply concerned about the recent developments. I plead with the Minister to set up an independent inquiry to examine the whole murky affair, particularly the role played by Mr. Rodney Walker.
I visited Australia over Christmas, and my wife and I stayed in Manly, which has a very famous rugby league team—as you well know, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I spoke to many rugby league supporters who are concerned about the way in which the game is shaping up in both Australia and England—it is still very much a Welsh and an English game. Nevertheless, they were concerned about what was happening in Britain and Australia. They told me to beware of Mr. Murdoch and not to trust him an inch.
I make a plea to the Minister to set up an inquiry and to play the game with rugby league, as, God knows, its players and supporters deserve it. If the Minister does not set up such an inquiry, the Select Committee should take on board forthwith this deeply disturbing affair.
12.39 pm
Mr. Kevin Hughes: I shall be brief, but I know that the local club in my constituency—the Dons—is also being pushed around. I have already mentioned the opposition within the community to the merger with the Sheffield Eagles. The story is the same whether it applies to Yorkshire or to Lancashire.
Rugby league is essentially a community-based game. The community spirit is being totally wiped out by the Murdoch deal, and that is not on. Our communities are not about to be walked over by Murdoch, Maurice Lindsay or anyone else. They will not sit down and take it because Murdoch, and so on, will not break the community spirit. I hope that the House gives its backing to those people and communities to ensure that rugby league remains a family and community game.
12.40 pm
Mr. Tom Pendry: I hope that the House will forgive me if I do not give way. The Minister will agree that we have cut down our speaking time to give many hon. Members with a real interest in the issue a chance to speak.
We have heard much from hon. Members on both sides of the House about specific examples of the disarray caused by the bid from Rupert Murdoch's News International.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) on initiating the debate. His comments carry great weight thanks to his long-standing commitment to rugby league, having even played for the team which he loves and which he may have seen for the last time.
I share the concern of hon. Members who have spoken today and I hope that the Minister shares them, too. In the past, I was happy to praise the Minister's efforts when
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real progress was made, as it was last April with the announcement that rugby league was to be recognised within the armed forces. That was largely due to his efforts and those of my hon. Friends on the Back-Bench committee.
The Minister is highly regarded in rugby league circles and has my genuine recognition for that, which makes it all the more surprising that he should have remained silent about the matter during the past two weeks. I do not know whether he has been muzzled by the Secretary of State, but that will become clear when he replies to the debate. I hope, therefore, that he will not take lightly my points in respect of the history of the deal and the degree to which it is divisive and discriminatory and jeopardises the future well-being of the game.
We should remember why the deal was put on the table in the first place. It did not result from Mr. Murdoch's altruistic desire to help a sport in undoubted difficulty. Instead, it arose from a battle taking place thousands of miles away in Australia, where Murdoch's interests created the breakaway Star League as a way of poaching the coverage enjoyed by great numbers of Australians, but shown on the networks of Murdoch's long-standing rival, Kerry Packer. That has already been said, but now it is on the record and it is as well that everyone knows it.
We have seen that battle before. I am sure that hon. Members will remember Kerry Packer's television coverage which caused the first manifestations of pyjama cricket in the late 1970s. If the battle is allowed to rage on unchecked, we shall end up in circumstances similar to those in the United States, where commercialism is rampant.
I remind the House that Murdoch paid almost $400 million nearly a year ago for the rights to screen the National Football League in America on his subscription Fox TV channel, ending 34 years of universal coverage. Murdoch is in the right position to build up a monopoly with rugby league as a pawn in his game. He has access to vast funds by cross-subsidising his sports broadcasting with other areas of media activities. We can rest assured that once he has built up that monopoly, he will use it to generate sufficient profits to finance a bid for world domination in another sphere of his activities, which could mean sports fans paying through the nose.
In the deal before us today, although it changes from hour to hour, Rupert Murdoch's News International will effectively become rugby league's governing body. He will decide who plays where and when, taking to the extreme the developments within the Premier League in football, when matches are moved to suit BskyB.
The deal is the precedent that could set us on a slippery slope as it involves much more than television rights negotiated through the sport's own governing body. Restriction and discrimination run through the deal like words through a stick of rock.
The players are likely to be contracted to play only against other players also contracted to News International. Individual players are being asked to pledge their contractual allegiance to a single broadcaster as if they were actors in yet another Australian soap opera. It seems that that restriction is to be extended even to national teams, such as those for the forthcoming test series.
On the basis of that deal alone, we now face a clear progression to the day when a broadcaster buys the rights to athletes, for example—the hon. Member for Falmouth

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and Camborne (Mr. Coe), an eminent athlete, is in his place—and can then say, "You can run the 100 m for Britain at the next international meet only if you sign for me." The governing bodies themselves will be reduced to near puppets, implementing the broadcaster's every whim.
Viewers will be discriminated against in an obvious fashion. If they cannot afford a dish or a subscription, they will not be able to watch the sport. It is that simple. What message does the Minister have for pensioners, among millions of others, who will be denied yet another sporting opportunity?
What about those who have enjoyed the BBC's coverage of the Silk Cut Challenge cup since 1964? The BBC's contract comes up for renewal next year. Although the event may remain, what will happen to its coverage? I have heard some favourable comments, but I should like some cast-iron guarantees from the Minister.
The Department of National Heritage made its position clear in response to the National Heritage Select Committee's report on sports sponsorship and television coverage, when it reasserted its faith in the market and the general public were as far from the top of its list of priorities. The Department stands condemned by its inaction.
Fans from families who have supported the same club for generations will suffer from the spectre of those clubs being consumed in some cases and left by the wayside in others just to fit Mr. Murdoch's five-year master plan. If he decides to move on at the end of those five years, what will happen to clubs that have been forced to abandon their core support?
My hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield expressed his profound concern about the proposed merger of three clubs to form Calder—a merger already rejected by one of the clubs involved, accepted by another and now rejected by a ballot at Featherstone Rovers—a ballot, a club and a history about which you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, also care passionately, and only the traditions associated with the Chair prevent that passion from surfacing during the debate.
The deal's rejection by Featherstone Rovers serves only to highlight the lack of consultation and the hurried nature of the deal. Secret negotiations in smoke-filled rooms are no way to treat a game with such loyal and committed popular support.
The Minister would do well to remember that the anger of the rugby league fans that was reflected in some of the comments we have heard today is very real and justified. Rugby league clubs provide a focus for many communities often not provided by other means. Professional and amateur clubs alike offer opportunities for young boys and girls to learn all that the sport has to offer. That is all at stake. Whole communities have been shattered. Although that may be of no concern to some hon. Members who feel that there is no such thing as a society, who could doubt the sincerity, passion and heartfelt commitment of the communities where rugby league is as much a way of life as a sport?
There can be no doubt that all those who have spoken in the debate have the best interests of the game and their constituents at heart. I recognise that before the deal the game was in a poor state financially and that has been accepted by many hon. Members. Clubs are in no position to try to hold on to their best players when there is a bidding war for Australian clubs, and the Government are by no means blameless in that state of affairs.
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The House will no doubt recall that interventions were made by a number of hon. Members when we debated football ground safety in 1989 and 1990. It was pointed out that Lord Justice Taylor's report into the Hillsborough stadium disaster had exonerated the rugby league supporters who moved freely without trouble around the terraces, coming largely from the same socio-economic group. It was a shame that the Government felt unable to draw the same conclusion before imposing the burden of safety improvements without financial assistance. Consequently, rugby league clubs spent £30 million on ground improvements but received only £1 million from the Foundation for Sport and the Arts. Meanwhile, football was aided by more than £132 million from the Football Trust. The unacceptable financial burden on rugby league left many clubs on the brink of bankruptcy—although I recognise again the Minister's contribution to redressing the balance, albeit belatedly, by persuading the Treasury to forgo some revenue from the pools and expanding the remit of the Football Trust to rugby league.
When the Minister replies, perhaps he will say whether he was aware of the Murdoch negotiations with rugby league at the time of his or the Treasury's decision and give his views on the possibility of public funds being used to cross-subsidise that bid.
We heard today of huge sums of money being offered to individual players. What is the Minister doing to ensure that smaller clubs prosper, community schemes are maintained and the game flourishes in schools? What consideration has the Minister given to fulfilling those needs? He will know from last week's business questions—at column 340 of Hansard for 20 April—that my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) received from the Leader of the House a commitment that the Minister would reply to that point in this debate.
Does the Minister believe that the predicted widespread player redundancies will help to improve the game? Sport has the potential for being a great leveller, breaking down barriers and bringing communities together. That should be the aim of the Minister. In the past, rugby league has been an example of how much good sport can achieve, yet it is threatened by commercial discrimination and the restrictions of Murdoch's proposals and Packer's counter-proposals.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to refer the matter to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. I hope that the Minister will back that call, which has been made also by Conservative Members, including the hon. Member for Elmet (Mr. Batiste). Only yesterday, none other than Martin Offiah said of his signing to Murdoch that he wanted to play for Great Britain—which is something that he could not do outside the super league. If that is not a trade restriction, I do not know what is. If the MMC's terms of reference do not fit that particular case, the Government should alter its terms.
I urge the Minister to use his good offices even at this late stage to bring about a better deal for this great game.
12.55 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for National Heritage (Mr. Iain Sproat): In this extremely important debate, the passions deeply felt were well

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controlled. I am sorry that we do not have time today to consider the matter in the detail and depth that it deserves. However, this is just the beginning of the debate and discussions that we intend—and I will return to that point later.
I thank the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) for initiating the debate and for something that he said on 28 April 1993, when I was sitting on one of the Back Benches, wondering how there could be a promised debate about rugby when the House was considering the Report stage of the National Lottery etc. Bill. The hon. Member for Wakefield made a powerful speech about what he saw as powerful discrimination by rugby union against rugby league. As a keen rugby union supporter, I was hearing for the first time the other side of the story. When, to my amazement, I became Minister responsible for sport shortly afterwards, I asked the hon. Gentleman to come to the Department for National Heritage to help sort out some of the difficulties that he had mentioned. I say that so that the House will know some of my bona fides.
At that meeting, the hon. Members for Wakefield and for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) and my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Waller) made three points above all. They were, "We want rugby union and rugby league to talk, which they have not done since 1895. We want to get rugby league into the armed forces, where it is currently kept out. We want something done about the ludicrous situation whereby the hooliganism and other problems in association football results in it getting help with problems of safety, whereas rugby league, which causes no problems, is paying the price." The hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. Stott) mentioned that not one person out of a 70,000 crowd was charged even for swinging an odd punch after drinking at a Wembley cup final or international.
As a consequence of that first meeting, there was a meeting between Mr. Pugh and Mr. Rowlands, representing rugby union, and Mr. Walker and Mr. Lindsay representing rugby league. I do not say that it symbolised a great deal, but it was a start. Rugby league is now played in the armed forces, although perhaps not at the level that everybody would like, and the Foundation for Sport and the Arts has a sum of £8 million, some of which will be available to rugby league to sort out ground safety problems. We have made progress.
I thank the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) for his kind words. When I arranged for the FSA to make £8 million available to games other than soccer, I did not know what Mr. Murdoch was up to.
Even in a one and a half hour debate, it is important that the House has a chance to air its views and to let loose the passion that is felt—even though it is clear that we will not reach any conclusions today. However, the
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world outside can see the passion that has been aroused. One hon. Member said that he went to Belle Vue and had seen grown men weep at what was happening to Wakefield Trinity. Those deep emotions must be expressed and the House is the best place for that. Serious principles are involved. The hon. Member for Makerfield referred to Phil Clarke, one of the finest loose forwards in the world—who, unless he breaks his contract, may find himself unable to play for his own country. One could mention many players and clubs, but that example encapsulates the problem.
As to restrictive practices and the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, letters have been written to the Director General of Fair Trading and to my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade. I am not allowed to say that the implications of what is proposed for the super league are being looked at because lawyers say that if one is looking at something, one is implying that there is a conclusion. In any event, normal people would say that those letters are being looked at without prejudice, and no doubt we will shortly hear the sage advice of the director general and of my right hon. Friend.
The hon. Member for Wakefield said that what is happening in rugby league may turn out to be a vicarage tea party by comparison with what may happen to rugby union. With the world cup in South Africa in May and June, I am sure that rugby union will be the next target on which Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Packer will set their sights.
The hon. Gentleman and many others talked about an independent inquiry. As Minister responsible for sport I have a restricted locus in the matter. The Select Committee has already said that it may return to the subject. I suggest that it should do so. I will reply to the previous Select Committee report in the middle of June, if I can knock it out in time. It might be helpful if the Select Committee turned its mind to this other matter.
If I understood him correctly, the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) said that he thought there was a role for a super league. I pay tribute to the integrity of Mr. Rodney Walker and Mr. Morris Lindsay, who believe that, with half a dozen clubs or more having gone into receivership in the past few years, and with the total debt of the 32 clubs amounting to about £10 million, and with few clubs turning a profit this year, something must be done.
We have heard today that rugby league needs an overhaul; it needs an injection of cash. It is not for me to tell rugby league what to do, but so much is fairly clear. We have to balance the financial problems of the game against the emotions, the community links, the culture of the game and the oozing of values to which reference has been made—decency, for one. All these are important.
I suggest that the Select Committee turn its mind to this subject again and conduct a forensic inquiry—that can be done quickly. Secondly, the hon. Member for Wakefield may like to bring a delegation to discuss the matter further with me.

State and Private Education
1 pm
Mr. George Walden: My purpose in this debate is to bring to the Floor of the House a matter of great importance, yet one which both Government and Opposition spokesmen seem strangely reluctant to tackle. I refer to the willingness of a number of private schools to consider moving into the state sector of education.
The news that Manchester grammar school and other prestigious schools formerly in the state sector might be interested in returning to it was met with uncomfortable silence by spokesmen on both Front Benches. It will be a sad day for the Commons if new thinking on how to overcome the damaging gulf between private and state education, for which there would be wide support in the country, found no echo in the House.
The subject of independent versus state education is encrusted with myths. The central myth, subscribed to by all parties, is that it is possible to develop a high-quality system of state education in a country where the richest, most successful and most influential people have nothing to do with it. I refer, of course, to the 7 per cent. of parents who exercise their absolute right to send their children to private schools. I am not sure how far Front Benchers believe this myth in their hearts, and how far they find it necessary to subscribe to it out of custom and expediency.
In the world as it is developing, I see no future to speak of for this country unless it learns to live not off its past but quite literally off its wits. That means high levels of education for all. Yet, if the apex of an entire society shuns the state system like the plague, how will it ever be possible to attain high standards there? Other European countries have private sectors of education, but Britain is unique in one crucial respect: the best schools are in the independent sector, and they remain overwhelmingly the preserve of the socially privileged and the well-to-do.
That statement will cause irritation on both sides of the House. Some truths about Britain are so painful that mere mention of them arouses indignation on the left and on the right. The fact that, if people want good schooling for their children, they will be well advised to buy it is one such truth.
The left would object that there are good schools in the state sector. Provide them with sufficient resources, the argument goes, and they will give the private schools a run for their money. Obviously there are some good schools in the state sector, notably in well-to-do areas, yet to claim that the state system as a whole, properly financed, could challenge the private system on quality is self-delusion.
The reason lies in the misconceived philosophy of egalitarianism which, despite the Government's welcome attempts at reform, holds much of the state sector in its deadening grip. If our fundamental approach to education is flawed, we can have the best paid teachers in the world, wall-to-wall facilities and one-to-one teaching—and still produce mediocrity. Until the left faces up to that fact, its education policies will remain mired in dogma and social sentimentalism. My advice to the left is to go back to its pre-egalitarian roots, to the high ideals of the Workers Education Association in the 19th century, and to the thinking of Tawney, a stalwart opponent of levelling down.
We must get away from the old debate. I am not advocating a return to the grammar school/secondary modern system; I advocate a new system of differing
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schooling for children with differing gifts, in which the former direct grant schools would have their place in the education community. State education is in desperate need of peaks of excellence. If they existed, the private sector would get a run for its money indeed. If Labour is hag-ridden by the notion of selection by ability, how about access by aptitude? I am here to be helpful.
Conservatives have a more sensible education policy, but what is our position on private schooling? That it is an inalienable right I accept. Policies designed to damage it, whether by the imposition of VAT or by the discontinuation of charitable status, would be sterile exercises in class vengeance, that would do no one any good. But when Conservatives claim that private education is a matter of choice, they are producing the right's mirror image of the left's self-delusion about facilities and resources. Where is the choice for someone on £12,000 a year?
In our traditional debates on education, it is at this point that the assisted places scheme is brought up by our side. The truth is that many of the Opposition's objections to the APS are grounded in fact. It is enormously expensive. I know of no evidence to show that the money goes chiefly to those in need; and I could regale the House with shocking examples of taxpayers' money going to people in large houses who have fallen on a rough patch in their finances. There is evidence that some of the money goes to Lloyd's names. That is nice for the names, but is it really in the spirit of the assisted places scheme?
Even for the bright working-class child, is it such cause for self-congratulation that we award scholarships to children to rescue them from the state sector? I can see why the independent schools like the scheme. I can see how it can help this or that child as a sort of emergency exit. I can see why it warms our social consciences to hand out scholarships. In Dickensian times such a policy would have looked enlightened. But shoring up our apartheid system of schooling by subsidising private establishments seems a poor philosophy of education at the end of the 20th century. It carries with it a suggestion of defeatism, an implication that state schools can never hope to do well by poor, able pupils, so the latter had better get out. How much better to have the best available to all.
Voucher schemes are another form of evading the issue. The theoretical advantages are attractive, but in the Britain we know, the practical effects would be catastrophic. All that would happen is that the 7 per cent.—the escapees from the state sector—would swell to some 20 per cent., as those who could afford it topped up their vouchers and swam headlong for the other shore. The result would be that even more of the socially and financially advantaged would have even less of an interest in where the nation was going, in education terms, than before.
What is our aim? Do we want to end up like America, where the gulf between public and private widens by the year, where people with money convey their children to private schools in self-locking cars, then retreat behind the security gates protecting their homes to shield themselves from the social consequences of a sub-educated nation? Or do we want to aspire to the best continental models, where the good schools are state schools, open to all on the basis of talent, aptitude, hard work and intelligence?
In Britain, the best private schools have demanding teachers, small classes, adequate facilities and traditions of excellence, and have remained largely, although not

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entirely, immune from the experiments that have proved the curse of the state sector. Nothing should be done to damage them, but everything should be done to open them up to the country and to spread the habit of competition for excellence throughout the system. In modern Conservative thinking, it is called the internal market.
This cannot be done by coercion, and to describe what I propose as nationalisation is evidence of old thinking. If it is done, it must be done voluntarily. A few years ago, the idea of first-rate private schools opting into the state sector would have seemed a pious hope. What has happened recently has changed all that. It is not just Manchester grammar—alma mater, as it happens, of the new deputy Governor of the Bank of England, the illustrious Mr. Howard Davies, who said recently on the radio that his parents would not have been able to afford to send him there nowadays.
I have in my possession about 70 letters from the heads of the 120 former direct grant schools, written sometimes in a personal capacity, and indicating sympathy for my proposals. I expect more such letters. This is not a drop in the ocean. I am talking of the potential for 100,000 places.
Naturally, such schools are wary. They have had bad experiences at the hands of politicians in the past. They treasure their independence, and would consider a move only if they were allowed to enrol pupils by examination. Yet what strikes me most of all is that they are thinking in terms that have left the House of Commons unable to respond. Which of us is out of touch: the schools or the Commons?
What would be the reaction of the man in the street to the news that the most prestigious school in his area, closed to him for decades, was to be reopened to him free of charge? Undiluted approval. What is the Conservative response to the prospect? A strange reticence. It puzzles me why a party that has spent so much time denouncing the left for driving direct grant schools into the private sector evinces so little enthusiasm when those schools show signs of wanting to come back into the public sector.
Why is there such hesitation? Malicious critics may wonder whether our hearts are in state education or in the preservation of privilege. I understand the money problem. Reabsorbing such schools would be expensive, but the cost of our present system of educational apartheid, in terms of under-achievement and unemployability, is incalculable.
Moreover, as Manchester has shown, there is no reason why well-off parents who continue to qualify for entrance should not continue to pay a measure of fees. It would also be possible to redeploy some or all of the assisted places scheme money to help open such schools to able children—not as isolated acts of charity, but as of right.
Let us imagine for a moment that we showed enough imagination and resourcefulness to do that. Would Labour object on doctrinal grounds of opposition to selection? If it did, the Prime Minister could have a high old time at the Dispatch Box. He could ask whether Labour would prefer a continuation of selection by money. Would it prefer to keep some of the best schools in the country closed to many people who cannot afford them? Is Labour's to be a dog-in-the-manger policy? Is it prepared to tolerate high academic standards in the private sector, providing that they are not available to ordinary folk?
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I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education meeting me to discuss the subject. Before she did so, I was invited to meet the Leader of the Opposition, to whom I am also grateful. My aim is to open up a more constructive inter-party debate, of the kind that is beginning to take shape on grant-maintained schools. Former direct grant schools are hardly likely to take the plunge and leave the independent sector if Labour, in power, were to force them back.
I am aware that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education is somewhat preoccupied at the moment. The finances of our schools are a pressing priority, but, in the last resort, it is the ghost in the machine that determines educational standards. There are signs that the Opposition are edging up, slowly and crabwise, to the problem of quality. Whatever else he might be, the Leader of the Opposition does not give me the impression of being an unthinking educational dogmatist. Who knows where he might eventually go? It would be a sad day for the Conservatives if, like some exhausted marathon runner, we were seen to pass the baton of educational innovation to the left.
1.12 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Mr. Robin Squire): I shall begin by saying how much I welcome the opportunity to have a wide-ranging debate on education in the state and independent sectors generally, and on former direct grant schools in particular. As my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden) implied in his closing remarks, it makes something of a change from what might be termed the subject of many recent education debates.
I have enormous respect for my hon. Friend. As well as being a former Education Minister, he has the skills to write a regular and good newspaper column, and it would be easy for me to be jealous or envious, such are his skills. The House is grateful for the time that he has already put into this subject, which has attracted a great deal of publicity. In the light of what he said, I shall make one or two comments, but I begin with one or two queries.
The first query relates to the way in which my hon, Friend described the 7 per cent. of people who choose to use private schools. I do not have any scientific breakdown of the numbers involved, but my clear impression is that a considerable number of parents who use private schools can by no means be described as the richest, most successful and most influential people. None the less, they choose to forgo holidays and new cars in order to avail themselves of private education for their children.
Of course, that figure includes those who avail themselves of the assisted places scheme without attracting the full rebate, but also a number who somehow find the full fees without remotely being capable of being regarded as that "apex of society" to which my hon. Friend referred.
I understand from ISIS—the Independent Schools Information Service—that an estimated 54 per cent. of parents with children at private schools did not themselves receive such an education. I think we can agree that that is scarcely proof that there is some permanent ruling caste or clique that enjoys that status. I have here the latest income breakdown figures for those who use the assisted places scheme. They reveal that some 92 per cent. are earning less than £20,000, which is not a great sum in today's climate.

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We should not forget that schools such as Manchester grammar school and Dulwich college could easily fill all their places without recourse to the assisted places scheme, but their commitment to the scheme is important, because it enables them to give as wide a social mix as possible—something in which they have always believed and with which my hon. Friend identified strongly.
One point that came through clearly during my hon. Friend's speech was the excellence of former direct grant schools. They are not only popular with parents and pupils—if schools could ever be deemed to be popular with pupils—but appear to be especially popular with many shades of politicians. As the House will recognise, that is quite an achievement. However, such schools are deservedly popular. They have an exceptional academic record, but their contribution to the children in their care goes far beyond academic results. They also have an excellent record in meeting the needs of their pupils, guiding them towards their ambitions and instilling a sense of pride in their achievements. Many are in inner-city areas and no strangers to deprivation. They have provided ladders of opportunity for many able children. Moreover, they have done so for many years.
Until the Education Act 1944, secondary education was provided only for a minority. Schools were conducted by voluntary bodies or local authorities, which received appropriate grant from central Government, but fees could also be charged. In 1944, fees were abolished in secondary schools maintained by local authorities. Schools run by voluntary bodies and receiving grant from local authorities therefore became voluntary-aided or voluntary-controlled.
More than 230 schools receiving direct grant—or DG—at that time had the option to retain DG status on new terms, becoming voluntary-aided or voluntary-controlled, or becoming independent. The new terms of the Education Act 1944 stipulated that, in DG grammar schools, 25 per cent. of places should be free and filled by pupils educated for at least two years at a maintained or grant-aided primary school, a further 25 per cent. of places or more could be reserved by the local education authority, and fees for remaining day places should be remitted according to sliding income scales. Assistance with capital costs was also available.
When, in 1975, the then Labour Government made clear their intention to end all forms of selection in secondary schools, there were 167 DG grammar schools, catering for some 104,000 pupils. Legislation followed, and, under the Direct Grant Grammar Schools (Cessation of Grant) Regulations 1975, 42 DG grammar schools became maintained—in other words, they moved completely into the public sector—five closed, and 120 became registered independent schools.
When the assisted places scheme was established under the Government in 1981, it was expected that the former direct grant grammar schools that had become independent would wish to join the scheme. The scheme would enable them to remain true to their overriding ethos of maintaining as wide a social mix as possible. All but one of the 120 schools applied, and were subsequently admitted to the scheme. Although they represent only 40 per cent. of the schools in the scheme, they presently cater for about 65 per cent. of the pupils.
There are now 294 schools in England in the scheme, offering more than 34,000 assisted places altogether. It is reaching those we intended to help. Nearly 70 per cent.
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of the pupils have come from maintained primary schools; well over a third qualify for a totally free place; and, as I said earlier, 80 per cent. have family incomes below the national average. Assisted place pupils achieve pass rates that average more than 90 per cent. at GCSE and A-level—better than their peers in independent or maintained schools—and 90 per cent. go on into higher education. It is scarcely surprising, then, that there is a full take-up of available places on entry.
The scheme is an outstanding success. Standards in schools that participate in it are among the highest in the country. The Government want to see the benefits offered by good independent schools enjoyed more widely. The scheme is reaching those we intended to help, and gives a real and meaningful choice to those who would never otherwise be able to consider an independent education. It gives excellent results, and we intend that it should stay. We believe that it is vital to make independent education available for able pupils from less well-off families.
Our records show that the number of pupils at those schools has remained fairly constant over the 20 years since DG was abolished. Indeed, the 120 schools show a slight increase in numbers over the past four to five years, with more than 98,000 pupils now on their rolls.
I am sure that my hon. Friend believes, as I do, that former DG grammar schools should continue to be able to offer the excellent education they do, and be true to their original ethos of having as wide a social mix as possible. Where we perhaps differ is how that objective should be achieved.
We need to be aware of the scale of the costs involved should the former DG schools come into the maintained sector. I shall take as an example Manchester grammar school, to which my hon. Friend referred. The school has at present approximately 1,430 pupils on roll, and fees are about £4,000. Some 260 pupils at the school are assisted place pupils, and the average cost to the Department of those pupils in the academic year 1993–94 was about £3,100. The total sum paid to Manchester grammar school by way of fee remission for its assisted pupils last year was therefore about £820,000.
There are many ways in which one could cost out a possible re-entry of Manchester grammar school to the maintained sector, but, for the purpose of illustration, let us assume that we were to fund all pupils on the same basis as they are at present funded by the APS—the scheme does, after all, contain an element of "topping up" of fees by parents, which is quite appropriate for what we are discussing today.
In all, the cost would be about £3.5 million to £4 million. That is, of course, based on the current level of funding at the school, but at first sight it would be unrealistic to assume that the funding for former DG grammar schools could be significantly higher than it is for other maintained schools, should they re-enter the maintained sector.
We have been debating whether the former DG grammar schools should or could re-enter that sector, but, of course, there is already in place a specific mechanism for independent schools to do so, and I make just passing reference to that.
In our most recent piece of legislation, we provided the opportunity for independent schools in general to become grant-maintained. Since 1944, independent schools have been able to look to the voluntary-aided route into the

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maintained sector. The extension of opportunities to provide for the GM route fills a gap. That route is open to all types of school, including those that select by ability.
Naturally, we need to know the extent to which additional places are needed in the area, but a key factor is also the contribution that such schools could make to enhancing the choice, diversity and quality of provision in the area—and therefore contribute to our policy aims of raising standards and increasing opportunity.
Mr. Walden: The tendency of my hon. Friend's argument worries me slightly, because it seems to be pointing in the direction of inaction. By arguing that it would cost money to bring in former DG schools, and then saying, as I believe he did, that he could not envisage a situation in which some schools in the state sector would be financed better than others, and going on to point out that of course there are grant-maintained schools, and that technically it is possible for a private school to come over now, he is, in real life, shutting the door to any significant movement across the frontier between state and private.
As I know from my inquiries of the Department, schools of the calibre of Manchester grammar or the other former DG schools are not coming across into the state sector and never will if they have to cut their costs to state costs and abandon their selective entry. I am afraid that my hon. Friend's argument is tending towards a policy of passivity on what I regard as the fundamental problem of the British educational system—our two-nation approach.
Mr. Squire: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for further clarifying and underlining his view in that respect. I hope that I am not—and will not be, particularly when I finish my speech—open to the charge of passivity, which he alleges. There is still an extra dimension, to which I shall return in the remaining few minutes, which will make reference to the only other aspect that could meet my hon. Friend's desires.
My hon. Friend made reference to the attitude of the Opposition. I simply observe in passing that the Opposition claim to be meritocratic, but are opposed to selection on merit. They are opposed to the assisted places scheme, and have not withdrawn their commitment to phase it out. They also appear to have set their minds against charging parents for any curriculum activity. Those three points lead me to conclude—cautiously, I
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stress—that the former DG schools can in practice expect little solace from the Opposition when they discuss how their future may be secured.
Let me go to the heart of the matter in the remaining minutes at my disposal. The proposals by Manchester grammar school, which started this debate, indicate an entirely understandable desire to ensure and guarantee the funding of the former DG schools, and to maintain their social mix. But we should be clear why they are entering the debate at all. Clearly, they are responding to the energetic endeavours of my hon. Friend, but they are also entering the debate—as I know my hon. Friend would concede—because of the Opposition's hostility to the assisted places scheme. If it were not for the commitment of the Labour party to phase out that scheme, DG schools would not be forced to consider how they might be able offer places in their schools to the very children whom the scheme now funds.
When looking at the alternatives, it must be understood that the level of funding, with which my hon. Friend and I are in total agreement, from those schools' fees gives them a significantly higher level of funding than they could expect from state funding, whether they were grant-maintained or voluntary-aided. Increased public expenditure of that order would be difficult to justify, and the reality would certainly be increased costs. We are all agreed on the excellence of the schools that we are debating, but it is by no means unusual for their fees to be about £5,000 or £6,000.
Of course we must seriously consider the future of the schools, and I underline to my hon. Friend that we shall continue to listen to their concerns and the concerns that he has expressed today. But I am not convinced at the moment that we should necessarily turn the clock back some 50-odd years and contemplate charging for state-funded education for the compulsory years by some top-up mechanism for those parents who can afford it. I know that my hon. Friend recognises that that is the other way in which, without extra funding from the Government, the circle could be squared on the funding aspect.
The best answer that we have is a system which gives the choice of independent education for as many as possible regardless of income, and, in so doing, to target the finite resources that we have as effectively as possible. We already have such a solution, which I believe is an excellent solution, in the assisted places scheme, which is a meaningful plank in our overall Government policy of choice and diversity.
I willingly undertake today—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order. We must move on to the next topic.

Non-domestic Rates (Scotland)
1.30 pm
Mr. Archy Kirkwood: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for affording me the opportunity in this Adjournment debate to address some of the difficulties being faced in Scotland as a result of the non-domestic rates that have been announced for the current financial year.
At first blush, it might appear to be passing strange for me to be registering vigorous protests with Ministers such a relatively short time after many of the anomalies of the differing systems of business rates north and south of the border have been resolved and a uniform business rate achieved for the first time. I want to say early on, and without qualification, that that is welcome as far as it goes. Some of the anomalies with which we have had to live in the past were quite untoward. The Government were right to recognise that, and the parity that has been established is extremely welcome.
But the uniform business rate is a uniform business rate poundage. It is nothing more or less than that. It does not mean that we pay the same rates; it means that we pay rates bills which are based on rateable values multiplied by a common uniform rate poundage.
The one factor that is not uniform is, alas, as I shall seek to argue, particularly in relation to south-east Scotland, the rateable value, and that in turn is dependent on factors which are highly variable region by region. Scotland is now in some respects at the disadvantage of playing the business rates game on a level playing field with England.
I am not aware—I am sure that the Minister will put me right if I am wrong—of any area in Scotland where commercial rentals have significantly dropped during the past five years. Contrariwise, at the same time, London rentals have decreased by up to 60 per cent. in some specific cases during that same period.
The national average valuation increases have been significantly depressed by the changes that have occurred in London and in other parts of the south-east of England, where property rentals have fallen due to the recent depression. However, virtually all Scotland is now left with increases above that average. Apply the uniform business rate poundage to the above-average valuation increases, and we have a problem of above-average rate bill increases in Scotland, certainly in some areas such as the Borders region.
I should like to know how the figure of a rate poundage for Scotland was arrived at. If the Minister cannot deal with the point today, he might take the trouble to try to explain it to me in writing. We have been in correspondence about a couple of constituency cases, for which I thank him.
For example, I should like to know what power the Secretary of State had at his disposal to set the uniform business rate at a lower level in Scotland. If he did have the power to set it at a lower level than 43.2p, why did he not choose to exercise that power?
Will the Minister confirm, as I am sure he can, that that power was used in Wales to set a uniform business rate different from England at a level of 39.8p? There is certainly a body of opinion within the business community in Scotland that believes that the rate could easily have been set at a lower level, perhaps 2p or 3p in the pound lower,
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during the five-year revaluation period. There are some who believe that a rate as low as 35p could have been set. But what is the Government's response to the charge that the overall tax take from business in Scotland is too high during this revaluation period?
Further to the inquiry about the process by which the figure was arrived at for this year, on 29 November 1994 the Secretary of State issued a press statement publishing figures of forecast average movements in rateable values for broad categories of business property by local authority region. There was a written answer from the Secretary of State for Scotland to a question tabled by the Minister, who was then at a lower level of life as a Back Bencher, no doubt assiduously doing his constituency work, asking questions that would never otherwise have occurred to him. That was a helpful answer as far as it went, one sentence of which said:
"Taking together the effects of the forthcoming revaluation with this decision on the level of the rate poundage, I estimate that there will be significant local and sectoral shifts in rate burdens."
I repeat:
"significant local and sectoral shifts in rate burdens."—[Official Report, 29 November 1994; Vol. 250, c. 687.]
I should like to know exactly what evidence the Minister had of the extent of those changes and differences. I have real fears that the survey system that he used was inadequate for the task. I should like to know what level of information was provided by local assessors, who, of course, are responsible for the process of revaluation in relation to a sample of property throughout the country.
But the decision that was taken to set the uniform business rate at 43.2p in the pound must have been taken only after careful assessment of those estimated average figures by the assessors for regions throughout the length and breadth of Scotland. The figures that were produced by the Government in the process of setting the uniform business rate included an average forecast figure of an increase for the Borders of 23.2 per cent. That was the figure on which the Government's decision to set the uniform business rate at 43.2p in the pound was based.
I was puzzled at the time that that increase was as low as it appeared to be, but I received confirmation of that concern when a report published by the director of finance in Borders regional council in January stated that the provisional estimates provided by the regional assessor to him showed that, on average, rateable values—admittedly, excluding formula-valued public undertakings—would increase not by 23.2 per cent. but by 32 per cent. That is a significant difference.
The director of finance went on to confirm what was said to the Minister in the written answer of 29 November, when he said that the result of the changes would be
"very significant shifts in the rate burden both between different sectors of non-domestic ratepayers and different areas of the country".
I am well aware of the transitional protection scheme. The Minister will make much of that, because he has done so properly in the correspondence that we have had on the various individual cases that I have raised with him.
I have a strong sense of deja vu in all this, because in 1985, when the Minister was otherwise engaged in business, earning perhaps a more honest living than he is as a Minister at the Scottish Office, when the present Lord Younger was the Secretary of State for Scotland, I, through the various opportunities available to Back-Bench

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Members of Parliament—I think, from memory, that it was a ten-minute Bill—tried to get the Government to see the difficulties experienced by businesses faced with swingeing revaluations.
I brought forward a scheme on the information available to me on the increases that were being imposed on businesses, particularly small businesses in the Borders. I openly admit to doing a calculation on the back of a cigarette packet, which suggested that at least £5 million was necessary in order to remedy the problems of the day at that stage.
I remember the ignominy of being taken to task by Ministers, who subsequently recognised the error of their ways and introduced a scheme that eventually cost nearly £15 million. I was then attacked for asking for only £5 million, which was pretty rough justice. I have felt badly about that ever since. I hope that the Minister bears that in mind when he contemplates the result of this afternoon's debate.
I am aware that the transitional protection scheme is in place. It is fine so far as it goes, but it is extremely inadequate in a number of different respects. First, I am sure that the Minister will confirm that transitional protection does not apply to water and sewerage rates. Certainly, in south-east Scotland, water and sewerage rates are a significant factor in businesses' total rate bill. To exclude any transitional protection from that element of bills will be a penal impost on some businesses, especially those that use a lot of water.
Secondly, the transitional protection scheme is to be phased out over a five-year period. The Minister may know that I tabled a prayer to the order that introduced the scheme. I was hoping to have a debate in a Statutory Instruments Committee, so that I could argue that the scheme was inadequate. I was happy and lucky enough to secure this Adjournment debate, which serves the same purpose, so I shall not pursue the prayer and seek a debate.
In considering the detail of the scheme, I was anxious to try to get the Government to be as forthcoming as possible—I understand that constraints exist—about what will happen in the subsequent four years if the protection level that has been announced and is clear for this year is not maintained throughout the five-year period. It would be helpful if the Minister could say a word about that.
The Minister must understand that, even with the benefit of transitional protection, many of my constituents will face an annual increase of 12.4 per cent. for the next five years—the full period of this revaluation. They will not catch up. They will always be in the transitional protection scheme. Those valuation increases will be further compounded by the next revaluation in the year 2000. Those businesses face increases far beyond what we all hope and anticipate the increases in the inflation level will be over that period.
In addition, industrial derating is to be summarily withdrawn. I understand the reason for that—it is part of ensuring parity with the position in England—but it places businesses in the Borders and throughout the rest of Scotland in a serious position.
Derating of caravan parks is being abolished. I have already been in correspondence with the Minister about that. As I have said at least twice, he has responded in
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writing, but that does not take the situation forward very much for Greenlaw caravan park, for example. Last year, it had a rateable value of £7,000; this year, it is £17,700. Of course, the 10 per cent. transitional process will protect it to a certain extent, but it will take years, if ever, to get around the withdrawal of the derating of caravan parks. Such an increase is unconscionable.
As if all that were not enough, a 50 per cent. charge is about to be imposed on persons entitled to possession of properties that have been unoccupied for three months. I understand why that has been introduced—again, it is part of ensuring parity with the position in England—but 500 properties that have been left empty in the Borders will suddenly and summarily be hit with a bill. Some of them will be hit on 1 April if they have been left empty for the previous three months and are not in any of the exempt categories. That will come as a shock, and a considerable financial impost, to the 500 property owners in the Borders in that position.
Many of my constituents and the constituents of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Sir D. Steel) will face considerable increases in rate bills in 1995–96 and in later years, even with the proposed transitional arrangement.
I do not know for sure, because I do not have the same direct experience of other parts of Scotland, but serious and legitimate concerns exist about how the revaluation in relation to the uniform business rate, transitional protection and the other factors will affect the viability of businesses in future.
From a regional point of view, a serious consequence exists. One of the few competitive advantages available to Borders businesses has been in the form of rate poundages, which have consistently been among the lowest in Scotland. Significantly, following the introduction of this year's uniform business rate, that advantage will be lost.
1.44 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. George Kynoch): I welcome the opportunity given by the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) to deal with the subject of non-domestic rates in Scotland. The advent of the uniform business rate, coupled with revaluation, has introduced some misunderstandings and concerns throughout the country. It gives me the opportunity to go through once again some of the announcements which have been made in past months, but which perhaps have not all been brought together so that people can understand the position.
Obviously I welcome the fact that the hon. Gentleman appreciates the advent of the uniform business rate. Clearly, for many years, businesses in Scotland had been looking for a level playing field north and south of the border. In the past five years, the Government have been progressively reducing the rates burden on Scottish businesses. By last year, Scottish businesses were paying some £500 million less than they would have been if the poundages previously set when under local authority control had continued to rise in line with inflation.
Instead, the Secretary of State for Scotland provided the resources to reduce the burden, and all businesses share the lasting benefit of the progressive reduction, with the introduction this year of the uniform business rate at the same level as south of the border.

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The hon. Gentleman asked whether the Secretary of State could have introduced the uniform business rate at a lower level. To an extent, he could have, but he has already said that the maximum difference that he could have set was between 1p and 2p less. Clearly, he rightly chose to pursue the linkage with business rates south of the border, which was the long-term objective of business in Scotland. It has asked for a level playing field.
If the equation went the other way, the hon. Gentleman would not wish the uniform business rate to be set higher in Scotland, with rates back to being higher than south of the border. My right hon. Friend has taken the long-term view, to try to give business the stability and security it seeks.
The hon. Gentleman has talked about assessment in relation to revaluation. The revaluation draws on recent rental evidence to update the relativities in the rates burden between different properties. As he appreciates, that means that, for some properties, values will go up, whereas for others they will go down. Not surprisingly, at the level of rateable value, more rise than drop.
Rates bills take account of those new rateable values, together with the new rate poundage. On that basis, increases in rates bills are not as great as they might have appeared when people received their rateable value assessments. I know that the hon. Gentleman appreciates that, but I state it so that the complete story is on the record.
It was important to the Secretary of State to ensure adequate transition to prevent any significant rise. On the method of revaluation, as the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, to set the uniform business rate level, my right hon. Friend had to have an assessment of what would happen after the revaluation. The assessors had until 15 March to prepare the valuation rolls, which was obviously not in time to determine the rate poundage which would take effect from the beginning of April.
As the assessors were preparing for the revaluation, the Scottish Office sought estimates of the emerging picture from them and from our colleagues in the Department of the Environment who were obtaining similar estimates from the Valuation Office Agency south of the border. On the basis of those estimates—I emphasise that they were estimates of the emerging picture—we determined the appropriate poundage and the transition arrangements. From the figures, which were published in November, it was clear that there would be a wide divergence in the movement of rateable values and rate bills between different regions and between business sectors, as the hon. Gentleman has said.
It is too early to get carried away and to say that the estimates were anything other than good estimates. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, all of us as constituency Members of Parliament have had a significant number of businesses complaining to us about the high level of percentage increases. However, to get an average, one has to have people who are above the average and people who are below it. Inevitably, those who are below the average and who have calculated the amounts are less likely to come to us than are those who have big increases.
I may be able to give the hon. Gentleman some comfort. I have ensured that my officials have embarked on a detailed analysis of the actual valuation rolls, to assess how close the actual has been to the approximation.
Mr. Kirkwood: That is at least half an answer to my question; half a loaf is better than no bread. I understand that we are in a hiatus, because we shall not know the
824
exact position until the full published revaluation rolls are available in May. Will the Minister undertake in the intervening period to let us know what the sample size was? I do not expect him to give an answer this afternoon. Will he, in the fulness of time, make it absolutely clear what the sample surveys were which informed the decision taken in November to set the UBR at 43.2p?
Mr. Kynoch: I will indeed ensure that a letter is sent to the hon. Gentleman. I am glad that he appreciates that one could operate only on a sample at that stage, to have the estimate on which one could base the calculation for the level of business rate. It is important to ensure that local authorities have adequate funding to provide the services that they have to provide.
I now move on to the transitional period which the hon. Gentleman has rightly welcomed—
Mr. Kirkwood: Grudgingly.
Mr. Kynoch: The hon. Gentleman says that he welcomes it grudgingly. One has to use judgment in the adjustment in the revaluation process which takes place once every five years. In every revaluation process, there can be winners and losers. Some people have seen the prospect of significant gains in their rateable values. Those gains are, as I am about to describe, restricted in the transitional scheme, partially to fund the transitional arrangements for those who will lose.
The extremely important point for the Government in the whole exercise was to try to avoid sudden changes in outgoings which could fall on businesses, especially small businesses. I know that there is a significant number of small businesses in the Borders, and to that extent, the transitional scheme may have a greater effect there than in areas where there is a higher proportion of larger businesses. It is important that we try to ensure that small businesses do not have enormous outgoings.
On that basis, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State introduced the transitional scheme, which will restrict the amount of business rate increase paid by anyone who has to suffer an increase. The increase for properties with rateable values in excess of £10,000 is restricted to 10 per cent. in real terms. For smaller businesses with rateable values of less than £10,000, the figure is restricted to an increase in real terms of 7.5 per cent.
The good news for the hon. Gentleman is that that protection will continue for the full five years at the level of 7.5 per cent. and 10 per cent. in real terms. It will continue until the next revaluation in 2000. There is no reason for anyone to fear an undue increase in rating bills in the next five years. The scheme is being funded this year, partly through the restrictions on gains for those who have benefited, and partly through the £72 million which the Exchequer has granted to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.
The hon. Gentleman talked about the impact on small businesses. I want to get across the point that small businesses have received their revaluation notices. In some cases, the figure is significantly up from previous valuations. Clearly, those businesses have time to appeal against the valuations if they believe that they are not right.
For the sake of the record, I tell the House that businesses have from now until September, or six months from the date of their notice, to appeal. The appeal will,

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of course, be considered by the local assessor, and, if agreement cannot be reached with him, by a totally independent valuation appeal committee.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the Borders region in particular. Although I do not want to invite a surge of appeals—
Mr. Kirkwood: The Minister will get them anyway.
Mr. Kynoch: From the information that I have gleaned so far—obviously, it is early days—the level of appeals submitted in the early days is not unexpectedly high; it is at the level anticipated. The appeals procedure is there to try to ensure that a fair valuation is achieved. In some cases, the figure may be brought down on appeal.
The hon. Gentleman talked about industrial derating being withdrawn. The whole point of industrial derating was to try to ensure that there was a level playing field between the methods of valuation north and south of the border. We are assured by both the Valuation Office Agency and by the assessors that we now have complete harmonisation in the valuation procedures north and south of the border, so there is now no longer a need for that derating.
The hon. Gentleman referred to caravan parks. I suspect that the reason why he wrote to me about a particular caravan park was that a circular was sent to caravan parks in England and Wales which alerted them to the significant increases they might face.
Derating for caravan parks in Scotland was reintroduced in 1990. We had believed that we had complete harmony between the two methods of valuation. When we discovered that we did not, the assessors agreed
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that we should have a derating policy for caravan parks. However, I am happy to look at the case of Greenlaw caravan park, to which the hon. Gentleman referred. If the caravan park owner believes that it is not a fair valuation, he should go through the appeals procedure.
Sir David Steel: He is not the only one.
Mr. Kynoch: The right hon. Gentleman says that it is not the only case, and I understand that point. His hon. Friend gave the caravan park as an example. If any other caravan park believes that it has not been assessed fairly, it can go for appeal, and it will then have a valuation on which it can work. Caravan parks are protected thereafter by the transitional scheme. I hope that, as a result of all this, there can be a fair basis of valuation.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned water, which I shall refer to briefly in the final few seconds. Water, of course, is a different issue and it is open to any business to apply for metering of water supplies and be charged on that basis if it does not like being charged through the rating system.
In short, I believe that the advent of the UBR and, indeed, the harmonisation of the valuation procedures north and south of the border provide the level playing field which we have all sought for business in Scotland. Business has long sought the ability to compete on a level playing field and I believe that it now has it. It is interesting that the Opposition and the Labour party in particular advocate a clear return to the setting of business rates by local authorities. I say to all businesses in Scotland, God forbid the day that that should ever happen, because if it does, rates will soar, businesses in Scotland—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order.

National Health Service (East London)
2 pm
Mr. Nigel Spearing: I am not pleased at having to raise this topic—it should not be necessary to do so. The health services in east London are in a parlous state. None the less, on 5 April, when the Secretary of State was dragged to the House, she said:
"I am determined that, as a result of these changes, we shall have a health service in London that is fit for the 21st century, in which we can all take great pride." —[Official Report, 5 April 1995; Vol. 257, c. 1736.]
I invited the right hon. Lady to today's debate. The Minister, who is present and who met a deputation on the matter a week before the Secretary of State's comment, is not responsible. The Secretary of State is responsible.
A week before the Secretary of State's comment, five Members of Parliament from east London with eight women officers of the community health councils told the Secretary of State personally that it would be disaster if the changes which she had authorised were to go ahead in the area of the East London and the City health authority. That area has a population of 500,000—the size of a large city. It is organised by one authority, whose officers and members are agents appointed by the Secretary of State. Indeed, this debate may be the first-ever opportunity for the right hon. Lady, who once again has not come to the House to take responsibility, to look at what is happening in a particular area. It is only when one sees what is happening in one area that one can see the impact of the changes introduced by the present Administration.
In east London, the City of London, one of the highest-earning areas, is next to three boroughs—Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Newham—which, on statistical terms at least, are three of the most deprived in the country. It is interesting to note that today a report has been published about the connection between income deprivation and health. Indeed, I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Sedgemore) gave an example of that connection which was reported in the media. There is therefore a juxtaposition of some of the most privileged people, and some of the least privileged people, whom my hon. Friends and I represent; those immediately to the east of Aldgate pump and those stretching out in a segment to north-east London.
The main plans were to close hospitals. The 1,035 beds in the East London and the City health authority are to be reduced over six years to 738—a reduction of roughly 30 per cent. That takes account of the net closure resulting from St. Bartholomew's, the closure of the London Chest hospital—we all know how respiratory diseases are on the increase, especially among children—and the proposed closure of St. Andrew's by Newham Healthcare trust. So two saints in the east are going west and that is not good news for east London at all. The reason for the closures is the belief of the Secretary of State and her officers that the need for beds will go down, despite all the trolleys serving as beds in hospitals in east London, to which I shall refer in the moment.
The key to the operation is the Whitechapel site in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore). Indeed, 165 additional beds are to be provided there, together with
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supporting services. The figures that I gave take that into account. When will that facility be built and where is the money coming from? I understand that, at current prices, £230 million has been allocated for that development, but Ministers have not given a guarantee of when, that will be available or if it will be available. Letters of comfort to the non-existent North Thames regional health authority chairman, who has now been phased out, do not provide the sort of guarantee that we want. We have heard such stories about replacement beds before and so have people all over the country. We want guarantees that the money will be available and that that facility will be built before the reciprocal numbers of beds elsewhere are reduced. Is that not a reasonable request, given that the commitment to provide them has been given?
The second area of questioning concerns secure psychiatric accommodation. A case arose in an east London magistrates court because at one time there were no proper secure beds available in east London. The Secretary of State could have attended but instead she sent somebody else. The recommended number of secure beds—of course it is more than a bed; it may be somewhere where people may be able to help their condition—is below that recommended by the royal colleges. I understand that secure places have not been found in north-east London for 63 people, and that the 63 places that have been found are scattered over the country as far away as Yorkshire and south Wales. Are those the sort of conditions in which relatives and others may help?
Two horror stories have been supplied by the Hackney and Newham community health council representatives retrospectively and I shall read them out because such stories convey the truth of what is happening much better than statistics, however much they impress those who can read them.
The first case study is of a Hackney man, whose mental state was deteriorating rapidly. He threatened a health worker with a knife, tried to pull out his own tongue, locked a GP in his room and attacked and tried to strangle an elderly woman in the street, yet there was no bed for him in Hackney. Only after the intervention of somebody from the office of the Secretary of State for Health was a bed found. Presumably, somebody was turfed out to make room for him. Such turfing out produces the curious anomaly of 120 per cent. bed occupancy, which I understand is the figure for Newham.
Case study two is of a 15-year-old Newham girl who could not be contained in local authority accommodation. She was eventually put through the courts and sent to gaol because there was no psychiatrist available to see her. Newham currently has one psychiatrist in post to cover the whole adult population of the borough—about 250,000 people.
One of the reasons why people do not fill vacancies in the borough is the extremely hard work load and the unreasonable demands made on loyal, skilled and hard-working staff. Indeed, the health of some of them suffers as a result.
The casualty scene is perhaps the most spectacular. Bart's had a casualty department. Its closure has meant greater pressure on adjacent casualty units—those at the London Chest hospital and the Homerton. I am told that, since January, the Homerton casualty unit has had to be temporarily closed on 20 occasions. Although it may have been for only half an hour or half a day, that means that ambulances have to go further and everybody's morale

829
goes down. To keep the unit's head above water, beds have had to be put in the waiting room. It is not the only casualty unit affected by the closure of Bart's casualty. The closure has had a ripple effect throughout east London, including Newham general, where at the moment patients have to wait anything between four and eight hours in the casualty unit. Eleven posts for junior hospital casualty officers were advertised not long ago, but only seven could be filled, adding to the pressure on those who responded to the call.
I understand that, quite properly, the Government have reduced the pressure on junior doctors. I have also heard that, for some reason, the Royal College of Surgeons—for all I know, the Royal College of Physicians may have done the same—has reduced or eliminated the requirement for young doctors to have such experience. The supply has dwindled. Who would blame young doctors for not choosing to go into a situation in which the stress is greatest and the staff shortages are the worst, if they do not have to? There is a descending vicious spiral.
The Secretary of State—or rather the Minister, as he is here, although it should be the Secretary of State—may know about that problem and want to make inquiries. I hope that he will be able to tell me now whether what I have said is true, because if he cannot it shows that either he or his Department is not up to the job.
There was recently a scare story—or rather, not a scare story but a factual story—in The Sun about a theatre orderly being involved in an operation. That may have been medically justifiable—I do not say that it was not—but we know that the orderly had to stand in for a doctor who was called away to fill a gap in the Newham general hospital casualty department. Perhaps he was trying to save somebody who was dying. Who is to know?
A couple of weeks ago a chap came to my advice service and said, "I was driving my van down the street, Mr. Spearing, when I had pins and needles and I went numb all down one side. I drove slowly and quietly to Newham general and said, 'I think I have had a stroke.'" Two nurses, no doubt under pressure, assured him that he had not had a stroke, and told him to see his general practitioner. The next morning, having driven quietly home, the man went to see his GP, who confirmed that he had had a stroke. I have verified those facts with the community health council.
Those stories show what problems there are in the casualty departments, which are the most critical facilities of all. And those problems stem to some extent from the ripple effect of the Bart's closure. Last week, my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett), the shadow Secretary of State for Health, asked what use was to be made of the St. Bartholomew's site, and the last sentence of the written answer by the Minister for Health read:
"The Royal Hospitals trust has also been in discussion with the city initiative on possible uses of the site for health-related services."—[Official Report, 18 April 1995; Vol. 258, c. 119.]
I know that the City is worried about the reduction in local emergency facilities. It does not like the disappearance of St. Bartholomew's casualty department. If I were a City financier or somebody with plenty of money and a bit of organisation, I would say, "Can't we use some of that site for a private organisation?" City firms—there are enough of them—could get together and
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say, "What about some form of accident and emergency facility there?" That is possible; there is talk of it happening. Somebody from abroad might think of such a project as a good thing. It might be a paying game, and make a profit. Someone will say, "What about a market in accidents and emergencies in the City, eh, boys? Shares?"
That is the sort of development that the Government are encouraging in health. They think that there is a market in health care. Well, we do not. That is the big difference between us. It is typified, as in a sort of parable, in the contrast between the City, Aldgate and the rest of east London. I do not say that what I suggest will happen, but I suggest to the Minister that it might.
Let us suppose that a taxi driver—John Bull, one of my constituents—had a heart attack at the Bank of England. Would he be eligible for treatment at such a place? We do not know. We can think of other representative people, too. Lots of people live in that great Barbican block. Let us think of a typical name in London—John Smith, perhaps. Would a John Smith in an organisation which had no share in that accident and emergency facility, and did not pay money to it, be eligible? No.
I do not say that that will happen, but I suggest that, under the Minister's philosophy, it could happen—unless he tells us to the contrary, so that people, not only at home but abroad, can hear him. I hope that it will not happen, but there is only one way to stop it—to reopen the much-needed Bart's casualty facility for everybody, as it was designed for the national health service and as it operated until recently.
In the East London and the City health authority, we see an example of what is happening all over the country. We often hear about social and other types of problem in other parts of the country; we read about them in black and white and we see them fuzzily. But in east London, where there are all sorts of problems, we see them not fuzzily but in focus, and not in black and white but in sharp technicolour.
In east London we have seen the closures that the Secretary of State, whose hands are not safe, announced a few weeks ago. My hon. Friends and I, who represent constituents who live in east London in the deprived boroughs, have to bring those facts out, and say that the health service there is not good enough. The Government ought not to be proud of it now, and I fear that, despite what the Secretary of State said, we shall not be able to be proud of it in the next century, either.
2.15 pm
Mr. Stephen Timms: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) on having secured the debate. I shall add a few brief remarks of my own, because I want to comment on the level of resources available for health services in east London. Before I do so, I shall express one note of commendation for a recent Government decision, because this is the first opportunity that I have had to do so.
I welcome the decision to have three community health service trusts, rather than the one initially proposed, in east London. My hon. Friend and others, including myself, reflecting representations made in east London, have expressed that view to the Minister in earlier debates, and I am pleased that it has been decided to go for three

831
trusts rather than one. That will give us a better basis for the future of community health services in east London than we should otherwise have had.
However, that decision has already shown what an extraordinary disparity there is between the budgets of the three new community health service trusts. That has again thrown into relief the question of the resources made available for the health services in east London to deal with the problems that my hon. Friend has so eloquently described.
We need a funding regime to reflect the immense need created by the deprivation that we endure in east London. We have not yet got that. Of all the myriad examples that could be cited, I shall mention the formula for the funding of the psychiatric services, which contains no reference whatever to the level of unemployment in an area.
It has been well known for many years that high unemployment contributes to psychiatric problems, yet that knowledge is not reflected in the funding formula. This morning's King's Fund report, which my hon. Friend mentioned, shows that resources must reflect far more fully than they do the deprivation that leads to and accompanies poor health. If we can make sure that that happens, east London will have a much better slice of the resources than it does, and we shall be able to look forward to resolving some of the problems that my hon. Friend has described.
2.18 pm
Ms Margaret Hodge: I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) for allowing me a brief intervention. I represent a constituency slightly to the east of my hon. Friend's constituency, in which, despite massive local opposition, the Government have given the go-ahead for the closure of the accident and emergency unit at Oldchurch hospital. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have long expressed our real fear that that decision marks the first nail in the coffin of Oldchurch hospital as a whole.
The people whom I represent desperately need the services provided by that hospital. They have already lost too much—Barking, Rush Green and now Oldchurch. Now they are to be expected to go to Newham general hospital—we have heard about the problems there. My constituents will be left with one hospital serving almost half a million people.
The people of Barking are more likely than average to be old, to be sick and not to have the use of a car. Yet they are now expected to travel on lousy public transport all the way to Harold Wood hospital or Newham general hospital for accident and emergency services. It will be a catastrophe.
I seek two assurances from the Minister today. Is the impact of the closure of the Oldchurch unit being monitored by his Department? If so, will he report back to the House? Is the future of Oldchurch hospital as a whole secure?
2.19 pm
The Minister for Health (Mr. Gerald Malone): I congratulate the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) on securing this debate on an extremely important, and controversial, matter. I am pleased to come to the Dispatch Box today to explain the Government's policies and the reason behind them. Rather than
832
concentrate on the general strategy, I should like in the moments that remain to me to get into the meat of the arguments that have been raised by the hon. Members for Newham, South, for Newham, North-East (Mr. Timms) and for Barking (Ms Hodge). I shall deal with as many of the points as I can.
I shall deal first with the points about beds. A range of research published over a period suggested that general bed reductions were required in London. The debate gets off on the wrong foot if anyone suggests that there are prescriptive figures tied to a definite timetable from which no one will depart. I remind the House that health authorities are given by the Government a fundamental statutory responsibility to provide adequate services, whether that means acute beds, what are described in the language of academics as low-tech beds or long-term beds. The health authorities have to get the balance right.
I am sure that the hon. Member for Newham, South will concede that the reductions are not being done according to a strict timetable with a ratio of beds dropping according to some formula that was fixed some time ago, on which the Government are being inflexible. Nothing is further from the truth.
The figures that underpinned Tomlinson were essentially predictions of trends in bed use. Therefore, actual bed reductions are broadly in line with the predicted trend. That is what we have seen. The Government's policy in London, as in the rest of the country, is that it is for individual health authorities to plan what level of provision is appropriate in their area, taking into account all the factors of need, demand and availability, and the desirability and adequacy of other services.
An impression has emerged that the report that underpinned the reforms that are now taking place is out of date. The report is being questioned. It is important to remind everyone who is interested in the matter that the King's Fund still holds to the view that, as a result of changing medical practice and the reduction in referrals to London hospitals from outside the capital, London will need fewer acute hospital beds in the future in general terms. Most people would concede that point.
I understand that those who represent London constituencies wish to make their points in their own way, but the principle is that the number of beds must be adequate. There is an overview. Restructuring will mean that, in time, a different pattern will emerge in London. That is something with which the House is familiar. It is broadly accepted outside London, especially in areas which previously referred to London hospitals to a great extent, but now find that they do not do so as much. The pattern has changed and the demand from the local area is that the hospitals that serve local people should take much more of the case load than in the past.
On a point referred to in passing by the hon. Member for Newham, South, there is one saint in the east which is not going west. St. Andrew's hospital will not close. In-patient services will be transferred to Newham, with concentration of day care and out-patient services at St. Andrew's. That proposal is subject to public consultation, as are all the changes proposed.
The hon. Gentleman asked how we were to guarantee that changes would take place smoothly and services would be preserved. It was a fair point. As he knows, it is impossible for any Minister to give specific guarantees from the Dispatch Box of funding other than on a

833
year-to-year basis from committed funds. I ask the hon. Gentleman to consider, first, the level of capital investment that has already been committed in London and secondly, the capital and running investment provided through the London initiative zone for primary care. I suggest that if he is looking for an earnest of the Government's intentions, the flourishing of primary care schemes, not least in his constituency, is the clearest possible evidence.
Ms Mildred Gordon: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Malone: If the hon. Lady does not mind, I will not give way. I agreed to allow three hon. Members to speak in the debate, and I have only a short time to make my speech. I must answer the points that have been made. I apologise to her. Perhaps, on some other occasion, I could respond to her points. I understand that we may be offered an occasion at some point in the future.
The hon. Member for Newham, South should bear in mind the pledge that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my predecessor gave to the House about casualty departments, to which he specifically referred. My remarks on this subject are also directed at the hon. Member for Barking. No facility shall close unless there is an equivalent, if not better, facility in place. The hon. Gentleman talked at some length in a rather dramatic way about unlikely scenarios for the future of the site at Bart's. I ask him to bear in mind the views of a great body of professional opinion. It is not me or even great academics who are telling him this. If the hon. Gentleman talks to a casualty surgeon—a specialist consultant in a new field—he will be told that there needs to be a critical mass and there needs to be reorganisation. I understand that reorganisation is painful, but on the Bart's site there is now an excellent minor injuries unit to deal with the everyday needs of the local population. Those developments across London are highly welcome.
The hon. Member for Newham, South also referred to mental health. Mental health services are a high priority in east London. There is a pressing need for better services. The health authority has set up an action research project to consider how best to meet those needs. There are 109 mental health beds in Hackney, including 15 psychiatric intensive care and 15 low secure beds. There are 91 beds in Newham and 101 in Tower Hamlets. That is a total of 301 beds.
834
The demand for psychiatric beds greatly fluctuates. As the hon. Member for Newham, South rightly said, there are pressures. On occasions, in order to meet demand, placements have been made outside the district. That is why the district health authority is working to provide a further 15 intensive care beds in Newham to meet need in that part of the district.
On the point about pressures and over-occupation, much of what appears in the statistics of over-occupation is cases in which people are released into the community, in the care of their family, for a fixed period. That person's bed then becomes available and is used in the interim. No one would suggest that the corollary which the hon. Gentleman implies is that the bed should lie vacant in the meantime. Proper use is important.
The hon. Member for Newham, North-East raised the general question of resources. With the new formula, which concentrates more on capitation than before, resources are moving exactly in the direction in which the hon. Gentleman suggests he wants to go. Deprivation and problems in east London have been recognised in other ways as well—in primary care, not least through the London initiative zone and through the fact that deprivation payments are now well established. Those are important ways to get into what I would describe as the "front line" of care. The hon. Gentleman will agree that this year's increase of 4 per cent., or £322 million, which the East London and the City health authority will receive, is welcome.
The hon. Member for Newham, South asked a specific question about the future of the Bart's site. The Government welcome the trust's intention to explore the possibilities of a continuation of medical care on the most historic part of the Smithfield site. The contribution that will be made by the project team, led by Sir Ronald Grierson, will be welcomed. The team will look at the practical options involved, which are likely to be at the less spectacular end of the spectrum that he painted to the House today.
The policy that the Government have put in place will bring better health care to Londoners in the future. It will bring to London's health care a 21st century standard, which is now met in many other parts of the country. That is broadly welcomed by those close to providing the service. Ultimately, to shirk from making change where it is necessary is an abrogation of responsibility, not just by the Government but, if she failed to take the challenge, by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.
It being half-past Two o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, pursuant to Order [19 December].

Oral Answers to Questions
  SCOTLAND

    Miscarriages of Justice
    Mr. Mullin: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what are the arrangements for dealing with alleged miscarriages of justice in Scotland; and if he will make a statement. [19569]
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Ian Lang): Alleged miscarriages of justice in Scotland may be reviewed by the High Court of Justiciary either on appeal or when a case is referred by me under section 263(1) of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1975. Any convicted person may petition me seeking review of his or her case and I may refer a case to the High Court with or without a petition. It is also open to me in exceptional circumstances to make a recommendation to Her Majesty concerning the royal prerogative of mercy.
    Mr. Mullin: Is it not extraordinary that the Scottish legal establishment should seek to exempt itself from the provisions of the Criminal Appeal Bill, which will apply to every other part of the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland? Unless I am mistaken, there is a certain complacency about the Scottish legal system's approach to alleged miscarriages of justice. From the many letters that I receive from prisoners in Scottish gaols alleging that they are innocent, I know that there is no cause for such complacency. Should not something similar to the review tribunal proposed in the Criminal Appeal Bill be set up shortly for Scotland?
    Mr. Lang: I assure the hon. Gentleman that there is no complacency. Although circumstances in Scotland differ from those south of the border, we have set up a distinguished independent committee under Professor Sir Stuart Sutherland to review the complex issues of handling alleged miscarriages of justice. The committee is expected to report next year and we shall take action on its findings.
    I should also point out that the Labour party consultation document, "Protection and Justice", agreed that the procedures for handling alleged miscarriages of justice should not be changed until the effect of possible changes to the criteria applied by the Appeal Court had been considered.
    Mr. Hood: Is the Minister aware that there is great concern within the legal profession in Scotland about the disparity between what happens in English courts and in Scottish courts? I remind the Secretary of State that if George Beattie's appeal had been heard in an English court it would have been upheld and he would have been given the justice that he deserves. The Scottish legal system failed George Beattie as it has failed many Scottish people in similar situations over the years. It is time that it was changed and I hope that the Secretary of State will have the courage to come to the Dispatch Box and make that change.
    Mr. Lang: The hon. Gentleman makes some rather contentious remarks. The Scottish system suits Scottish circumstances. If we tried to emulate the English system and remodel our arrangements on that, I suspect that there would be a great deal of opposition from both sides of the
    836
    House. On George Beattie's case, the hon. Gentleman has already said that a further petition on his behalf is to be submitted. I am ready to consider any such petition when it arrives.

    Local Government
    Mr. Canavan: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what assessment he has made of the future of local government as a result of the local government elections on 6 April. [19570]
    Mr. Lang: The structure of local government put in place under the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994 provides a framework within which services can be better tailored to local needs and more effectively delivered. I look to the new authorities to make the most of the opportunities afforded by the new structure.
    Mr. Canavan: Now that the Tories have suffered a complete wipe-out in the Scottish local elections, does the Secretary of State agree with his hon. Friend the Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart) that the Scottish Tories face the prospect of yet another wipe-out in the next general election in Scotland, and deservedly so? Does the Secretary of State agree that the Government's policies have been an unmitigated disaster for the people of Scotland and that any sell-out of Scottish Nuclear may turn out to be the last straw?
    Mr. Lang: The hon. Gentleman considerably oversimplifies my hon. Friend's remarks and therefore draws entirely wrong conclusions from them. As for the prospects of the Conservative party in the next general election, I refer the hon. Gentleman to similar remarks that he made shortly before the last general election.
    Mr. Raymond S. Robertson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the real danger facing local government in Scotland comes from plans to create a directly elected Scottish Assembly which, in order to play a worthwhile role in the life of Scotland, would certainly take power from this House and would also take powers and responsibilities from every one of the new unitary local authorities throughout Scotland, thereby denying local communities the right to become involved in local decision making? Does my right hon. Friend agree that everyone who believes in strong, accountable, genuinely local government should join us in opposing the Labour party's plans?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Our plan for the single-tier structure now being brought into being is to create a strong, robust system of local democracy, with single-tier, all-purpose authorities throughout the country and having power decentralised in that way. I believe that that is very much to the good of local government. The Labour party's plans to create a Scottish Parliament would clearly draw powers from the outlying parts of Scotland to that Parliament—a centralising process which would be intensely damaging to local government.
    Mr. Welsh: Given the complete rejection of the Conservative party and its policies by the Scottish people, does the Minister consider that he had a mandate for appointing the chief executives and chairmen of the unwanted and unnecessary water quangos?
    Mr. Lang: It is not a matter of a mandate; it is a matter of parliamentary authority and requirement so to do.

    837
    On the results of the local elections, I cannot think that the hon. Gentleman's party has anything to crow about. We are all starting to wonder what happened to the great Scottish National party breakthrough.
    Mr. McLoughlin: When the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Bill was passing through the House, my right hon. Friend was accused of gerrymandering the boundaries. Is he aware that many of us in England are envious of his bold decision to create unitary status local authorities and that we would very much like to have seen them repeated in England? Does that not show that there was no gerrymandering? My right hon. Friend acted in the way he thought best for local government in Scotland.
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is absolutely right in his conclusion, and I am grateful to him. Nevertheless, I would not urge my English colleagues to emulate Scotland in every respect.
    Mr. Watson: The Secretary of State will be aware that one of the responsibilities of local government in Scotland is that of running the district court system. In 1994, 7,000 cases referred by the procurator fiscal's office to the Glasgow district court had to be discontinued as a result of lack of court space and court time. Will the Secretary of State comment on what must be the ultimate miscarriage of justice—when there is no justice because there is no hearing whatsoever? Will he comment on the resources available to Glasgow district court? Will he also liaise with his colleague, the Lord Advocate, to whom I have written about that matter, to ensure that there are adequate resources so that all cases passed by the procurator fiscal's office come to Glasgow district court?
    Madam Speaker: I think that the hon. Gentleman must be rather frustrated. His supplementary really relates to the first question. He has rather taken advantage of another question, on local government. If the Secretary of State is willing to answer, of course, then he may do so.
    Mr. Lang: I am happy to answer, although I think—indeed, I am sure—that you are right, as always, Madam Speaker.
    Madam Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman must be looking for favours from me.
    Mr. Lang: Bread upon the waters, Madam Speaker.
    There is, of course, a measure of protection in relation to the bringing of cases to court in Scotland under Scots law. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to write to me with full details of his specific worries, I will pursue the matter further.
    Sir David Steel: As Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale is now a Tory-free zone, does the Secretary of State accept that the Prime Minister is quite wrong in ascribing the defeat on 6 April to divisions in the Conservative party, and that the hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart) was right—and he should know—when he talked about the disastrous Government policies in Scotland? Will the Secretary of State therefore change the Government's policies in Scotland, stop resisting home rule, stop rail privatisation and stop de-trunking roads?
    Mr. Lang: In terms of control of local authorities, Scotland is also a Liberal-free zone. The Liberals received the lowest proportion of the vote of all parties participating in the local elections, so I do not think that
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    the right hon. Gentleman has a great deal to crow about. I am confident that the Government are pursuing the right policies. They are delivering excellent results in all the main theatres of Government activity, and that will prove increasingly to be the case.
    Mr. Bill Walker: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, while the local election results were not good for our party, we have been down that road before and come back? The Conservative party is the oldest party in the United Kingdom, and one of the reasons why we are the oldest surviving functioning party in government at a national level is that we take note of experiences which are not pleasant and act upon them.
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have no doubt that we shall act upon the results of the local elections on 6 April and our consideration of them. I am equally confident that at the next general election the Conservative party will be seen to advance further from the position to which it advanced at the last election.
    Mr. George Robertson: May I ask the Secretary of State whether, in all modesty, he still believes that the humiliation that he and his party suffered at the hands of the electorate on 6 April had absolutely nothing to do with policy? Does he really believe that the drubbing that the Government received in the elections—which, after all, were created and carved out in the interests of the Scottish Conservative party—had anything to do with what Sir Michael Hirst described as "ingratitude" on the part of the Scottish people?
    Will the Secretary of State and his party recognise that the Conservative party received a miserable 11 per cent. of the vote in ballot boxes all over Scotland as a serious punishment for the policies that the Government have been practising? Will he bear in mind the comments of the hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart), who shared the Treasury Bench with him just a few months ago? The hon. Gentleman said:
    "The Government cannot afford to take measures that don't reflect public support."
    Will the Secretary of State abandon once and for all the Government's hostility to creating a Scottish Parliament? The Scottish people have spoken: surely the Government must now listen.
    Mr. Lang: I would not disguise for one moment the fact that the results were extremely disappointing for my party in Scotland. We have already made that clear. We are considering the implications of the results. As I have said, we shall learn from them, recover and advance.
    I assure the hon. Gentleman and the House that the creation of a Scottish Parliament is not the cure for Scotland's ills. The creation of a Scottish Parliament, with tax-raising powers and the ability to draw power from local government all over Scotland, would be extremely damaging to Scotland's future within the United Kingdom as well as being economically, socially and constitutionally damaging. We shall resist any such moves.

    Green Belt
    Mr. Harry Greenway: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many acres of Scotland are currently designated as green belt; what the figures were in 1974 and 1979; and if he will make a statement. [19571]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Sir Hector Monro): The currently designated area of green belt in Scotland is 384,000 acres. The figure for 1974 was 320,000 acres and for 1979 it was 540,000 acres.
    Our policies continue to provide resolute protection of Scotland's green belts, which are firmly established in planning authorities and in local plans throughout most of Scotland.
    Mr. Greenway: I welcome my hon. Friend's commitment to maintaining Scotland's natural environment, but will he explain those rather puzzling figures and renew the Government's commitment to securing more green belt areas? That contrasts with the Labour party's behaviour in my constituency, where it seeks to build on every blade of grass it can get hold of, including school playing fields. I hope that the Labour party will not do that in Scotland and I hope that it will not be allowed to continue to do so in my constituency.
    Sir Hector Monro: The figures are easily explained: the big reduction in acreage comes largely from the reduction in the Dundee green belt, which no longer exists, and a loss of green belt area at Aberdeen—some 146,000 acres in Aberdeen and 36,000 acres in Dundee. Both local authorities concerned continue a robust countryside policy and are very active in seeing that the countryside is developed properly. I reassure my hon. Friend that the Secretary of State and I and our other colleagues involved in local government administration are very keen to see the green belt policy continue and we will ensure that it is carried out properly.
    Mr. Michael J. Martin: The Minister may be aware that some years ago the Secretary of State gave permission for building what amounts to a very small town on 500 acres of grade A agricultural land at Robroyston in my constituency. If the Minister is allowing the development of green belt sites such as Robroyston, will he not only allow houses to be built, but ensure that developers provide facilities such as schools and community services? Houses have been built, but absolutely no services have been provided.
    Sir Hector Monro: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. It is essential that when the local authority involved gives planning authority it should make sure that facilities are available. I should not comment on each individual case as the Secretary of State has the final say in such matters, but I will make certain that the point that the hon. Gentleman has raised is given careful consideration and that I or my colleague will write to him.
    Mr. Stewart: Does my hon. Friend agree that the development of brown-field sites is essential to restrain pressure on the green belt sites? Will he say a word about the Government's policies in relation to that?
    Sir Hector Monro: I commend the exceptionally good work of my hon. Friend while he was the Minister responsible for local government in Scotland, particularly towards urban regeneration in relation to alternative sites and recycled brown-field sites. The Government's plan provides £9 million from Scottish Enterprise over three years for the development of derelict land. Scottish Homes also plays an important part in developing some derelict sites. That shows that the Government are very
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    concerned about brown-field sites and we are moving in the right direction with the co-operation of the local authorities concerned.

    Health Boards
    Mr. Donohoe: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he next expects to meet the chairmen of the health boards to discuss finance. [19572]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton): My right hon. and noble Friend the Minister of State meets chairmen of health boards regularly to discuss a wide range of strategic issues affecting the national health service in Scotland. Many of those issues may have financial implications. The next meeting will take place on 23 June 1995.
    Mr. Donohoe: When the Minister meets the chairman of Ayrshire and Arran health board, which has become a trailblazer towards privatisation, will he suggest that its latest proposal to contract out ante-natal clinics at a rumoured £60 per patient will allow the high level of infant mortality in Ayrshire to continue? In those circumstances, the Government stand accused of causing deaths and infant mortality.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: One of the important principles in contracting out services or main contracts by health boards is that the quality of service and standards must be properly maintained. In addition, appropriate costings and accessibility are key factors to influence such decisions. The hon. Gentleman can rest assured that we want to maintain the highest standards and we shall be very concerned if there is any dropping away from them. Health spending in Scotland this year will be more than £4.3 billion, which is 53 per cent. higher than 1979.
    Mr. John Marshall: Can my hon. Friend tell the House how spending per capita on the NHS in Scotland compares with spending per capita in England? Would he expect that difference to be maintained by an independent Scotland or by a Scottish Assembly?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: There is a considerable difference between Scotland and England. Spending per capita in Scotland is almost £150 more than in England. This year it will be £798 per head in Scotland, but only £649 in England. If a Scottish Parliament were established with tax-raising powers, I believe that the extra cost of that would have an impact on other key services in Scotland.
    Dr. Godman: In response to what the Minister said about wide-ranging issues with financial implications, the Argyll and Clyde health board is in one hell of a mess over its hospital closure and reprovision programme. The families of patients in the Merchiston, Bridge of Weir and Ravenscraig hospitals are deeply concerned about dilatoriness on the part of the health board. I would not trust that outfit with the management of an ice cream cart or running a menage.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Before any hospital closure can occur, there must be full consultation. Proposals must go to my right hon. Friend and to the Minister of State, and they would be considered in the greatest detail. The hon. Gentleman's representations and those of his constituents would be carefully borne in mind.
    Mrs. Ray Michie: When the Minister meets health board chairmen, will he tell them how he proposes to tackle the significant shortage of doctors in specialties such as anaesthetics, orthodontics and particularly urology? Is the Minister aware of the critical situation in the many trust hospitals which are unable to fill vacant posts? Whether that is due to mismatching or mismanagement, there is no doubt that the shortage of specialists is contributing to longer waiting lists.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: The hon. Lady touches on the important point that medical demands and technology are changing. In accordance with consumer demand, we must make certain of the necessary number of general practitioners, which has increased 19 per cent. since 1979. The number of consultants has risen 20 per cent. and the number of nurses by 18 per cent. since 1979. Waiting times have fallen and more people are receiving treatment. There has also been increased investment in improving hospitals. The hon. Lady is right to say that we must consider the problems of the future. Many of the old diseases such as typhoid are with us no longer to the same degree as in the past, and we must adapt to changing circumstances.

    Electricity Generation
    Mr. Gallie: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what discussions he has had with the electricity supply industry in Scotland concerning greater utilisation of coal-fired generating plants. [19573]
    Mr. Lang: I meet representatives of the two Scottish electricity supply companies from time to time to discuss a range of issues. Any plans for greater use of coal-fired generating plant are for the companies themselves, provided that they can continue to operate within environmental constraints.
    Mr. Gallie: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the planned uprating of the east coast overhead lines from 250,000 volts to 440,000 volts is good news for English customers cost-wise and for Scottish jobs in the electricity supply and coal industry, and good news environmentally in view of the low sulphur content of Scottish coal and the transportation factor of coal by wire?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is right. The quality of Scottish coal is high in terms of the low sulphur content. Consumption increased by 400,000 tonnes last year. If plans for upgrading the interconnector from 1,600 MW to 2,200 MW come to fruition, that will be good news for the Scottish electricity generating industry and for English consumers.
    Mr. Ingram: Will the Secretary of State acknowledge that the proposal to subsume Scottish Nuclear into Nuclear Electric has united all political opinion in Scotland—including the Scottish National party, which until now wanted to close down the industry? Does the right hon. Gentleman support the merger proposal? If so, is that not a further example of his selling Scotland short for short-term tax cuts?
    Mr. Lang: That is pretty rich coming from a member of the Labour party, whose 1992 manifesto stated:
    "Britain's dependence on nuclear power will therefore steadily diminish."
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    The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the SNP manifesto promised a non-nuclear Scotland, but Labour also promised to run down the nuclear energy industry. I am concerned to secure the best long-term future in Scotland for the Scottish nuclear generating industry. The scaremongering, alarm and speculation stirred up by Labour is entirely misleading—above all, to those people whose employment depends on the nuclear industry in Scotland.
    Mr. Salmond: Will the Secretary of State now answer the question? Is he personally in favour, as press reports suggest, of a merger of Scottish Nuclear and Nuclear Electric before privatisation? If so, is he aware that no one outside the Scottish Office shares that opinion? Opposition to it ranges from nuclear enthusiasts such as James Hann and Donald Miller to nuclear sceptics such as myself and Friends of the Earth—[Interruption.] To unite Donald Miller and Friends of the Earth is a substantial achievement. What has changed since the late 1980s, when it was decided to leave Scottish Nuclear under Scottish control and under public control? Is it really that the Government just need the money for tax cuts, at any expense to Scottish jobs or to nuclear safety?
    Mr. Lang: The Government are concerned to achieve the long-term future of the nuclear generating industry. That is something which the hon. Gentleman and the Scottish National party are pledged to destroy and which the Labour party would also destroy. We are working towards a solution which will maintain high employment, quality jobs and a successful nuclear generating industry in Scotland, and in due course such a solution will be announced.
    Mr. Home Robertson: The Secretary of State will be aware that I have a constituency interest both in coal burning, at Cockenzie, and in Scottish Nuclear, at Torness. Will he now tackle the immediate issues surrounding the future of Scottish Nuclear? First, will he accept the case for keeping this uniquely sensitive industry in the public sector? Secondly, will he honour the undertaking given by his predecessor to Sir Donald Miller that Scottish Nuclear will remain as a distinct Scottish entity? We want no sops, no bogus autonomy—just a distinct Scottish entity.
    Mr. Lang: I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman that assurance: it will indeed, as required by the nuclear energy agreement. Maintaining the industry in the public sector is, however, precisely what would create a twilight zone for the nuclear generating industry in Scotland—and its ultimate demise. We are looking for the long-term survival, growth, expansion and prosperity of the industry in Scotland and elsewhere around the United Kingdom.
    Mr. George Robertson: Does the Secretary of State not recognise that the whole idea of privatising a merged nuclear power industry makes absolutely no sense? On grounds of safety and security and of efficiency and profitability, Scottish Nuclear should stay firmly and permanently in the public sector. Is not this nuclear madness just another panic-stricken, money-grabbing tactic by the Treasury? The Secretary of State for Scotland has yet again been outvoted, outargued and outgunned in Cabinet. Will he stand up in Cabinet tomorrow for common sense and for Scotland, or will there be a white flag flying over St. Andrew's house as well as over No. 10 Downing street?
    Mr. Lang: There may be a red face on the Opposition Front Bench as I do not expect the matter to be decided in Cabinet tomorrow. I repeat that we are concerned to secure the long-term future of the industry. I do not believe that Labour party policy could ever deliver that.
    I am appalled by the hon. Gentleman's scaremongering in referring to jobs being lost in Scotland. He talked of 1,000 jobs being lost at East Kilbride as a result of Government proposals. That is rubbish. Apart from anything else, there are only 400 jobs at East Kilbride, so it would be difficult to lose more than twice that number. In fact, I expect the number of jobs in Scotland to increase if we can secure the right package for the future of the industry.

    Health Boards
    Mr. Robert Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what recent discussions he has had with health boards about the future of the NHS; and if he will make a statement. [19575]
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: My right hon. and noble Friend the Minister of State meets the chairmen of health boards regularly. They discuss a wide range of matters concerning the national health service in Scotland.
    Mr. Hughes: When did the Scottish Office become aware of the cancer treatment initiative launched by the Secretary of State for Health and why has the Scottish Office yet to produce its own initiative? Is the Minister not aware—as I am, from constituency experience—of the vast disparities in the treatment of breast cancer and non-breast cancers alike? As a matter of urgency, will the Minister bring out his plans for a new health initiative on cancer treatment and state how much additional money will be devoted to ensuring that patients suffering from this dangerous disease get the best possible service?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that as soon as the alarming information about breast cancer scanning in Dundee became known investigations were immediately carried out. It was found that well under 1 per cent. were affected and the matter was put right with all possible speed. I shall look into the hon. Gentleman's points about funding and initiatives in this area. I shall also bring his comments to the attention of my right hon. and noble Friend the Minister of State.
    Mr. McAvoy: When Ministers meet representatives of the Greater Glasgow health board, will they take into account the great concern felt by people in its area about Tory Government cuts which affect the health service delivered to people there? Not least, will he discuss the fact that the finance-driven cuts imposed by the Government on the Greater Glasgow health board mean that the health board is proposing the closure of the safest and most modern maternity hospital in its area, at Rutherglen? When will the Government realise that, as the recent local elections showed, the people of Scotland and of the Greater Glasgow health board area demand that the Government properly fund the national health service?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Glasgow has substantial funding, and we have to bear it in mind that the capitation grant gives a higher percentage share per head of population to those living in Glasgow because of the particular needs of people in the area.
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    As for the hon. Gentleman's interest in the future of Rutherglen maternity hospital, I am aware that the consultation has been extended as a result of the persuasive representations that he made on behalf of his constituents. We must await the outcome of Greater Glasgow health board's consideration of the consultation exercise which has been extended to 31 May. If any closures are proposed, the matter will be put before the Secretary of State, who will have to be certain that any new proposals will be every bit as good as, if not better than, the current position. The hon. Gentleman's representations will be carefully considered.
    Mr. Kirkwood: Will the Minister include on the agenda of his discussions with health boards about the future of the NHS the arrangements to be made for the negotiation of pay at a local level for nurses? Will he confirm that the Scottish Office has made available only enough money to allow a total increase at a maximum of 2.5 per cent. as opposed to the 3 per cent. available to nurses in the rest of the United Kingdom? Is that not shortchanging Scottish nurses? Does the Minister not believe that it is completely ludicrous for trusts such as the two established in the Borders region 26 days ago to undertake the complicated and difficult business of trying to negotiate local settlements for nurses? It is a disgrace, and he should use his influence at a national level to keep nationally negotiated rates of pay for nurses.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: That is certainly not my information. My information is that the review body said that it expects local pay on top of the national 1 per cent. to lead to increases of between 1.5 and 3 per cent. for most nurses. I strongly recommend that those involved carry out negotiations at the local level. The point of local pay is to make services more responsive to local needs. We believe that the nearer to patients decisions are taken, the better they are likely to be. I must also mention that the Scottish Office intends to issue guidance shortly on this matter.
    Mr. McAllion: When the sick are shuttled across the country in search of beds because too many local beds have been closed, when the private Health Care International hospital is given NHS money to take on extra staff while an NHS hospital such as the Glasgow royal infirmary is given less money and cannot afford to fill staff vacancies, and when junior doctors are worked and exploited to the point of exhaustion, to the extent that some become sick and even contemplate suicide, is it not time, for the sake of the future of the NHS, that the Government abandoned their pernicious market reforms, returned the NHS to its original purpose, which was to meet medical needs, and did not pander to private greed?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: On the performance of the health service in Scotland, the number of people on waiting lists fell by 4 per cent. in 1994; fewer people are experiencing lengthy waits; and more people than ever are being treated. We are absolutely determined to ensure that our national health service is second to none and we shall work flat out to ensure that.
    With regard to the private sector and the new hospital buildings required, the efficiency of the private sector may help public sector funds to go very much further in the best interests of patients. Of course, health service funding has increased enormously over the years.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I give notice that I shall seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment as soon as possible.

    University Funding
    Mrs. Liddell: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he last met the chairman of the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council to discuss university funding. [19576]
    Mr. Lang: I met the chairman of the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council in November 1994 to discuss a range of subjects, including the funding of higher education.
    Mrs. Liddell: Will the Secretary of State seek an early meeting with the chairman of the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council and place on the agenda a revision of the importance of higher education to Scotland's economic and social well-being? Will he also consider at that meeting the devastating effect on Scottish higher education of the 35 per cent. reduction over five years in the unit of resource available for each student currently in higher education? Failure to do so would show that the Secretary of State was weak, out of touch and determined to sell out Scotland's economic and social future.
    Mr. Lang: I am afraid that the hon. Lady seems to have got her facts wrong, because not only do we recognise the importance of higher education but we have doubled the participation of the relevant age group in higher education since the Labour Government left power. We are making provision for a 2.5 per cent. expansion in student numbers next year.
    Mrs. Liddell: What about student resources?
    Mr. Lang: On resources—I hear the hon. Lady murmur from a sedentary position—let me point out that, since 1989, there has been a 19 per cent. increase in real terms in grant and loans.
    Mr. Stewart: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there has been a steady increase in the number in higher education in Scotland, against a steady flow of forecasts from Opposition Members that the figures would go in the opposite direction? Is it not an indication of the Government's commitment to higher education in Scotland that, although Scotland has only 9 per cent. of the population, it provides 12 per cent. of the number in higher education in Great Britain?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend makes his point extremely well. He is right to say that we have been committed to the expansion of higher education and have been successfully delivering it. That has been done with no loss of quality. Indeed, some 30 per cent. of departments appraised recently were categorised as excellent.
    Mr. Galbraith: When the Secretary of State meets the chairman of the Higher Education Funding Council, will he discuss with him the possibility of developing a much simpler system for assessing research in universities? Does he not realise that, under the current system, more time is spent on talking about past research and what will happen in the future than is spent on research in the present? Is it not time that we had a simpler system that encouraged research rather than taking up the time of bureaucrats?
    Mr. Lang: I shall certainly bear in mind the hon. Gentleman's remarks. Research is extremely important and is something to which the Government have given considerable attention and resources.

    Highlands and Islands
    Mr. Macdonald: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he next expects to meet Highlands and Islands Enterprise to discuss funding. [19577]
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I shall meet the board of Highlands and Islands Enterprise later this year to discuss its latest operating plan and the funding that it requires.
    Mr. Macdonald: The Minister will know that the fishing industry is very important to the Highlands and Islands Enterprise area and that there is great concern about the prospect of Spanish access to the west coast and how it will affect the fishing industry. Is not it necessary to follow the example of the recent agreement between Canada and Spain and insist on an independent and firm system of monitoring and apportionment of that access to ensure that it does not lead to overfishing and the long-term destruction of the fishing industry on the west coast?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I certainly agree with what the hon. Gentleman said about monitoring. There is no doubt that fish stocks around the world are coming under increasing pressure, and it is vital that proper conservation measures are introduced. It is equally essential that enforcement and monitoring are imposed. Britain will support sensible measures in the European Union, the United Nations and elsewhere to achieve that.
    I also support what the hon. Gentleman said with regard to Spain having restricted access to western waters. It has been kept out of the Irish sea and will have only restricted access to the rest of the Irish box. Its fishing levels in other western waters cannot increase. Spanish fishing will be limited by quotas. The Government will take on board the hon. Gentleman's points.
    Mr. Maclennan: Is the Minister aware of the growing concern in the highlands about the distribution of funds under objective 1, and the fear that the objective—to ensure that the money will go to redress geographical imbalances in economic development, and particularly to deal with sparsely populated areas further from Inverness—is not reflected in the decisions that have been taken, and that the decision not to finance the north coast road in Scotland will put at zero efforts to regenerate the north highlands economy if that matter is not tackled quickly?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Obviously, objective 1 funding will be of enormous assistance to the highlands, but it cannot satisfy every demand that has been made. Geographical targeting will apply to four programme priorities across a number of sub-areas in the highlands and islands and will be achieved by determining a minimum level of resources to be allocated to each sub-area over the six years of the programme. The minimum will be determined by applying a formula based on relevant indicators to 50 per cent. of the total resources available. That may not cover the road project that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, but it will go a long way to meet the general demands of each part of the highlands.

    Rules and Regulations
    Mr. Steen: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what rules and regulations he plans to repeal in the next four weeks. [19578]
    Mr. Lang: I have it in mind to introduce a number of regulations covering a variety of matters. These will be presented to Parliament in the usual way. I cannot say which may be proposed on the time scale that my hon. Friend mentions.
    Mr. Steen: In view of my right hon. Friend's well-known personal commitment to deregulation, has he evaluated the effect on bureaucracy of Labour's plans to devolve Scotland? Will it increase bureaucracy, as I believe it will? Will it develop into a new army of tartan bureaucrats who will go around making more rules and regulations and affecting the prosperity of Scotland?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend sets me a large task to evaluate Labour's plans, since they change periodically and are extremely obscure, but one thing is certain: the creation of an extra tier of government through a tax-raising Scottish Parliament would increase the tax and the bureaucratic burdens on the people of Scotland and be immensely damaging to Scotland.
    Mr. Dalyell: What will the right hon. Gentleman do about the Crown Office rule that it does not answer straight questions on Lockerbie?
    Mr. Lang: I do not think that I would seek to answer them under a question about the laying of rules and regulations.
    Mr. Wilson: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the nuclear industry is properly surrounded by a great deal of regulation? Does he recognise that the nuclear industry enjoys a high measure of public confidence and support in my constituency because, for instance, of its 100 per cent. safety record, under public ownership? Will he further recognise that Scottish Nuclear is extremely profitable and that it has met the nation's energy needs, under public ownership? What conceivable right has the right hon. Gentleman to acquiesce in the destruction of all that to achieve the short-term Tory aim of tax cuts before a general election?
    Mr. Lang: I certainly do not propose to acquiesce in the loss of the nuclear electricity industry in Scotland, which is what would happen if the Labour party came to power and implemented its policy. However, I can share with the hon. Gentleman the common ground that the Government attach great concern to the importance of safety. Nothing that we are considering would in any way undermine that. We shall always continue to give the highest priority to safety matters where nuclear power is concerned.

    Economy
    Mr. Galloway: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he next plans to meet the Scottish Trades Union Congress to discuss the Scottish economy. [19579]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. George Kynoch): My right hon. Friend
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    the Secretary of State meets representatives of the Scottish TUC from time to time to discuss a range of matters concerning the Scottish economy.
    Mr. Galloway: Does the Minister not understand the shock wave that has gone through Scottish public opinion with the news that plans are afoot to merge Scottish Nuclear with other nuclear facilities in order that they be privatised? Does he not understand that that ultimate privatisation madness—[Interruption.] In response to the cat calls from Conservative Members I should say that I am a lifelong supporter of the peaceful use of nuclear power. Does the Minister not understand that handing over this precious and dangerous jewel, on which thousands of Scottish jobs and millions of Scottish lives ultimately depend, to the Nick Leesons and the Barings banks of the international finance system is an ultimate privatisation madness which will destroy the Government long before the end of their term?
    Mr. Kynoch: The hon. Gentleman is once more dealing in matters of speculation and is trying to whip up opinion in Scotland before any proposals have been put forward. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has more than fully answered the question.
    Mr. Jessel: In view of the importance of international relations to the Scottish economy, will my hon. Friend join me in welcoming the statement by the Indian high commissioner at a lunch today of the Indo-British parliamentary group that the Government of India are hoping to set up a consulate in Glasgow? I apologise for not giving my hon. Friend any warning of my question, but I have come straight from that lunch. Will my hon. Friend encourage his Department to work closely with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to give that excellent proposal as far as possible a fair wind?
    Mr. Kynoch: I am very pleased to hear the news that my hon. Friend brings. Of course, we would welcome such a move and give any assistance that was necessary. My hon. Friend is simply bringing news that reinforces all the other inward investors who have come and been brought to Scotland in recent times, and who have brought increasing prosperity to the Scottish economy.
    Mrs. Ewing: Does the Under-Secretary accept that one important issue involving the Scottish economy is the future of manufacturing industry and that it is particularly important in north Scotland? Is he therefore aware of the concern that is felt by the hon. Members for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy) and for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Sir R. Johnston) and others about the prospect of losing the Conoco Britannia jacket contract to Dragados in Cadiz, Spain? That would have implications for perhaps 1,000 jobs in north Scotland. What action is being taken by the Scottish Office to discuss that matter with Conoco and with the Minister for Industry and Energy to ensure that Nigg and Ardersier have the opportunity to discuss those matters in an open way and not to be undercut—a fact that has been shown in reports by Grampian regional council and Highland regional council?
    Mr. Kynoch: I understand what the hon. Lady is talking about and, equally, I understand that Conoco has not yet made any announcement on the Britannia field jacket. Some of the problems of that sector of the industry are brought about by the changing pattern of getting oil out of the North sea, and by the use of floating rather

    849
    than fixed platforms. I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Industry and Energy is in close contact with all the oil companies to try to ensure that the best future is achieved not only for industry but for manufacturers in the UK.
    Mr. Gallie: Despite the kidology support for abandonment of clause IV, is my hon. Friend aware that the recent STUC conference voted to renationalise public services and public utilities in the UK? When next he meets the STUC, will he discuss the disastrous effects that that would have on the Scottish economy? Will he point out to it that at least the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) recognises that fact, although his followers do not seem to have latched on?
    Mr. Kynoch: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Some of the proposals coming out of the STUC conference were exceedingly bad news for Scottish business. The conference proposed not only renationalisation of certain privatised utilities that have brought enormous benefits to the Scottish public in the form of reduced prices and increased services but the introduction of a national minimum wage, which would cause an enormous number of job losses in Scotland and be detrimental to a major section of the Scottish population.
    Mr. McFall: Can the Under-Secretary clarify what the Secretary of State said earlier? Did he tell the House that he would stand by the assurances given to Sir Donald Miller that Scottish Nuclear would remain a distinct entity? Do the Under-Secretary and Secretary of State favour the merger of Scottish Nuclear with Nuclear Electric? In the face of immense security and safety problems, do they personally favour the privatisation of a merged company? That is not the package that the Secretary of State mentioned earlier, but merely a sell-off and sell-out of a successful, high-technology Scottish business. Are the Government not down to selling the last spoon of the family silver?
    Mr. Kynoch: I think the hon. Gentleman heard perfectly well what my right hon. Friend said. He was especially concerned to ensure that, in any discussions about the future of Scottish Nuclear or the nuclear industry, we try to achieve the best possible future, not only for Scotland, Scottish Nuclear and the Scottish people but for the UK nuclear industry and power generation in general.

    Secondary School Spending
    Sir David Knox: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how much was spent per pupil in secondary schools in Scotland in the most recent year for which figures are available; and what was the figure in 1978–79, at constant prices. [19580]
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Current expenditure per secondary pupil in 1992–93 was £2,914. That is 46 per cent. higher in real terms than in 1979. Detailed
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    figures showing budgeted running costs per pupil by school for 1994–95 were published last December and a copy has been placed in the Library.
    Sir David Knox: Is my hon. Friend satisfied that that impressive increase in expenditure on education has been reflected in an improvement in the quality of secondary education in Scotland?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Yes, I believe so. One substantial improvement has been in pupil-teacher ratios in Scotland. In secondary schools in 1979, there was one teacher for every 14.4 pupils. In 1993–94, there was one teacher for every 12.8 pupils. We have been moving in the right direction which benefits Scotland's children and our future.
    Dr. Moonie: Would the Minister like to congratulate the Scottish electorate on ensuring that the high standards of education continue by failing to elect a single Tory council?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: The hon. Gentleman should not crow too soon over his victory. We want our education system in Scotland to be second to none. Expenditure is being increased by 1.72 per cent. in the local government settlement for this year. We believe that, although this has been a tight round, sufficient funds should be made readily available for those at the sharp end of education.
    Mr. Beggs: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the valuable links and exchange visits which have been developed between Northern Ireland schools and Scottish schools, no doubt acknowledging the equal excellence of education provision in Northern Ireland? Will he continue to encourage the development of these valuable links between schools, recognising that the expenditure incurred represents good value for money?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: We are very much in favour of education exchanges. It is one of the great strengths of Scottish education that Scottish educationists have gone not just to Northern Ireland but to many countries throughout the world. That is a theme that we wish to continue and strengthen.
    Mrs. Fyfe: Can the Under-Secretary explain why the share of gross domestic product devoted to education has fallen from 6.2 per cent., when the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) was Prime Minister, to 4.7 per cent. today? How can he justify the way in which that contrasts with the never-ceasing rise in spending on the assisted places scheme? More than £10 million of public money was spent on the scheme in 1993 alone, of which 96 per cent. went on paying school fees, with an average cost of more than £3,000 per pupil. All this has happened when Lothian has had to cut its spending per pupil from £63 to £59.50. Why is Highland region having to consider halving the level of support staff in schools? Why is Orkney having to cut the number of teachers—
    Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady appears to be making a statement rather than asking a direct question. She has raised many questions and they are coming out as a statement.
    Mrs. Fyfe: I beg your pardon, Madam Speaker. Why is it a case of £10 million for just 55 schools, but tight financial settlements for the hundreds of local authority schools?

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    Will the hon. Gentleman explain to the House today in clear terms why he supports such gross inequalities and giving such favourable treatment to the few?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I shall answer as many of the hon. Lady's questions as possible. We have had a greatly expanding economy and a falling pupil roll. Expenditure per pupil has increased by almost half in real terms since 1979. That must have a bearing on the achievements and performance of schools. I mentioned that Government-supported expenditure this year has increased by 1.72 per cent. Provided that pay increases are fully funded by efficiency savings, as is being done in the rest of the public sector, there should be no need for any cuts in front-line services, such as education.

    Aberdeenshire
    Mr. Malcolm Bruce: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he plans next to visit Aberdeenshire to discuss local government. [19581]
    Mr. Kynoch: My right hon. Friend visits Aberdeenshire regularly to discuss local government and other subjects.
    Mr. Bruce: The hon. Gentleman can tell the Secretary of State that, as and when he next visits Aberdeenshire, he will be warmly welcomed by the new Liberal Democrat administration on the unitary authority. It will be anxious to tell him, as has Grampian regional council, that it wants to know when the Government will give the capital consents needed to meet the education crisis that Grampian region faces.
    May I draw the Under-Secretary's attention to an article in The Press and Journal today which talks about overcrowding at Oldmachar academy where 35 pupils are denied physical education next year because there are no facilities for them? Will he give an assurance and explanation? The hon. Gentleman said that he had cut £83,000 from Grampian's capital allocation for the current year. How will it be possible for us to build the extra academy, which he acknowledges is necessary, and to deal with the consequences of the redistribution of pupils as a result of reorganisation?
    Mr. Kynoch: The hon. Gentleman is obviously aware that I am conscious of the situation in education in the new authority of Aberdeenshire. I am sure that not only the existing Grampian region but the new unitary authority of Aberdeenshire will continue to press the Under-Secretary of State with responsibility for education, my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton), on the need within that area. In fact, in their allocations this year, those areas have fared proportionately better than many others in Scotland.
    Mr. Raymond S. Robertson: Is my hon. Friend aware that in the recent local government elections in the city of Aberdeen, the Scottish National party and the Liberal Democrats paid a heavy price for the policies of their parties' administration on Grampian regional council, which wilfully hiked up council tax and sold prime chunks of the city of Aberdeen without any regard to local residents or, indeed, to the city or the hinterland?
    Mr. Kynoch: My hon. Friend is right. That is absolutely typical of the Liberal Democrats, who are trying very hard to crow. What the hon. Member for
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    Gordon (Mr. Bruce) did not say was that his party formed an administration in Aberdeenshire only because of the significant support of a number of independents on the council.

    Economy
    Mr. Charles Kennedy: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will assess the prospects for the highlands economy; and if he will make a statement. [19583]
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: The success of this Government's economic policies means that the prospects for continuing growth towards long-term economic prosperity in the highlands look very encouraging.
    Mr. Kennedy: Does the Minister for the highlands, as he is sometimes known, think that he is fit to hold that title, given the noticeable absence of any worthwhile public support from him—there is support across the political spectrum, including that of the Scottish Conservative party, the communities and, indeed, the country as a whole—for the broad campaign to support Scottish rail services? Is it not about time that, instead of leaving it to the Highland region to have to go to the courts simply to try to get fair consultation, he showed that the pledge that those services need to be maintained on an on-going basis against a backdrop of public consultation across the summer—which was given by his ministerial colleague, the hon. Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro), in the Scottish Grand Committee a few weeks ago—is upheld? Will the hon. Gentleman do that and, if need be, will he dig into his own budget to ensure that that fairness is established?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I think that I answered the hon. Gentleman last time when I said that I cannot divert funds from health, education or housing for the purposes to which he referred. The measures announced by the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro), on 8 February and the formal process to which the hon. Gentleman referred are to be carried out by the franchising director. What is important is that the rail regulator considers that decisions on service levels should not make it impracticable to restore services if the consultation process so concludes. Any final decision on minimum service levels will be for the franchising director to make after his consultation on the ScotRail passenger service requirement later this year.
    Mr. McLeish: Does the Under-Secretary accept that the Government's assault on the railways in the highlands will create problems for the tourist industry? More important, why is the Scottish Office quite happy to stand idly by and see the Secretary of State for Transport, the franchising director and the rail regulator destroy crucial services? Is it not a disgrace that the Under-Secretary and the Secretary of State for Scotland simply do nothing? Will the hon. Gentleman assure us that, even at this late stage, he will enter the fray and give some support to Highland regional council, which is fighting in the courts? The council need not have been in the courts if the Government had shown some guts. We have a spineless set of Ministers who are selling the highlands short.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: The hon. Gentleman is totally incorrect. The passenger service requirement will lay down a minimum requirement. That never existed

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    under nationalisation. Under nationalisation, British Rail could stop any service at any time. That will not happen in future. Obviously, there could be a great impact on tourism, but the great majority of tourists travel by road. Indeed, 12 per cent. of British holiday trips are based on travel to Scotland by train and 7 per cent. of holiday trips to the highlands are by train. There is no point in exaggerating that particular matter, but the point should be made properly during consultation.

    Strategic Planning
    Mr. Eric Clarke: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he is meeting the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to discuss strategic planning. [19584]
    Mr. Lang: I have no plans at present to meet COSLA to discuss strategic planning.
    Mr. Clarke: Is the Secretary of State aware that the local authorities that are custodians of the green belt in
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    Lothian are amazed at the decision to refuse the Niddrie development? There was a public inquiry, and both the local authority and the public inquiry recommended that the development go ahead. The site is that of an old spoil heap at a colliery, not a green field. Why was an inquiry held? What was the use of the inquiry if the Government do not accept its findings? What conclusion can we draw from that decision, which has delayed the local authorities' strategic planning by the two years that it took to conduct the investigation?
    Mr. Lang: My role is to consider the recommendations of the local public inquiry, but I also have responsibility to safeguard the green belt. I have to take account of the region's structure plan and of the proposals under consideration. I considered all the factors carefully and decided that the Cauldcoats farm proposal—a major development in the green belt whereby 250 to 300 houses might have been built—was not desirable. I therefore took the action that I did.

Points of Order
3.30 pm
Dr. John Reid: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I notified your office of my point of order this morning. As you know, in nine days' time the eyes of the nation will be upon us as we hold a ceremony in the House to commemorate the end of the second world war.
Mr. Norman Hogg: In Europe.
Dr. Reid: No, the end of the second world war. Both VE day and VJ day will be commemorated at the same time.
The eyes of the world will be on us; Her Majesty will be here and you, Madam Speaker, will play a prominent part. Among other things, we shall commemorate the sacrifices of the people during that period. Obviously we shall also commemorate the leading role of our greatest war leader, Winston Churchill, whose statue, as it stands in Parliament square overlooking the Houses of Parliament, will be a focus of attention.
Have you had a chance to look at that statue recently, Madam Speaker? At present it is surrounded by fences, cranes and building materials, and it looks like something out of the blitz. Would it be in order for you, in your capacity as our main representative, to seek from Ministers some assurance that by next Friday all that will be cleared up, so that when the world's eyes are focused on us both Churchill, who will be symbolically remembered on that day, and the House will be in a state to celebrate those commemorations fittingly?
Madam Speaker: Yes, I am pleased to inform the House that I have been told by the Minister whom I believe has some responsibility for that area that London Underground and its contractors have been instructed to remove the hoardings and to make good the site in advance of the ceremony. That will include not only cleaning up the statue of Sir Winston Churchill but tidying up the entire area. The Minister responsible is here, and I shall hold him to that.
Mr. Mike Gapes: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. May I draw to your attention a report in today's edition of The Daily Telegraph suggesting that the British taxpayer will be expected to pay £40 million in compensation to Hong Kong civil servants over the next two years? The money will not come out of the Hong Kong Exchequer, which contains £11 billion that will be paid to the Chinese in 1997. Is it not an absolute disgrace that that money is to be paid at a time when the Government are grudgingly—
Madam Speaker: Order. That is not a point of order at all; it is certainly nothing to do with me.

BILL PRESENTED
  FLOOD PREVENTION (SCOTLAND)
  Mr. Sam Galbraith, supported by Mr. Gordon McMaster, Mrs. Irene Adams, Mr. Thomas Graham, Mr. Jimmy Dunnachie, Mr. Brian H. Donohoe, Mr. Thomas McAvoy, Mr. Tom Clarke, Mr. Norman Hogg, Mr. Bill Walker, Mr. Charles Kennedy and Mrs. Margaret Ewing, presented a Bill to make further provision for flood prevention in Scotland; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon 14 July, and to be printed. [Bill 108.]

Professional Football Compliance
3.34 pm
Ms Kate Hoey: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the Secretary of State to establish a compliance unit for professional football in England and Wales with power to create and maintain proper financial controls and to report irregularities; and for connected purposes.
The 1994–95 football season will go down as the one that brought the shameful headlines about bungs, corruption, alleged match fixing, drugs, racist abuse, violence on and off the field and greed. The common thread in all this is the inability of the football authorities to tackle the malaise. There is a complete lack of leadership and this has not been helped by the complacency of the Department of National Heritage.
The game staggers from one controversy to another and at times it is difficult not to feel as Michael Herd did when he described football leaders in the Evening Standard as
"A group of the willing picked from the unfit to do what they see as unnecessary."
My call for an independent inquiry into the state of our national game made in January was responded to by the Minister in a way that expressed his complete confidence in the Premier League's own inquiry.
Let me remind the House that it is 19 months since the Premier League commission was set up to inquire into allegations of undercover payments during transfer deals and into the role of agents in an attempt to restore the public's faith in the propriety of football. The commission was set up to examine the evidence given by Alan Sugar in the High Court on the suspicion about the transfer of Teddy Sheringham from Nottingham Forest to Tottenham. Although evidence has been taken from many, including Brian Clough, the commission has still to report its findings.
We still await findings on the many other allegations that leave a taint of suspicion, no matter how unjust, over managers and clubs. The commission also still has to report on the links between Terry Venables when he was manager of Tottenham and Eric Hall, the agent who acted for both the club and the players, in a clear conflict of interest. Not a week goes by without another dodgy deal being exposed by the media.
The Football Association says that the Premier League commission will look into the matter, and then there is silence. Just a few days ago, the Daily Mirror reported that a recent payment of £34,000 had been made to Rune Hauge by Tottenham, when Terry Venables was manager, for the agent's role in the £480,000 transfer of the Norwegian international player Erik Thorstvedt.
Terry Venables clearly broke the FA rules when he was running Spurs, authorising a whole range of payments to agents. Yet now he is running the English national team and the Premier League commission still has to clear him officially. Why the delay?
As the Premier League commission is meant to be inquiring into all those transfer deals involving Rune Hauge, the information has been passed to it. But will we ever hear anything? The only action that the commission has taken is to make one report on the George Graham affair, again a manager who was dealing with the same agent, Rune Hauge. It cost George Graham his job. Is anyone seriously suggesting that, amidst all the many
858
allegations that have gone to the Premier League commission, he is the only guilty man? Is it not time that we had some answers from the commission? There is widespread acceptance within and outside football that a compliance unit is needed.
On 11 January Graham Kelly wrote to me:
"We are also examining the feasibility of a Compliance Unit aimed at strengthening the regulation of Clubs' finances."
But he conceded that:
"This too is a difficult area."
David Dent of the Football League said on 20 January in a letter to me:
"I personally support the concept of an Advisory and Compliance Unit being established within football but this has been rejected by the top clubs."
The problem is the growing power and influence of the Premier League combined with increasing financial clout resting with a handful of maverick chairmen.
Not all the chairmen of the Premier League opposed the idea when it was put to them recently. Dave Richards, chairman of Sheffield Wednesday, said in an interview with the Daily Mail in February:
"By the year 2000, I think we'll have an independent team of investigators working inside football. I want it so any independent investigator can visit a club and be shown precise details relating to all transfers."
Thank goodness not all the chairmen of our Premier League clubs have their heads in the sand. Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers Association, made the original call for an independent compliance unit some months ago. He said then:
"The problems go very deep and part of it comes from the fact that the very people who need to agree to more effective monitoring of the clubs are the owners who have been involved in abuses in the past."
As was said in the debate on rugby league this morning, the public interest in this matter must be recognised. Corruption in football leads to money being syphoned off from clubs, which means that fans are being cheated and must pay higher admission charges. Let us not forget also that the public know that millions of pounds of public money go into football in various ways.
The financial forces are too powerful for some sports bodies to handle by themselves. That is definitely the case in football. A special compliance unit is needed to support the football authorities. It could use information available from the VAT commissioners and the Inland Revenue to examine particular problems, agents and transfer fees. With the power to examine transfers, the whole business could be much more transparent than the present system. Then, together with the Football Association, new and enforceable financial rules could be set to ensure that the public are not ripped off.
Without Parliament taking a firm stand, and without the Minister responsible for sport representing the public interest, backhander deals, bungs, unsolicited gifts, presents and fixes will continue to distort the sport, both on and off the pitch. It is the clear duty of Parliament to protect public interest. The worst excesses of the City are sometimes rampant in sport, but at least the City has some form of regulation. The Bill would give Parliament and the Minister the duty and power to clean up the sport. The public and the fans must have confidence in the national game. The governing bodies of sports rules were made

859
for fair-minded, honest people. They cannot cope with the crooks of today or even the international television moguls. Consequently, the public are not protected.
Too many interlocking interests in football conspire to keep the truth away from the public. Football must be clean to survive and thrive. Good, decent, hard-working people in football, of whom there are many, deserve more. Football is too important a national asset to be left only to Lancaster Gate. They need all the help that they can get, and the Bill offers that help.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Ms Kate Hoey and Mr. Jim Lester.

Professional Football Compliance
  PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL COMPLIANCE
  Ms Kate Hoey accordingly presented a Bill to provide for the Secretary of State to establish a compliance unit for professional football in England and Wales with power to create and maintain proper financial controls and to report irregularities; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 14 July, and to be printed. [Bill 109.]
Orders of the Day
  Criminal Appeal Bill
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
  Criminal Appeal Bill
    New clause 1

      POWER TO APPOINT INVESTIGATING OFFICERS
      'The Commission may either themselves appoint an investigating officer to carry out inquiries or, if they think it appropriate, may require the appointment of an investigating officer as set out in section 18.'.—[Mr. Mullin.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      3.42 pm
      Mr. Chris Mullin: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      Madam Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss also the following: New clause 2—Investigating officers—
      '—(1) In this Act 'investigating officer' means—

      (a) a person appointed by the Commission from among its staff,

      (b) a person appointed by the Commission by way of a contract to undertake investigating duties, or

      (c) a person appointed in accordance with the provisions of subsections (2) to (7) of section 18.

      (2) Before making the appointment of an investigating officer, or approving the making of an appointment under section 18(6), the Commission must be satisfied that the person selected has the appropriate experience, skills and independence to carry out his investigatory duties.
      (3) The investigating officer shall be responsible to the Commission for all aspects of the investigation for which he is appointed.'.
      Amendment No. 27, in clause 18, page 14, line 26, after '(a)', insert
      'if the Commission is satisfied that the matters to be investigated do not involve matters originally investigated by officers still serving in that force,'.
      Amendment No. 38, in clause 19, page 15, line 19, leave out 'may' and insert 'shall'.
      Government amendments Nos. 34 to 36.
      Mr. Mullin: This Bill follows on nicely from the ten-minute Bill that we have just heard, which called for an independent force to investigate alleged corruption in football. I particularly liked the quotation by my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Ms Hoey) that the present arrangements consisted of a group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit to do what they thought was unnecessary. I am afraid that we are faced with the same position in the investigation of alleged miscarriages of justice. One of the purposes of this group of amendments is to rectify that.
      I am sorry to see that the Home Secretary is not in his place. One has always had the feeling that the Government's heart was not entirely in the Bill. One of my colleagues said the other day that the Bill was one of the few pieces of Government legislation on which the Opposition were keener than the Government. The Home Secretary may have a good reason for his absence, but it is yet another illustration of that possibility. In addition to the names on the Order Paper, my right hon. Friend the Member for

      861
      Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) and the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Howarth) have signed the new clause.
      The new clause seeks to rectify what I regard as a potentially fatal flaw in the proposed criminal cases review commission. It gives the commission a reserve power to take an investigation into an alleged miscarriage of justice out of the hands of the police and give it to an independent investigator nominated by the commission in those cases—which, I anticipate, will be rare—in relation to which it appears that the police are not trying hard enough.
      As the Bill stands, the commission will depend entirely on the police for the conduct of investigations. The investigation will be conducted by a police officer. That police officer will be appointed, not by the commission, but by the chief constable of the force in which the alleged miscarriage of justice has taken place. That chief constable can then appoint an officer from his own force or from another to conduct an investigation.
      The Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but, once appointed, the commission has no power to remove that officer. That can be done only by the chief constable who set up the inquiry in the first place. It is true that, under clause 18(6), the commission may veto an appointment made by a chief constable, and I welcome that, but it is not enough because, at the end of the day, the process of investigation will remain entirely in the hands of the police.
      As Ministers have been at pains to emphasise, the commission will have the power to direct and supervise police inquiries. When I intervened on that matter in the Home Secretary's speech on Second Reading, he told me:
      "there are no sensible limits on the power of the commission to direct and supervise the inquiries that are carried out on its behalf"—[Official Report, 6 March 1995; Vol. 256, c. 28.]
      but of course there are.
      The inquiry must be carried out by a police officer; that is a limit. That police officer will be appointed, not by the commission, but by the chief constable of the force where the alleged miscarriage of justice has occurred; that is another limit. If that inquiry is not being carried out satisfactorily, the commission has no power to take the inquiry even to another police force. The commission can huff and puff as much as it likes, but ultimately it is a matter for the chief constable; that is a third limit. The commission does not have the power to authorise an inquiry by a person who is not a police officer; that is a fourth limit.
      The powers of investigation that the Bill gives the commission appear to be modelled closely on those of the Police Complaints Authority. Ministers appear to think that the PCA is a success, whereas anyone who has had anything to do with it knows that it is a failure—through no fault on the part of many PCA officers, who are diligent. On occasion, however, they have been tearing their hair out with frustration at their inability to obtain adequate co-operation from the police.
      For that and other reasons, the PCA has become so discredited that any sensible lawyer will advise a client with a complaint against the police to take a civil action rather than risk a trip to the PCA. The result has been a mushrooming of civil actions and out-of-court settlements, costing in total many millions of pounds. That surely cannot be a cause of satisfaction for Ministers.
      862
      It is an extraordinary state of affairs. Here we are, protesting our desire to put right the mistakes of the past, while building into the new system one of the central weaknesses of the old—the fact that, ultimately, investigations into alleged police malpractice will be carried out by police officers and by no one else.
      We are confronted by a position in which, after a long series of scandals and years of deliberation, Ministers finally get round to creating what they say is an independent review body and it turns out to depend heavily on the one part of the criminal justice system that has let us down most badly—investigations of the police by the police.
      How has that extraordinary state of affairs arisen? From where has come the pressure on Ministers that has caused them to build into their Bill that potential self-destruct mechanism? What mighty vested interest is bringing pressure to bear on them to take that road? Is it the lawyers? No; it is not. This is what the Bar Council has to say on the subject, in its briefing to members of the Standing Committee on the Bill:
      "The Bar Council is concerned that the commission is not presently given sufficient control over the appointment of an outside investigator, or over the course of the investigation. As presently drafted, the commission is unable to sack the investigator if they are unhappy with the course of the investigation, and are only empowered to veto the appointment.
      In cases where there have been allegations of police misconduct giving rise to an alleged miscarriage of justice, it is important that the commission's independence should not be compromised by an alleged lack of independence in the investigatory process."
      The Bar Council goes on to recommend that the commission should be empowered to appoint its own employees as investigating officers, which is what new clauses 1 and 2 seek to achieve. That is what the Bar has said; what about the solicitors? The Law Society, in a commentary on the Bill, said:
      "police officers conducting investigations on behalf of the commission must be isolated from other areas of police work, owe their loyalty to the commission and be specialists in investigation".
      It continues:
      "The society believes this could only be achieved by the commission employing its own investigators and/or with a dedicated group of police officers who are seconded to the commission for a reasonable period of time, who are employed by the commission during the period of their secondment … The committee's investigators should also include civilians."
      The Law Society is also in favour of new clauses 1 and 2. In fact, almost everyone who has had first-hand experience of dealing with alleged miscarriages of justice has emphasised the need for the commission not to be entirely dependent upon the police. I pressed that point when the Home Secretary was kind enough to receive me in his office as long ago as May last year. The organisation Justice, upon whose council distinguished lawyers of all political persuasions serve, stated:
      "Justice would wish to press ministers on the arguments of principle and practice for the CCRC to have its own core investigating team".
      That view is also in line with new clauses 1 and 2. Justice goes on to say that the commission has fewer supervision duties than the Police Complaints Authority, on which it is apparently modelled. It says:
      "The PCA must supervise police inquiries in certain circumstances … The commission is under no such duties … The investigating officer is under no duty to pass on the evidence accumulated during the inquiries, but only to prepare a report for submission to the commission and the chief constable."

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      As Home Office Ministers will be aware, Cardinal Hume, together with Lords Jenkins of Hillhead, Rees and Scarman and the late Lord Devlin, has taken a close interest in the matter. In a letter to The Times of 6 March he complained that the Bill made the commission too dependent on the police. He continued:
      "It appears to provide no reserve power for the commission to instigate and carry out investigations using only its own suitably qualified staff and it appears to leave the commission with insufficient powers effectively to plan, direct and supervise police investigations carried out on its behalf".
      New clauses 1 and 2 are intended to provide a remedy to the fundamental defect identified by the Cardinal. The Association of Chief Police Officers has told me that it is satisfied with the Bill as it is currently drafted—although that is not the impression that one or two of its senior members have given me in private. The Police Federation says that it is also satisfied with the proposals in the Bill, although several senior officers from the federation have expressed a different view in private. Paradoxically, the Police Federation has expressed support for independent inquiries conducted by the Police Complaints Authority. So we have a situation where almost the only people willing to support investigations being carried out exclusively by the police are the police themselves.
      In support of his case, the Home Secretary also cited the royal commission which concluded—one suspects with some reluctance—that there was no practical alternative to investigations being carried out by the police. I think that the royal commission was wrong about that. The history of investigations carried out by one group of police officers into the activities of another is so unsatisfactory as to outweigh any practical advantages of leaving the conduct of such inquiries exclusively to the police. Whatever view one takes of the royal commission's conclusion, nothing in its report says that the police should have the final say over which force is appointed and which officers are selected, nor does it say that the review body should not have the power to remove the inquiry from a police force that is seen not to be trying hard enough.
      In short, nothing in the royal commission's report is inconsistent with what is proposed in new clauses 1 and 2. If new clause 1 were implemented, all investigations would still be carried out by the police, at least initially. The only difference would be that their minds would be concentrated by the knowledge that if they failed to inquire seriously, the inquiry could be taken away from them.
      I have discussed the matter with Lord Runciman, who chaired the royal commission, and he has kindly authorised me to say this:
      "Although the Royal Commission envisaged investigations being carried out by a designated police force under the direct supervision of the new review body, that body should not be precluded from recruiting onto its own staff trained investigators who would not necessarily be serving police officers."
      I am grateful to Lord Runciman for clarifying that important point and I hope that this afternoon we will not hear any more Ministers calling him in aid in support of their case.
      While we are on the subject of the royal commission, there is nothing in its report to justify the provision in the Bill that the police and not the commission should have the final say as to which force and which officers should carry out the investigation. That was dreamed up entirely in the Home Office.
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      The Home Secretary has also justified his decision to leave investigations entirely in the hands of the police by pointing to the police inquiries which have led to the quashing of wrongful convictions. In the debate on Second Reading, he referred to the inquiries into the Guildford, Birmingham, Stefan Kiszko and Darvel brothers cases. I readily acknowledge that thorough and professional police investigations played an important role in each of those instances.
      It is an unhappy fact, however, that for every honest and professional investigation conducted by the police into an alleged miscarriage of justice, I can point to several other police investigations that were anything but honest and professional.
      To take the Birmingham case, the first investigation by an outside police force was commissioned within weeks of the original arrests in 1974. It was conducted by Mr. David Owen, then the assistant chief constable of Lincolnshire and until recently the chief constable of North Wales. The purpose of the inquiry was to discover who had been responsible for the injuries inflicted on the six men charged with the pub bombings during their first days in custody.
      Had the inquiry been conducted honestly, the tragic events that followed might have been avoided. Mr. Owen, however, chose to conduct a dishonest inquiry. In the face of clear evidence to the contrary, he exonerated the police and pinned all the blame on police officers. The Owen inquiry is a classic example of what happens when one set of police officers investigates the activities of others.
      In September 1986, following the publication of my book on the case, the Home Secretary ordered a second police inquiry into the Birmingham case. The officer they chose to conduct it was Mr. Tom Meffen, an assistant chief constable with the West Midlands police force, the force that had the most to lose should the truth ever emerge. Unsurprisingly, Mr. Meffen concluded that there was nothing to worry about.
      In 1987, the Home Office ordered a third inquiry into the Birmingham case. It was conducted by the Devon and Cornwall police and headed by Superintendents Reay and Essery. It was clear from the outset—and I met the officers on several occasions—that they saw their role primarily as discrediting the new evidence that I and others had patiently collected, and that is what they did. As a result, another opportunity was lost.
      Mr. David Ashby: Were not the Devon and Cornwall police at that time far too busy investigating "Operation Countryman", which resulted in no prosecutions whatsoever?
      Mr. Mullin: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who also put his name to the new clause, but I have no knowledge of that matter. If he will forgive me, I will avoid a direct answer. If that force was involved in another major investigation, that might explain why its mind was not entirely on the ball. I do not think that it was too busy, but it was not interested in conducting a proper inquiry. I had the advantage of meeting the gentlemen involved and discussing the issues with them.
      In 1987, another opportunity was lost to put matters right, when a large amount of money was wasted on a public inquiry that everyone concerned knew would lead nowhere. In 1990, following a prolonged public outcry, the Home Secretary ordered a fourth police inquiry into

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      the Birmingham case. It was also conducted by Devon and Cornwall constabulary, but this time the chief constable himself, Mr. John Evans, took charge. It was a thorough and professional inquiry and led to the result that we all know. However, it was not the first inquiry but the fourth. If any of the previous inquiries had been conducted with the same rigour, the entire scandal might have been brought to an end many years earlier and a great deal of time, money and anguish saved.
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      After the convictions were quashed, there was a fifth inquiry. Believe it or not, it was conducted by the West Midlands police. It was intended to discover who had carried out the bombing. The force appointed for that purpose was least qualified to arrive at a sensible conclusion. That inquiry lasted more than two years and involved more than 40 officers. I leave aside the question of whether it was wise to entrust that task to a police force which, to a man and even to this day, refuses to accept that the real culprits got away. I will say only that that inquiry also left a great deal to be desired.
      Much time was wasted interviewing people who did not need to be interviewed. There was widespread suspicion that the inquiry's main purpose was to reconvict the persons whose convictions had been quashed. Later, there were selective leaks to the media that could have come only from officers serving on the inquiry. Their purpose appeared to be to rescue the four West Midlands officers then awaiting trial on charges of perverting the course of justice. In the end, that inquiry, like most of the others, led nowhere. I make no complaint because its task was the most difficult of all. It was never likely that sufficient evidence could be unearthed nearly 20 years after the event which would lead to the arrest of the real culprits.
      The Home Secretary cites the role of the police in the Birmingham case as evidence for his contention that the police and only the police are capable of investigating alleged miscarriages of justice. With the exception of the 1990 inquiry, exactly the opposite has proved true. We do not have to look far for other examples of alleged miscarriages of justice where long and expensive police investigations led nowhere. The Carl Bridgewater case is now the subject of the eighth police investigation, and still amateurs are turning up evidence that previous police inquiries overlooked.
      I regard that case as the litmus test of the new climate of straightforwardness that is alleged to be abroad in our criminal justice system. So far, the omens are not auspicious. All the usual people are behaving in the usual way. In the Home Office and in the police, there appears to be a steely determination not to face unpalatable truths. If ever there was a case for independent investigation of the sort permitted under new clause 1, it is the Carl Bridgewater case. I cite also the Brian Parsons case, which is of particular interest because the police force involved is Devon and Cornwall—the same force praised for its good practice elsewhere. By a happy coincidence Mr. Parsons' case will be the subject of a Channel 4 "Trial and Error" programme this evening. On Monday, the chief constable, Mr. Evans—for whom I have much respect, and with whom I had many dealings during the course of his inquiry into the Birmingham case—held, I regret to say, a foolish press conference at which he said
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      intemperate things about everyone involved in trying to raise the Parsons case again. Moreover, in the course of the press conference he made it clear that he had not seen the film he was talking about. That was most unwise. Funnily enough, it is similar to what happened in the Birmingham case. The former chief constable of Birmingham, Geoffrey Dear, did the same thing—and in due course lived to regret what he had said. Mr. Evans, too, will live to regret some of his remarks on Monday.
      In the Brian Parsons case substantial new evidence has been unearthed. As usual, the work has been done by journalists and a diligent solicitor. Faced with that, the Home Office asked Mr. Evans to set up an inquiry. Unsurprisingly, Mr. Evans appointed one of his own senior officers—from the very force that faces embarrassment should the conviction be quashed—to conduct the inquiry. Unsurprisingly again, the officer in question, Mr. Keith Portlock, has concluded that there are no grounds for reopening the case. Indeed, from the outset he made it clear to anyone who cared to listen that the inquiry was going nowhere. His primary objective seems to have been avoiding the intervention of an outside police force.
      I say this to Mr. Portlock and to anyone else who may be interested: the Brian Parsons case is not going to die down. I and others are taking a close interest in how it is being handled. It is a classic example of the folly of allowing the police to investigate their own alleged misconduct. I hope that it will be resolved before the independent review body is established, but if it is still unresolved by that time, it is an early candidate for independent investigation of the sort proposed in new clauses 1 and 2.
      Ministers have given cost as one reason why investigations must be kept in the hands of the police. The truth is that what they propose is by far the most expensive option. Millions of pounds have been wasted on bogus police inquiries, and even those that have been properly conducted have tended to be very expensive. They are often regarded by the officers involved as an excuse for unlimited overtime. A great deal of time is spent investigating matters that do not need to be investigated.
      So a desire to keep costs down cannot possibly be one of the reasons for keeping inquiries exclusively with the police. As the Home Secretary will be aware, the police themselves are worried about the enormous costs of these investigations. Indeed, I believe that a delegation from the Association of Chief Police Officers will be coming to discuss the matter at the Home Office shortly. Given that concern, I am mystified to know why the Home Secretary should choose the most expensive, least efficient and least credible system for investigating alleged miscarriages of justice.
      There is actually a precedent for an independent inquiry into allegations of corruption. In 1973 in Hong Kong, ruled of course by Britain, there were big scandals in the Hong Kong police force. They led to a series of inquiries that got nowhere. In the end an inquiry was set up under Sir Alistair Blair-Kerr. Following his report, on 17 October 1973, the Governor of Hong Kong set up a special force to investigate alleged corruption. He said at the time:
      "I believe that it is quite wrong … that the police, as a force, should carry the whole responsibility for action in this difficult and elusive field."

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      As with the case that I have described, he added:
      "A further and conclusive argument is that public confidence is very much involved. Clearly the public would have more confidence in a unit that was entirely independent, and separate from any department of the Government, including the police."
      So let no one say that this has never been done before. It was done in Hong Kong, no doubt sanctioned by the British Government of the day—a Tory Government.
      Finally, it is in the interests of everyone who cares about justice—not least the police—that the proposed criminal cases review commission be successful. As it stands, there is a serious danger that the body will not be credible and that, in due course, there will be a further series of scandals. New clauses 1 and 2 will go some way towards remedying the principal defects of this Bill, and I commend them to the House.
      Mr. Ashby: It gives me great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) who, in many ways, could be said to be the author of the Bill. His investigations, his tenacity and his belief in justice and the truth have uncovered some of our country's worst scandals, certainly in my time, and he has so often been proved to be right.
      I readily admit that, when the hon. Gentleman first raised issues such as the cases of the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six—I hope that I have always got the numbers right—many of us were highly sceptical. We knew about the inquiries that were held and of their results, and felt that the police must, of course, be right, and that therefore the hon. Gentleman must be wrong.
      We heard anecdotal evidence from former Home Secretaries, one of them a Labour Home Secretary. That confirmed my view, because I thought that he must know and be right, and that the hon. Gentleman must be wrong in respect of at least one case. It has been proved time and again that the previous Home Secretary was wrong and the hon. Gentleman right.
      We must therefore be very careful about this Bill and carefully consider what the hon. Gentleman has to say about it. He gives vent to a feeling that there are imperfections. We know there are, but there is a tremendous feeling that we should not accept that, but should say that everything is perfect when we know that it is not. We need only consider the cases of the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four to realise the imperfections that there were and are in the police force.
      We complain a great deal about the Court of Appeal in those cases, but we must realise that the Court of Appeal is tainted with the same background as I had, and everyone else: the investigations kept saying wrong, wrong, wrong—and wrong the hon. Gentleman was not.
      I have said that the hon. Member for Sunderland, South would make an ideal chairman of the proposed body if we wished to ensure absolutely that we had a completely independent body. I do not resile from that at all. The hon. Gentleman may sit down the aisle on the Opposition Benches but he is a very original, honest and honourable thinker on the subject, and I pay tribute to him.
      I was pulling the hon. Gentleman's leg a bit when I spoke about Operation Countryman, but the hon. Gentleman was absolutely right to raise the question of the Police Complaints Authority, because a most exceptional amount of corruption was involved. The Devon and Cornwall police force investigated. I am pretty certain that Operation Countryman, despite the enormous
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      number of allegations, which were undoubtedly true bills, never got as far as a trial. I am not even sure whether it got as far as bringing charges. That was an example of one police force investigating another.
      From my early days at the Bar, I well remember the investigation of what was called the porn squad, and I have never forgotten the impact that that trial at the Old Bailey had on me. We learned of the chief inspector who had joined the porn squad and was sitting at his desk when someone came up to him and said, "Here's your money." He asked what it was, and was told that it was his cut. He did not know what to do, and refused the money, but he was told that it was too late and the money was put in his drawer. In no time at all, his drawer was absolutely stuffed with money. He went on the tube and got rid of it by throwing it out on to the line as the train went along. I remember that man so well, because he burst into tears and cried almost throughout the trial while he was giving evidence. I could only describe him as a man who was raped—his soul was raped. The case was a good lesson for me. He was, nevertheless, tainted. There was virtually no police officer in London of any seniority who had not served in the porn squad, and the problem probably went to the very top of the Metropolitan police.
      4.15 pm
      Those of us at the criminal Bar at the time were uncomfortably aware that no one who had served in the porn squad could possibly have been untainted. Although what I am talking about happened 20 years ago, some of the officers may still be in the force. I am sure that they regret what happened. We had to bring in people from outside London to aid the police.
      Can hon. Members imagine what would have happened had the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis ordered a deputy commissioner to investigate the allegations about the porn squad? Unfortunately, one of the deputy commissioners at the time, and possibly both, had served in the squad. They knew everyone, from the top of the force to the bottom.
      Another pet subject of the hon. Member for Sunderland, South is the masons. I do not know how many hon. Members are masons now, but the hon. Gentleman is right to say that we should investigate freemasonry in the police force. In any event, it is the same tainting that should worry us.
      The new commission is supposed to make things whiter than white and transparent, and ensure, as far as possible, that there are no more miscarriages of justice. I shall use the example of the porn squad case, and those who have been at the Bar will know what I am talking about when I say that, as they would if I referred to the West Midlands case or the Countryman case. In such circumstances, the one thing that we should want is to feel happy about the person in charge. We should not be at all happy if anyone connected with the police in any way were in charge of the investigation.
      Such a person might direct police officers to do certain things, but should not be involved in getting the investigation under way. Perhaps we should look for someone like a district attorney, a lawyer, someone who was independent with an investigative mind and who could perhaps direct the police about what he wanted investigated, but who was not under the full and final control of the police force.

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      New clause 1 highlights a weakness in the Bill. We have waited a long time for the Bill, not because of politicians but because of the Home Office itself. Getting the Home Office to give up any of its powers is one of the most difficult things to do. It is being asked to give up a little power, and does not want to relinquish any more. I dread to think what will be said about new clause 6, which says that
      "the Commission may refer a matter to the Secretary of State for his consideration of whether to recommend the exercise of Her Majesty's prerogative of mercy."
      The Home Office is having to give up some but not all of its powers. It will retain what makes it feel safe and comfortable. I am not so sure that we should feel so safe and comfortable.
      All right, let us throw out new clause 1. Let us go against it. The hon. Member for Sunderland, South has been proved right in the past, and I predict that, in seven, eight, perhaps nine, years' time—it will not be immediate, because these things do not happen immediately—someone will table an amendment to the Criminal Appeal Act. It will be amendment No. 1 or new clause 1, and everybody will say, "Absolutely right." It will go through on the nod, because something will have happened—perhaps a miscarriage of justice—and we will have realised that we were wrong. I predict that that will happen.
      It is with reluctance that we have the Criminal Appeal Bill. I agree with the analysis of the Bill given by the hon. Member for Sunderland, South, who said that it is a Government Bill that the Opposition want more than the Government. It has that amusing aspect to it. I think that we see a reluctance, and a refusal to accept new clause 1 is part of that.
      I make no bones about it. I have told the hon. Gentleman that I shall not vote against the Government on new clause 1. I have told him that I am prepared to put my name to the new clause, to push it and to let my views be known, but, as I have said right from the beginning, I am not prepared to vote against the Government, and I will not, despite my speech. People may say that I am giving in, but I am not.
      I ask my hon. Friends on the Front Bench to consider the points that have been made and that will be made. We are not asking for a great deal here. It will be rare, but there will be times when we will want to appoint a district attorney-type person to oversee an investigation. Public opinion will demand it.
      There has to be provision somewhere. It does not mean that the police will be excluded, but they will be under the direction of someone else, who will be telling them what they should look for, how they should look for it and what they should produce. That is what we need. It is the ultimate safeguard. When we have that, we shall be able to say that the Bill is satisfactory.
      It has taken a long time to get this Bill and to reach the stage that we are at now. I ask my hon. Friends please to think again on this one.
      Mr. A. J. Beith: I support new clause 1. I shall also speak to amendment No. 27, which has been tabled by the Liberal Democrats and deals with a situation in which officers are asked to investigate
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      matters that were originally investigated by officers of the same force. That was one of the points raised by the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin).
      New clause 1 is a moderate new clause. Critics of the hon. Member for Sunderland, South might be surprised that it is so moderate, as they would regard him as almost extreme in these matters, but it is a perfectly sensible power, enabling the commission, where it thinks it appropriate, to appoint an investigating officer, on its terms, within its discretion. It addresses an extraordinary weakness in the Bill—that the commission does not have the staff or capacity to mount its own investigations, even in the rarest of cases. It is difficult to understand why the Government should have circumscribed the commission to such an extent.
      I have been persuaded all along of the royal commission's argument that the greatest repositories of people able to carry out investigations are the police forces, and that therefore the large majority of investigations would be most appropriately carried out by police forces who not only have the skilled manpower to do it, but could be organised in structures and with support staff, which makes it practicable to mount an investigation, without enormous upheaval. That will be necessary and appropriate for a great many investigations.
      I have argued that it might be desirable for the commission to second police officers or to have retired police officers working for it, carrying out further or supervisory functions, but in general I have accepted that police officers are best able to carry out such investigations.
      But situations will arise when the commission might consider it appropriate to use its own staff to carry out an investigation, and will be precluded from so doing by the way in which the Bill is cast. I cannot understand why the supervisory responsibilities assigned to the commission are so limited and circumscribed, particularly when the analogy is made with the Police Complaints Authority.
      I am not such a stringent critic of the Police Complaints Authority as the hon. Member for Sunderland, South. It does much excellent work. It does not satisfy everyone all the time, and the possibility of successful legal action as an alternative to it was raised by the hon. Gentleman. But the lay members of the Police Complaints Authority carry out supervisory responsibilities over investigations in a way that the Bill does not envisage happening for the investigations that will take place on criminal appeals.
      One wonders why the commission should be told almost from the start to keep its distance from an investigation and have such limited powers of supervision.
      The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. David Maclean): I do not understand the right hon. Gentleman's point about the limited powers of supervision. Clause 19(1) states:
      "A person appointed as the investigating officer in relation to a case shall undertake such inquiries as the Commission may from time to time reasonably direct".
      There, and in other parts of the Bill such as clause 19(4), the commission is clearly in the driving seat, with full powers to control an investigation.
      Mr. Beith: That may well rest on the interpretation of those and other parts of the Bill. I understood clause 19(1) to relate to the overall subject of inquiry, rather than to

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      particular lines of inquiry within the whole. If my interpretation is too restrictive, I shall be pleased to hear it. I hope that the Minister's definition this afternoon will be read by the courts now that they have taken to reading Hansard in the way that they did not use to do.
      Mr. Mullin: It is true that the commission has powers and will certainly be consulted, but at the end of the day is it not a fact that the chief constable of the force where the offence or the alleged irregularities occurred will have the final say in who is appointed and how the investigation is conducted? That is the central problem.
      Mr. Beith: Exactly so. It is that to which I want to turn.
      I should have preferred to see a presumption in the Bill against the force which carried out the original investigations being the force responsible for carrying out the inquiries that the commission directs. It ought surely to be a presumption that, if there is any reason to believe that the original investigations were seriously defective—if they were seriously defective, it has to be a possibility that there was some malfeasance in the conduct of the original investigation—another force or officers from another force should carry out the inquiry. That presumption is not found in the Bill.
      Therefore, I tabled amendment No. 27, which says that the matter should be investigated by a particular force only
      "if the Commission is satisfied that the matters to be investigated do not involve matters originally investigated by officers still serving in that force".
      That is reasonably narrowly drawn, but it addresses the likelihood that, in a number of cases, forces will be directed to carry out an inquiry which will then be carried out by officers who, even if they do not include some of those who were involved in the first investigation, are closely associated with them, work closely with them and will continue to work closely with them when the investigation is over, and who will not wish to believe that their trusted colleagues, known to them over so many years, with whom they may have worked on many cases and upon whose previous good work they may have depended for their own safety and the success of other inquiries, could have made fundamental mistakes—or, still worse, have acted improperly—in the conduct of the original inquiry.
      Even if none of that were the case, members of the public are likely to believe that it is. Therefore, there should be a presumption that, in such circumstances, that risk is avoided as far as possible by going to another force. We should not simply rely on an ad hoc decision being taken to do so, because there is overwhelming pressure and public dissatisfaction with the possibility that the same force will be involved. I do not see why that presumption could not have been built into the Bill. Like the hon. Member for Sunderland, South, I wonder why, and in what recesses of the Home Office, pressure has been exerted to circumscribe the Bill in that way.
      To a significant extent, the Bill is about maintaining and improving public confidence in the police, particularly in the ability to undertake investigations where the police may have made fundamental mistakes, or where police misconduct may have taken place. Therefore, why circumscribe the processes in such a way that that confidence will not be as strong as it could possibly be?
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      Some people would say that bringing in officers from another force is not a sufficient protection. They may regard the police as a seamless robe of men and women, bound together by the same calling, work, activity, and a certain amount of movement between police forces, particularly at more senior levels. Some evidence exists of that insufficient protection in some of the cases that we have discussed. In others, however, good, vigorous inquiries have taken place where other forces have come in.
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      In areas apart from criminal appeals, it is a common feature of police life for investigations to be carried out by officers from another force. I hope that the Home Office clearly understands, and that officers are left in no doubt, that all the people involved in the management of the police expect people who undertake investigations into other forces to maintain the highest standards. Through their work, a number of officers have justified that degree of confidence. It would be rare, therefore, for it to be necessary to use the direct staff of the commission, or a body separately appointed by it, to undertake investigations, but that possibility should be available.
      It may be somewhat more common for people to believe that investigations should be carried out by officers who are not from the force that is the subject of complaint in the appeal, and that a presumption should exist in favour of those officers conducting the investigation if that force and its officers are still around.
      I do not understand why the Government, having taken the decision to introduce the Bill, and having taken on this major issue, should now balk at its smaller but significant features, which are important to public confidence. If we are to make a success of the Bill, we should ensure that it can attract maximum public confidence. The absence of a presumption in favour of an independent inquiry by officers from another force, and the absence of a clear route to a wholly separate and independent inquiry, where that is necessary, seem a great weakness.
      Mr. John Hutton: I missed the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin), and I apologise to him and the House for that, but I understand that he rightly expressed the view that this is a rare example of a Government Bill that has more support from the Opposition than from Conservative Members. The consequences of that state of affairs are fairly clear in key aspects of the Bill. One of the most important is that the Bill's provisions dealing with the conduct of inquiries and investigations are characterised by a spirit of half-heartedness.
      The Minister has made a number of interventions. He has tried to argue the case, as he did in Standing Committee, that the Bill as now drafted is adequate and gives the commission sufficient flexibility to conduct relevant inquiries. A close investigation of the Bill, however, particularly clauses 18 and 19, around which the group of amendments and new clauses have been constructed, reveals a different picture.
      Those new clauses and amendments are designed not to restrict the commission's freedom or flexibility to operate, but to improve them. The commission will need them if it is to discharge its principal function: to boost confidence in the criminal justice system, which has been

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      haemorrhaging in the past few years, following the appalling miscarriages of justice in the 1970s in relation to alleged IRA terrorists.
      The amendments are designed not to undermine the commission's work, but to improve it. The hon. Member for Leicestershire, North-West (Mr. Ashby), who has now left the Chamber, has said that it is immensely important that, on this occasion, when we have an opportunity to discuss these matters, we get the commission right. I concur entirely. The hon. Gentleman is right. There will be future occasions when hon. Members will come back to the House with amendments to the Bill, when it is an Act, because it is clearly deficient.
      In general terms, the amendments and new clauses raise two fundamental issues of importance which go to the heart of the Bill. First, they are designed to increase public confidence in the commission's work; secondly, they are an attempt to ensure proper independence and objectivity in the inquiries that will be carried out by investigating officers on behalf of the commission. Clauses 18 and 19, as now drafted, may not be helpful in respect of either of these two important matters.
      We need to try to do two things at this stage. We need to strengthen the powers of the commission over the appointment and work of investigating officers. New clause 1 and new clause 2 would achieve that in an important respect. I am not sure that Government amendment No. 34 adds anything of substance to clause 19(4); this is an important point. All that amendment No. 34 appears to do is to drop the reference to "the public interest" which is contained in clause 19(4), and to substitute a rather vague and unspecific form of words.
      The Minister commented on clause 19(1) when the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) was speaking. The point was raised in Committee that the wording of clause 19(1), far from giving the commission the flexibility that the Minister implied, was likely to invite problems between the commission and the investigating officers in the conduct of some of these important inquiries.
      The point needs to be made again on this occasion that the wording of clause 19(4), especially the use of the word "reasonably" in line 6, is almost an invitation for investigating officers and the commission to have arguments about the correct line that a particular inquiry should take. It invites investigating officers, and perhaps chief constables of police, to take the view that the commission is not acting reasonably in giving instructions to an investigating officer. Under clause 19(1), the commission has to be acting "reasonably" in giving instructions to investigating officers.
      On a general level, we are entitled to assume that the commission will always act reasonably, so including that word in the Bill may be superfluous. We assume that the commission, by its nature, will always act reasonably, especially given that the Prime Minister will have the ultimate say over who will be appointed to it. Clause 19(1), as the Minister presented it in his intervention, does not address the issues to which the new clauses and amendments relate. The Bill as drafted is not helpful in securing the two important tasks that I have identified.
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      We need to eliminate any suggestion of conflicts of interest arising between investigating officers and their own police forces. There is the potential—I do not put it higher than that—in the Bill for conflicts of interest to arise between the responsibility of investigating officers to investigate alleged miscarriages of justice and their natural and perfectly understandable loyalty and sympathy for colleagues in their own constabulary. We expect that loyalty in the police force, and, in most cases, it is entirely appropriate. It is not, however, appropriate in these circumstances, and not when these issues are being investigated.
      We should think carefully about whether, in some cases, we may put investigating officers into completely impossible situations. If we do so, we shall undermine not only public confidence in the police and the work of our police forces, which is important to maintain, but the credibility that the investigations should have.
      We should follow the advice that my hon. Friends and the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed have given to the House today, and always assume that it is not appropriate for police officers to conduct investigations on behalf of the commission when their fellow officers from the same force may have been involved in alleged miscarriages of justice. I do not think that that is helpful. I cannot understand why that appears to be the normal course governing the appointment of investigating officers. The Bill seems to imply that.
      One of the first suggestions in the Bill is that it will be appropriate for the chief constable of the original investigating force to appoint one of his fellow officers to carry out the investigations. In fact, that should be the last possible suggestion on which the commission should be acting. It is much more important that we give the commission a power—a general power in some cases as outlined by the new clauses—to appoint its own investigating officers. If that is not appropriate, it should appoint a police officer from another force, which is not connected with the original inquiry, to conduct inquiries on its behalf. That seems to be a much more logical sequence of events than the prescription in the Bill.
      I do not want to over-emphasise the point and ham it up, but it is fundamental. We do not need over-exaggeration to make any of these arguments because the strength of them is very clear. We want to avoid any suggestion of a cover-up, which would be fundamentally unhealthy for the whole nature of our criminal justice system. We want to exclude the possibility of anyone, whether it is the alleged victim of the miscarriage of justice or anyone else, alleging that an entire inquiry had been the subject of a cover-up.
      Unfortunately, the Bill will allow such arguments and allegations to continue to be put. The whole point of the Bill is to get away from that and to construct a state of affairs which will make it impossible for such suggestions to be made. Of course there will always be an opportunity for people to put such arguments—that is the nature of the beast—but we need to limit the possibilities. The new clauses address that issue and I am thinking especially of amendment No. 27, to which the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed referred.
      It has often been said, and it was said throughout the proceedings in Committee, how important it is that justice must not only be done but be seen to be done. That is one of the standard political cliches of our time, but it is extremely relevant to the Bill because it is the Bill's

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      target. Frankly, justice has not been seen to be done in far too many cases, with consequences that we have all noted. Now we have an opportunity to address that target and to get it right.
      I hope that the Minister will advise his hon. Friends, very much in the light of the views expressed by his hon. Friend the Member for Leicestershire, North-West, to think again about this issue and indicate that he is prepared at some later stage to concede the arguments that have been made.
      Mr. David Trimble: New clause 1 is very seductive and it has been generally presented this afternoon in terms of studied moderation. The clause merely gives the commission discretion to depart from the procedures in clauses 18 and 19 if it considers it appropriate and to appoint its own investigating officer. A proposal to widen the discretion of the commission is attractive. The new clause is a far cry from the proposals and arguments which were put forward on Second Reading. Then, the argument pressed very strongly was that the commission must have its own investigating forces, must use only those and must not go through the police, which I did not find at all attractive.
      Mr. Mullin: I must say that I do not remember anybody arguing that we should not go through the police. It has always been understood by those of us who take the view set out in the new clause that most investigations will continue to be carried out by police officers. All we are talking about, and all we have ever talked about, is a reserve power. It is quite true that we have also talked about the commission having its own team of dedicated investigators, but they would be only a very small part of the operation. Indeed, Lord Runciman, as I quoted in my speech, said that he would support that.
      Mr. Trimble: None the less, I feel that there is a significant difference between the tone in which the argument is being presented today and the tone in which it was presented on Second Reading. The hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) must take care not to push me back into the position that I adopted on Second Reading, when I am moving somewhat in his direction.
      Mr. Mullin: I shall keep quiet. Thank you.
      4.45 pm
      Mr. Trimble: The proposal is attractive in that it enables the commission to have its own investigating officers if it so wishes. The argument has also been presented in terms of public confidence, public perception and so on, and one can readily identify with that.
      However, as was said on Second Reading and in Committee—so I repeat it fairly briefly now—it is not right to use the commission's own investigating forces as a matter of course or, indeed, in any other than the most exceptional circumstances. I feel that there is a real danger, in that if the commission has its own investigating officers they will operate, and be seen by police officers and police forces, as a form of anti-police police force, and that will create and reinforce a set of new institutional loyalties and jealousies.
      The hon. Member for Sunderland, South referred to past cases in which investigation was not carried out by the police as thoroughly as it might have been. There is some suspicion that the police officers investigating those
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      matters were more concerned to vindicate the original investigation and to cover up for it than to inquire further. I well understand those worries. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have had similar experience in Northern Ireland, when an investigation has, as far as we can see, been motivated more by a desire for damage limitation and to try to rescue the original miscarriage of justice from the point of view of the police, than by the interest of serving justice.
      That has happened in the past, and the danger exists that it could happen in the future. A police force could cover up even more effectively where the commission had its own investigating officer, who would be a complete outsider to police forces in general, whatever his background might originally have been. I suspect that it would be easy, or at least possible, for police forces to conceal things from an outside investigating officer.
      I do not argue entirely against new clause 1, because it adds a discretion and it may be a good thing that such discretion should exist, but it would not be appropriate to use the provision except in the most exceptional cases. It is essential that, not only in the normal run of cases but in as many cases as possible, investigations are carried out by police officers.
      The whole object of the exercise must be not to reinforce the bad aspects of police culture that have been described and properly criticised in the debate. We must take care not to reinforce the negative feelings that some police officers have that lead them to think that they must defend the actions of other police officers in all cases and cover up their wrongdoing.
      Instead, we must lay down and follow procedures that will change the culture within police forces so that the feeling of defensiveness is diminished and replaced by an overriding desire to ensure that justice is done, even if that means uncovering circumstances in which other police officers have behaved improperly. That is what we want to happen, and that is what I hope will happen.
      Much will depend on the commission and the way in which it operates. The new clause, like so many of the other provisions, simply gives it discretion and powers. The crucial factor will be the way in which the commission operates. The view that I expressed on Second Reading remains my main view on the matter. As the Minister said on Second Reading, the important requirement is that the commission must be in a position to control, to direct and to supervise. It is crucial that the powers to control, direct and supervise the details of particular cases exist, and that they are used effectively.
      I welcome Government amendments Nos. 34, 35 and 36. The Minister will realise that I particularly welcome amendment No. 35, which reflects an amendment that I tabled in Committee. It plugs a small gap in the Bill. I am delighted that those powers of control and supervision are being strengthened, but the crucial thing is how the commission operates them.
      I am sure that there will be those in the House, in the Home Affairs Select Committee and elsewhere, who will watch closely how the commission exercises its powers. I am sure that the matter will come back here again if there is a feeling that the commission is not exercising its powers according to the spirit of the Bill and the spirit of the speeches that we have heard here today. It will also come back if we do not achieve a change in the culture of not only the police force but other people involved in

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      the criminal justice system, who tend sometimes not to be sufficiently open-minded and alert to the possibility of a mistake.
      I am not sure what advice I shall give to my colleagues if new clause 1 is pressed to a vote. My speech on it has leaned to both sides. I do not object to providing extra powers to the commission if it is simply a matter of extra discretion, but I should hate to see the provision in new clause 1 regarded as the normal course. The normal course ought to be the procedures laid down in clauses 18 and 19. Our concentration should be on ensuring that that procedure is effective, works in the way that is intended, does not work in the way that some hon. Members fear and does not lead to the sort of cover-up that some hon. Members fear.
      Mr. Richard Shepherd: I agree with much of what my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) has had to say on new clause 1, but he left us hanging in the air. The House must share a concern that the police should not for ever be perceived as the villains in the case. I do not hold that view and I believe that the vast majority of hon. Members do not either. There has been concern over a number of years about one or two important incidents, but that is nothing out of the ordinary for great enterprises such as our police.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann rightly said that the integrity of the police and our regard for the criminal justice system is at the very heart of our democratic process and our trust and belief in our community. He accepts that there is no reason, so long as it is not seen as an anti-police measure, why the commission should not appoint an officer who may assist, if necessary, to provide the other thing that we seek here—public confidence.
      The concern of the commission is that the police force is diffident about the way in which it approaches the matter. I am genuinely puzzled, as my hon. Friend is. It is a question that I ask my own Front-Bench colleagues, now that I am allowed to call them that again. They are often too hung-up on the concept of self-regulation. We saw that right through the 1980s. You may think that "self-regulation" is inappropriate in terms of a commission and the police, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I use it in the sense of inquiry by a body into itself.
      In recent months, I have seen how diffident right hon. and hon. Members are about looking into the affairs of one another. I understand that. If I am sitting next to a colleague whom I respect, enjoy being with and have sympathy for, I am perhaps much more diffident about coming to an appropriate conclusion. The House will know that I am a member of Lloyd's. I do not want to talk about criminal organisations and fraud within the context of the new clause. I am sure that the Opposition will dispose of those important matters when they ascend to office, as their plans suggest, under the new guise of new Labour, but there we are.
      Why is there an objection to placing in the hands of the commission a discretion to appoint an investigating officer, if necessary? That is all that it is about. What is the philosophical bar to that? It seems to me that the gains to be achieved are profound. If we were starting from scratch, if we had no history in these matters and we were setting up a commission, would we deny it that power? I
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      rather suspect that we would not. Therefore, to put the burden back on institutions and say that institutions such as Lloyd's and the House of Commons should regulate themselves gives rise to understandable diffidence.
      To allay any scintilla of public anxiety about that, the Government should accept the new clause—I see no reason why they should not. After all, it is reasonably drawn. It does not mandate the commission to appoint an outside investigating officer but states clearly that
      "The Commission may … or … may require".
      It uses the conditional tense and does not place an insistent mandate on the commission. The admirable members of the commission whom the Home Office is to appoint will bear in mind their responsibilities solemnly in this matter because they will want to achieve results that give public confidence to our criminal justice system. In that regard, I support the new clause. Incidentally, I also welcome Government amendments Nos. 34, 35 and 36.
      I simply argue, as the new clause does, for the reaffirmation of our belief in our procedures. This is not an anti-police measure. It strengthens the Bill and the Government should consider the possibility of acceding to the new clause, if not here then in the House of Lords.
      Mr. Jack Straw: We have just heard six speeches in favour of the new clause from hon. Members representing four of the country's political parties, one of which is the governing Conservative party. All six speeches have been in favour of the new clause; not one has been against it. Given the substantial consensus in favour of the Bill as a whole, I hope that the Minister will think carefully about his reaction to the proposal and, even at this stage, will not advise his hon. Friends to vote against the new clause.
      Hon. Members on both sides of the House believe that the successful launch of the criminal cases review commission depends partly on the power proposed in the new clause. I intend to use the next few minutes to try to persuade the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) to cast his vote with us in the event of a Division. He has stressed that how the commission operates is crucial. It is also crucial that we get the commission's operating arrangements right first time; otherwise, the commission's experience will be as unhappy as that of the Police Complaints Authority.
      Like every other hon. Member, I do not for one moment doubt the integrity and assiduity of members of the Police Complaints Authority and those who serve under it. It is a fact of life, however, that the authority and its arrangements have always lagged behind public opinion. They have never quite overcome the suspicion that they are merely part of a self-regulation operation in which, ultimately, the police investigate themselves. They lack public credibility and, as a result, are much less efficient and far more costly than would otherwise be the case because people will not take no for an answer.
      I make that point because I know that the Minister of State is concerned about that aspect of the matter. The arrangements are costly in direct terms. They add to the cost of investigations because all those with experience of the Police Complaints Authority may end up sending cases back. In addition, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) said, there is a huge cost to public funds. Public confidence in Police Complaints Authority arrangements is now so lacking that people bypass them altogether and sue the police in the

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      civil courts. On Second Reading, I gave the figures for the phenomenal increase in the number of civil actions now taken against only a single police authority—the Metropolitan police. Credibility is therefore central to whether the new commission operates effectively and with full public credibility.
      The hon. Member for Leicestershire, North-West (Mr. Ashby) spoke with great eloquence about his experience, 20 years ago, as a member of the criminal Bar in London. I also worked—briefly—at the criminal Bar at the same time. It was a time when public perception about the police was changing. For years before then the police had known that whatever evidence they gave, however much they "verballed up" the defendant or roughed him up in the cells, the chances were that they would be believed in the witness box and the defendant would not. One had to put up with the fact that the people whom one represented, who frequently complained about being verballed up or duffed up, were likely to receive longer sentences if they made such allegations, however justified, when in the witness box.
      5 pm
      Then there was the historic investigation by The Times into corruption in the Metropolitan police. There was the great determination of Sir Robert Mark, then Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, to try to discover what was going on in the Metropolitan police. Bit by bit, it emerged that, far from the Metropolitan police being an unblemished police force, as was the myth, there was endemic corruption in the criminal investigation department of the Metropolitan police, which was a cancer in that police force. Many people in that authority knew about it, including people at the top of the Metropolitan police, but no one did anything about it. If anyone said anything about it, they were accused of being anti-police; how dare people suggest that the police in London and elsewhere might be corrupt? We now know, more or less, the truth about that period. That culture developed inside the Metropolitan police, as it did in some other police forces, not because those people were any more venal than people are today, but because there were insufficient arrangements for supervising the enormous power that those police officers had. No one was there to check on them.
      Gradually, the system of the Police Complaints Authority grew up. As I have said, however, it lagged behind public opinion and the needs of justice. As a consequence of the very few—let us be sure about that—but none the less appalling cases of malpractice by the police, a head of steam built up for a wholly independent organisation to investigate miscarriages of justice.
      The old justification for police corruption—for verballing up the type of petty criminal whom I used to represent in the magistrates courts and the Crown courts—was the idea of "noble cause" corruption, on which the current Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, Sir Paul Condon, recently reflected. The police would say, "Your client is guilty of something. He is a well-known crook. He may not be guilty of the specific crime with which he is charged, but he is guilty of a series of crimes." That was the justification.
      On the whole, the police did not pick up innocent people in the street; they picked up people whom they knew, whom they had crossed in some way or other. It was their way of maintaining a semblance of law and
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      order. Occasionally, however, the power to fix the evidence went to their heads and, as a result of enormous pressure from outside, wholly innocent people ended up being convicted of serious crimes—principally as a result of the lack of supervision of police investigations at the police stations.
      I suspect that the Minister of State is about to parrot a brief explaining why a case which has been strongly made on both sides of the House should not be conceded. For a great many years, even after some of those miscarriages of justice were brought to light, the response of successive Home Office Ministers to proposals for an independent commission was that it was not needed. We were told that the existing arrangements were entirely satisfactory. That was the response to proposals in the 1960s for such a commission and again to the carefully worked out proposals of Liberty and the all-party Home Affairs Select Committee in the 1980s.
      Finally, that intellectual, political and, I guess, emotional log jam has been broken and the Royal Commission on criminal justice has recommended the establishment of a criminal cases review commission. Nevertheless, despite all the evidence of police corruption and miscarriages of justice and the palpable evidence of the way in which those serious blemishes have greatly damaged the reputation of the police in the eyes of the law-abiding public, Ministers continue to resist the proposition that the commission's investigations should be conducted wholly independently of the police in circumstances where the commission deems it appropriate.
      I find that especially odd in the light of the opinions expressed by the police themselves when they responded to the consultative document in May 1994. All the police officers whom I meet these days, from the senior ranks to the most junior, are even more worried than Members of the House about the reputation of the police. They resent and detest their inheritance. Senior and junior officers in the Metropolitan police clearly hate the fact that 20 or 30 years ago many senior officers connived at corruption and, as the hon. Member for Leicestershire, North-West (Mr. Ashby) said, systematically led innocent officers down the path of corruption. Many senior officers with whom I speak say that of course they recognise the overwhelming need to ensure that justice is seen to be done in terms of the criminal cases review commission and I should be astonished if that opinion had not also been expressed to the Minister of State.
      Inevitably, the Association of Chief Police Officers is in a difficult position. It is bound to have to co-operate with any Government of the day and it does not want to become involved in any partisan argument. Nevertheless, I will detain hon. Members on both sides of the House and the Minister for a moment to quote what ACPO said in its detailed letter of 9 May 1994 to Mr. Potts of C3 division in response to the discussion paper. Commenting on paragraphs 54 to 65, on the subject of investigations, the writer—I cannot read the signature, so I cannot say who it was, but I am happy to pass a copy of the letter to the Minister—said:
      "I have already laid out, in my letter of 4th March 1994, my considerable concerns about the resources involved in this aspect of the proposed arrangements. I have also expressed my concern about

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      the way in which the options for investigation are laid out in the consultation paper: without costings and with a clear bias in favour of the Police Complaints Authority model.
      In their responses to me, Forces have raised a number of points in relation to this section of the paper. In summary these were:—
      The process of investigation will inevitably call for substantial skills from the Investigation Teams. If the"
      new commission
      "were to follow the PCA model then in selecting and approving the Senior Investigator and team the"
      commission
      "would be bound to be seeking officers with both experience and training. Such Officers are also, inevitably, difficult to replace within force. The effect can be substantial in both small and large forces …
      With the small number of large forces, there is an inevitable tendency for them all to be undertaking one or more enquiry at a time."
      This is a very important argument indeed:
      "This may also mean, as has recently been the case with West Midlands and West Yorkshire, that they are, simultaneously, investigating each other. However well the enquiry is carried out, this is not, I suggest, likely to enhance the credibility of the result."
      The Minister is asking the House to accept that even in the most serious and controversial cases one can end up with a position whereby West Midlands is investigating West Yorkshire and West Yorkshire is investigating West Midlands.
      Mr. Maclean rose—
      Mr. Straw: Does the Minister—I will, of course, answer what he has to say—believe that that will be a satisfactory outcome? ACPO certainly does not.
      Mr. Maclean: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that that is up to the commission? In clause 18(4)(b), the commission has the power to impose
      "a requirement to appoint a person serving in such other police force as the chief officer thinks fit"
      and the powers that we have given there to the commission are such that the commission could control which force investigates which other force. If the commission wished to have that reciprocal investigation, it could do so, but if it would be as unacceptable as the hon. Gentleman suggests the commission would have the power to do otherwise.
      Mr. Straw: The letter makes the point elsewhere that in many cases the commission may not have the option of choosing an alternative force. Under the current arrangements, the West Midlands police force may investigate the West Yorkshire force and vice versa because only the larger forces have the resources available to conduct larger investigations. An option that is not available to the commission under the Minister's scheme, but which would be available under our scheme, is the opportunity to appoint its own investigating officers. That point is central to our argument.
      Mr. Mullin: I once asked the deputy Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary about the Judith Ward case and he replied, "Oh, she was framed"—that was the word that he used—"by the West Yorkshire police." He then added, "The irony is that they then send the West Yorkshire police over here to investigate us when it is alleged that we have done something wrong." Is that not a good illustration of the problem?
      Mr. Straw: It certainly is. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) has also pointed out the very curious and overly elaborate arrangement in clause 18(4)(a), whereby a chief officer may be required to
      "appoint a person serving in such other police force as the chief officer thinks fit".
      People who wish to see a commission that is wholly independent of the police and who want to believe the Minister when he says that investigations will be conducted in a manner that is wholly independent of the force which conducted the original investigation will be troubled when they read clause 18. It does not appear that justice will be done under the elaborately constructed scheme outlined in clause 18.
      I shall continue by quoting from the letter that ACPO sent to the Home Office just under a year ago. Paragraph 3 states:
      "The PCA model has a number of further drawbacks. There is no accountability on the Authority for the resources used in the investigation. The entire cost of the enquiry falls upon the force being investigated. Such costs can be enormous—West Midlands have quoted the figures of £1.5 million for the Birmingham Six Investigation and a still larger sum for the Serious Crime Squad enquiry by West Yorkshire. Is it really right that the force against whom an allegation is made has to support the cost of the investigation? Equally, is it really right that the Authority"—
      now the commission—
      "carrying out the investigation has no accountability for the cost?"
      The Minister has complained—I believe that his charge is unsubstantiated—about the cost of our proposals. It is very interesting that 11 months ago ACPO complained strenuously about the lack of costings for the Home Office's proposed model. The letter continues:
      "A number of forces raised objections to the model of investigation based on seconded officers. This, as is the case with the PCA model, has a substantial impact on the pool of experienced officers in forces. Again, this was a particular concern of a number of smaller forces".
      The letter goes on to make a very important point, given the current climate in the police force. It states:
      "There is a further concern that developments in streamlining management in the Service will make both the PCA model and a seconded model extremely onerous for forces, whether they be large or small. Police Forces have already reduced the number of senior and middle managers significantly in recent years. Further substantial reductions in the numbers of officers at Chief Inspector and Superintendent rank are likely as forces seek to reduce costs and maximise the resource in front line policing. This must mean that the pool of officers available for either PCA style appointment as an investigating officer or secondment to a central body will reduce.
      Overall this section in the paper seems to be based on the assumption that all investigation by the CCRA will be similar and should be handled the same way. Indeed, at paragraph 62, it is suggested that it would be difficult to explain to the applicant 'why their case had been handled in one way rather than another'. I am not convinced that this is a valid argument. After all, in discussing the procedures for summary cases, the paper has already set out a different system for such cases. Is it really valid to suggest that all indictable cases are similar and must be investigated the same way?"
      Of course, that is not the case.
      The writer goes on to suggest that the cases should be graded according to their complexity, the level of independence necessary from the original police investigation, and the type of allegation. He goes on to say:
      "Under such circumstances, it should be possible to develop a model for investigations which relies on a combination of the options:—

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      (i) A Central Unit, independent of Police Forces, which would be capable of carrying out, or, at the very least, managing the more complex and controversial investigations.

      (ii) The use of a seconded team of Police Officers from a different Force to investigate some cases, notably where Police criminal conduct or misconduct is alleged and the PCA are involved.

      (iii) Using the same Force to assist the investigation, particularly where the applicant is satisfied that the Police involvement in the case does not form part of his grounds for review.

      (iv) Using other non-Police investigators where Police skills or powers are not required, particularly where the substance of the case involved legal procedures".

      That seems to me, and to everyone who has read it, to be a very robust intellectual categorisation of the sorts of cases that the commission is likely to deal with and the way in which they should be processed.
      5.15 pm
      I do not wish to wreck his fine political career, but I hope that my hon. Friend—with a small "f"—the Member for Upper Bann will be convinced by the ACPO analysis of the case in support of our new clause 1. The new clause would give legislative force to ACPO's proposal for
      "A Central Unit, independent of Police Forces, which would be capable of carrying out, or, at the very least, managing the more complex and controversial investigations."
      I did not serve on the Standing Committee which examined the Bill, but I have read very carefully what the Minister said in dismissing our proposals for empowering the commission to appoint an independent and central unit of officers. So far as I can see, he did not advance any arguments of principle against it, but merely said that there would be great difficulties establishing the right size for an in-house team—either it would be overburdened with work or it would have no work at all.
      That is true of any police activity up to a point. For large parts of any day in a year many police officers will be doing nothing in particular because they are patrolling in a reactive sense. The police force deals with situations of uncertainty. I found the Minister's argument wholly unconvincing because he knows—and the commission will find it out very quickly—that a huge volume of cases will come before the commission. As soon as the commission is established, those who do not believe that they have been dealt with properly under the current procedures will also make applications. Grading those cases will prove a substantial administrative challenge. From that large number of cases—most of which, numerically, will be unmeritorious—there will be a core that will require investigation. I have no doubt that, with sensible management, that would provide sufficient work for the kind of core of officers, independent of police forces, that we and the Association of Chief Police Officers have in mind.
      I turn to the issue of where those people would come from and how they would be trained. As many senior police officers accept privately, and as is hinted at in the letter from ACPO, they will come from the vast pool of retired police officers. Many senior and middle-ranking police officers are being squeezed out of the force as a result of the Sheehy reforms and other changes introduced by the Government. Those officers have considerable experience; they are not duds and they could form a core of investigating officers.
      In supporting the proposal for a core investigating team, Justice cites a study conducted by Coopers and Lybrand. Coopers and Lybrand pointed out the merits of having a
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      dedicated core of officers. The Minister, if I read him right, seemed to suggest at column 91 in Standing Committee B on 28 March that it was a bad thing to have a private police force. He dismissed it as though it were some casual scheme. I hope that he does not do that this evening, given the opinion that has been expressed from all parts of the House.
      In dismissing the proposal for what he described as a private police force, the Minister referred to the need for in-house training. Coopers and Lybrand compared the development of a core of investigating officers working directly with the commission with that of auditors, who have a similar role and gradually build up experience and expertise from which they can train others. As Coopers and Lybrand pointed out, there is no reason why that could not apply to the team of investigators.
      My last point relates to costs, on which the Minister's case, which is always defective, is least convincing. In Committee, the Minister claimed in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth that there would be substantial cost as a result of our proposals. When my hon. Friend asked him the straightforward question:
      "What is the Minister's estimate of the increase in cost?"
      the reply was:
      "I have had no estimate of the increase in cost. We have not calculated the number of officers that a hypothetical in-house team would need."—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 28 March 1995; c. 91.]
      That confirmed the suspicion of the writer of the letter from ACPO that Ministers and officials of the Home Office decided to accept only one option—the Police Complaints Authority model—and not to consider properly any other option. Properly established, the model that we are proposing, with a core of dedicated investigators independent of the police, and in many cases drawn from the police, is bound to be more efficient and less costly than the PCA arrangements that the Minister is proposing, which will involve both the direct additional costs and the indirect costs to which I have referred.
      It is of crucial importance that we get the arrangements right and that justice for those who have suffered the most serious injustices—miscarriages of justice—is not only done, but seen to be done. That can happen only if powers reside centrally in the commission to establish independent investigations wholly separate from the police. That is the purpose of new clause 1. It is supported by every Member who has spoken in the House so far and by most observers outside the House. I urge the House to accept it.
      Mr. Maclean: We have had an interesting debate with worthwhile contributions from all those who have spoken. One of the most telling remarks was made by the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble), who said that the crucial issue concerned the powers of the commission and how it chose to use them. I agree that the powers of the commission to investigate possible miscarriages of justice would be crucial to the success of its work. Those powers must be sufficient to give people confidence in the commission's effectiveness.
      The Government have given a great deal of thought to the matter in the past few months and since our discussions in Committee. I still believe that the arrangements set out in the Bill, with the amendments that we are proposing tonight, are the most effective means of

      885
      ensuring that the commission will have access to the wealth of knowledge and expertise within police forces. We also believe that they represent the most cost-effective means of investigating possible miscarriages of justice in future. However, the case does not rest on cost grounds alone and the methodology set out in the Bill will ensure that the commission has all the powers that it needs to investigate thoroughly alleged miscarriages of justice.
      As I listened to speeches from all parts of the House relating incidents of past and alleged miscarriages of justice, it occurred to me that hon. Members on both sides may have missed the point that the commission will have tremendous powers. Hon. Members seemed to be under the misapprehension that all that would happen in future is that someone would come along with a terrible miscarriage of justice and we would say to a police force, "Off you go and investigate it. You are solely in charge. There are no time constraints on you and no one is supervising you. You carry out the whole investigation. You are totally in charge and we will have your report at the end and reach a conclusion."
      My colleagues will obviously realise that I exaggerate slightly—nevertheless, I got the distinct feeling that not enough attention was paid by Opposition Members and by my hon. Friends to the severe and strong powers that the commission will have, and that are provided in the Bill, to take charge and control an investigation. The police will not be solely in charge of doing what they like at any pace they like, because the commission will be in charge of that.
      Let us recap briefly the powers that the commission will have. The Bill gives the commission the power to require the appointment of an investigating officer by a police force or another public body to carry out any inquiries that it considers necessary. The powers regarding such inquiries are extensive. The commission will have the power to approve the choice of the investigating officers, to require that another person be selected and appointed if it is not satisfied with the first person chosen, and to insist on the appointment of investigating officers from a force or public body other than the force or other public body which originally investigated the case.
      Mr. Alun Michael: I am not sure that the Minister has understood the limitations on the powers. He quoted clause 18(4)(a) in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) and suggested that it would ensure that forces would not mutually investigate each other, but clause 18(4)(b) does not give the commission the power to break the arrangement whereby the West Midlands force investigates the North Yorkshire force, and North Yorkshire investigates West Midlands. The Minister is wrong. The Bill empowers the commission only to get an outside officer to investigate. It is then up to the chief officer to choose the other force.
      Mr. Maclean: Yes, that is correct in that part of the clause, but I refer the hon. Gentleman to clause 18(6) which states:
      886
      "The Commission may direct that an appointment under this section shall not be made unless they have given notice that they approve of the person whom it is proposed to appoint."
      Under clause 19, the commission has powers to supervise the work of the investigating officer and, indeed, to dispose of the services of that investigating officer. I suggest to hon. Members that the commission's powers are very extensive indeed.
      Mr. Beith: It is difficult to understand why such a tight restriction has been used. In the circumstances that the Minister described, if, having been told that the chief constable had decided to appoint another officer from that chief constable's choice of another force, the commission said, "We are not having him either as we think that it should be a different force altogether," under the Bill the chief constable can say, "No. You can have another officer from the force I choose, but you will not have an officer from a different force."
      Mr. Maclean: Theoretically, that is possible, but the Opposition are working on the assumption that chief constables and the commission will be constantly at loggerheads over the selection of officers. If the commission is unhappy with that appointment, it will still have the power to dispose of that officer as well. We are getting into rather fanciful country here, with the idea that chief constables will constantly try to appoint people who are totally unsuitable in the view of the commission.
      Mr. Trimble: I can understand the Minister's irritation; we are almost getting down to an argument more appropriate for Standing Committee. I ask him to take the point away and consider it, possibly for amendment in another place at another time. The interpretation of the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) is correct. I take the point about clause 18(6), but I do not think it can be used in the way in which the Minister suggested. I do not know why clauses 18 and 19 have been drafted in such a cumbersome manner, but they are not appropriate to achieve the Minister's objective. His objective is right, but the drafting is not as happy as it could be.
      Mr. Maclean: I am always happy to take drafting advice from the hon. Gentleman. I am glad that he agrees with the Government's intention, and am grateful to him for improving the drafting of other parts of the Bill and of some Government amendments, for which he must take some credit.
      5.30 pm
      Mr. Straw: The Minister said that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) was theoretically right. The Minister was therefore making the huge admission that my hon. Friend was legally right when he said that the commission would not have unfettered discretion as to which force to appoint. If the Minister continues to make such poor arguments, he will face difficulties in the other place. Would it not be a good idea for him to accept the suggestion of the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) and reconsider the matter?
      Mr. Maclean: The hon. Gentleman is not being fair. We cannot consider one part of the Bill in isolation. I told the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) that his interpretation of clause 18(4)(b) was

      887
      correct, but the Bill does not stop there. Clauses 18(6) and 19 give further information on the powers available to the commission. Both clauses have checks and balances, but generally they give the commission extensive powers to control and direct investigations that have not been available before.
      Hon. Members talk as if the commission would not exist and police officers would have complete carte blanche in undertaking their investigations—that they could make them tardily and without control. The supervision of the investigation can be as close as the members of the commission in charge of the case think fit. In addition, the commission may take any other steps that it thinks appropriate to investigate its case load.
      The Bill's powers are far reaching and will enable the commission to ensure that investigations are effective, thorough and independent. My hon. Friend the Member for Leicestershire, North-West (Mr. Ashby) made a powerful plea for a district attorney-type figure charged with the overall investigation and oversight of a case. My hon. Friend had to leave to attend a Home Affairs Select Committee, but before he departed, I informed him that we have the district attorney-type concept he seeks. The commission is the DA, with the powers in clause 19 to direct, supervise and take charge. In using its district attorney powers—I do not like that term but as my hon. Friend used it, I shall stick with it—I do not see any sense in the commission appointing another outside person to serve as yet another district attorney.
      The Bill makes it clear that the members of the commission will be in charge of any investigations undertaken by police officers acting on its behalf. If the commission is not satisfied with the way that those investigations are proceeding, it can require further inquiries to be made, and the commission will be able to insist on the replacement of any investigating officer by another, if it thinks that necessary.
      New clauses 1 and 2 would enable the commission to draw on in-house investigators or on those whom it has contracted in, as well as on investigating officers appointed at its request by the appropriate chief constable. They would, in effect, give the commission power to appoint an in-house investigations unit to make inquiries. I listened carefully today, as in Committee, to the arguments, but I am not convinced that creating an in-house investigative capacity would be helpful or necessary. It would add significantly to the commission's costs and would not be an efficient use of resources.
      Aside from the difficulties, which we have discussed before, of establishing the appropriate size of an in-house team, there would be the practical difficulties in determining which cases merited internal investigation and which external. Even more importantly, any investigators who were contracted in, or any commission staff appointed to investigate in the way apparently envisaged, would need to be able to exercise police powers. They would have to be made accountable for the exercise of those powers and be subject to appropriate disciplinary arrangements with regard to their operational duties. Special arrangements would also be needed to give them access to the training opportunities available for all serving police officers, to keep them up to date with police practice. The Government considered those genuine practical difficulties and are not convinced that would be a sensible approach.
      888
      New clause 2 gives the commission the responsibility for ensuring that an investigating officer is properly qualified and independent, and it emphasises the responsibility of the officer in question to the commission. We believe that those provisions are unnecessary. Of course the commission will be looking for an officer who has the skills necessary to undertake the work that the commission requires—it would be extraordinary if it agreed the appointment of an officer not having the necessary skills—and the commission does not need prompting from the statute.
      The Bill enables the commission to approve or disapprove the choice of investigating officer, and if the conduct of the investigation he undertakes is in any way unsatisfactory, the commission can require that he be replaced. The officer is appointed to assist the commission, which makes it clear that the commission is in charge. It is not a case of bobbies doing their own thing without anyone directly supervising them. New clause 2 does not add anything to the commission's powers.
      The Bill provides the commission with all the powers that it needs to do its work thoroughly and effectively. The proposed new clauses would not increase the commission's effectiveness. They would complicate its procedures, introduce practical difficulties and add to its costs.
      The hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) quoted the original submission of the Association of Chief Police Officers to the consultation paper, but things have moved on since then. ACPO now fully supports the model in the Bill, and that was confirmed as recently as last week by the association spokesman in charge. It was slightly disingenuous of the hon. Member to quote a submission of a year ago without giving up-to-date information.
      I am used to giving credit to the hon. Member for Upper Bann. In Committee, he made the telling point that the police should be seen to root out cases of corruption. Much of today's discussion was based on cases of corruption in the 1970s or 1980s, before the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and the close supervision to which the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) referred. All the police officers whom I meet these days are dedicated to rooting out corruption wherever they find it. They are incensed when colleagues misbehave because they get it in the neck from media attacks, which tarnish their good reputation.
      Mr. Mullin: I cited two contemporary cases. In the Brian Parsons case, the chief constable of Devon and Cornwall is resolutely fighting to keep the investigation in-house, and the Carl Bridgewater case is the subject of an eighth police investigation. The Minister cannot claim that those are matters of history.
      Mr. Maclean: Nor can the hon. Gentleman say that they are matters of police corruption. At this point, I am talking about police corruption and the police these days being in the forefront of wishing to root it out because corruption tarnishes their name. The hon. Gentleman refers to two alleged cases of a miscarriage of justice. I saw the press release issued by the chief constable of Devon and Cornwall. I understand perfectly why he would issue a press release on trailers for a programme when the film makers did not, in accordance with their original promise, extend to the chief constable the courtesy of seeing their so-called evidence before screening the programme. The chief constable is right to

      889
      be indignant. His report of 1,800 pages has been submitted to the Home Office and will be meticulously studied. We will not make judgments based on trailers screened last week and a programme to be broadcast tonight.
      Most horrific cases of alleged miscarriage of justice related to activities in the 1970s and 1980s, before PACE and the rigid controls that exist now. When one considers the pressures under which police forces operate today, it is miraculous that out of a total force of 126,000 men and women, there is so little corruption in our police service. We have one of the most incorrupt police forces in the world. One has only to read foreign news stories—even then with a pinch of salt—to know what so-called police forces in some other countries are like. In any one year, the Home Office gets requests from at least 50 countries for British police to come and lend their expertise—often because those countries cannot trust their own police.
      Of course there are cases of police corruption in this country. I think it terribly important that police officers have the duty to root out corruption in their midst and be seen as the ones who are destroying it. That is another telling reason why we want police officers, under the commission's powers of direction, to take charge of these investigations and to root out corruption.
      Finally, I should just like to mention the Government amendments taken with this group. I sense that the mood of the House requires that we move on to a vote, however, so I shall not run through the amendments—except to say that I again give some credit to the hon. Member for Upper Bann for drawing certain matters to our attention. In short, I commend the amendments to the House; but I am not convinced by new clauses 1 and 2, and I recommend that my hon. Friends vote against them if they are pushed to the vote.
      Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—
      The House divided: Ayes 239, Noes 267.

      Division No. 136]

      [5.40 pm

      AYES

      Abbott, Ms Diane

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

      Adams, Mrs Irene

      Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

      Ainger, Nick

      Burden, Richard

      Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

      Callaghan, Jim

      Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)

      Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

      Armstrong, Hilary

      Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

      Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

      Campbell-Savours, D N

      Ashton, Joe

      Canavan, Dennis

      Austin-Walker, John

      Cann, Jamie

      Barnes, Harry

      Chidgey, David

      Barron, Kevin

      Chisholm, Malcolm

      Battle, John

      Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

      Bayley, Hugh

      Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

      Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret

      Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

      Beggs, Roy

      Clelland, David

      Beith, Rt Hon A J

      Clwyd, Mrs Ann

      Bell, Stuart

      Cohen, Harry

      Benn, Rt Hon Tony

      Connarty, Michael

      Benton, Joe

      Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

      Bermingham, Gerald

      Cook, Robin (Livingston)

      Berry, Roger

      Corbett, Robin

      Betts, Clive

      Corbyn, Jeremy

      Blair, Rt Hon Tony

      Cousins, Jim

      Boateng, Paul

      Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)

      Bradley, Keith

      Dalyell, Tam

      Bray, Dr Jeremy

      Darling, Alistair

      890

      Davidson, Ian

      Lynne, Ms Liz

      Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)

      McAllion, John

      Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

      McAvoy, Thomas

      Denham, John

      McCartney, Ian

      Dewar, Donald

      Macdonald, Calum

      Dixon, Don

      McFall, John

      Dobson, Frank

      McGrady, Eddie

      Donohoe, Brian H

      McKelvey, William

      Dowd, Jim

      Mackinlay, Andrew

      Eagle, Ms Angela

      McLeish, Henry

      Eastham, Ken

      McMaster, Gordon

      Enright, Derek

      McNamara, Kevin

      Etherington, Bill

      McWilliam, John

      Evans, John (St Helens N)

      Madden, Max

      Ewing, Mrs Margaret

      Maddock, Diana

      Fatchett, Derek

      Maginnis, Ken

      Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

      Mahon, Alice

      Fisher, Mark

      Mandelson, Peter

      Flynn, Paul

      Marek, Dr John

      Forsythe, Clifford (S Antrim)

      Marshall, David (Shettleston)

      Fraser, John

      Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)

      Fyfe, Maria

      Martin, Michael J (Springburn)

      Galbraith, Sam

      Maxton, John

      Galloway, George

      Meacher, Michael

      Gapes, Mike

      Meale, Alan

      George, Bruce

      Michael, Alun

      Gerrard, Neil

      Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

      Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

      Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

      Godman, Dr Norman A

      Milbum, Alan

      Godsiff, Roger

      Miller, Andrew

      Golding, Mrs Llin

      Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

      Gordon, Mildred

      Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

      Grant Bernie (Tottenham)

      Moonie, Dr Lewis

      Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

      Morgan, Rhodri

      Grocott, Bruce

      Morley, Elliot

      Gunnell, John

      Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wy'nshawe)

      Hall, Mike

      Morris, Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

      Hanson, David

      Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

      Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

      Mowlam, Marjorie

      Henderson, Doug

      Mudie, George

      Heppell, John

      Mullin, Chris

      Hill, Keith (Streatham)

      Murphy, Paul

      Hinchliffe, David

      O'Brien, Mike (N W'kshire)

      Hodge, Margaret

      O'Brien, William (Normanton)

      Hoey, Kate

      O'Hara, Edward

      Hogg, Norman (Cumbernauld)

      O'Neill, Martin

      Home Robertson, John

      Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

      Hood, Jimmy

      Patchett, Terry

      Hoon, Geoffrey

      Pearson, Ian

      Howarth, George (Knowsley North)

      Pendry, Tom

      Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

      Pickthall, Colin

      Hoyle, Doug

      Pope, Greg

      Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

      Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

      Prentice, Bridget (Lew'm E)

      Hutton, John

      Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

      Ingram, Adam

      Prescott, Rt Hon John

      Jackson, Glenda (H'stead)

      Primarolo, Dawn

      Jamieson, David

      Quin, Ms Joyce

      Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side)

      Radice, Giles

      Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

      Raynsford, Nick

      Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O)

      Reid, Dr John

      Jones, Martyn (Clwyd, SW)

      Rendel, David

      Jowell, Tessa

      Robertson, George (Hamilton)

      Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

      Rooker, Jeff

      Kennedy, Charles (Ross,C&S)

      Rooney, Terry

      Kennedy, Jane (Lpool Brdgn)

      Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

      Khabra, Piara S

      Rowlands, Ted

      Kilfoyle, Peter

      Ruddock, Joan

      Kirkwood, Archy

      Sedgemore, Brian

      Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

      Sheerman, Barry

      Lewis, Terry

      Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

      Liddell, Mrs Helen

      Shore, Rt Hon Peter

      Livingstone, Ken

      Short, Clare

      Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

      Simpson, Alan

      Llwyd, Elfyn

      Skinner, Dennis

      Loyden, Eddie

      Smith, Chris (Isl'ton S & F'sbury)

      891

      Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

      Vaz, Keith

      Snape, Peter

      Walker, A Cecil (Belfast N)

      Soley, Clive

      Walker, Rt Hon Sir Harold

      Spearing, Nigel

      Walley, Joan

      Spellar, John

      Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

      Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

      Wareing, Robert N

      Steinberg, Gerry

      Watson, Mike

      Stevenson, George

      Welsh, Andrew

      Stott, Roger

      Wicks, Malcolm

      Strang, Dr. Gavin

      Williams, Rt Hon Alan (SW'n W)

      Straw, Jack

      Williams, Alan W (Carmarthen)

      Sutcliffe, Gerry

      Wilson, Brian

      Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

      Winnick, David

      Worthington, Tony

      Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

      Wright, Dr Tony

      Timms, Stephen

      Young, David (Bolton SE)

      Tipping, Paddy

      Touhig, Don

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Trimble, David

      Mrs. Barbara Roche and

      Turner, Dennis

      Mr. Stephen Byers.

      NOES

      Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

      Couchman, James

      Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)

      Cran, James

      Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

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

      Amess, David

      Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)

      Arbuthnot, James

      Davies, Quentin (Stamford)

      Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

      Davis, David (Boothferry)

      Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)

      Day, Stephen

      Ashby, David

      Deva, Nirj Joseph

      Atkins, Robert

      Devlin, Tim

      Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

      Dicks, Terry

      Baker, Rt Hon Kenneth (Mole V)

      Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

      Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

      Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

      Baldry, Tony

      Dover, Den

      Bates, Michael

      Duncan, Alan

      Batiste, Spencer

      Duncan-Smith, Iain

      Bellingham, Henry

      Dunn, Bob

      Bendall, Vivian

      Dykes, Hugh

      Beresford, Sir Paul

      Eggar, Rt Hon Tim

      Biffen, Rt Hon John

      Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)

      Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

      Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)

      Booth, Hartley

      Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

      Boswell, Tim

      Evans, Roger (Monmouth)

      Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

      Evennett, David

      Bowden, Sir Andrew

      Fabricant, Michael

      Bowis, John

      Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

      Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes

      Fishburn, Dudley

      Brandreth, Gyles

      Forman, Nigel

      Brazier, Julian

      Forth, Eric

      Bright, Sir Graham

      Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

      Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

      Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley)

      Brown, M (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)

      Freeman, Rt Hon Roger

      Browning, Mrs Angela

      French, Douglas

      Budgen, Nicholas

      Gale, Roger

      Burns, Simon

      Gallie, Phil

      Burt, Alistair

      Gardiner, Sir George

      Butcher, John

      Garnier, Edward

      Butler, Peter

      Gill, Christopher

      Butterfill, John

      Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair

      Carlisle, John (Luton North)

      Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

      Carrington, Matthew

      Gorman, Mrs Teresa

      Carttiss, Michael

      Gorst, Sir John

      Cash, William

      Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

      Channon, Rt Hon Paul

      Greenway, John (Ryedale)

      Chapman, Sydney

      Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

      Churchill, Mr

      Grylls, Sir Michael

      Clappison, James

      Hague, William

      Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

      Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archibald

      Coe, Sebastian

      Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

      Colvin, Michael

      Hanley, Rt Hon Jeremy

      Congdon, David

      Hannam, Sir John

      Conway, Derek

      Hargreaves, Andrew

      Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)

      Harris, David

      Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

      Haselhurst, Alan

      Cormack, Sir Patrick

      Hawksley, Warren

      892

      Hayes, Jerry

      Oppenheim, Phillip

      Heald, Oliver

      Ottaway, Richard

      Heath, Rt Hon Sir Edward

      Page, Richard

      Heathcoat-Amory, David

      Paice, James

      Hendry, Charles

      Patnick, Sir Irvine

      Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

      Patten, Rt Hon John

      Hicks, Robert

      Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

      Higgins, Rt Hon Sir Terence

      Pawsey, James

      Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas (G'tham)

      Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

      Horam, John

      Pickles, Eric

      Hordern, Rt Hon Sir Peter

      Porter, David (Waveney)

      Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

      Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

      Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow West)

      Powell, William (Corby)

      Hunt, Rt Hon David (Wirral W)

      Redwood, Rt Hon John

      Hunter, Andrew

      Renton, Rt Hon Tim

      Jack, Michael

      Richards, Rod

      Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

      Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

      Jenkin, Bernard

      Robathan, Andrew

      Jessel, Toby

      Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

      Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

      Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)

      Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

      Robinson, Mark (Somerton)

      Jones, Robert B (W Hertfdshr)

      Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

      Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

      Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)

      Key, Robert

      Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

      King, Rt Hon Tom

      Sainsbury, Rt Hon Sir Timothy

      Kirkhope, Timothy

      Scott, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

      Knapman, Roger

      Shaw, David (Dover)

      Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

      Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

      Knight, Greg (Derby N)

      Shephard, Rt Hon Gillian

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

      Shersby, Michael

      Knox, Sir David

      Sims, Roger

      Lait, Mrs Jacqui

      Skeet, Sir Trevor

      Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

      Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

      Lang, Rt Hon Ian

      Soames, Nicholas

      Lawrence, Sir Ivan

      Spicer, Sir James (W Dorset)

      Legg, Barry

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

      Leigh, Edward

      Spink, Dr. Robert

      Lennox-Boyd, Sir Mark

      Spring, Dr. Richard

      Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

      Sproat, Iain

      Lidington, David

      Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)

      Lightbown, David

      Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

      Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

      Steen, Anthony

      Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

      Stephen, Michael

      Lord, Michael

      Stern, Michael

      Luff, Peter

      Stewart, Allan

      Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

      Streeter, Gary

      MacGregor, Rt Hon John

      Sumberg, David

      MacKay, Andrew

      Sweeney, Walter

      Maclean, David

      Sykes, John

      McLoughlin, Patrick

      Tapsell, Sir Peter

      McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

      Taylor, Ian (Esher)

      Madel, Sir David

      Taytor, John M (Solihull)

      Malone, Gerald

      Taylor, Sir Teddy (Southend, E)

      Mans, Keith

      Temple-Morris, Peter

      Marland, Paul

      Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

      Marshall, John (Hendon S)

      Thomton, Sir Malcolm

      Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

      Thurnham, Peter

      Mates, Michael

      Townsend, Cyril D (Bexl'yh'th)

      Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

      Tracey, Richard

      Mellor, Rt Hon David

      Trend, Michael

      Merchant, Piers

      Trotter, Neville

      Mills, Iain

      Twinn, Dr Ian

      Mitchell, Sir David (NW Hants)

      Vaughan, Sir Gerard

      Moate, Sir Roger

      Viggers, Peter

      Monro, Sir Hector

      Walden, George

      Montgomery, Sir Fergus

      Walker, Bill (N Tayside)

      Moss, Malcolm

      Waller, Gary

      Needham, Rt Hon Richard

      Ward, John

      Nelson, Anthony

      Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

      Neubert, Sir Michael

      Waterson, Nigel

      Newton, Rt Hon Tony

      Watts, John

      Nicholls, Patrick

      Wells, Bowen

      Nicholson, David (Taunton)

      Whitney, Ray

      Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

      Whittingdale, John

      Norris, Steve

      Widdecombe, Ann

      Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley

      Wiggin, Sir Jerry

      893

      Wilkinson, John

      Yeo, Tim

      Willetts, David

      Young, Rt Hon Sir George

      Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'fld)

      Tellers for the Noes:

      Wolfson, Mark

      Mr. Andrew Mitchell and

      Wood, Timothy

      Dr. Liam Fox.

      Question accordingly negatived.

    New clause 6

      THE COMMISSION: HER MAJESTY'S PREROGATIVE OF MERCY
      '. In the exercise of any of its functions, the Commission may refer a matter to the Secretary of State for his consideration of whether to recommend the exercise of Her Majesty's prerogative of mercy.'.—[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, it will be convenient to discuss also Government amendment No. 31.
      Mr. Michael: The new clause and the amendment deal with the exercise of the royal prerogative of mercy in respect of cases that might come to the commission for consideration. The problem with the Bill as drafted is that the reference in clause 15 is extremely limited. Indeed, the notes on clauses provided by the Government make it clear just how limited it is. They state that the clause is intended to
      "enable the Secretary of State to take account of the Commission's consideration of a matter where the Secretary of State has been petitioned to recommend exercise of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy in relation to a conviction … In this way the role of the Commission in considering alleged wrongful conviction cases should not be undermined by petitions to the Secretary of State."
      Therefore, the intention clearly is to ensure that there is no alternative to the commission for dealing with such matters.
      There may be circumstances in which the exercise of the royal prerogative of mercy is the straightforward and simple way of dealing fairly with a specific case. That is acknowledged by the Bill itself, which enables the Home Secretary to ask the commission to consider whether it would be appropriate to exercise the royal prerogative. That is helpful. The amendment to require the commission to state its reasons for any such recommendation is also sensible. But what is the situation when the commission is considering a straightforward claim of miscarriage? It is not so clear.
      6 pm
      As the Bill stands, the commission can consider reference to the Court of Appeal but not decide on the alternative course of recommending the exercise of the royal prerogative. Surely that anomaly could be circumvented by common sense—for example, the commission telling the applicant, "Why don't you appeal to the Home Secretary, and then he can ask us to look at it and make a recommendation to him?" Or it could be left to cause bureaucratic delay and frustration, albeit in a small number of cases.
      Surely it is better to accept new clause 6, which puts clearly on the face of the Bill the power for the commission, in appropriate cases, to say, "We have had a look at this case. It does not seem to be one in which
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      reference to the Court of Appeal is appropriate, but the royal prerogative of mercy does seem appropriate. Let us simply make that recommendation to the Home Secretary." That will provide a sensible safety valve. How often it is used would depend on the assessment that is made by the commission of the cases it considers—cases can reach it through a wide range of means—but it would mean that common sense and simplicity is introduced in this part of the Bill.
      Ministers have at various times pointed out that the Law Commission is preparing a report on hearsay evidence, which is likely to contain recommendations for reform. Pending that, it proposes that cases that rest on hearsay should be dealt with by the use of the royal prerogative of mercy as an alternative to the Court of Appeal. The exercise of the prerogative as an alternative is something that Ministers accept. It is a fairly simple suggestion.
      The new clause would therefore give the commission the power, when appropriate, to refer cases that it has investigated to the Secretary of State rather than to the Court of Appeal. That would include cases that rest heavily on evidence that is inadmissible in court, as well as findings of exceptional compassionate circumstances that might justify the use of the prerogative on those grounds alone.
      As the Bill stands, the commission would be entirely within the requirements of the Act—as it will be by the time it is enacted—to say, "It is not a matter for us." It seems silly, when the commission will have looked at the circumstances in a variety of cases, not to say simply and explicitly on the face of the Bill that the commission will have the power to make reference to the Secretary of State, with a recommendation where appropriate. If the Secretary of State considers that the case raises matters that should properly be dealt with by the court, he will be able to return the case to the commission, with his views.
      The new clause simplifies matters and would avoid the creation of an anomaly. For those reasons, I commend it to the House.
      The Party Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Nicholas Baker): I certainly understand the concern that has prompted the new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael). We were all set to offer to consider the matter further when it appeared on the list in Committee. In the event, it was not selected, and no opportunity arose for the Government to express their views and intentions in that area.
      As hon. Members know, the Government believe that the proper place for wrongful convictions or sentences to be corrected is in the courts; hence the provisions of the Bill that provide for the commission to investigate and, where appropriate, refer to the courts possible miscarriages of justice. But in working out those provisions, we looked closely at whether the royal prerogative of mercy should continue to be available.
      We came to the conclusion, as did the royal commission, that, as there may be cases, albeit exceptionally, of the kind to which the hon. Gentleman referred—for example, where there is compelling new material that is inadmissible—the royal prerogative should continue to be available.

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      The Government have always intended that, where the commission finds such a case, it should be able to refer it to the Secretary of State for him to consider whether to recommend the exercise of the royal prerogative. We initially took the view that it was open to the commission to do that under the Bill as drafted, but, on reflection and further to our discussions in Committee, we believe that we can make that rather clearer on the face of the Bill. We believe that the wording of amendment No. 31 is clearer, and preferable to new clause 6. I hope that, in the light of what I have said, the hon. Gentleman will not press his new clause, but will accept amendment No. 31 in due course.
      Mr. Michael: With the leave of the House, I should like to probe a little further the difference between the result of the new clause and that of amendment No. 31.
      New clause 6 makes it absolutely explicit that, in consideration of any matter before it, the commission could conclude that it wished to make a recommendation to the Home Secretary.
      Amendment No. 31, to which the Minister referred, is not quite so clear, because it inserts, at the end of line 38, the words
      '(2) Where in any case the Commission are of the opinion that the Secretary of State should consider whether to recommend the exercise of Her Majesty's prerogative of mercy in relation to the case they shall give him the reasons for their opinion.'.
      I am open to correction by the Minister, but it seems to me that the amendment therefore refers to the type of case that is dealt with in clause 15. In other words, it gives the commission the discretion to recommend the exercise of the royal prerogative in cases where the Home Secretary has made reference to the commission. New clause 6 goes slightly wider than that, and I believe that it fits what the Minister has suggested. If I understood him correctly, there is no difference between us on the outcome that would be achieved as a result of this short debate.
      Am I correct in saying that amendment No. 31 would extend the powers of the commission only in relation to cases that have been referred to the commission by the Home Secretary, not the generality of the commission's work? I see an urgent necessity to speak slowly for a moment or two, but that seems to be the way in which the amendment is phrased. It is in effect an addendum to clause 15 as it currently stands, and therefore can apply only to cases that have been referred to the commission by the Home Secretary, which are dealt with by clause 15. I should be grateful if the Minister would clarify that position now that he is in a position to do so.
      Mr. Baker: I can relieve the hon. Gentleman of his agony. Amendment No. 31 does say, "Where in any case", and subsection (2), as it will be, will be quite separate from subsection (1). I appreciate why he asked the question, but I can confirm that his worries are groundless.
      Mr. Michael: I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. If that is so, and the amendment means that the extended power of the commission applies not only to cases referred to the commission by the Home Secretary but to any case that the commission considers, I am happy indeed to withdraw the new clause and to support
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      amendment No. 31. I am grateful to the Minister for responding constructively in this short debate. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
      Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

    New clause 7

      PROVISION FOR A COMMISSION IN SCOTLAND
      '.(1) The Secretary of State shall bring forward within one year of the passing of this Act an order making provisions in respect of Scotland similar to those in Part II of this Act.
      (2) No order under subsection (1) above shall be made unless a draft of the statutory instrument containing the order has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.'.—[Mr. McFall.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Mr. John McFall: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss also amendment No. 42, in clause 31, page 20, line 17, leave out '24' and insert '15'.
      Mr. McFall: This is a small but important new clause for the criminal justice system in Scotland. We find ourselves in an anomalous position with regard to England and Wales. The Bill makes provision in England and Wales for a commission to examine miscarriages of justice, but there is no such provision for Scotland.
      In Scotland, there is a real and growing disquiet about the Scottish Appeal Court's ability or willingness to consider possible miscarriages of justice. Lawyers are becoming more and more aware of how difficult it is to get any case re-examined in Scotland.
      There is a growing feeling that changes are needed if justice is to be done. A few months ago, the Scottish Office produced a consultation paper on the subject. It was clearly written by civil servants who understand the problem but, alas, there has been no action on it.
      If one talks to the legal fraternity in Scotland, judges and lawyers, one finds that all agree that it is a myth that the miscarriages of justice recently discovered in the past few years in England and Wales are unlikely to happen in Scotland because of the superior legal system there. The truth is that, in Scotland, we are less likely to face up to the possibility that they may exist.
      At the moment, in Scottish gaols, a number of prisoners are loudly and persistently proclaiming their innocence. Their cases have been taken up by their respective Members of Parliament. The case of George Beattie has been taken up by his Member of Parliament. There are also the cases of Raymond Gilmour from Paisley, and the ice cream wars prisoners, Thomas Campbell and Joseph Steel. The former is now on a hunger strike. He recently broke his hunger strike, but, while being transferred from hospital back to prison, he stated that he would be going back on hunger strike. Another two prisoners are Peter Hurtt and Alex Hall.
      There is a real danger in that situation. Pressure is building up, and fuelling the argument for some kind of extra-legal body to deal with miscarriages of justice. We do not want that in Scotland. We want parity of esteem. We want the same conditions to apply in Scotland as apply in England and Wales. Therefore, there should be immediate legislation giving the Scottish Appeal Court all the powers it needs to deal with possible miscarriages of

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      justice—increased powers to review evidence, to examine witnesses, to hear evidence of someone else's confession and to reconsider a jury's decision when the interests of justice demand.
      We have had four consultation papers during the past year or so in Scotland telling us what to expect, but, alas, no action has been taken. In Committee on the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill we have debated similar provisions, but again, the Government are not forthcoming.
      At the moment in Scotland, a committee composed of the great and good in the Scottish legal establishment is being set up to consider the miscarriages of justice issue. No doubt its views will be well worth hearing, but it must not be allowed to disguise the reality. Change is needed now. One has to be forgiven for taking the cynical view that that committee has been set up by the Government in order to avoid change.
      The committee is under the distinguished chairmanship of Professor Stuart Sutherland of Edinburgh university. But it will not report until the summer of 1996, and, by the time the Government consider its report and give their view, there will be a general election.
      England and Wales will have a criminal appeal body to which miscarriages of justice can be referred, yet for at least five years, Scotland will not have a similar body. That brings the Scottish criminal justice system into disrepute. It lowers the esteem of the Scottish criminal justice system, and I do not see why that should be allowed to happen.
      I have asked the Secretary of State for Scotland to report publicly in June or July this year on the work of that committee, which has now been sitting for six months, but no cognisance has been taken of that request. By allowing Scotland to be out of step with England and Wales, a disservice is being done to the Scottish criminal justice system.
      The case for a body to examine miscarriages of justice in Scotland has been put not only by the laity, by individuals contacting Members of Parliament, but by those in legal circles. Only about a year ago, a paper was delivered by the second most important judge in Scotland, Lord Ross, the Lord Justice-Clerk. He said in his paper that the creation of an independent tribunal would involve legal and constitutional difficulties, but we needed to tackle the problem quickly. He said:
      "It thus seems that such a new body if brought into being would have an important part to play in remedying miscarriages of justice in the criminal justice system. Indeed unless such a new body is created, there will be some cases where one cannot be confident that means exist within the criminal justice system as presently constituted for remedying miscarriages of justice which may have occurred."
      That, coming from the second most important judge in Scotland, is a damning indictment of the Scottish criminal justice system. By their neglect, the Government are delaying the matter until beyond the next election.
      6.15 pm
      I mentioned the second most important judge in Scotland, but the most important judge, the Lord President, Lord Hope, several weeks ago liberally interpreted the law to allow evidence to be led in an appeal case. Five months later, his fellow judges in
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      Scotland, the noble Lords McCluskey, Morison, Morton and Cowie, considered his judgment, and said that it was incorrect. They said that the interpretation of the law as Parliament laid down meant strict interpretation. The Lord President was overruled by five subordinate judges.
      That tells us that, at the very top in Scottish legal circles, there is a tension and a frustration because cases concerning miscarriages of justice which are pertinent to the Scottish legal system cannot be listened to. The judges do not have the flexibility, because Parliament has put them in a straitjacket in the interpretation of the law.
      That situation is obviously inadequate, and it is fraught with great difficulties and dangers when there is such disparity of view between the judges. Lord Ross, commenting on Lord Hope's original decision, said that it was not competent for a judge to modify the language of an Act of Parliament
      "in order to bring it into accordance with his own views of what is right or reasonable."
      Lord Ross continued:
      "In my opinion, parliament has enacted clear provisions as to the requirements that must be satisfied if a miscarriage of justice is based upon the existence and significance of additional evidence which was not heard at the trial, and the court is bound to give effect to what parliament has said."
      The Government are allowing no latitude on the part of those judges—judges who recognise that there is a situation to be remedied but about which they can do nothing. That situation can be remedied instantly by the adoption of the new clause. That would ensure that there was a level playing field between Scotland and England and Wales.
      Tonight, I must nail the myth that the Scottish criminal justice system is superior to that in England and Wales—it is not. Common problems affect the justice systems on both sides of the border. They need urgent attention. I bring the position to the attention of Parliament so that they will receive that urgent attention in Scotland, and so that people who have a genuine grievance can have their cases heard in the Appeal Court in Scotland, as will happen in England and Wales.
      We owe that not just to those people, but to the public, and to the Scottish criminal justice system. I do not want that system brought into disrepute. That is why the new clause has been tabled, and why I hope that the Government will give it the most serious attention.
      Mr. Beith: I was surprised by some of closing remarks of the hon. Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall). I thought that he had tabled the new clause in this form to ventilate the issue, and that he had got it very loosely within order so that it could be discussed in the context of the Bill. I did not think that he would seek to enact a clause in this form. Were he to do so, he would be doing what is repugnant to most of us: creating primary Scottish legislation by statutory instrument tacked on to Bills on England and Wales and, in this case, Northern Ireland. That is no way to legislate for Scotland, and no way to legislate on such an important matter.
      Mr. McFall: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. I agree with his comments on primary

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      legislation, but we have had an add-on, piecemeal approach to Scottish criminal justice, and frustration with that has made me come to the Dispatch Box tonight.
      Mr. Beith: Exactly so. That is what I took the hon. Gentleman's original intention to be, but we must not imitate deplorable Government practices in relation to Scottish law. I shall take him at what I thought to be his original intention: to ventilate the issue, and perhaps to add a little urgency to the consideration that has begun on whether a parallel body should exist in Scotland, and, if so, what form it should take.
      I understand that the degree of consensus that we have achieved in England about the form that such a body might take by no means exists in Scotland, although there is increasing recognition that a problem needs to be resolved.
      Dr. Norman A. Godman: As someone who takes a close interest in law reform, may I tell the right hon. Gentleman that we have no choice in these matters? The Government frequently introduce Scottish legislation that is tacked or welded on to English legislation. I would much prefer that a measure of this sort were debated within the confines of a Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Bill, but Opposition Members have no choice in the matter.
      Mr. Beith: I should like to debate such a measure in a Scottish Parliament, but that is another story. It would not be satisfactory to carry the new clause, and thereby to ensure that the body in Scotland is created by a statutory instrument that is incapable of amendment although the matter is very complex.
      We have had detailed discussions tonight about what the provisions for England, Wales and Northern Ireland should be, and we found that continuing dissatisfaction exists with the wording of the Bill, even as it stands. We spent some time on the group of amendments before last discussing the interpretation of the arrangements by which an investigating police force is found.
      It became clear that the Bill did not do what the Minister appeared to think it was doing. Setting up such a body in Scotland, which has a different background of criminal law, a different judiciary, and different assumptions about the nature of the body required, does not bear thinking about. The issue must be tackled by separate, primary Scottish legislation.
      It was reasonable, however, that the hon. Member for Dumbarton brought the matter before the House, simply to give the consultation that has been embarked on in Scotland a greater sense of urgency than appears to exist, distinguished though the individuals who are engaged in that consultation are. To the extent that he is trying to give it a push, I support him in his endeavours.
      Dr. Godman: I have some sympathy with the observations of the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), but how long do we have to wait for that separate Scottish legislation—several years? Will we have to wait while a commission is set up to protect individuals' interests in England, Wales and Northern Ireland? Why should we be treated separately? A real problem exists in relation to the House of Commons. I, too, would like a Scottish Parliament dealing
      900
      with such matters, but, until that day dawns, we must often deal with these issues by way of English, or predominantly English, legislation.
      The Minister knows that. The last time he and I exchanged differing views about law reform was during the debate on the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, some 40 per cent. of which referred to Scotland, partially or exclusively. In these Houses of Parliament, we are engaged in a less than desirable game of leapfrog. That is shown by the measures on child law reform. In some aspects, statutory care provision for children in Scotland was well ahead, by way of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968. Now, however, we are still debating the Children (Scotland) Bill, whereas south of border, such legislation has been on the books for some five years and more.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall) was right to base his argument on parity of esteem. I am anxious that Scotland maintains its independent legal system and its unique Scots law. However, if reform takes place in Northern Ireland, England and Wales, similar reform should be introduced at the same time for Scotland.
      I have a great deal of trust in and respect for our sheriffs and judges, for the legal concept of corroboration, and for our jury system, but mistakes are made, and such a body would enable redress of a grievance to be made quite quickly. I shall not argue therefore that we should wait for separate Scottish legislation by way of, say, a Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Bill. Such Bills come to the House every three or four years. Why should we wait? Let us have this commission.
      Mr. Mullin: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a measure of the complacency that has prevailed lately in the Scottish Office that no Minister from the Scottish Office is even present on the Government Benches?
      Dr. Godman: Again, that surprises me not. I remind my hon. Friend that I was fortunate, or unfortunate, enough to sit on the Standing Committee that considered the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act. We had to rely on, admittedly, a Scots-born Minister who has a degree from one of our universities, but who has not practised law in Scotland.
      Mr. Mullin: He cannot be all bad.
      Dr. Godman: I think he is all bad, but he is a fair-minded adversary. My hon. Friend raises an important point.
      As my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton suggested, Professor Sutherland's report will not be published until the summer of 1996. Whatever the Minister may say, I should have thought that we would be close to an election in the summer of 1996, if we had not had one in the spring of 1996. When welcome reform is taking place elsewhere in this multinational state of ours, it is essential in terms of maintaining public confidence in the legal system that Scotland should also benefit from that reform.
      Mr. Nicholas Baker: I simply point out to the hon. Gentleman and to the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) that, only yesterday, my colleague the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland debated that matter in the Committee considering the Bill that was mentioned

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      by the hon. Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall). I shall have something to say about that. That is why my hon. Friend debated it there, rather than here.
      Dr. Godman: That is an excuse of sorts.
      Mr. McFall: The Minister is correct; the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland debated the matter with me in Committee. However, I am here, while the Under-Secretary of State is not, which shows our desire for the proposal. I put on record the fact that this desire goes across party lines. We were so accommodating to the Minister that I made the offer that Opposition Members would meet Law Officers and Ministers to discuss the issue. Sadly, that offer was rejected, which shows the Government's neglect of the issue and their apparent indifference and apathy.
      6.30 pm
      Dr. Godman: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton), apart from his native courtesy, is another fair-minded adversary. He is also an advocate, and he might have been able to point out some of the reasons why he, not only as a Minister but as an advocate, cannot accept the new clause, or has serious reservations about it.
      A number of cases to which my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall) referred have created considerable unease among many people in Scotland. The respect that the overwhelming majority of people in Scotland have for the legal system would be enhanced by the setting up of an independent body.
      When I was a member of the local review committee at Edinburgh prison, I frequently interviewed prisoners who claimed that they were innocent of the charges of which they had been convicted in the sheriff courts or in the High Courts in Edinburgh and elsewhere. Some of those prisoners were patently attempting to shoot a line to the interviewer from the local committee. I believe that almost all the prisoners I interviewed with a view to helping to determine whether they should be given release under licence had justly been found guilty of, in some instances, the most horrible crimes.
      The Scottish legal system is not superior to the system south of the border; mistakes can be made. Recourse to a commission would provide an acceptable framework for the assessment of judgments that are being challenged on the basis of an individual's innocence.
      Despite the fact that we seek to tack the provision on to English legislation, something to which we have become accustomed, the new clause is important and it should obtain cross-party support. If it is right for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, it has to be right for Scotland.
      Mr. Trimble: We heard at the outset of the debate a powerful speech by the hon. Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall), with which I entirely concur. I understand that he has raised the matter in the form of a new clause simply to debate it.
      I am sure that he would not want operating in Scotland the atrocious system of legislation by order which we have to endure in Northern Ireland. I sympathise with him in his frustration at the prospect of having to wait several
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      years for equivalent legislation in Scotland. We have had to endure such a wait far too often in Northern Ireland. It is a matter of considerable pleasure to me that we have been able to jump Northern Ireland into the text of the Bill, so that the commission will operate there.
      I rise to speak not to the new clause but to amendment No. 42, which, as hon. Members who served on the Standing Committee will recognise, is one that I tabled in Committee. I am glad that Labour Front-Bench Members have tabled the amendment for discussion this evening.
      I underline the importance of amendment No. 42. It would make available to the commission supplementary powers with regard to material pertinent to any of its inquiries which happened to be within the Scottish jurisdiction. That is an important point, although it will not arise often. In Committee, the Minister rightly said that there would be few if any cases in which the situation would arise, but he then said—I thought that this was a curious statement—that, if the situation did arise, there would generally be no difficulty in relying on informal co-operation to acquire such material.
      If we intend to rely on informal co-operation to acquire documents, why does clause 16 give the commission power to obtain documents? The power to obtain documents should be exercisable wherever documents relevant to an inquiry happened to be. Amendment No. 42 would achieve that aim, and I urge it again on the Minister.
      Mr. Gordon McMaster: I associate myself with the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall). The reasons for tabling the new clause are clear and were explained fully by the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), who understands the frustration of Scottish Members when provisions for Scotland are tagged on to legislation that is not Scottish. On this occasion, a provision has been missed out, although there will be benefits not only for England but for the other parts of the United Kingdom. Like other of my hon. Friends who have spoken, I look forward to the day when there is a Scottish Parliament within the United Kingdom where these matters can be properly discussed.
      Over the past few years, including the time before I was elected to the House, I have been involved in the case of Raymond Gilmour, which has attracted considerable media attention because there are at least reasonable doubts about his guilt. Having studied the case, I am convinced that he is innocent. He has now been in gaol for more than a decade for a crime that he probably did not commit. It would be improper to go yet again into all the details of that case; suffice it to say that when the makers of "Trial and Error"—which I am delighted to say is back on our screens tonight and tomorrow night—did detailed research into the case, one of the conclusions, which was very significant, was that although Raymond Gilmour had been found guilty in Scotland, he would not have been found guilty in England. More significantly in terms of the new clause, if his case was being considered as a miscarriage of justice in England, he would have a far better chance of being out of gaol than he has in Scotland.
      Someone cannot be any more guilty because the crime was committed in Scotland or because he or she lives in Scotland rather than across the border. I offer no criticism of the Secretary of State for Scotland in terms of the manner in which he has dealt with the case since the

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      "Trial and Error" programme was shown. One of the anomalies in Scotland is what is considered to be new evidence; this is one of the areas that a Scottish commission would look at. The Secretary of State has accepted a fresh application for the prerogative of mercy when he could have exercised his judgment in another way.
      I do not have a legal background and I have been very much assisted in this case by the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) who is, of course, an eminent Queen's counsel in Scotland and who has studied the case. He has made forceful comments about it in the House.
      I believe that the new clause is reasonable and that it is absolutely unreasonable that we in Scotland shall have to wait several years for equivalent legislation. The emotional notion which we sometimes hear propounded, that Scottish justice is superior, is fast becoming diminished. In some respects, Scottish justice may be better, but we must accept that, in other respects, it is worse. One of the respects in which the Scottish legal system is worse is the way in which it deals with miscarriages of justice. The new clause is the sort of approach that the Government should take and they should not drag their heels for the length of time that it seems they shall.
      Mr. Mullin: I said a moment ago in an intervention that it is a measure of the complacency in the Scottish Office that there is not a Minister from the Scottish Office present to hear the discussion about this Scottish measure. In my experience, it is very unusual, if not unique, for the House to be discussing a measure and for there not to be a Minister from the appropriate Department who can be bothered to show his face.
      I raised this matter in the House as recently as Scottish questions three hours ago and I was extremely dissatisfied with the reply that I received from the Secretary of State. I was pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall) quoted a number of distinguished Scottish lawyers as being in favour of this sort of measure, because, in the past, there has been a certain smugness among Scottish lawyers. I had one or two coming up to me when we had trouble with the English legal system saying that, of course, such trouble could not occur in Scotland. I always suspected that it might, even though I do not have a very detailed knowledge of Scottish law.
      People in the Scottish legal system have had a long time to adjust to the difficulties that have arisen as a result of miscarriages of justice. They have watched the great disasters that have occurred in the English legal system. They have had one or two lesser instances of their own—the Meehan case, for example—so no one can say that such troubles have not already been proven to happen in Scotland. They have seen a British Home Secretary come to the House of Commons and set up a royal commission. They have watched an English royal commission cover that ground for more then two years and they have seen it report back.
      Only now have those in the Scottish legal system got around to setting up some little committee headed by Sir Stuart Sutherland to decide whether there is anything that they should be doing in Scotland. That is really not good enough. The fact that at the moment the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill is going through the House—which would
      904
      provide a perfectly good opportunity, were the Scots so minded, to rectify that omission—makes it all the more inexcusable.
      My interest in this matter arises from the fact that I receive quite a lot of letters from prisoners in Scottish gaols who allege that they are innocent. I have no way of deciding one way or the other, but it is obvious to me that there is a problem in Scotland. I am delighted to hear Scottish Members, who are more qualified than me, say that there is definitely a problem. Following the release of the Birmingham Six, hundreds of people wrote to me from gaols, not only in this country but around the world.
      I compiled a dossier of the 40 or 50 most interesting British cases, which I presented to the relevant Secretaries of State. I presented letters to the Home Secretary personally, sent some to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, because a few cases arose there, and sent to the Scottish Office details of four or five cases that arose in Scotland.
      I received a very courteous response from the Home Secretary. Indeed, over subsequent months I have had detailed responses to most of the cases that I raised. The Minister signs most of them and he knows that officials have gone to a lot of trouble to examine the cases included in my dossier, but I have yet to get anything substantial from the Scottish Office.
      My letter to the Scottish office, raising the four cases of Thomas Campbell, Raymond Gilmour, Peter Hurtt and Joseph Steel, was sent on 15 April 1994. I heard only silence, so on 10 June I wrote again, saying:
      "Please find enclosed a copy of the letter I sent to you on 15 April …
      I have no record of a reply and I would be grateful to hear from you on this matter."
      On 9 July, I received a letter, which was not very detailed, from Lord Fraser of Carmyllie. This year, after hearing nothing further, I wrote again on 29 March, saying:
      "I would be grateful to know what progress has been made".
      I have not received a reply and I think that is pretty appalling. It is about time that the Scottish Office snapped out its complacency.
      6.45 pm
      Dr. Godman: May I point out to my hon. Friend the inconsistency of the conduct of Scottish Office Ministers? On Friday morning, the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton), came to the Dispatch Box to give a couple of us Opposition Members an assurance that he would amend the Children (Scotland) Bill in the light of the Carers (Recognition and Services) Bill promoted by our hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Wicks). Why cannot a similar assurance be given with regard to this new clause and the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill?
      Mr. Mullin: That is a very good question. I think that the short answer is, because there is no Minister here to give that assurance. The Government could not if they wanted to. They are not even aware of the arguments that are taking place.
      In addition to the four cases that I raised in my dossier, I have recently talked to people who represent Stuart Gair, a constituent of the right hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth), a Minister in the Home Office. I am not touting for business; I do not want constituents of other hon.

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      Members coming to me and asking me to help spring them from gaol because they allege that they are there wrongly. I receive hundreds of letters, many of them desperate and some with a covering note saying such things as, "Please find enclosed 300 pages of background reading."
      No one is looking forward more than I am to the commission being set up and to it being seen to work. I am even less qualified to assist Scottish prisoners than most. I believe that the Stuart Gair case has been the subject of a documentary on Scottish television, which certainly raised serious problems, but that there has been no sign of progress on that case either.
      I do not allege that the Scottish system is any worse than the English system. I make no complaint about the fact that any legal system makes mistakes. What I have always complained about is the absence of a mechanism for putting them right. We are trying to do something about that in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. What is good enough for them in one form or another ought to be good enough for Scotland. I hope that some action will be taken shortly.
      Mr. Nicholas Baker: New clause 7 would require the Secretary of State for Scotland to bring forward an order within one year of the passing of the Bill to make provisions for Scotland similar to those in part II of the Bill. That would require either establishing in Scotland a body similar to the commission and with similar powers or the extension of the ambit of the commission to cases tried in the Scottish courts. Such an order would require to be made by statutory instrument and be subject to affirmative resolution.
      Mr. Michael: I should be grateful if, before going any further, the Minister would explain why he is responding to this debate. The new clause has been moved by a shadow Scottish Minister and surely a Scottish Minister should be responding. Neither a Minister from the Home Department nor I should be taking part.
      Mr. Baker: The hon. Gentleman knows that the Home Office is responsible for the Bill and, in Committee, he may recall, Home Office Ministers dealt with it. However he may dislike it, that is the position.
      I suggest that the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) is right. The new clause is not the way in which to legislate for Scotland. If I were a Scottish Member—it is extremely dangerous for any English man to mention a word on a Scottish subject—I think that I would complain very strongly about such a matter being put forward in this way. Having said that, of course I understand the frustration mentioned by the hon. Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall), which has been echoed by the hon. Member for Paisley, South (Mr. McMaster) and others in this debate. They want something done and I quite understand that.
      I cannot agree that consultation is wrong. The Secretary of State for Scotland issued a discussion paper in February 1994, which was similar to those issued by my right hon. and learned Friends the Secretaries of State for the Home Department and for Northern Ireland, seeking views on what the options should be for change. The fact is that the responses to that paper, unlike the papers in the rest of the United Kingdom, revealed no widespread support for change. In the face of such a result, a Government would deserve criticism if they were to forge ahead and try to
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      impose any solution. One clear message emerged—that there should be further consideration of those difficult questions for Scotland.
      As a result, on 10 November my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland announced the appointment and membership of the Sutherland committee to consider the issues in greater detail. The committee is expected to report next year. Hon. Members will know that a similar amendment was debated only yesterday, and I know that my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Scottish Office understand the urgency that some Members feel, although those people must recognise that there are many other views on the matter as well as theirs.
      In the light of what I have said, I hope that the House will understand why I cannot support the new clause. Were I to do so, that would certainly not be in the interests of Scotland.
      I fully appreciate the thinking behind amendment No. 42, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble), and before introducing the Bill we carefully considered the necessity of legislating to give the commission access to material that might be held by Scottish public bodies. However, our discussions and consultations had some effect on our decision, and we saw no need to extend the commission's clause 16 powers.
      We believe that it would be rare indeed for material relevant to the commission's activities to be held solely by a public body in Scotland and not to be available from another source, or for the commission to be denied ready access to such material if it were found.
      Normal practice—I know that the hon. Member for Upper Bann does not like normal practice, but it works, and in that respect it works well—is that where material relating to an offence in England, Wales or Northern Ireland is found, it is passed to the appropriate authority. I hope that, in view of what I have said, hon. Members will not press the new clause further.
      Mr. Mullin: I quite understand that the Minister might not want to accept the new clause tonight, but perhaps he will consider introducing a suitable measure in the House of Lords. Failing that, there may still be time to put something in the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill, if that is the appropriate way to go about it.
      Mr. Baker: The proper thing for me to do is to refer the debate to my friends and colleagues in the Scottish Office, who will understand the urgency that many hon. Members have expressed. That will form part of the consultation that is currently taking place.
      Mr. McFall: We have had a worthwhile debate. As other hon. Members have said, and as the Minister has realised, it was born out of frustration. The Minister's response reveals that there has been a certain smugness in the Scottish legal establishment. When the issue of miscarriages of justice was at its height in England and Wales, people in the Scottish establishment felt that such things would not happen in Scotland.
      Such things might happen in Scotland, and some extremely senior legal people there would tell us that it has already happened. When Lord Ross, the Lord Justice-Clerk, who is a member of the Sutherland committee, said that a body should be set up fairly quickly, we realised the urgency required. But the Government's

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      definition of urgency is puzzling. It seems to mean that they set up a committee that will report in two years' time. That is not urgency, and the Opposition know it.
      We have not had a full debate on the subject tonight simply because, with due respect to the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, who is here, no Scottish Minister has turned up. That is scandalous. It shows the apathy of the Scottish Office that it did not see fit to send one Minister to the Government Front Bench even to listen to the debate. I ask the Home Office Minister to take back to the Scottish Office the message that the Opposition are willing and ready to consult on the issue. We see it not as a party political issue but as one that attacks the body politic of the legal system in Scotland—one that, if left long enough, could be cancerous. We do not want that situation to prevail—
      Dr. Godman: If we are fair-minded, we must admit that the smugness to which my hon. Friends the Members for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall) and for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) referred is less noticeable than it was. Moreover, there are a few radical minds among the members of the Law Society of Scotland who would like the changes to be made.
      Mr. McFall: Yes. I am talking about the smugness in the Scottish Office, although the legal fraternity has also been subject to a certain smugness. But there are many senior people in the law in Scotland to whom that comment does not apply. A few weeks ago, I spoke to several judges who realised the urgency of the situation. An eminent Queen's counsel, Gordon Jackson, has written an article saying that something needs to be done, and many people recognise that fact.
      My main attack is on the smugness of the Government. We have had no real debate tonight because the Scottish Office has not thought fit to come here and discuss the issue. My new clause was tabled to tease out the Government's thinking and to offer the services of the Opposition to find a solution. The Government have not responded, but when people outside read Hansard they will realise the Opposition's good intentions and the Government's apathy. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
      Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

    New clause 10

      THE COMMISSION: GRANTS TO INDIVIDUALS
      '.—(1) The Commission may make a grant to any individual whose case has been referred to the Commission for consideration or who wishes the Commission to consider his case—

      (a) on the grounds that the case raises an issue of general principle which should be tested and considered in the public interest, or

      (b) by reason of any other special consideration—

      (2) The powers under this section shall be exercised only—

      (a) under regulations drawn up by the Commission and approved by the Secretary of State, and

      (b) from within the Commission's agreed budget.

      (3) Grants made under this section shall be applied only to the specific purposes agreed by the Commission which may include obtaining advise or assistance from a solicitor or counsel or such other person as the Commission may specify—
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      (a) to prepare a submission to the Commission,

      (b) to conduct an investigation requested or guided by the Commission,

      (c) to respond to statements, reports and opinions disclosed by the Commission, or

      (d) to make representations to the Commission on whether a person's conviction should be referred to the Court of Appeal.'.—[Mr. Michael.]

      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Mr. Michael: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      The new clause deals with a power that we seek to add for the commission to make grants to individuals in special circumstances, where the commission feels that there is a good reason to give special consideration to making money available. The individuals whom we have in mind are those who allege that they have been the victims of miscarriages of justice.
      On Second Reading of the Bill, we cast doubt on the Government's calculations of the costs of its operation. Indeed, we pointed out then that if we aim to ensure that people have the capacity to be represented at the outcome of the commission's consideration of their cases, when matters come to court and when decisions are taken, the explanatory and financial memorandum was extremely lightweight.
      The paragraph on the financial effects of the Bill provided to assist us on Second Reading lumped together a whole range of activities and demands on the work load of different aspects of the criminal justice system, with only one passing reference to the costs of legal aid, as follows:
      "This increase in the workload of the courts and the widening of the powers of the magistrates courts to reopen cases is likely to give rise to total costs of about £1.7 million (including court and prosecution costs and legal aid)".
      It is open to doubt whether that is a correct estimate, and it is certainly questionable whether adequate support will be available for individuals in all the circumstances that may arise. At present there are often gaps, and it is clear that people who seriously believe that they have been victims of miscarriages of justice cannot obtain legal aid or other forms of support to undertake the work of providing the evidence necessary to get a court to consider their case, or to persuade the Home Secretary that there is a case that the Court of Appeal or his Department should consider further.
      That is a serious problem, which has been illustrated by a variety of organisations, including Liberty and Justice. Many of us in the House have cause to be well aware of the shortcomings of the system, as a result of having dealt with individual cases involving our constituents.
      So there is a gap which is not filled by the Bill. As I read the Bill, the commission does not have the capacity to choose to make a grant in circumstances in which it believes that something needs to be done to correct or avoid the continuation of a miscarriage of justice.
      New clause 10 does not seek to confer a wide discretion. It confers on the commission only the power to act within the budget that is made available to it. The power is equivalent in many ways to the power given to the Commission for Racial Equality when it was established. Therefore, there is a precedent for the provision of such a power.

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      The purpose of new clause 10 is to allow for a power to
      "make a grant to any individual whose case has been referred to the Commission for consideration or who wishes the Commission to consider his case".
      It sets out the limited grounds on which such a grant might be made. The first is
      "that the case raises an issue of general principle which should be tested and considered in the public interest".
      It is surely in the public interest that justice should be done and be seen to be done, and that miscarriages of justice should be dealt with. So there is that public interest requirement.
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      The second ground is:
      "by reason of any other special consideration".
      It is not possible to anticipate the experience that will develop as the commission undertakes its work. The new clause also limits the grant-making power to:
      "under regulations drawn up by the Commission and approved by the Secretary of State".
      So the new clause does not take things outside the control of the Home Secretary and it limits grants to within the commission's agreed budget. Ministers have no reason to fear that a wide gap is being driven through proper controls or financial accountability. The new clause ensures that within the legislation there is a possibility to make grants and that new legislation will not be required if, as we suspect, such a power and such a system comes to be needed in the fullness of time.
      As subsection (3) of new clause 10 says, we are looking at specific purposes such as the preparation of a submission to the commission, which can be difficult and onerous in some circumstances, undertaking an investigation in circumstances in which the commission felt that it was best undertaken by or on behalf of the applicant rather than directly by the commission, responding to statements, reports or opinions disclosed by the commission or making recommendations to the commission on whether a person's conviction should be referred to the Court of Appeal. There are circumstances in which the commission might find it extremely helpful to enable that process to take place.
      The new clause does not impose obligations or onerous duties. It ensures that powers are provided in the Bill that can be triggered should the need be revealed in the fullness of time. I suggest that it is also an opportunity for the Minister to deal with the point that I made at the beginning of this brief speech. The other means of providing assistance to individuals is the existing legal aid system, which is not changed by the provisions of the Bill or, indeed, of new clause 10. There will be occasions on which individuals will seek to go through the existing legal aid system in order to prepare a submission to the commission, conduct investigations which might lead towards a submission, respond to the statements, reports and opinions of the commission or make representations to the commission. It would be helpful if the Minister gave us some reassurance about the way in which legal aid issues will be dealt with in practice.
      The Law Society has expressed concern that lawyers will be required to be involved in certain processes if the commission is to be effective and the whole structure that
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      we seek to create in the Bill is to be as effective as we all want it to be. I hope that the Minister will take the opportunity to clarify that, as well as to respond to a new clause which we have carefully limited in its scope and direction so that Ministers have no fears about allowing the Bill to be amended. The new clause makes the Bill far-sighted and enables it to cover eventualities that might arise in the future. In that light, I hope that the Minister will respond positively to the new clause.
      Mr. Maclean: Now that the hordes of rebellious Scots have been crushed and have retreated from the Chamber, the hon. Gentleman and I can return to the constructive dialogue that we have had throughout the debates in the Committee and in the Chamber tonight. I am grateful to him for explaining the intentions behind his new clause. Although he makes a careful and beguiling case, I regret that I am unable to accept it.
      First, I am not sure what is meant by
      "an issue of general principle which should be tested and considered in the public interest"
      in subsection (1)(a) of the new clause. It could easily be argued that the cases most deserving of funding were those in which there was no issue of general principle beyond the issue of whether there had been a miscarriage of justice in the particular case in question. Nor am I sure what other special considerations may be thought to be relevant. In any case, there seem to be a number of practical difficulties with the scheme proposed.
      If the commission were to pay out money to applicants, it could and probably would add significantly to its costs. According to the hon. Gentleman's new clause, they would be met from within the commission's existing budget, but it would have to be a budget much bigger than we would envisage setting if it did not have to pay out grants. It would also be a burden on the commission's resources in terms of the amount of time that it would take to draw up the regulations, to consider each application to see whether it met the conditions set out in subsection (1), and to ensure that each grant was used for the specific purpose agreed by the commission.
      The Public Accounts Committee would be the first to condemn us if we gave a grant-making power to such a body and that body did not have full and detailed scrutiny mechanisms to make sure that the money was properly and wisely spent and the Government knew what was going on. So I am afraid that we would need a great palaver of machinery, rightly so, to satisfy our requirements and those of the PAC. I do not think that we want the commission to get bogged down in that sort of work.
      In Committee the Opposition moved amendments in which they expressed their view that if the commission troubled itself with the few cases that it would have each year of people appealing against their sentence, it would be an inappropriate use of the commission's time. For the reasons that I advanced in Committee, I believe that it is an appropriate use of the commission's time, but I must admit that the Opposition's arguments tonight are weaker than those which they advanced against us in those circumstances.
      I do not believe that the proposal in the new clause would be an effective use of the commission's time. Nor do I believe that the new clause is necessary as both potential applicants and those whose cases are under consideration by the commission will be able to apply for

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      legal aid to obtain the assistance of solicitors in making representations to the commission under the existing green form scheme. That is the main point.
      The hon. Gentleman asked for my assurances. I am delighted to give them. Legal aid will continue to be made available to people who make applications to the commission through the green form scheme. This scheme will assist convicted persons to make representations to the commission, both at the original application stage and following the disclosure of material gathered in the course of the commission's investigations. I know that whenever I clarify something about the Bill, the hon. Gentleman says that I have made a tremendous admission and moved the Government's position considerably. I do not think that I have, but if the hon. Gentleman wishes to say that he has won a marvellous concession from me tonight, I am happy to accede in the interests of brevity.
      I note that subsection 3(b) of the new clause would enable the commission to make a grant for an investigation which was requested or guided by the commission. That again is unnecessary. The costs of the commission's investigations will be met by the commission or, if it requires the appointment of an investigating officer from a police force, by the force which conducts the resulting investigation. Costs of inquiries made by investigating officers appointed by public bodies other than the police will be met by the public body which originally investigated the offence in question. No additional provision for investigations by applicants is therefore necessary.
      I hope that, in the light of what I have said, particularly my firm assurances on the availability of legal aid to applicants, the hon. Gentleman will feel that it is not necessary to push the new clause and will be willing to withdraw it in as nice as possible a Celtic manner, of which he and I are both exponents.
      Mr. Michael: The Minister is trying a new approach on me—charm. I look forward to seeing whether, within the charm of his response, there are one or two nuggets. He sought to reassure us about the availability of legal aid in respect of the different activities to which I referred: the preparation of submissions to the commission; the conducting of investigations responding to items, statements and other matters that are disclosed by the commission; and making representations on whether a person's conviction should be referred to the Court of Appeal. I am grateful to him for that reassurance.
      I hope that, once the commission starts its work, the reality turns out to be as generous as the Minister's words this evening. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating and we must wait and see. His words will have been noted by all those interested in such matters. Either they will be taken as the touchstone for how those matters are dealt with or they will return to haunt the Minister in the fullness of time.
      The Minister has misread the new clause. If the powers are not needed, they need not be implemented. If he is right to suggest that things will be so perfect in the scheme of affairs that he set out, the provisions would simply be unused. But if, as we suspect, there are anomalies and difficulties, Ministers will say that we must wait for an appropriate opportunity to amend the legislation before they can put those matters right. The new clause provides the opportunity in advance to ensure that the legislation is sufficiently flexible to put matters
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      right as soon as the problems are recognised by Ministers, or Ministers receive recommendations from the commission in the light of its experience.
      I am sorry that the Minister has seen fit to reject this constructive new clause. The proposal may be debated further in another place and the Minister may have had an opportunity to reflect on this short debate by the time one of his colleagues deals with further discussions on the Bill. In order that we may progress to other issues, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
      Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

    New clause 15

      DEFRAYMENT OF POLICE EXPENSES
      '.The Commission shall defray any reasonable costs incurred by any police authority in the carrying out of inquiries or investigations by any of its police officers in pursuance of a direction given by the Commission under the terms of this Act.'.—[Mr. Beith]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Mr. Beith: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      Madam Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss also amendment No. 7, in schedule 1, page 23, line 25, at end insert—
      'The report shall include a breakdown of the costs of investigations during the relevant year, including—

      (a) the Commission's own costs,

      (b) the costs falling to each police authority, and

      (c) the costs falling to any other body during the year covered by the report.'.

      Mr. Beith: The explanatory and financial memorandum appended to the Bill when it was first presented to the House was seriously misleading because it implied that there were no additional costs to public bodies other than those specified, which the commission would incur and which are provided for. Police forces carrying out investigations which the commission directs them to carry out will incur enormous costs. Some investigations may cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, which will make a significant mark on those police authorities' budgets.
      Police authorities are newly created authorities of a quite different form from the previous local authority committees and joint committees which ran the police service outside London. The Home Office has given the new police authorities budgets and they are just beginning to implement that system. Because they are new, they will not have accumulated reserves; nor can they call on the general reserves of a local authority, as might have been possible under the old system when they were local authority committees. Thus they have no recourse to alternative financing if they are hit by the significant costs of an investigation.
      7.15 pm
      The Association of Chief Police Officers raised concerns from the beginning about how the costs were to be met. Most police authorities are under severe pressure and believe that the new budgets cannot achieve the level of service that the Home Office assumes, partly because of difficulties such as the high cost of police pensions, which in many authorities are significantly higher than the figures assumed by the Home Office when it set out the budgets. That is for a series of reasons, such as the pattern

      913
      of retirement relating to the years in which officers were recruited in larger numbers and the consequences of the Sheehy report, and it is one of many factors which lead many police authorities to say that their budgets are under severe pressure.
      The Home Secretary has told police authorities that they are free to appoint extra officers under the new system. But they can do so only if they reallocate funds from other parts of their budgets. The Home Secretary recognises that his budgetary provisions do not assume funds for additional officers, but says that forces which reallocate within their budgets and make prudent resource decisions should be able to provide for additional officers. But what will happen if a force does so having said that it will make no provision for any investigation which the commission may direct it to carry out? I am glad that the Home Secretary is here to tell us what his response will be if a police authority tells him, "The commission that you set up requires us to conduct an inquiry costing £500,000, but you earlier advised us that we should adjust our budgets so that if we need extra officers we can appoint them. We have appointed extra officers and have no money left in our budget to finance an investigation on that scale, so if the commission directs us to do so will it please tell us who will pay for it?" The current assumption in the Bill is that the police authority must nevertheless find the money out of non-existent reserves and without the capacity to bring in an extra levy or a supplementary council tax in the middle of the year to cover it. So how is that money to be found?
      Furthermore, police authorities can be capped individually if their expenditure is above what the Home Office considers appropriate. They may already have been capped. What does a capped police authority do when the commission directs it to carry out a major inquiry, either into something that has happened in its own force in the past or into something that has happened in another force where the chief officer has recognised—he cannot be forced to do so—the merits of the matter being investigated by another force? Investigations will be passed around like parcels at a party as police authorities say that they cannot afford to do any more because they have no more money in their budgets.
      Investigations can be extremely costly. Pay, overtime, travel, allowances, paperwork and computer costs all need to be funded. Through overtime or some other means, officers must carry out the work of other officers diverted to an inquiry, who may have important investigating or management roles within the police force concerned. Unless we make provision for reimbursement to the authority of the cost of an inquiry, the clause will take officers away from dealing with crime and preventing crime, and may do so disproportionately in some forces. A small force with a matter from its own area to investigate may be hit disproportionately. One of the smaller police forces might emerge as particularly good at carrying out inquiries so that officers have to be brought in from another force. However, it may quickly realise that that is not a good idea. Developing a skill, facility and reputation for carrying out inquiries in other police force areas will be disastrous if the effect of doing so is to clobber the police authority budget and take officers away from operational duties in tackling and preventing crime.
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      We remain extremely concerned, therefore, at the lack of proper financial arrangements for police authorities. If arrangements are not made, officers will be taken away from important front-line duties without the authority having the means to make up the gap. We all recognise that police officers must sometimes be diverted into that work as it is an important part of the criminal justice system, as they are now, under arrangements with the Home Office. The new authority may, however, be more onerous in its demands as to what the inquiry should involve. I think that the Minister conceded that because the commission, he claims, has power of supervision, it may well make more exacting requirements in some cases than the Home Office has done hitherto.
      The Government have also recognised, in their funding and assumptions about the commission, that there will be a bulge—perhaps even a rush—of applications in the first year or two, arising from the backlog in recent years. That will similarly affect police authorities. However, no provision has been made for the extra quantity of inquiries that will land on them, at a greater rate than currently occurs because of anything that the Home Office might ask them to investigate. More inquiries will take place and more costs will be incurred by more police authorities.
      That appears to us to be a serious deficiency in the way in which the matter is being approached, and one which will work to the detriment of fighting crime. I therefore ask the Minister to resolve the matter and tell us how authorities are to fund that work.
      Mr. Michael: I agree with many of the arguments made by the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), especially about the inadequate estimate of the impact of costs that will arise as a result of establishing the new organisation.
      As I said earlier, I am worried about the likelihood that the cost of undertaking investigations has been seriously underestimated, and that the Government have sought in effect to cut the impact on the Government's budget by shifting the burden to local police authorities. There is something curious about the idea of rewarding increased competence in an activity by giving additional burdens to those who develop that competence. It should surely be the other way round.
      I wish to deal specifically with amendment No. 7, which stands in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends. It seeks to make the matter of cost transparent. It seeks to ensure that, in each annual report, figures are given of the costs of investigations in the relevant year.
      In the amendment, we suggest three pieces of information; first, the commission's own costs; secondly, the costs falling to each police authority; and thirdly, the costs falling to any other body during the year covered by the report. The last element—the costs falling to other bodies—may be relatively small and insignificant, and providing that information should not be onerous; nevertheless, it should be there. I should have thought that the other two elements ought to be there as a matter of course, so accepting that they should be required on the face of the Bill should give no problem to the Minister.
      First, the commission, if it is being competently managed, should be able to identify and analyse its own costs and the way in which its resources are being used. To require on the face of the Bill that the commission should provide that information merely ensures that the

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      right systems and computer software are put in place when the commission is established, rather than being sought late in the day and resulting in answers to Members of Parliament along the lines of, "This information is not available in the form requested." If it is stated on the face of the Bill that we expect that kind of proper breakdown to be provided, there should be no doubt and no difficulty about providing it.
      The second element—the costs falling to each police authority—is surely also sensible. It is in the public interest that the impact of the commission's work on police authorities should be open and above board—open to scrutiny and available to members of the police authorities—and that the information should be provided in a standard form. In other words, if there is an impact on one police authority, one should be able to compare that with the impact on others because the information is provided in the same way, just as other statistics are provided to the Home Office in the same form from different police forces. That would have the great benefit of making transparent something that is at present opaque.
      Reference has been made to the financial estimates made by the Government at the time of Second Reading and to the fact that they bundled a variety of different issues together. We pursued that matter in Committee, when I asked the Minister a straightforward question:
      "What is the Minister's estimate of the increase in cost? How has he made that calculation?"
      It is only fair to quote the Minister's response. He said:
      "I have no estimate of the increase in cost"—
      in other words, "I do not know; I haven't a clue; I haven't the foggiest." He then said:
      "We have not calculated the number of officers that a hypothetical in-house team would need. However, if the commission employed its own police officers, working from some central headquarters, it is clear that additional costs, at least for allowances, would be incurred."—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 28 March 1995; c. 90–91.]
      He then expanded on the subject of the additional costs of an independent team, but additional to what? We do not know: additional to a figure that the Minister and the Government have not estimated.
      I have pursued that issue since the time when those matters were mentioned on Second Reading and in Committee, and I tabled a question to the Home Secretary, asking:
      "what research projects or investigations have been undertaken by his Department or on behalf of his Department into international comparisons of the costs of investigating miscarriages of justice."
      I received a simple answer: "None." No investigations have been undertaken to try to establish, on comparisons elsewhere, what the costs would be to the public purse. I also asked the Minister:
      "what research projects or investigations have been undertaken by his Department or on behalf of his Department into the costs of investigating alleged miscarriages of justice; and what conclusions were arrived at."
      It seems a fairly simple and straightforward piece of preparation to undertake when approaching a piece of legislation. We have argued many a time and oft that the piece of legislation before us has been long delayed, apparently because the Home Secretary was so exhaustively seeking to ensure that the organisation to investigate miscarriages of justice was set up in a considered way. It could have been set up a couple of years ago, but the Home Secretary wanted to take time to
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      investigate everything. Well, he did not investigate the costs, and that appears to be a curious omission. The answer to that question was:
      "Information about the present and possible future costs of investigating alleged miscarriages of justice is contained in the explanatory and financial memorandum to the Criminal Appeal Bill."
      If that is the best that the Home Office can do, that does not amount to information that is of any use to anyone in understanding the impact of the Bill.
      The Minister then responded to some questions that I asked about the work that was undertaken in conjunction with several police forces to try to investigate the costs of investigations under the present system. Information was requested from a range of police forces, and we understand that some of those forces, when asked for information about the costs of undertaking specific inquiries, including the Metropolitan police in three cases, the West Mercia constabulary in one, the Kent constabulary in two, the Thames Valley police in one and the West Yorkshire police in another, were unable to provide the information requested.
      I should have thought that it was straightforward for such information to be available. If police forces undertake investigations at the request of the Home Office, I should have thought that it was fairly straightforward to ensure that the cost of those investigations was known and reportable. But it was not. That makes the case for amendment No. 7, to ensure that we are not in ignorance about the investigations undertaken on behalf of the new organisation.
      An answer was available about seven of the 16 cases in which the Home Secretary sought information. Those range very widely, from a case investigated by the Lancashire constabulary costing £570.04—obviously the Lancashire constabulary undertakes careful monitoring of every penny—to a case undertaken by the Greater Manchester police at £192,913. It is not surprising that there is a vast range of cost as some investigations are simple and straightforward while others are complex. Nevertheless, the information is minimal and limited.
      In response to other questions, the Minister provided an analysis of some of the inquiries conducted. The length of the inquiries varied considerably from the case involving the Lancashire constabulary of some 31 hours, to which I have referred, to periods of eight months, 84 weeks and 86 weeks. In supplying that information, the Minister pointed out:
      "It is not the responsibility of an investigating officer to make recommendations as to what action my right hon. and learned Friend should take on a case".—[Official Report, 25 April 1995; Vol. 258, c. 435–37.]
      The Home Secretary decided not to refer four of the cases mentioned in the Minister's response—which appears in Hansard of Tuesday 25 April—to the Court of Appeal. The other cases are still being considered.
      7.30 pm
      The commission's recommendations and the information that it receives will vary, as will the work of the police, in the light of the legislation. The importance of establishing this body has been stressed for a long time as it will restore confidence in the capacity of the British legal system to deal with alleged miscarriages of justice. It is therefore very important that the commission should

      917
      be established properly, that the system should be transparent and that information should be available to hon. Members in a common form.
      In that spirit, our amendment No. 7 would ensure that, from the time the Bill is published in its final form, those involved with the commission and those who undertake inquiries on its behalf in police forces or in other public bodies will be aware of the requirement to provide proper financial accounting for the activities that they undertake. If the Minister is not able to accept new clause 15 proposed by right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, I hope that he will at least accept our modest amendment and guarantee transparency as to the cost implications of the legislation for public bodies.
      Mr. Maclean: I have again listened carefully to the arguments advanced by the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) and the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael). I note the concerns that they have expressed and I agree that the costs of the commission and its investigations will need to be monitored carefully. Having said that, I do not believe that the proposed amendments are helpful.
      The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed asked how the cost of police investigations would be met. The short answer is: in exactly the same way as it is met at the moment. At present, the cost of any police investigation requested by the Home Secretary into a possible miscarriage of justice is met from within the existing resources of the police force concerned. The Criminal Appeal Bill does not give the police force a new role to perform; it tackles the task already and it will continue to perform it when the commission is up and running. Therefore, no great new cost will be involved.
      Mr. Beith: Will the Minister give way?
      Mr. Maclean: I think that I know what the right hon. Gentleman wishes to say. It is a crucial point and—if I may anticipate his remarks—I think that he has got it wrong. I acknowledge that we expect the commission, at least initially, to receive representations about many more cases each year than currently occurs. We expect an increased work load for the commission because more people will make applications to it.
      We also believe, however, that those who will approach the commission—perhaps as many as half—will be concerned about cases that have been considered previously and rejected by the Secretary of State. By virtue of clause 17, the commission will have access to all the police reports, forensic science reports, statements obtained and other relevant material which the Secretary of State considered in evaluating the cases. It will not be a matter of starting from scratch and beginning a whole new investigation.
      Mr. Michael: Will the Minister give way?
      Mr. Maclean: I should like to complete my point as it is an important one which I believe has led to some misunderstanding. The potential for unnecessary duplication of inquiries by the police should therefore be minimal.
      If C3's experience is any guide, not all the cases brought to the commission's attention will require any investigation by the police. Currently, such inquiries are
      918
      needed in only 45 per cent. of cases—that is 329 per year—and even then half of them entail relatively minor inquiries, such as tracing and interviewing one or two witnesses, reviewing case papers, clarifying some minor details, and so on. The remainder require more substantial inquiries. We know of nothing to suggest that the proportion of cases requiring investigation will change or that the nature of the inquiries will alter once the commission starts work.
      I say to the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, in the nicest possible way, that he may have the wrong end of the stick. We expect that more people will make applications to the commission initially, but we do not expect a greatly increased burden on the police. We believe that current police resources are adequate to deal with the present inquiries and those with which they will be asked to deal in future.
      The hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth cited some of the figures that I have supplied to him in the past few days. If he looks at those cases—even those which have gone on for 82 weeks and have cost almost £200,000, which is a large inquiry—he will see that they form only a tiny part of most police budgets.
      Mr. Michael: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way because he said something that is crucial to public confidence in the Bill and in the commission that it will establish. He suggested that there will be no additional investigations or extra work. Does he not accept that there is a backlog of cases which have not been dealt with because there is no system for considering them at present? Is not the commission expected to open up cases that have been waiting to be dealt with for an extensive period? Does he not accept that that was the import of the royal commission's recommendations, as well as the reason for establishing a royal commission inquiry? If the commission is to be as limited as he suggests in the scope of its investigations and those undertaken on its behalf, he will be dragging us back to where we were before the Bill was published. Surely the Minister cannot mean what he has just said.
      Mr. Maclean: I do mean it. I totally reject the suggestion that there is a huge backlog of cases which have not been dealt with properly or have been ignored by C3 or by the Secretary of State. That is not the reason why we have set up the independent appeals tribunal. There is no suggestion that C3 has refused to deal with cases or that it has turned away hundreds, or even thousands, of deserving appellants.
      Some people may be unhappy about the decisions that they have received, but their cases were investigated and reviewed thoroughly. I suspect that it is the applicants who did not like the decision not to refer their cases to the Court of Appeal who will apply to the commission when they hear that a new body which is divorced from the Secretary of State has been established. It is inevitable that they will try to have their cases reopened to see whether they can get a better outcome. Every hon. Member is familiar with that occurrence. People often approach newly elected Members of Parliament with a horrific, apparently new problem, claiming that they did not approach the previous Member of Parliament about it. The commission will also face that difficulty. From the smiles that I see around the Chamber, I can tell that that

      919
      happens to us all. However, I do not envisage that the commission will pass on a greatly increased work load to the police service.
      Mr. Michael: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again on this important matter. Obviously, some cases are undeserving, and we have all shared the Minister's experience. However, does the Minister not acknowledge what the royal commission found—that many cases have simply been left to fester because we lack a body such as the one that we are establishing in the Bill? The royal commission recommended the establishment of that body and the legislation will achieve it. That will lead to investigations which are not being undertaken at present. Surely the Minister acknowledges that fact, because it is what the Bill is all about.
      Mr. Maclean: I did not acknowledge that a vast body of cases which had not been adequately dealt with were left festering. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to make such allegations, he must give us the chapter and verse. He must give us the information. The hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) never made that allegation. He presented a dossier to the Home Secretary of 50 cases in which he believed there had been a miscarriage of justice, or he did not like the outcome or the way in which the case was handled, but he did not say that those cases were ignored or that a vast body of cases had been left festering or had not been addressed.
      The hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth is wrong. It is not envisaged that the police service will have a vastly increased work load because there are hundreds or even dozens of cases out there which have not been investigated by C3 and which have been covered up and that the commission will demand a whole new inquiry in cases with which C3 would not have bothered in the past. That is simply not correct.
      Mr. Michael: The Minister winds a comment up to knock it down. I did not use the word "vast"; the Minister used the word "vast". I said that there are a number of cases—a serious number, not an insignificant number—that the royal commission reported which are not dealt with under existing provisions and are left festering through the lack of such a body, which needs to be established. That is the reason for the Bill. That is why the urgency has been growing before and since the royal commission produced its report. That is why the royal commission was established in the first place.
      I am surprised that the Minister seems not to acknowledge the case that was made for the body by the royal commission, the existence of cases that need to be dealt with by that body and investigations that it needs to undertake because they have not been dealt with adequately under the present system. The Bill is about restoring confidence in the criminal justice system in Britain.
      Mr. Maclean: The prime case for the creation of the body is to create transparency and to remove the present system from political control and the Home Office. That is the prime reason for advancing the body, not because there is a small or a large body of cases out there which have not been properly investigated.
      I am conscious that the House wishes to make progress and that we ought to wind up the debate on new clause 15 and move on, but I cannot let the allegation stand that C3 and the Home Office have been negligent or failed to
      920
      deal with a body of cases adequately or properly under the present system. The hon. Gentleman said that those cases had been left festering.
      Mr. Michael: Yes.
      Mr. Maclean: If the hon. Gentleman claims that cases have been left festering, he had better produce the names and details of the cases where the present system has failed.
      Page 182 of the royal commission report states:
      "Our recommendation is based on the proposition, adequately established in our view by Sir John May's inquiry, that the role assigned to the Home Secretary and his Department under the existing legislation is incompatible with the constitutional separation of powers as between courts and the executive."
      That is the reason for the new body. The report continues:
      "The scrupulous observance of constitutional principles has meant a reluctance on the part of the Home Office to inquire deeply enough into cases put to it and, given the constitutional background, we do not think this is likely to change significantly in future."
      Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order. Before this discussion continues, let me say that I have been looking carefully again at new clause 15 and the amendment and I cannot see how it will bear this rather general discussion when it evidently deals with reasonable costs.
      Mr. Michael: I hope that this intervention will come precisely to that, because the Minister has made a number of claims. He quoted selectively from chapter 11 of the royal commission's report.
      In paragraph 6 on page 181 in chapter 11 of the report, the royal commission states:
      "There is in theory no restriction on the numbers or categories of cases which the Home Secretary may refer to the Court of Appeal under section 17 since the section gives him discretion to refer cases 'if he thinks fit'. In practice, however, as Sir John May observed in his second report on the Maguire case, the Home Secretary and the civil servants advising him operate within strict self-imposed limits."
      It makes it clear in that and other parts of the royal commission's report that the present system is far too limited and the reason for moving away from the Home Secretary is not simply that the Home Secretary is a political appointee, but that consideration of appeals is far more restricted than it ought to be in the interests of justice.
      That is why the cost of the increased work which would be undertaken and the increased investigations that will need to be undertaken is so important. That is the reason for the amendment and for the new clause moved by the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith). The Minister's words today deny the conclusions of the royal commission and deny the known facts that there are festering cases, one involving a Mike O'Brien who is not a Member of Parliament.
      7.45 pm
      Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I can see that the hon. Gentleman is trying to remain in order, but he is now falling foul of something else. Interventions should be short and he is making a speech.
      Mr. Maclean: I detect that the mood of the House for the past 10 minutes has been to move on.
      Mr. Michael: It is the mood of the Minister.
      Mr. Maclean: Yes it is, but it is also the mood of the House. This is not fertile ground. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that there are cases out there festering where the Home Office and C3 have been negligent in dealing with them, let him bring those dossiers chapter and verse.
      Mr. Michael: The use of the word throughout is the Minister's, not mine.
      Mr. Maclean: The Hansard record will stand.
      I shall move on because my original point stands. We do not envisage the police service having greatly increased burdens landed on it by the commission. We expect the commission to have increased burdens initially as more people seek to try their cases again or take them to the commission again. Some people who might not know that there is a present appeals system to the Secretary of State may be informed of it and try for the first time.
      I believe that inquiries undertaken by the police on behalf of the Secretary of State are thorough and effective. The involvement of the commission will not necessarily result in deeper or more wide-ranging inquiries being undertaken. The investigation will be as wide as is necessary in the circumstances of each case. Direction and supervision by the commission may even result in some savings and the commission could quickly close down unproductive lines of investigation by means of the powers provided under clause 19.
      Therefore, I can see no compelling reason why the present arrangements for the funding of police inquiries into the miscarriage of justice should change and although I have listened to both hon. Members I am afraid that I cannot accept their amendments.
      Mr. Beith: I am not convinced by the Minister's argument. He recognises that there will be a greater number of applications, many of which might not require further investigation, but that implies that the commission would have very little work to do if it ruled out almost all of them. Some will require fresh investigation and there is bound to be an initial additional work load. In some cases, the commission will surely exercise its powers to direct more extensive inquiries than C3 and the Home Office would have done.
      When one sets that against the background of police authorities which do not have reserves, which can be capped and which are under particular strain at the moment—all new circumstances against which the legislation has to be tested—it is clear that provision should have been made. In no part of his answer did the Minister provide any reassurance to police authorities that they will not finish up taking officers from important duties policing their own areas without any recompense or means of filling the gap. That is so
      922
      unsatisfactory, given the problems in crime and policing in Britain, that I believe that we should press the motion to a Division.
      Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—
      The House divided: Ayes 23, Noes 189.

      Division No. 137]

      [7.48 pm

      AYES

      Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

      Livingstone, Ken

      Barnes, Harry

      Lynne, Ms Liz

      Beith, Rt Hon A J

      Maddock, Diana

      Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

      Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

      Carlile, Alexander (Montgomery)

      Rendel, David

      Connarty, Michael

      Rooney, Terry

      Corbyn, Jeremy

      Skinner, Dennis

      Eastham, Ken

      Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

      Ewing, Mrs Margaret

      Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

      Flynn, Paul

      Welsh, Andrew

      Foster, Don (Bath)

      Godman, Dr Norman A

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Hinchliffe, David

      Mr. Archy Kirkwood and

      Kennedy, Charles (Ross,C&S)

      Mr. David Chidgey.

      NOES

      Aitken, Rt Hon Jonathan

      Dykes, Hugh

      Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

      Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)

      Amess, David

      Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

      Arbuthnot, James

      Evans, Roger (Monmouth)

      Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

      Faber, David

      Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)

      Fabricant, Michael

      Ashby, David

      Fishburn, Dudley

      Atkins, Robert

      Forman, Nigel

      Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

      Forsythe, Clifford (S Antrim)

      Baker, Rt Hon Kenneth (Mole V)

      Forth, Eric

      Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

      Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley)

      Baldry, Tony

      Freeman, Rt Hon Roger

      Bates, Michael

      French, Douglas

      Batiste, Spencer

      Gale, Roger

      Beggs, Roy

      Gallie, Phil

      Biffen, Rt Hon John

      Gardiner, Sir George

      Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

      Garnier, Edward

      Booth, Hartley

      Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

      Boswell, Tim

      Gorst, Sir John

      Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

      Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

      Bowden, Sir Andrew

      Greenway, John (Ryedale)

      Bowis, John

      Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

      Brandreth, Gyles

      Hague, William

      Brazier, Julian

      Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

      Bright, Sir Graham

      Hanley, Rt Hon Jeremy

      Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

      Hargreaves, Andrew

      Browning, Mrs Angela

      Harris, David

      Bruce, Ian (Dorset)

      Haselhurst, Alan

      Burns, Simon

      Hawksley, Warren

      Burt, Alistair

      Hayes, Jerry

      Butler, Peter

      Heald, Oliver

      Carrington, Matthew

      Heathcoat-Amory, David

      Cash, William

      Hendry, Charles

      Channon, Rt Hon Paul

      Hicks, Robert

      Chapman, Sydney

      Horam, John

      Churchill, Mr

      Howard, Rt Hon Michael

      Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

      Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

      Colvin, Michael

      Hughes, Robert G (Harrow W)

      Congdon, David

      Hunt, Rt Hon David (Wirral W)

      Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

      Jack, Michael

      Couchman, James

      Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

      Cran, James

      Jenkin, Bernard

      Davies, Quentin (Stamford)

      Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

      Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

      Jones, Robert B (W Hertfdshr)

      Dover, Den

      Kirkhope, Timothy

      Duncan, Alan

      Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

      Duncan-Smith, Iain

      Knight, Greg (Derby N)

      Dunn, Bob

      Knox, Sir David

      923

      Lait, Mrs Jacqui

      Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)

      Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

      Rumbold, Rt Hon Dame Angela

      Lang, Rt Hon Ian

      Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

      Lawrence, Sir Ivan

      Shaw, David (Dover)

      Legg, Barry

      Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

      Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

      Shephard, Rt Hon Gillian

      Lidington, David

      Shersby, Michael

      Lightbown, David

      Sims, Roger

      Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

      Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

      Lord, Michael

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

      Luff, Peter

      Spink, Dr Robert

      Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

      Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)

      MacKay, Andrew

      Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

      Maclean, David

      Steen, Anthony

      McLoughlin, Patrick

      Stephen, Michael

      Maginnis, Ken

      Stern, Michael

      Malone, Gerald

      Stewart, Allan

      Mans, Keith

      Streeter, Gary

      Marshall, John (Hendon S)

      Sweeney, Walter

      Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

      Sykes, Jonn

      Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

      Taylor, Ian (Esher)

      Merchant, Piers

      Taylor, John M (Solihull)

      Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

      Taylor, Sir Teddy (Southend, E)

      Mitchell, Sir David (NW Hants)

      Temple-Morris, Peter

      Moate, Sir Roger

      Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

      Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

      Thornton, Sir Malcolm

      Monro, Sir Hector

      Thurnham, Peter

      Moss, Malcolm

      Townsend, Cyril D (Bexl'yh'th)

      Trend, Michael

      Needham, Rt Hon Richard

      Trimble, David

      Nelson, Anthony

      Trotter, Neville

      Neubert, Sir Michael

      Walker, A Cecil (Belfast N)

      Nicholls, Patrick

      Walker, Bill (N Tayside)

      Nicholson, David (Taunton)

      Waller, Gary

      Paice, James

      Ward, John

      Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

      Waterson, Nigel

      Pawsey, James

      Wells, Bowen

      Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

      Whitney, Ray

      Pickles, Eric

      Whittingdale, John

      Porter, David (Waveney)

      Widdecombe, Ann

      Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

      Willetts, David

      Powell, William (Corby)

      Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'fld

      Redwood, Rt Hon John

      Wolfson, Mark

      Renton, Rt Hon Tim

      Wood, Timothy

      Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

      Yeo, Tim

      Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)

      Robinson, Mark (Somerton)

      Tellers for the Noes:

      Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

      Mr. Derek Conway and

      Ross, William (E Londonderry)

      Dr. Liam Fox.

      Question accordingly negatived.

    New clause 16

      PRESERVATION OF MATERIAL EVIDENCE
      '.—(1) The Secretary of State shall make regulations for the preservation of material evidence following a criminal conviction on indictment in order to ensure its availability to the Commission in undertaking any relevant inquiries.
      (2) Any power under this section to make regulations shall be exercisable by statutory instrument.
      (3) No statutory instrument to which this section applies shall be made unless a draft of the statutory instrument has been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House.'.—[Mr. Michael.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      8 pm
      Mr. Michael: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      Madam Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss also the following: Government amendments Nos. 32 and 33.
      Amendment No. 8, in clause 16, page 13, line 5, at end insert—
      '(2A) The Commission may, where it is reasonable to do so, issue a direction to the person who is the appropriate person in relation to the public body, that the document or other material shall not be destroyed, damaged or altered for as long as is reasonably necessary.'.
      Amendment No. 9, in page 13, line 8, after 'to', insert
      'or other material of relevance to'.
      Amendment No. 11, in clause 19, page 15, line 9, at end insert—
      '(2A) Where an investigating officer is appointed it shall be his duty to take all reasonable steps for the purpose of obtaining and preserving evidence relating to the case.'.
      Mr. Michael: The aim of the new clause is to ensure that evidence following a criminal conviction on indictment can be preserved so as to be available to the commission when it undertakes any relevant inquiries. It carefully proposes the means to ensure that that power exists and that there is accountability for its exercise, under regulations.
      The Government amendments grouped with the new clause follow undertakings given in Committee on behalf of the Government to consider this need to preserve evidence. Indeed, we had a helpful debate in Committee. The Minister considered the amendments that we tabled and undertook to return to the matter on Report. He agreed that we had made serious points in respect of the preservation of evidence, but was not sure that our amendments were strictly necessary.
      We have sought to deal with the matter in a constructive new clause that would leave the detail to regulations to be laid by the Home Secretary and considered by the House. We thought that that offered the necessary flexibility.
      In Committee, the Minister accepted the necessity of preserving evidence, and the Government amendments demonstrate that too. The question remains whether the Government's amendments go far enough, or whether their phraseology is too limiting. They are of course permissive amendments; I hope that the Minister will clarify exactly how he intends to limit the capability to preserve materials; and that he will tell us why he is confident that the amendments, not the new clause, will deal with all the circumstances for which we have sought to empower the Home Secretary.
      It is most important that there should be no gap through which various materials might fall. There may be a time between a growing apprehension that there may have been a miscarriage of justice and the point when formal action begins. During that period, evidence could be removed or lost through no fault of an individual. Such evidence has often mysteriously disappeared as soon as it has become clear that there is likely to be a full investigation.
      It is most important that any legal requirement and regulations be effective in ensuring that such things cannot go on—or at least that their incidence is limited.
      I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us on these points. I welcome the fact that Ministers have followed through their undertakings in Committee to take seriously the points that we raised there, and the fact that they, like us, have produced suggestions that we can debate on the Floor of the House this evening.
      Mr. Maclean: Like the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael), I recognise the necessity of

      925
      ensuring that investigations made by or on behalf of the commission are not hampered by the destruction or alteration of what may be crucial documents or other material. It is right that the commission should be able to direct that papers, and so forth, should not be destroyed or altered during the course of an investigation by the commission.
      I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends for raising the subject in Committee. That gave us the opportunity to look at the wording of the Bill, to ensure that the powers involved were adequate. We thought that clause 16 granted the commission fairly strong powers to ensure that all documents were retained; but following our debate in Committee I agreed to look again at whether the commission could or should be given powers to direct that documents or other material held by a public body should not be damaged, altered or destroyed while the commission was considering the case to which they related.
      We concluded that it would be wise to table the amendments in this group. They enable the commission to direct the appropriate person of any public body that the documents or other material held by him in relation to any case should not be damaged, destroyed or altered until the direction is withdrawn.
      As to the wider question of whether we need broad regulation-making powers of the sort envisaged in the new clause, I am not persuaded. As I said in Committee, we need a more consistent approach to retention periods than we have now; that goes for all documents in Government and police circles. As many hon. Members already know, work is under way with a view to developing such an approach. Discussions are taking place with the police service, the Forensic Science Service, the CPS and others whose papers and/or other material may be of assistance to the commission and to others in the performance of their respective functions. We hope that those discussions will result in far greater standardisation of retention periods. Legislation may not be needed to achieve that—perhaps a code of practice or a set of guidelines will ultimately suffice. It may turn out that there is a need for legislation, but I doubt it.
      The Government consider it best to look to the work that I have described to achieve what we all want: greater consistency governing the retention periods for documents and other material. We should not try to legislate separately and in detail. New clause 16 is a genuine attempt to draw attention to a problem. I acknowledge that clause 16 could have been better worded, so we tabled the amendments to plug a loophole. I hope that the hon. Gentleman finds that satisfactory. However, I do not want detailed regulations to cover the commissions's work. We want a wider solution—
      Mr. Michael: I acknowledge that the Government amendments deal with the situation once the commission is aware of the possibility that it might need to investigate a case. What I am worried about, however, is that it may become clear that a case will be referred to the commission, but until that case reaches the commission, it will not be in a position to make a relevant order.
      We did not seek to set out detailed requirements; we tried to leave it to the Secretary of State to come up with regulations to plug any gap. Does the Minister not feel
      926
      that there may still be some gaps in the necessary powers attaching to the Home Secretary, and that the new clause would allow him to lay the necessary regulations?
      Mr. Maclean: No. The gap, such as it may be, is in the power of retention generally. The hon. Gentleman says that there might be a case which it becomes clear will go to the commission, but there might be many other cases where no one suspects that there might be an alleged miscarriage of justice and where there is no prospect at an early stage of the case going to the commission.
      Unless we have proper rules to keep relevant papers for three, seven, 10 or 20 years, they will automatically or routinely be destroyed in all innocence—by the police after a given period or by the Crown Prosecution Service or someone else—because it could be many years before a miscarriage of justice is alleged. To deal with such cases, we need general and sensible retention rules throughout the whole criminal justice system so that we are not legislating only for those cases in which we can spot a mile away that there might one day be the allegation of a miscarriage of justice. We therefore intend to hold all relevant papers for a sensible period, and I think that the Government's proposals will make for a wider and more sensible solution across all Departments.
      For those reasons, I do not accept the detailed new clause. I am, however, grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the subject in Committee, as that enabled us to have a further look—that is how Committees should work sensitively and constructively—and to table Government amendments Nos. 32 and 33. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his wise words but I hope that he will not press the new clause to a Division.
      Mr. Michael: I am grateful to the Minister for the way in which he has spoken to the new clause and the Government amendments. I was pleased to hear more about the intention to introduce requirements for the general retention of papers. I acknowledge that that would deal with the generality of cases, including those which may be caught by the provisions of new clause 16 relating to the potential work of the commission. However, it seems that a small gap is left.
      New clause 16 would provide a wider power than is relevant to the commission's work, as the Minister rightly said, but the use of that power could be limited to cases that were relevant to the commission's work. If the Government amendments are accepted but the new clause is not, there will still be a slight gap in the Bill's provisions. However, it seems sensible that the Government's amendments should be passed with our support and that the remaining gap should be a matter for further discussion in another place.
      I hope that the Minister will acknowledge my point that there might be a need for some regulation to allow defence solicitors or the commission to flag up something that has not formally come to their notice but seems likely to do so. In such circumstances, it would be appropriate for the preservation of papers and other evidence to be guaranteed, even in advance of the general powers that the Minister says will be introduced in due course. Perhaps another amendment could fill the gap between us.
      I am sure that the Minister accepts that there are difficulties, and I understand that new clause 16 perhaps ranges wider than would be appropriate in a measure that deals specifically with the responsibilities of the

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      commission. For that reason, I indicate my support and that of my colleagues for the Government amendments, and beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
      Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

    New clause 17

      LEAVE TO APPEAL: ENGLAND & WALES
      'In section 1 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 (appeal against conviction) after subsection 2 (requirement of leave to appeal or certificate of trial judge) there shall be inserted the following subsection—
      "(2A) The Court of Appeal may, if they think it necessary or expedient in the interest of justice, grant leave to appeal against conviction notwithstanding that a previous application to appeal has been determined (either by refusal for leave or after a substantive hearing) in respect of the same conviction".'.—[Mr. Corbyn.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      Madam Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss also new clause 18—Leave to appeal: Northern Ireland—
      'In section 1 of the Criminal Appeal (Northern Ireland) Act 1980 (appeal against conviction) subject to the requirement of leave to appeal or certificate of trial judge) there shall be inserted the following subsection—
      "(1A) The Court of Appeal may, if they think it necessary or expedient in the interest of justice, grant leave to appeal against conviction notwithstanding that a previous application to appeal has been determined (either by a refusal for leave or after a substantive hearing) in respect of the same conviction.".'.
      Mr. Corbyn: I feel a bit like an intruder in a private conversation, as hon. Members have clearly had many debates in Committee to which I was not privy, although I have access to the Committee Hansard.
      New clauses 17 and 18 are designed to give direct access to the Court of Appeal for leave to appeal against conviction. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) tabled new clause 4, which was not selected but which would have allowed direct access to the Court of Appeal to appeal against sentence. New clauses 17 and 18 are extensions of that new clause's provisions.
      It is common sense that a wrongful conviction is a cause of deep concern. Many of us have been involved in campaigns against miscarriages of justice. Clearly, we feel that there should be access directly to the Court of Appeal for people who believe that, despite having lost a previous appeal, their cases should be heard again.
      In his report into the investigation of the Preece case, the ombudsman said:
      "A miscarriage of justice by which a man or woman loses his or her liberty is one of the gravest matters which can occupy the attention of a civilised society. And it seems to me that when an unprecedented pollution of justice at its source is discovered, quite an exceptional effort to identify and remedy its consequences is called for."
      Surely, such views are generally held.
      I hope that the new clauses will extend the idea behind, and the provisions in, the Bill because the opportunity to put right what has caused the growing concern about miscarriages of justice in England, Wales and Northern Ireland does not often occur. I shall deal later with
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      Northern Ireland but I hope that we are well into a peaceful and healing process there. I believe that new clause 18 would assist in that respect.
      8.15 pm
      The proposed reforms to the criminal justice system in England, Wales and Northern Ireland fall a long way short of the changes introduced recently in the Republic of Ireland's Criminal Appeal Act 1993. In particular, a prospective appellant in the Republic who alleges that a new or newly discovered fact shows that there has been a miscarriage of justice now has the statutory right to appeal directly to the Irish Court of Criminal Appeal for an order quashing the conviction.
      The rationale behind that new statutory method is simple. If the possibility of a miscarriage of justice is a matter of serious concern in a civilised society, which it is, every prospective appellant should be given a reasonable opportunity to present his case properly. At the moment, he does not necessarily have that right. There are a number of reasons for that.
      First, there have been serious problems with the sharing of evidence, as was mentioned in earlier debates. Secondly, until the Bill becomes law, the Home Secretary would be the only route to the Court of Appeal after an appeal had been lost.
      In our adversarial system, those in the best position to judge whether prospective appellants have an arguable case to overturn their convictions are their lawyers. That must be borne in mind because lawyers have a duty to defend the best interests of their clients and obviously work to get them released if they have a strong case. The new clause is therefore a means of enabling us to examine the issue further and giving that direct access to the courts.
      I do not think that any useful purpose is served by the introduction of a quasi-judicial intermediary stage in the process. If the necessary evidence or arguments exist, it would serve only to increase costs and delay proper resolution of the case.
      One could cite a large number of large cases involving a miscarriage of justice—I have been involved with some—where the present system of lack of access to the Court of Appeal other than through the Home Secretary or, in future, through the commission, has been found deeply wanting. For example, I recall the case of Sivalingham and Kulasingham, which I took to the Home Office several times. They were wrongly convicted of fire-bombing some property in east London and were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. A death had occurred and the spectre of murder charges haunted them. Eventually, the Home Secretary agreed that the synthesis of argument put forward by myself and others had merit. There was a police investigation, the case was ultimately referred to the Court of Appeal and the people were released. There have been a number of similar cases.
      What I find depressing is the hit-and-miss approach in examining miscarriages of justice. If one has influential friends or people who are prepared to campaign on one's behalf, there is a possibility of getting the case heard, of getting it before the Home Secretary and, ultimately, into the Court of Appeal. I do not want the new system to end up like the old one, in which getting a case before the

      929
      Court of Appeal depended on the strength and ability of one's campaign. Therefore, I believe that there should be a statutory right of access to the Court of Appeal.
      Mr. Oliver Heald: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Does he agree that one of the difficulties with the system that he proposes is that it would open up the possibility of multiple applications being made to the Court of Appeal, time after time, by appellants who were in person without the advice of lawyers, which could result in the Court of Appeal being clogged up with cases that really have no great merit? Is it not better to have a filter of the sort that the Government suggest?
      Mr. Corbyn: Clearly, a number of people would put cases forward repeatedly. I understand that problem and see that particular danger, although I think that it is possibly slightly exaggerated. What I am concerned about is the large number of cases that C3 has dealt with over the years, the delays involved in them, and, as I said earlier, the hit-and-miss approach on how a case gets to the Court of Appeal. Although some cases will not get very far, surely it is better that cases come before the court—they may well be re-examined by the court and dismissed, but new evidence would have to be produced to have the case re-examined, or there would have to be some argument in support of it—than to have a system in which there is a serious danger that there would be a continuation of miscarriages of justice in this country.
      The people who were released fairly recently, following miscarriages of justice, are not the only ones, given the quality of legal representation in the first place, the quality of the evidence that was collected, the lack of sharing of that evidence and all the problems that go with it. That cannot be right. My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) has chronicled in the House on a number of occasions, and did so again earlier today, the case of the Bridgewater Three.
      New clause 18 gives the same powers to the Appeal Court in Northern Ireland, and would allow it to receive applications and to have access to them. That could be seen very much as part of a healing process and part of a peace process. Those who often have a significant mistrust of the judicial system in Northern Ireland, with the Diplock courts, would at least have direct access to a Court of Appeal to have their cases examined in some detail.
      My hon. Friend mentioned the Bridgewater case. I represented evidence to the Minister on 8 June 1993 with the solicitor representing the accused. We were promised a rapid investigation and a rapid answer. It is now 1995. It is coming up to two years since I personally deposited a substantial dossier of 1,100 pages and 100 new items of evidence on his desk. We are on to the eighth police inquiry. That case cannot go on for ever being batted back and forth, with huge amounts of new evidence being produced. Indeed, evidence suggests that there was a lack of disclosure of evidence in the first place. I hope that, in his reply, the Minister will reiterate what he said earlier or at least give me some hope that that case will be referred as soon as possible.
      Those essentially are my main points. There is a fundamental weakness in the Bill in that it does not allow direct access to the Court of Appeal. Anyone who has
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      been involved in the misery and horrors of long-term campaigning on miscarriages of justice will recognise that the new clause would be an important step forward. It cannot be right that there is limited access to justice, that it is limited to those who can afford it or who have friends who are prepared to campaign for it. That is why I tabled my new clauses, which would strengthen, not weaken, the Bill. I believe that they would strengthen the judicial system and give much greater equality of access to the law for everyone, not just the rich and the famous or those who have such friends. It should be available to everybody. I think that this will be a major step toward.
      Mr. Donald Anderson: I wish to give the Labour party's blessing to the new clauses tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) in so far as we understand their purpose, which he outlined, and their effect. If the Government feel that the effects of the new clauses go too far and if they wish to limit them in some way or to protect access to the Court of Appeal, they can, of course, do so by tabling amendments.
      Essentially, we agree with my hon. Friend that the Court of Appeal should not shut the door. There is a case for access other than through the section 17 procedure. The history of the cases that form the background to the royal commission and the public concern on the matter only add weight to that. Therefore, we believe that the principle is worthy of support. The Court of Appeal already has its sifting mechanisms and sanctions, which are available. They include a single judge, at which some two thirds of applications fail. If the applications so fail, legal aid will not be available for the case thereafter. There is also the possibility of losing time.
      We have only one hesitation in principle: what mechanism can one devise to deter repeated applications that are without merit? Having said that, we are inclined to support the principle of my hon. Friend's new clauses. We look forward to the Minister's reply, which we hope will be as forthcoming as that in the previous new clauses.
      Mr. Nicholas Baker: I welcome the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) to the discussions. I certainly respect the reasons that prompted him to table his new clauses. I confess, however, to being slightly puzzled when I first saw them, because they appear to call into question the very purpose for which the commission was created. I think that the hesitation expressed by the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) in that respect was entirely understandable and right.
      The commission will be tasked with investigating possible miscarriages of justice and given power to refer cases, whether in relation to a conviction or sentence—or both—to the courts for them to consider at the resulting appeal. It will, essentially, be a body of last resort, whose role will begin—save in exceptional circumstances, such as when a court uses the powers introduced by clause 5 to order an investigation—when all other avenues of appeal have been exhausted. I emphasise that anyone may approach the commission, whether on his own behalf or on behalf of another. If the commission believes that the case meets the criteria for reference in the Bill, I know of nothing to suggest that the case will not be referred. That is the commission's role. Therefore, I have to ask what need there is to provide for the Court of Appeal to hear second, third—or more—appeals on the same conviction.

      931
      The hon. Member for Islington, North asked me about the Carl Bridgewater case. I can tell him that the police report is expected very shortly. One reason why the inquiry has been extended has been the need to consider further matters raised by the solicitors on several occasions since June 1993. We shall give a very high priority to considering that report.
      I can also assure the hon. Gentleman that low-profile cases—which, I know, are the ones that he has in mind—are not ignored. No case is ignored by the Secretary of State. I know of nothing to suggest that any case will be ignored by the commission. The Secretary of State refers cases on their merits, and so will the commission. If any case meets, in the commission's view, the criteria for a reference set out in the Bill, it will be referred.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, North (Mr. Heald) was right. The new clauses would allow those who were tried originally on indictment, who had already exhausted the usual appeal procedures, to bypass the commission and to appeal again to the Court of Appeal in relation to their conviction and, subject to leave being granted, to have their appeal heard.
      8.30 pm
      Aside from the fact that that is unnecessary in view of the Government's decision to create the new commission, I can see other real difficulties with what the hon. Gentleman proposes. First, the new clauses would remove the concept of finality in criminal proceedings. It is essential that all cases are considered fairly, but it is also important that there is finality. The hon. Gentleman may be aware of the important case of Pinfold, which established the principle that the Court of Appeal may not entertain a second application for leave to appeal in the same case. Providing what would effectively be extended rights of appeal on conviction would breach that principle.
      My second concern about the new clauses is that they relate to the need for investigation of alleged miscarriages of justice, and who would be responsible for that? That is a real difficulty. Thirdly, the proposals would be bound to create confusion. Under them, applicants would be able to make representations to the court and to the commission.
      We have put in the Bill a strong and effective last resort procedure in place of the powers of the Secretary of State to investigate and refer cases to the courts. A last resort procedure will be precisely that. For those reasons, I regret that I cannot support the new clauses and I invite—
      Mr. Corbyn: I thank the Minister for giving way just before completing his reply. I referred to the anomaly that in the Republic of Ireland there is a wider right of access to the Court of Appeal than there is at the moment in Northern Ireland or would be should the Bill become law. Does the Minister recognise that an obvious lesson will be drawn from that by people in Northern Ireland concerned about miscarriages of justice, possible delays by the commission or the commission not supporting or being willing to refer a case? They would have an unfettered right of access south of the border, but not north of the border.
      Mr. Baker: People south of the border in Ireland would not have a commission operating in the same way that this commission will operate, which will be a real advantage for all the reasons that I have given.
      932
      Therefore, I regret again to have to ask my hon. Friends to reject the new clause.
      Question put and negatived.

    Clause 2

      GROUNDS FOR ALLOWING AND DISMISSING APPEALS
      Mr. Trimble: I beg to move amendment No. 14, in page 2, line 38, at end insert—
      'For the purposes of this section "unsafe" means, where in the light of representations made to the court and of all the circumstances, it is not satisfied—

      (i) that the appellant is guilty of the offence; or

      (ii) that a reasonable jury would have convicted the appellant if the trial had, in all respects, been conducted properly.'.

      Madam Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss also amendment No. 15, in line 45, at end insert—
      'For the purposes of this section "unsafe" means, where in the light of representations made to the court and of all the circumstances, it is not satisfied—

      (i) that the appellant is guilty of the offence; or

      (ii) that a reasonable jury would have convicted the appellant if the trial had, in all respects, been conducted properly.'.

      Mr. Trimble: With these amendments, we come to ground on which touched on Second Reading and in Committee, although we did not have the opportunity in Committee to consider this particular measure. However, hon. Members familiar with the debate will recognise the source of the amendments in that they are drawn from the valuable and useful article by Sir John Smith, which was kindly made available to us and relied on not only by me but by members of the Labour Front Bench and the Government at various stages in the debate. It cannot be often that a draft academic article, supplied largely through the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence), is quoted from so copiously in debates.
      It was towards the end of Sir John Smith's article that he put forward the suggested definition of the word "unsafe". It will be of value if that definition is included in the legislation. A significant feature of the legislation is that it replaces as the ground for referring cases to the Court of Appeal the simple concept that the conviction may be unsafe.
      Justice, in its briefing notes for this stage of the Bill, commenting on this subject, says:
      "A great deal will hinge on judicial interpretation of a single word, namely, unsafe."
      It goes on:
      "The traditional practice already varies between the two jurisdictions of Northern Ireland and England and Wales."
      That is indeed the case. There is such a variation in practice.
      Justice argues:
      "There are significant differences of interpretation within each of those jurisdictions between different judges, particularly at the critical leave to appeal stage which is decided by a single judge on the papers, particularly on such matters as lawyers' errors. We therefore continue to argue for the legislation to signal clearly that what is required of judges is doubt as to the safety of a conviction, not certainty as to its unsafety."
      That is to some extent what the amendments hope to do by inserting into the relevant legislation definitions of that single word "unsafe". At present, everything will hinge on its judicial interpretation.

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      There has been, as hon. Members have said, a sea change in the approach of the Court of Appeal, or some members of it in England and Wales. In Committee, the Minister said that it was the intention to consolidate that new broader approach. That is fine if the word "unsafe" is consistently given that broader interpretation. However, there is a danger that that will not happen. It is not safe in the present situation simply to rely on the assurances of some members of the judiciary, no matter how senior they may be, that the word will be given a broad interpretation.
      We cannot be sure that that will be done in all cases and, speaking as a Member from Northern Ireland, I cannot be sure that the same broad interpretation will be given by the courts in Northern Ireland, particularly when the background is that the courts in Northern Ireland have not seemed to have had as thoroughgoing a sea change as the Court of Appeal in England and Wales.
      It is for that reason that it is desirable to spell out in a little more detail the definition of "unsafe". That Sir John Smith did in terms that I am happy to adopt and put forward for the consideration of the House. That will help to send to the courts the clear signal that we are expecting, in the operation of the legislation, to see underwritten and, if necessary extended, the different broader approach which has been adopted in some of the more recent English cases. We hope that it is consolidated and whole-heartedly adopted in Northern Ireland.
      Sir Ivan Lawrence: The Bill's purpose is to provide an effective and speedy system for correcting miscarriages of justice. One limb of the Bill, at clause 2, requires the Court of Appeal to allow an appeal if it thinks that the conviction is unsafe.
      At the prompting of the eminent academic, Professor Sir John Smith QC, whose reputation in the field is accepted by the Court of Appeal and senior judges, I raised a number of issues on Second Reading which, on the face of it, challenge the use of the word "unsafe". I circulated to hon. Members on both sides of the House, as the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) said, the professor's draft article, which also raised other issues of possible confusion.
      The suggested amendment to the Bill proposed by Professor Sir John Smith has formed the amendment now proposed. However, the draft article was written in response to the Runciman royal commission's analysis of the situation, before the publication of the Bill and before our Second Reading debate. As a result of the publication of the Bill and of hearing the Second Reading speeches, Sir John has updated his version of the article and, having seen clause 4, he has added the words "of any fresh evidence" to his suggested definition of "unsafe". It now reads:
      "A conviction is unsafe where, in the light of representations made to the Court, of any fresh evidence, and of all the circumstances, it is not satisfied—

      (i) that the appellant is guilty of the offence;

      (ii) that a reasonable jury would have convicted the appellant if the trial had been properly conducted in all respects."

      That addition, however, is but a detail.
      What is more than a detail is what Sir John says about the substitution of the words "capable of belief" in clause 4 for "likely to be credible", the purpose of which is
      934
      apparently to lower the high test of "likely to be credible" before fresh evidence is admitted under section 23 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 to the lower test of "capable of belief", and thus to allow evidence to be admitted that might be excluded under the existing test. Sir John said in his article, although in much more elegant language, that as "credible" means "believable", according to the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, the distinction intended to be drawn is utter nonsense.
      Furthermore, Sir John says that although one can say, if one is the Court of Appeal, that some fresh evidence is "likely to be credible" before one hears it, one cannot say that it is in fact credible until it has been given and cross-examined, which would have to be after the Court of Appeal is expected to make its decision to admit it. That shows that the great academics will go on arguing about any definition that we arrive at in this place to explain further the word "unsafe".
      I am caught on the horns of a dilemma on the amendment. Although I understand the point of defining "unsafe", and of making it statutory and, therefore, binding on future courts of appeal, it is obvious that definitions will not be agreed so easily. If the word is defined, I foresee long years of argument in the Court of Appeal. The Society of Conservative Lawyers wanted "lurking doubt" made statutory because the Court of Appeal did not always follow the line laid down in the early cases of Cooper and others on that phrase.
      I have no doubt that my hon. Friend the Minister will respond by saying that the Lord Chief Justice is content that "unsafe" would be clear, just and comprehensible, and would enable the Court of Appeal to quash a conviction on both evidential and procedural grounds. I am not sure whether that means that, in certain cases, inadmissible evidence will be allowed to render the verdict unsafe. Apparently, we must await the Law Commission's report on the rules of evidence before that decision is reached.
      Of course, a problem exists about allowing the Court of Appeal to admit evidence that is inadmissible at the trial. There is something faintly absurd about allowing evidence to be admitted in one court and not in another. Equally, there is a problem, if one wants to avoid miscarriages of justice, about allowing a person to remain convicted of crime where evidence exists of his innocence that cannot be admitted because it is hearsay, however powerful that evidence may be.
      The summary of Sir John's amended article says that
      "the problem which will arise if the Criminal Cases Review Commission finds convictions to be unsafe on grounds which are inadmissible in evidence is more serious than has been recognised; and that the only satisfactory way to deal with the matter is to admit at the trial, subject to safeguards, any evidence, the exclusion of which might render a conviction unsafe."
      Mr. Donald Anderson: I assume that the hon. and learned Gentleman is aware that the Law Commission is studying that point in relation to the hearsay rule, and hopes to produce its conclusions, I believe, by the summer.
      Sir Ivan Lawrence: That is why I said that, apparently, we must wait for that report before the Government are minded to take any further steps.
      I am driven reluctantly to conclude that the word "unsafe" undefined is as likely, because of its simplicity, to avoid a miscarriage of justice as any definition that will

      935
      be argued over by academics and judges in the Court of Appeal, indefinitely, at great cost to the criminal justice system.
      The Select Committee on Home Affairs recently heard evidence from Mr. Justice Brooke, who is the distinguished chairman of the Law Commission. He says that, as an argument for codifying the criminal law, an assessment is needed of the cost of uncertain law. The permanent secretary to the Lord Chancellor's Department told the Home Affairs Select Committee not many minutes ago that he would try to assess the costs to the system of convicting people who are subsequently considered by the Court of Appeal, interpreting the meaning of words, to have been innocent in law and acquitting them—costs that will obviously turn out to be substantial to the system.
      The only question in my mind is whether a future Lord Chief Justice, unfettered by a statutory definition, would adopt the same attitude as the present incumbent, who is apparently saying, "Unsafe is okay for us. The Court of Appeal will take into consideration matters of procedure and of evidence, and we need no further definitions."
      This is probably a case for guidelines. But, whichever way we decide on the amendments, thankfully, there is no prospect of the work of the criminal Bar being concluded. I only hope that the resource pool from which legal aid fees are drawn never dries up.
      8.45 pm
      Mr. Donald Anderson: I thank the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) not only for distributing copies of the famous draft article to all relevant hon. Members, which formed the basis for discussions in Committee, but for again acting as the middleman and intermediary between Professor Sir John Smith and the House. It can hardly be satisfactory that we need such a middleman. The Bill is essentially non-partisan and cries out for consensus, and for the House to get it as right as it reasonably can, in the knowledge that such Bills come before the House only once in a generation.
      Surely, rather than having an expert middleman like the hon. and learned Gentleman, on reflection this should have been a matter for a Special Standing Committee, which he, as the Chairman of the relevant Select Committee, would have chaired. It is sad that, since the inception of that new Special Standing Committee procedure in 1980, and the first flush of Special Standing Committees in the 1980–81 Session, when three Bills—the Criminal Attempts Bill, the Deep Sea Mining (Temporary Provisions) Bill and Education Bill—were discussed in that way, only three Bills have gone through that procedure. In the past 10 years, only one Bill has gone through it.
      Such a procedure was set up precisely for Bills of this sort. We could well have had four such sittings prior to the Standing Committee. We could have called before the Special Standing Committee relevant practitioners and academics of the stature of Sir John Smith. As a result, we would probably have emerged, not with a higher standard of confusion about the various formulae that have been adopted but with a much clearer understanding, which would have been more likely to stand the test of time. That said, I believe that an opportunity was missed. I hope that hon. Members will be alert to the existence of the Special Standing Committee procedure and will be more ready to adopt it.
      936
      The amendments seek the objective that we sought in Committee—the definition of "unsafe" or "unsatisfactory". I accept the point that, whatever the phrase used, it is capable of widely varying interpretations depending on the tribunal that considers it. There will be no finality, because the composition of the Court of Appeal may change. Although we are told that the current formulation reflects the practice of the current Court of Appeal, we know that, just as the prevailing climate of the Court of Appeal has altered markedly over the past few years, the position could alter in future. All that the House can do, therefore, modestly recognising that there can be no finality, is to give as strong a signal as possible to the judges about our views.
      I hoped that the formulation that came from the royal commission, which was accepted by the Law Society and the Bar Council, would be acceptable. It proved not to be acceptable to the Government, and they may rue that. They have said that there were wide consultations on the matter, but we are rather puzzled about that. The starting point was the royal commission and all the published evidence was in one direction. The Government talk about wide consultation, yet they have come to a view that is contrary to all the known published evidence. On the face of it, that is anti-democratic; it does not enhance the quality of debate. I repeat the point about the case for a Special Standing Committee.
      The hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) has taken the initiative of adopting the suggestion of Professor Sir John Smith. We need inter alia to give a signal and some guidance, especially if we wish to make the test less restrictive than the old test.
      In the helpful clarification given to the Committee, which is now relevant because of the Pepper v. Hart case, the Minister helpfully said:
      "We do not intend the test to result in fewer convictions being overturned than at present, or to narrow the grounds for allowing an appeal … I repeat what I said to make it absolutely clear: the intention is to consolidate the existing practice of the Court of Appeal and to provide as simple and clear a test as possible … The test that we propose fully allows a conviction to be quashed on a lurking doubt. The appellant does not have to prove that a conviction is unsafe; the court merely has to think that a conviction is unsafe. It would be hard to enact the lurking doubt test more explicitly."—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 21 March 1995; c. 25.]
      Those remarks will be relevant; they will be read and acted on by the Court of Appeal following the Pepper v. Hart principle. If the Government are prepared to agree that the formulation accepts the lurking doubt principle, why do they not say so explicitly? What is the mischief in accepting an amendment that would put the matter clearly in statute?
      Our judgment is that we need a clearer definition for the formula. It may well be that the formula set out by Professor Sir John Smith is not wholly adequate. I hope, however, that the Government will consider the matter and come forward with a considered view. I hope that the current test of "unsafe", which is not defined and which is certainly not approved by all those whose evidence we have read, will be seen by the Minister to be insufficient. We need to give a clearer signal. We would certainly be ready to support the formulation of Professor Sir John Smith, as set out in the amendment.
      Mr. Nicholas Baker: Although I cannot accept everything that the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) has said, I take his point about consensus. I do not think that, except in a very technical sense, this is a matter for a Special Standing Committee. The hon.

      937
      Gentleman is, of course, right in saying that we are giving our view to the judges. I am glad that he read out my own words which I cannot oppose. They and all our words will be read and used.
      We had consultation, about which the hon. Member for Swansea, East asked. It was not, however, the case that everyone came to the same view. We came to the view that it was right to follow the royal commission in replacing the current three overlapping grounds of appeal with a single broad ground of appeal. The amendment would replace that single ground with two grounds. The hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) has most helpfully and usefully tabled the amendment, but I see difficulties with the definition. It is possible that some of the words are restrictive. The words "a reasonable jury" invite difficulties which throw me back, as we were thrown back following the earlier consultation, on the rightness of having a single test.
      In a brilliant speech, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) has explained to us, using all his background, how academic views can change and how the discussion will go on. He raised the point about inadmissible evidence. We felt that it was necessary to preserve the option of a pardon in cases that could not be considered because of inadmissible evidence. My hon. and learned Friend is right to say that we shall wait for and carefully look at the Law Commission's report.
      I come back to the approval given by the Lord Chief Justice, which I mentioned in Committee, for one test—the test of "unsafe". It is clear, just and comprehensible. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton left out the next words, which will appeal to the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) as they appeal to me. The Lord Chief Justice added the words "to the ordinary citizen." If we want the system to be transparent and if we want everyone to feel that the commission is available to them, we want, as far as possible, language that the ordinary citizen can understand. I believe that the test will stand. It will, of course, depend on the judges' interpretation. It is a broad definition and I believe that we are right to stick to one test. For those reasons, I cannot accept the amendments.
      Mr. Trimble: I very much regret the line that the Minister has taken. To some extent, he misunderstands the position. We do not seek through the amendments to change the test; the test will be set out as "unsafe". We do not propose to alter the single ground—whether the court thinks that the conviction is "unsafe". The amendments are an attempt to spell out in a little way the meaning of "unsafe" and to suggest the broad range of things that can go to make up the definition of "unsafe".
      The hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) referred to the possibility that people will argue as to what the definition of the clause and the terms in it mean and how academics may still argue about things and change their views from time to time. Well, judges may do exactly that as well.
      For many years, there have been grounds on which the Court of Appeal could overturn convictions and we have seen how the approach of the Court of Appeal has varied. We are delighted to see how in recent years the approach of the Court of Appeal in England has been broader. In Committee, the Minister said that the single word "unsafe"
      938
      was intended to consolidate that approach by the Court of Appeal, by which I take it that he is referring to the recent, more liberal interpretation by the Court of Appeal in England. That shows how there has been a difference in approach.
      The definition is to enable us to find a way in which to signal clearly to the judges—not only to the present Lord Chief Justice, who is apparently ready to take a good, broad, liberal view, but to all the judges, all the future judges and all the judges in Northern Ireland as well as those in England—that we want to underwrite and clarify the new, broader approach developed in some recent cases by the Court of Appeal.
      I agree with the points made by the hon. and learned Member for Burton about inadmissible evidence. That issue must be tackled. I do not see that it is relevant to these amendments or would be a ground for turning them down. None the less, although I am not especially happy with the line that the Minister has taken—I do not think that it is particularly coherent—I do not wish to delay the proceedings. I am sure that the matter will be considered again in another place. I trust that, by then, the Government will have a slightly broader and more liberal approach. In the light of that and with that hope, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

    Clause 8

      THE COMMISSION
      9 pm
      Mr. Nicholas Baker: I beg to move amendment No. 30, in page 7, line 33, leave out '(which for this purpose' and insert
      'and of them at least one shall be a person who appears to him to have knowledge or experience of any aspect of the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland; and for the purposes of this subsection the criminal justice system'.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): With this, it will be convenient to discuss also amendment No. 20, in page 7, line 35, at end insert—
      '(6A) At least one of the members appointed under subsection (6) above shall be a person who appears to the prime Minister to have sufficient knowledge or experience of the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland.'.
      Mr. Baker: During our discussions in Committee on qualification for membership of the commission, I agreed to look further at whether the Bill could be amended to provide for one member of the commission to have knowledge and experience of the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland. As hon. Members know, it has always been our intention that the commission should include at least one member with just such experience and we see merit in making that clear in the Bill, not least in the light of the discussions initiated by the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble). Amendment No. 30 is the result of our deliberations on how best to do that and I commend it to the House.
      Mr. Trimble: I rise simply to thank the Minister on this occasion for accepting an amendment which I tabled in Committee. I am very glad that he has had the good sense to accept what I said. I simply regret yet again that he did not have the good sense to accept what I said a few moments ago.
      Amendment agreed to.

    Clause 13

      GENERAL PROVISIONS ABOUT REFERENCES
      Mr. Michael: I beg to move amendment No. 23, in page 10, line 34, leave out from first 'appeal' to 'against'.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss also amendment No. 26, in page 10, line 40, leave out from 'appeal' to 'against' in line 41.
      Mr. Michael: We had quite a discussion in Committee about the limitations in clause 13 on the reference of matters to the commission. The Bill as it stands does not change the present situation—that fresh evidence is needed before the Court of Appeal can consider a further appeal in a case of alleged miscarriage of justice. The clause was changed in Committee. It was amended quite considerably, in fact, but it was not amended in the way in which the Opposition recommended. Indeed, we believe that the amendments resulted in a restriction which is far too tight.
      As I said, there is a case for arguing, as the Bill now provides, that evidence which has been considered by a court should not be sufficient for the reopening of a case. There is a case to be made for perhaps allowing the court a little discretion where the commission wishes to bring matters to the court, but that is not in dispute today. We seek to remove the words from clause 13 which mean that matters which have been raised on application for leave to appeal should be sufficient to rule out further consideration. Perhaps I should express that again; it is not a simple point.
      The clause as redrafted in Committee is so tight that, if an issue has been raised or evidence has been brought forward during an unsuccessful application for leave to appeal, it cannot be used in arguing the case for investigation by the commission and subsequent appeal by the Court of Appeal. That seems too tight and restrictive. Therefore, it seems sensible to remove those words, which is precisely what our amendments do.
      In clause 13, line 34, we would leave out the words that effectively mean that evidence has been raised
      "on any appeal on application for leave to appeal against, the conviction, verdict or finding."
      It is not a vast widening of the powers of the courts to consider fresh matters where the commission considers that they should be so considered, but it would avoid a restriction which may in the fullness of time be seen to be unnecessarily tight and to prevent reference to the Court of Appeal and consideration by the Court of Appeal of cases where there is manifestly real concern that a miscarriage of justice has occurred.
      In view of the importance of restoring confidence in the court system and in the criminal justice system, we think that clause 13 constitutes one step too far, one restriction too tight, and that the Minister would be well advised to reconsider the amendments which were made in Committee and to allow the simple and modest change sought in amendments Nos. 23 and 26.
      Mr. Nicholas Baker: Clause 13 provides that there should be some new element for the courts to consider before a referral of a conviction, verdict, finding or
      940
      sentence may be made by the commission. The hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) said that that makes the criteria within which the commission must operate narrow and restrictive. I am afraid that I cannot accept that, and I reject it.
      The criteria provided in the Bill are wide and sensible. They enable the boundaries between the commission's functions and those of the courts to be clearly defined. Indeed, we believe that the criteria as drafted are broad enough to allow the commission to refer any conviction, verdict or finding where there is new evidence or new argument in relation to any evidence which may have already been raised which is of sufficient weight, bearing in mind the context of the case as a whole, to give rise to a real possibility of the appeal being allowed.
      The amendments seek to exclude, from the definition of matters already raised within the terms of clause 13, any matters raised only in an application for leave to appeal. We do not think that that would be right. If the matters raised as grounds for appeal are rejected by the single judge, the applicant can renew his application to a full court. If they are then rejected by the full court, what useful purpose would be served by the commission's referring the case to a court on those same grounds—unless there were some new evidence or argument for the court to consider?
      Were some new evidence or argument to come to light, and were the commission to consider that the case met the criteria for referral, it could be referred anyway, using the criteria that we have provided. For those reasons, I cannot support the amendments.
      Mr. Michael: The Minister has misunderstood the whole position, and has taken an excessively legalistic approach to a commonsense amendment. He said that there must be some new element for the court to consider. In other words, if the courts have considered something once, that is not new. But our amendments do not contradict that idea. We say that, although an element is not new if it has been considered by a court, it may be new if it has been considered only during the course of an application for leave to appeal.
      The Government's approach is unduly restrictive, and the Minister's analysis of the position is wrong, as is his response to this brief debate. He should think again, because I have no doubt that the Government will be invited to think again when the clause is debated in another place. Between now and then, the Minister would be well advised to consider the points that I have made, as well as what was said by several Members in Committee in a rather wider-ranging debate on how closely it is appropriate to restrict the commission.
      Amendment negatived.

    Clause 15

      ASSISTANCE IN CONNECTION WITH PREROGATIVE OF MERCY
      Amendment made: No. 31, in page 12, line 38, at end insert—
      '(2) Where in any case the Commission are of the opinion that the Secretary of State should consider whether to recommend the exercise of Her Majesty's prerogative of mercy in relation to the case they shall give him the reasons for their opinion.'.—[Mr. Maclean.]

    Clause 16

      POWER TO OBTAIN DOCUMENTS ETC
      Amendments made: No. 32, in page 12, line 44, leave out
      'The Commission may, where it is reasonable to do so,'
      and insert
      'Where it is reasonable to do so, the Commission may'.
      No. 33, in page 13, line 5, at end insert
      'and may direct that person that the document or other material must not be destroyed, damaged or altered before the direction is withdrawn by the Commission.'.[Mr. Maclean.]

    Clause 19

      INQUIRIES BY INVESTIGATING OFFICER
      Amendments made: No. 34, in page 15, line 19, leave out from 'may' to end of line 21 and insert
      'take any steps which they consider appropriate for supervising the undertaking of inquiries by an investigating officer.'.
      No. 35, in page 15, line 21, at end insert—
      '(4A) The Commission may at any time direct that a person appointed as the investigating officer in relation to a case shall cease to act as such; but the making of such a direction shall not prevent the Commission from imposing a requirement under section 18 to appoint another investigating officer in relation to the case.'.
      No. 36, in page 15, line 27, at end add—
      '(6) When a person appointed as the investigating officer in relation to a case submits to the Commission a report of his findings he shall also submit to them any statements and opinions obtained, and any reports commissioned, in connection with the inquiries which he was directed to undertake in relation to the case.'.—[Mr. Maclean.]
      Mr. Michael: I beg to move amendment No. 5, in page 20, line 10, after 'appoint', insert 'subject to subsection 1A'.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss also the following amendments: No. 6, in page 20, line 11, at end add—
      '(1A) The powers of the Commission in sections 9 to 13 of this Act to investigate any sentence given by a Court shall not come into force until a draft regulation setting out a timetable for their implementation has been approved by a resolution of both Houses of Parliament; and no such draft regulation shall be laid before either House of Parliament until at least twelve months after the Commission has been established.'.
      No. 40, in page 20, line 11, at end add—
      '(1B) Any power in this section of this Act to make regulations or orders shall be exercisable by statutory instrument.'.
      No. 39, in page 20, line 11, at end add—
      '(1C) Until such time as the powers of the Commission referred to in subsection (1A) above have come into force, transitional arrangements shall operate as laid out in subsection (1D) below.'.
      No. 41, in page 20, line 11, at end add—
      '(1D) In section 11 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 (supplementary provisions as to appeals against sentence) after subsection (1A) there shall be inserted the following subsection—
      "(1AA) The Court of Appeal may, if they think it necessary or expedient in the interests of justice, grant leave to appeal against sentence notwithstanding that a previous application to appeal has been determined (either by refusal of leave or after a substantive hearing) in respect of the same sentence.".'.
      Mr. Michael: The clauses with which we are dealing give the commission powers to investigate sentences. Everybody who has been involved with the campaigns to establish a body to deal with miscarriages of justice is
      942
      puzzled and bemused by the Government's decision to give such powers to the commission, and subsequently to the courts—but especially to the commission.
      In Committee, we received no satisfactory answer as to why the power had been given. When we asked whether such a power would not clog up the whole system, there was no answer to that, either. Anyone who has dealt with any seriousness with the prison system, and has experience of talking to prisoners, knows that there is much resentment among prisoners about sentences, and a great wish to have them changed. Sentences are one of the issues that cause the greatest amount of debate and discussion.
      The amendments would provide a cushion, or safety valve, because they would allow the Government to keep in the Bill a provision that we believe is unnecessary and possibly ill advised, but they would also provide for a delay in the implementation of the provision for reconsidering sentences.
      During the interim period, it will be possible to see what sort of burden of work is being put on to the commission, and whether it has the capacity to deal with the additional burdens imposed by a provision that was not sought or recommended by the royal commission and has not been mentioned in the general debate on the type of body that should be established to investigate miscarriages of justice.
      The idea seems to have arisen from a desire to deal with the interests of the Home Office, rather than to fulfil the prime responsibility under the Bill, which is to establish a proper mechanism for dealing with allegations that miscarriages of justice have taken place.
      Amendment No. 6 says that the powers that the Government seek, which we suggested in Committee should not be among the provisions of the Bill, should not come into force until draft regulations setting out a timetable for implementation have been approved by a resolution of both Houses of Parliament, and that no such draft regulations should be laid by either House until at least 12 months after the commission has been established.
      The point is that, during that 12 months, the commission can become established. It will be for Ministers to assess the work load. If we are wrong and the commission is not overloaded, Ministers will surely go ahead at that stage. If we have been right, Ministers will be able to control the situation. Either way, Ministers would lose nothing by accepting our amendments, and would gain a great deal in terms of flexibility and the capacity to avoid dangers that may arise.
      9.15 pm
      Amendments Nos. 39 and 41 establish transitional powers, and respond to points made by Ministers during the debate in Committee. They suggested that, if there was a delay in the provision of these powers or if they were not provided at all, there would be an anomaly. So the transitional arrangements which are effectively contained in amendment No. 41 will allow the Court of Appeal, if the court thinks it necessary or expedient in the interests of justice, to grant leave to appeal against sentence, notwithstanding that a previous application to appeal has been determined. So it allows for that arrangement to take place.

      943
      In Committee, we had a comparatively short debate, in which the Minister was not able to set out good reasons for including sentence within the burdens to be placed on the new commission. It is surely a matter of common knowledge that the royal commission concentrated on miscarriages of justice, and that that led the royal commission to recommend the establishment of the body that we are creating in the Bill.
      In his response to the Committee debate, the Minister said:
      "I acknowledge that the royal commission did not recommend that the commission should refer sentences to the courts—in fact, it did not mention the matter."—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 30 March 1995; c.109.]
      It did not mention the matter, because it was not a matter of general concern, contention or belief on the part of those who had taken an extended interest in the whole matter.
      The power which the Home Secretary has at present to refer sentences to the Court of Appeal can be dealt with in a variety of ways. Those matters are already dealt with. I will not repeat the points that were made in Committee, but there are mechanisms for dealing with those matters. The Court of Appeal has powers. There is no reason to burden the commission, particularly in its early days, when it has a backlog of alleged miscarriages of justice to deal with, before it becomes established as a body with a more predictable work load.
      I hope that the Minister will accept the amendments. They do not detract from or diminish the powers contained in the Bill. They provide a cushion, and ensure that those powers are not acted on precipitately or without evidence that the commission will be able to cope with the additional work load involved.
      Mr. Maclean: During our debate in Committee, I set out in full the Government's reasons why we thought that the approach taken by the Opposition was misguided. There was a fundamental disagreement between us. The Opposition did not like the arguments that I advanced. I have no new arguments to advance tonight, because the ones that I gave in Committee were sensible and serious, and I will stick to them, but briefly.
      The Government gave a good deal of thought to the future arrangements for dealing with wrongful sentences when drawing up their proposals for legislation in this area. One option that we considered was to provide extended rights of appeal to the courts, but we rejected this for several reasons.
      First was the need to maintain some finality in criminal proceedings. If we were to provide extended rights of appeal on sentence of the sort that Opposition Members propose, the principle of finality established in the case of Pinfold would be breached, and the courts could well find themselves inundated with unmeritorious applications, with all the consequential delay and disruption which that would cause. Applicants would go on appealing ad nauseam to the courts. That cannot be right.
      Secondly, it would be wrong, in our view, to provide extended rights of appeal on sentence while still requiring those alleging wrongful conviction to be referred to the new, more powerful commission before their cases could be reconsidered by the courts.
      Thirdly, representations on sentence, as on wrongful conviction, often require some investigation. If the courts receive these applications, they will either require
      944
      time-consuming hearings, or the applications will be dismissed on paper, at the risk of important points being missed or discounted.
      Last but not least, if we were to accede to what the Opposition propose, there would be further scope for confusion, as, in making representations, some applicants raise points on both their conviction and their sentence. The amendments would result in such cases being simultaneously pursued in the Court of Appeal and investigated by the commission.
      Although I understand that the Opposition's desire in proposing the amendment is genuine, it is misguided. It ignores the fact that the commission will be an investigative body, resourced and empowered to investigate possible miscarriages of justice. The Government believe that they are the persons best placed to look into possible wrongful sentences and refer them if appropriate.
      That is the most sensible and cost-effective solution to the problem of who should deal with these matters following the abolition of the Secretary of State's powers. It simply does not make sense to take away the vast bulk of cases that come before my right hon. and learned Friend on conviction, to set up a powerful new independent commission to deal with them, and then to say, "Never mind, the Secretary of State can be trusted to deal with the handful of cases left on sentencing, and we shall ignore the new commission." It must be sensible to let the commission deal with those cases.
      I explained in Committee the size of the work load that we envisage. I have nothing more to add to that. We do not envisage a large work load for those sentence cases. The powers provided in the Bill should be available to the commission from the beginning of its operation, so that it can do the full range of its work as quickly and effectively as possible. I do not propose that the commission be delayed for 12 months before having those powers.
      For those reasons—the same as I advanced more fully in Committee—I cannot support the amendments.
      Mr. Michael: I am surprised by the Minister's response, because he has had time to reflect on the debate that we had in Committee.
      One barrister has expressed the concern that the clause gives an applicant the unfettered right to apply to the commission for his sentence to be referred to the Court of Appeal. He said that applicants are not restricted to matters which were known to the sentencing judge, or arguably should have been known then, or to the need to have exhausted the normal routes of appeal to the Court of Appeal.
      From his response, the Minister clearly does not understand the Pandora's box that he is opening in giving the body that has been established to deal with allegations of miscarriages of justice, the responsibility to deal with problems and complaints about the weight of sentence. There is no body of existing law to help the commission or the Court of Appeal to assess the reductions that might be appropriate in a variety of circumstances.
      The Minister has not said whether it is intended that the commission can refer sentences on the grounds that they are manifestly excessive or would need reviewing in the light of changed circumstances since a sentence was passed, or only on the narrow grounds of wrong facts or misinterpretation of the law at the time of sentencing. If

      945
      it is the latter, would it not be better to signal that in the Bill, to avoid confusion and a rush of unmeritorious applications?
      The Minister has not taken on board the points that were seriously made by a variety of hon. Members in Committee. It is clear from his response today that he has given the matter no fresh thought. This will be a matter of debate in another place. Yet again, the Government will be well advised to consider carefully the arguments which the Opposition advanced in Committee and to think again.
      It would be a tragedy if the body established to rescue our criminal justice system from the problems that have arisen due to miscarriages of justice, which is being established to restore confidence in the criminal justice system and provide confidence that miscarriages of justice can and will be dealt with properly, were constrained and overwhelmed with a number of applications on sentence.
      The Home Secretary's power to review and refer with regard to sentence has been a relatively little-known power. It will inevitably be used more by the commission than it has by the Home Secretary. I hope that I am wrong, and that the commission will not be burdened as a result of this element in the Bill, but I fear that the Minister is wrong, and that, by his failure even to allow the cushion and protection that we offer in the amendments, he will build up problems for the future.
      Amendment negatived.

    Schedule 1

      THE COMMISSION: FURTHER PROVISIONS.
      Mr. Trimble: I beg to move amendment No. 28, in page 22, line 32, leave out 'and' and insert 'or
      (aa) in the case of a function specified in sub-paragraph (3A), by any committee of, or by one or more of the members of the Commission, and'.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 29, in page 22, line 39, at end insert—
      '(3A) The functions referred to in sub-paragraph (2)(aa) are

      (a) requiring the production of documents or other material under section 16,

      (b) requiring the appointment of investigating officers under section 18,

      (c) giving directions to investigating officers under section 19.'.

      Mr. Trimble: With these amendments, we come to provisions in the schedule that relate to the way in which the commission will discharge its functions. The amendments relate to an issue that I mentioned in Committee, in respect of which I was glad to have the support of the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Hutton), who has also signed the amendment being considered this evening.
      We were worried that the provisions in paragraph 6 of schedule 1 are designed in such a way that, whereas the primary functions of the commission, such as that of referring a case to the Court of Appeal, can be discharged only by the commission as a whole or by a committee consisting of not fewer than three members, any other function of the commission can be discharged by a committee or one or more members or an employee, so
      946
      that, under the schedule, a range of important functions of the commission can be discharged by an employee. It seemed to me that that was not appropriate.
      We mentioned the matter in Committee, and had the opportunity since Committee to table what I hope are amendments on which the Minister will look favourably. Of the functions that I have singled out in amendment No. 29, functions such as requiring the production of documents from other organisations, requiring the appointment of an investigating officer and giving directions to investigating officers, should not be dischargeable by an employee of the commission. They should be discharged through the commission, or at least a member of the commission.
      I know that there is a provision in the schedule that those functions can be conducted
      "under the general direction of the Commission"—
      in other words, the commission can give general direction as to the way in which its employees are to discharge functions. But that does not satisfactorily answer the question about functions such as that of appointing an investigating officer.
      Earlier, we had a debate about the provisions in clause 18 concerning the way in which investigating officers will be apppointed. The Minister of State laid great emphasis on the power of the commission to control and direct the conduct of investigations and to control the choice of who was to be appointed as an investigating officer. Yet when one reads the schedule, one discovers that those powers—control, supervision and direction and requiring appointments—can be exercised by an employee without the specific decision going through a commissioner. That is unsatisfactory.
      I very much hope that the commission will not in practice avail itself of the tremendous width that paragraph 6 of the schedule affords. It would not be good practice for any type of commission to avail itself of those broad powers.
      I hope that the Minister will look favourably on those amendments, which are sensible amendments to ensure that important functions are discharged, and that each specific exercise of them is under the control of the commission or, at the very least, a member of the commission.
      Mr. Hutton: I shall not detain the House long, but I want to say one or two words about the amendments, which are simple but important. Before I do so, I wish to express my appreciation of the role that the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) played in Committee. He tabled several important and useful amendments, such as those that we are discussing.
      The hon. Gentleman has drawn our attention to a fundamental issue. Obviously everyone wants the commission to work effectively, with the maximum flexibility. No one wants to place the commission in a straitjacket. We are discussing important powers—powers that might loosely be described as quasi-judicial. They relate to the appointment of investigating officers, the way in which the investigating officers are to perform and discharge their functions and responsibilities, and several another aspects.
      Clause 20, which is not referred to in our amendment, gives the commission any other residual power that it considers it may appropriately take in relation to any inquiry. The amendments raise a very simple question:

      947
      why should those important powers be administered by an individual employee of the commission? The answer is that they should not.
      It is clear in paragraph 6 of the schedule that there has been an attempt to rein in those powers by making employees subject to the general direction of the commission. However, as the hon. Member for Upper Bann has said, that is unlikely to be adequate to deal with the range and complexity of cases that may confront the commission. The acts of individual employees will be scrutinised or investigated ex post facto—after the event. I do not think that that is good enough; it would be too late.
      9.30 pm
      I think that it would be better if that part of the schedule specified in greater detail that those important powers should be exercised only by a committee of commission members or possibly by one commission member and not by individual employees. I do not think that that places an unreasonable restraint upon the commission's flexibility—far from it. I think that it will make the commission's important powers transparent and accountable to those people who are supposed to be responsible for their discharge—the commission members.
      If that is not good enough for the Government, I ask the Minister to reflect on another point. We debated in Committee another aspect of the schedule concerning the commission's power to appoint employees. The Government insisted on amending the original draft of the Bill to refer to a chief executive of the commission. That employee is mentioned briefly in the schedule and his powers and general role and responsibility within the commission are not specified.
      If the Minister is content with employees exercising powers—even some of the more important powers, such as those referred to in clause 20—I hope that he will consider reserving the responsibility for discharging some powers to the chief executive at least.
      Mr. Nicholas Baker: We had a good debate about this matter in Committee, and I hope that hon. Members will forgive my fairly brief reply.
      I respect the fact that the commission has been given very wide-ranging powers. In the schedule, we have provided some guidelines as to how commission members should exercise those functions. However, I think that we should resist the temptation referred to by the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Hutton)—many of whose comments I had great sympathy with—to get too involved statutorily with the workings and the management of the commission.
      I accepted the advice of the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) earlier in the evening, and I am sorry that I cannot do so again in this case. We do not believe that the amendments that he has proposed are helpful to the commission—indeed, in one instance they could only confuse, and possibly weaken, the measures that we have provided to ensure that the commission's key decisions are taken at a proper level.
      According to amendment No. 29, the decision requiring an investigating officer to be appointed under clause 18 should be made by one member of the commission acting on his own. The hon. Gentleman is quite right to say that that is a key decision. We recognise that fact, and we have provided that such decisions should be taken by a
      948
      committee of not fewer than three members. In so far as paragraph 6(3)(d) is untouched, the amendment would lead to confusion between the two provisions.
      The hon. Gentleman's amendments are not helpful, because I believe that they would inevitably slow the speed at which the work would be undertaken. The commission must set the policy and decide what activities should be delegated to which members of staff. I emphasise that that is a perfectly normal arrangement, which is common to perhaps all public bodies and most public sector companies.
      I do not see why it should be wrong for the commission—which, in many ways, we have circumvented with very tough controls in the Bill—to be empowered to act in managing its affairs. For example, preparing papers, obtaining transcripts of court cases and other management details can be undertaken perfectly well by the commission's own staff who are acting within the guidelines and under the direction of commission members. For those reasons, I am afraid that the Government cannot accept the amendments.
      Mr. Trimble: I thank the Minister for pointing out that provision in respect of the appointment of investigating officers. I am delighted to see that it is included in paragraph 6(3). I am glad that the Department considers it important enough to ensure that that function is not discharged by an employee.
      I am sorry that the Minister did not appreciate that the same argument should apply to giving directions under clause 19 or the production of documents under clause 16. I can only express the hope that the commission will consist of people of considerable ability and merit, and that they do not avail themselves of, or allow their employees to use, the wide powers and great flexibility that the Minister has provided. The measure would not work well in practice if they did. In view of that, we must hope that the commission is more sensible than I regret the Minister has been.
      In view of the lateness of the hour and the desire of hon. Members to contribute to the next stage, I do not intend to comment further or to press the matter. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
      Order for Third Reading read.—[Queen's Consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified.]
      9.36 pm
      Mr. Nicholas Baker: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
      I am pleased to have played a part in guiding the Bill through the House. The Criminal Appeal Bill is creating new and independent machinery for identifying possible miscarriages of justice and referring them to the courts and reinforcing and extending the power of the courts in criminal appeals. It is a measure of great importance.
      Hon. Members have rightly emphasised the importance, in dealing with possible miscarriages of justice, of procedures whose independence is beyond question. Those procedures must also be effective in securing the aim of getting to the heart of cases which continue to raise doubts after the normal processes of trial and appeal have finished.

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      The changes made to the Bill do not affect its basic structure and thrust. They strengthen it and enhance the powers of the commission to do its work. The Bill is now in even better and more effective shape than when it started. I am grateful to right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions and I am convinced that the Bill will make a significant contribution to the quality of the criminal justice system in future. I wish it well as it goes to another place.
      9.37 pm
      Mr. Michael: I am glad that the Minister acknowledges that we have been able to make some improvements to the Bill in Committee and today, but it would be wrong to allow the Bill to pass without comment. It is an important measure in restoring confidence in our criminal justice system and it is important that we get it right. If the body that is established under the Bill fails to win the confidence that is so desperately needed, it will be even more difficult to restore confidence in future.
      This body will deal with alleged miscarriages of justice and restore public confidence in the criminal justice system and that system's capacity to deal with miscarriages. Its birth has been extremely slow. The Opposition have been calling for the establishment of such a body for a number of years and it now comes with high expectations.
      I am concerned about some of the difficulties and shortcomings that remain in the Bill. I am also concerned that some of the comments by a Minister earlier in today's debate suggest that the aspirations that we thought were shared on all sides are not shared by the Government and that the Government intend that the body should be constrained and should almost do the job on the cheap to an extent that certainly is not in accordance with the views expressed by the Royal Commission on criminal justice. That body referred to the need to restore public confidence in the criminal justice system and pointed out that the majority of trials are conducted in a manner that all participants regard as fair. It added:
      "But the damage done by the minority of cases which the system is seen to have failed is out of all proportion to their number."
      It referred also to the burden of work that will fall on the new body. Paragraph 6 of chapter 11 stated:
      "There is in theory no restriction on the numbers or categories of cases which the Home Secretary may refer to the Court of Appeal under section 17 since the section gives him discretion to refer cases 'if he thinks fit'. In practice, however, as Sir John May observed in his second report on the Maguire case, the Home Secretary and the civil servants advising him operate within strict self-imposed limits."
      Paragraph 7 stated:
      "The effect of this second criterion was examined in depth by Sir John May as part of his inquiry into the Maguires. We cannot do better than quote his conclusion."
      I invite the House to consider that conclusion:
      "There is no doubt that the criterion so defined was and is a limiting one and has resulted in the responsible officials within the Home Office taking a substantially restricted view of cases to which their attention has been drawn … The very nature and terms of the self-imposed limits on the Home Secretary's power to refer cases have led the Home Office only to respond to the representations which have been made to it in relation to particular convictions rather than to carry out its own investigations into the circumstances
      950
      of a particular case or the evidence given at trial … the approach of the Home Office was throughout reactive. It was never thought proper for the Department to become proactive."
      It is necessary for the new body to take on board the capacity to investigate where there is concern over alleged miscarriages. In view of today's exchanges, there will be debates in the other place to ensure that the Government fully understand the need for a proactive body.
      Page 185 of the royal commission report refers to the need for the capacity to investigate:
      "In our view the Authority should be able to discuss cases direct with applicants if it thinks that this would help it to decide whether a case called for further investigation. It has struck us forcibly that many people who believe that they are victims of miscarriages of justice feel that they have a right to be heard and are frustrated by the fact that they have been unable to put their case in person to the Home Office officials who are considering it. We understand the resource constraints that have prevented the Home Office from interviewing applicants, and we accept that this could not be done in every case. We nevertheless recommend that the Authority be adequately resourced to conduct interviews with prisoners where it believes that this might help. It is not always possible for people who have suffered a miscarriage of justice and then been sentenced to a long term of imprisonment to set out their case clearly and cogently in writing, and an interview may sometimes be the best way of convincing the Authority that the case is one that is worth investigation."
      Earlier, the Minister suggested that no cases were waiting to be investigated. I believe that there are, and give the example of my constituent Mr. Mike O'Brien. For the avoidance of doubt, again I make clear that he is not the same Mike O'Brien as my hon. Friend the Member for Warwickshire, North. He contacted many people, including every Member of Parliament, to assert his innocence. I do not assert his innocence unconditionally, but I am convinced that something needs to be investigated in that case. The commission's establishment will enable investigations in that and like cases.
      It is not satisfactory that Ministers appear to have resiled from acknowledging the importance of that role. There is also some inadequacy in dealing with the need for a knowledge or understanding of mental disorders, mental illness or adults with learning difficulties, who are often among the victims of miscarriages of justice. That aspect was dealt with briefly in Committee and there has not been an opportunity to debate it fully on Report. Those issues need to be dealt with fully. I hope that they will be dealt with in another place, and that the Government will make some concessions.
      Finally there is the whole issue of disclosure. Members and officials of the commission will be subject to restrictions on their disclosure of information and of evidence. There have been exchanges as a result of the letter from Justice and of the reply from the Minister, a copy of which, further to his promise in Committee, he has kindly provided me with. That still leaves questions to be answered if we are to be sure that there will be full and adequate disclosure to enable all serious allegations of miscarriage of justice to be properly dealt with. If they are, that will help to restore confidence in our criminal justice system—a process that the Opposition believe to be thoroughly necessary. Evidence of the need for that restoration of confidence is provided by the many cases in which my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) and others have been involved over the years.

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      We wish success to the commission that will be established under the Bill. We also wish the Bill a successful passage through another place, where we hope that more improvements to it will be made. When the Bill returns to us I trust that many of our reservations about its effectiveness will have been dispelled.
      9.45 pm
      Mr. Beith: Now that the Bill has nearly completed its Commons stages, and bearing in mind the strong possibility that it may be significantly improved in another place, where I expect it to attract a great deal of close and careful interest, on behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends I wish the new commission every success in its work. I attach great importance to the added public confidence that its work could bring to the police and criminal justice system. I believe that we may have to revisit some of these issues at some stage—especially the capacity of the commission to mount independent investigations in certain cases. Certainly its task will be an important one. We wait with interest to know who will carry out the work and bear these important responsibilities.
      I strongly welcome the passage of the Bill.
      9.46 pm
      Mr. Mullin: I am glad to see the Bill approaching the statute book. I was also glad to see the Government accept amendment No. 35, which strengthens the powers of the commission—although it does not go far enough. I made my views on that known earlier this afternoon.
      I welcome the Home Secretary—belatedly—to his place in the Chamber, and I draw his attention to some remarks by Lord Runciman which I quoted earlier. I shall not repeat them now, but they were to the effect that nothing in the proposal for a dedicated force of investigators contradicted what he and his colleagues in the royal commission asked for.
      One or two other reservations of mine have been touched on today. I do hope that arrangements applying to Scotland will be made soon, because there are quite a number of problems up there. I am also a little worried that the terms of reference might be interpreted as being unnecessarily restrictive. That could lead to some disputes between the commission and the Court of Appeal.
      The success of the whole enterprise will largely depend not on anything in the Bill but on the personnel put on the commission. A former Tory Home Secretary told me some time ago that those people would not be like the usual ones who are put on Tory quangos—
      Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: You should be on it.
      Mr. Mullin: I am not interested. I have been doing the job for the past few years anyway, and to be perfectly honest I am getting rather fed up with it.
      We really will require people who are a cut above the usual quango appointments, because they will have to confront, at some stage, mighty vested interests among the police and in the Court of Appeal. The success of the Bill will also depend on a continuing improvement in the attitude displayed by the new management at the Court of Appeal. Many hon. Members have remarked on an improvement of attitude following the change of personnel in that court—but they could of course change back again. The suspicion has been voiced to me that the recent liberalisation may in some way be affected by the fear that something more drastic might be done to limit its powers.
      I recall that when the Select Committee on Home Affairs suggested such a commission in 1982, an idea that the Government rejected, the Lord Chief Justice promised that the Court of Appeal would be more open minded when considering appeals, a promise on which he promptly reneged once the threat of such a commission had disappeared over the horizon. I therefore hope that the attitude of the new management of the Court of Appeal will last.
      I regret that it is still an unhappy fact of life that someone who believes himself to be the victim of a miscarriage of justice is better off approaching a journalist than a policeman or lawyer. I hope that those days are over, although, even as we sit here, Channel 4 is showing a programme on the Brian Parsons case, which is one of the more serious outstanding alleged miscarriages of justice. There will always be a role in a free country for an inquiring journalist.
      Since the release of the Birmingham Six, I have received several thousand letters from several hundred prisoners who allege that they are the victims of miscarriages of justice. There is a limit to what one can do to advise them. Organisations such as Justice have also received large numbers of representations from prisoners, far more than I could possibly cope with and no doubt far more than Justice can cope with. I hope that the Bill marks an end to this chapter in my correspondence and, I hasten to add, so does my secretary.
      I also hope that the Bill marks an end to an unhappy period in the history of the British judicial system and that we can look forward to a greatly improved system in which everyone can have confidence.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Bill read the Third time, and passed.

PETITIONS

  Mr. Kevin Maxwell
  9.51 pm
  Mr. Robert Jackson: I wish to present a petition on behalf of my constituent, Mr. Kevin Maxwell, who is being tried on a count of conspiracy to defraud contrary to common law.
  My constituent desires in his petition that reference be made in the proceedings that he will face
  to certain evidence and related material of the Select Committees on Social Security in the present and the previous Parliament which has not been reported to the House and which has not been published.
  Your Petitioner therefore requests that the House of Commons will give leave for said records, transcripts, documents, correspondence and notes … to be produced to the Hon Mr. Justice Phillips at the Central Criminal Court so that he may decide if the documents should under normal common law principles be disclosed to the parties in the trial; and if the Hon Mr. Justice Phillips so decides, the Court be permitted to make reference to them.
  It may be for the convenience of the House if I give notice that I intend to table a motion forthwith to give effect to this petition.
  To lie upon the Table.

Schools (Darlington)
Mr. Alan Milburn: I have pleasure in presenting a petition signed by 2,000 of my constituents who are alarmed at the impact of Government funding cuts on local schools. It has been signed by parents, governors and teachers, including head teachers, who are concerned about rising class sizes, the threat to teachers' jobs and diminishing school budgets. They are angry that Government policies are threatening children's education in Darlington. I hope that the Government will act swiftly in response to my constituents' concerns.
The petitioners request that
the House of Commons urges the Secretary of State for Education to immediately review her policies to ensure that Darlington schools are not prevented from offering children the highest possible educational standards.
To lie upon the Table.

Rwanda
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Dr. Liam Fox.]
9.54 pm
Mr. Tony Worthington: I had no idea, when I put my name into the ballot for an Adjournment debate, that the theme of the Government's policy in Rwanda would become so tragically relevant after the events of the past weekend in Kibeho camp. It was because I feared such an event that I put my name in. It was an event that could have been anticipated. I shall ask a great many questions during the debate. I realise that the Minister will not be able to answer them all, but I hope that—perhaps by letter afterwards—I will get a reply to the questions that I raise.
Let me deal with the events of the weekend. It will never be clear how many people were slaughtered, but it was clearly thousands. One can only deplore the attempt by the Government of Rwanda to minimise and disguise that death toll. The international community now has to demand that those responsible for the carnage are brought to trial as rapidly as possible. It is clear that the slaughter was conducted by the army of Rwanda and that the army officers responsible must be punished. The silence of the Vice-President of Rwanda, General Kagame, who is also the Defence Minister, is disturbing. He is also seen as the major power within the country.
I met General Kagame when he visited London a few months ago. Perhaps the Minister did as well. At that time, General Kagame was seeking the assistance of the international community in setting up a judicial system to bring the Hutu perpetrators of genocide to trial. He quite correctly said that, unless the people of Rwanda could see the perpetrators of genocide brought to justice within Rwanda, the country would never be able to come to terms with itself. At that time, he was talking about the Hutu killers, but he now has to ensure that the Tutsi perpetrators of the latest massacre are brought to justice. I understand fully the difficulties of the Government of Rwanda in dealing with armed militia within the camp, but the test of that Government will be how they deal with their own offenders.
Overwhelmingly, the blame for the situation in Rwanda must lie with the leaders of Rwanda itself, and they must shoulder that responsibility, but there is a wider responsibility in a world in which that desperately poor and overcrowded country is not helped to join in the prosperity and development that should be part of the lives of its people.
We must also face up to the fact that European colonialism, which used the tribes of Africa for its own selfish reasons, has left a legacy of infinitely worsened community relations. The legacy—in this case, of Belgium and France—is grim. Every involvement that they have with Rwanda and Burundi is tarnished, and there is a need for us to increase our leadership at the Security Council. I can understand why we argued at the beginning that it was not an area of our concern or a traditional sphere of influence for us, but unless some countries with unblemished hands take a lead, the situation will become worse.
I want to make it clear that I sought this debate not because of humanitarian aid. I do not wish to attack the Government for failing to supply aid, water, food or
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shelter. That is clearly not true. The British contribution has been good. It was slow, but it has been good and of high quality. That is not the point of the debate. I am concerned not with the performance of the British Overseas Development Administration but with that of the Foreign Office. There is a major distinction. While talking about aid, I want to pay tribute, as I am sure that the Minister would, to the immense contribution made by our aid agencies, for the immensely skilled and courageous work that they are doing in bringing food, water and shelter to the victims of those horrors.
There seems to be an inability, because of lack of political will, for the United Nations, and that means overwhelmingly the permanent members of the Security Council, to take the actions that are necessary to avoid those catastrophes. Undoubtedly, the horrors of Rwanda could have been prevented or at least diminished. There are further horrors around the corner either in Rwanda or Burundi, of that I am convinced. Shall we act to stop those horrors?
It is interesting—that is a neutral word—that the Aid Commissioner in Brussels, Emma Bonino, is recommending with her colleagues the cutting off of non-humanitarian aid to Rwanda. In the papers this morning, the recommendation that was said to be emerging was that humanitarian aid would be cut. It is no better that humanitarian aid is not being cut. The implications of that recommendation—
It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Dr. Liam Fox.]
Mr. Worthington: The recommendation that there should be a cutting of non-humanitarian aid is simply calamitous. I hope that the Minister will clarify what is happening.
Non-humanitarian aid can be used for things such as setting up the judicial system, schools and clinics or remedying the appalling lack of infrastructure. Non-humanitarian aid is a sign of medium and long-term political will by the rest of the international community. I hope that the Minister will tell us that the British response to the EC Commission's recommendation will be hostile. I noted today in a press release put out by the noble Baroness Chalker the statement that the United Kingdom has fulfilled all its pledges to help Rwanda towards rehabilitation and reconstruction.
The United Kingdom and European Union would not be fulfilling their pledges towards rehabilitation and reconstruction were the recommendation of the EC Commission to be accepted. I strongly recommend to Commissioner Bonino and all her colleagues that she would be better occupied in finding out why there has been a lack of political commitment to solving the problems of Rwanda than in tampering with aid. I strongly suggest that she should look at the role of France and Belgium in that respect and find out what can be done to obtain a consistent European contribution to the solution of the problems of Rwanda.
It is transparently clear that the need to establish a judicial system is paramount, but only yesterday we had an announcement from New York about the appointment of 12 judges to start the work of the genocide trials. That is welcome, but there has also been talk about the need for 600 magistrates to tackle the problems of Rwanda.

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The situation in Kigame prison is totally untenable. The prison was built to hold 2,000 people, but now has more than 8,000 people in it without anyone being charged or any dates in prospect for action. When we neglect that situation, we promote the sort of slaughter that we saw at the weekend. That is the sin of neglect.
Why is it that stimulators and perpetrators of genocide, such as the director of Radio Mille Collines and other prominent supporters of the previous Government, are allowed to live in luxury and walk the streets of other African countries such as Kenya and Cameroon? In February, the programme director of Radio Mille Collines gave an interview in Cameroon on French television. For 24 hours a day, that radio station repeatedly incited murders of Tutsis and drew up an endless list of wanted opponents. Why are such people allowed to wander free? One year after the genocide, not one single person among the politicians who masterminded it has been brought to justice.
What will the Government do to expedite the work of the genocide tribunal? Is it really realistic to ask the remarkable Judge Goldstone, whom I have met—his contribution to the development of South Africa has been astonishing—to supervise the genocide tribunals in Bosnia and Rwanda? There is a lack of credibility about that.
On the issue of slowness of action, when the Hutu militias set themselves up in the camp to terrorise people, why was it not possible to stop them becoming established and preventing an orderly return to Rwanda? When more than 60 countries were asked to contribute forces to the policing of camps, why was the only offer from Zaire, whose forces, to put it mildly, are not known for their reliability? The reason why other troops were not offered was the chaos of the United Nations.
Concerns exist about the role of President Mobutu. In February, "Africa Confidential" reported that he accompanied the widow of the former President of Rwanda to China on an arms buying spree. Is that true? UN Security Council resolution 918 imposes an arms embargo in the region, but it is simply being ignored. Will the Government confirm that that is so? If the permanent five on the Security Council had made a commitment and given support, the situation could have been stabilised, and intimidation stopped. We now have an incomparably worse position because of the failure to take simple action to prevent military organisation in those camps. The military training camps are being fed by our aid.
I want to hear what the Government's policy is in Rwanda in the medium and long term, as against simply giving aid. We must face up to the scale of the disruption in central Africa. Perhaps 2 million recent Rwandan refugees are in neighbouring countries such as Zaire, Tanzania and Burundi. Imagine the tension among local people living next to camps of hundreds of thousands of people who receive guaranteed food when they have nothing. Those are desperately poor countries with their own problems. There is no way that they can cope without the help of the prosperous world. We cannot go on ignoring that. If we perpetuate that sin of neglect, it will cost us more and more.
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A huge regional problem affects Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania and Zaire. Last year, those nations and the northern powers such as the United States of America, the United Kingdom, France and Germany agreed about the need for a regional conference to attempt to tackle those hideous problems, but what has happened? In November, our representative at the UN Security Council, Mr. Gomersall, said that the proposed regional conference could play an important role, and that he hoped that all concerned would work to ensure that it was held as soon as possible. Six months later, I am not aware of any progress being made towards the holding of that conference.
We need real commitment to solve Rwanda's problems. It was gratifying that, in January, the donors pledged nearly $600 million, but what has happened to those pledges? What money have we and others committed and actually delivered? The UN underperforms because we allow it to do so and because of our lack of commitment.
That takes me back to the initial response to the Rwandan debacle. I remember the sense of shame when, following the death of Belgium paratroopers, UNAMIR—the United Nations Mission in Rwanda—forces were reduced to 270. Following the genocide, it was decided to increase forces to 5,000, but it took month after month after month for them to get there.
In November, Oxfam was begging for the commitment of the 5,000 troops promised. They were desperately needed, but a lack of political will existed among the UN's permanent members, including Britain. The permanent five ruled out sending their own troops; I do not necessarily quarrel with that. However, when the African nations offered their forces, none of the permanent five was willing to provide them with the logistical support and equipment that they needed to get there and to be established there. By then, however, there were already 20,000 militia in the camps, who were basically running them.
I should like the Government to explain their attitude to the deployment of our forces in Rwanda. We took the attitude to start with that we should not put in our own forces. Mysteriously, a group of British soldiers, engineers I believe, then went to Rwanda on a three-month contract. Their work was superb. They were put there because commercial interests had not turned up; the firm engaged to do the logistical support was not yet ready. The troops were then withdrawn. In Rwanda, there is a desperate need for buildings at the prison, for schools and for offices. A contingent of engineers could transform large parts of Kigali quite quickly, but we seem unwilling to send such people. I should like the Government to explain their medium and long-term contribution to Rwanda and their position—not what their aid is.
Will the Minister explain Britain's diplomatic contribution? I gather from a press release today from the Minister for Overseas Development that there has been a decision that we shall reinforce our diplomatic presence in Kigali and in Bujumbura. I hope that the Minister will explain what that means. It seems strange that we should have had a short-term contract for a chargé d'affaires in Kigali which runs out at the end of April and that we should then decide to have another extension of the contract. That is short-termism when Rwanda's problems are clearly long term; it sends exactly the wrong kind of message and increases the insecurity there.

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I am conscious that I have asked the Minister many questions about the situation in Rwanda. It is a rare privilege to have 20 minutes of the Minister's time in which to ask questions on behalf of millions of people in Britain who are utterly puzzled about Britain's stance on African disasters such as the one in Rwanda. I look forward to the Minister's reply.
10.12 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Tony Baldry): The hon. Gentleman must be thanked for his perspicacity in applying for this debate. It is a timely opportunity for me to explain what we have been, are and will be doing to help to alleviate the pain and suffering of Rwanda. Sometimes it seems as if the horrors of Rwanda have never been off our television screens. It is, in fact, just over a year since the deaths of the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi at Kigali airport which sparked the massacres, the killings and the genocide that followed. It is important always to remember that every person killed is an individual with a name and a family—part of God's creation.
Last weekend saw a tragic reminder of those events, with the deaths in the camps for the internally displaced in south-west Rwanda. There is still some confusion over the exact cause of these events. As The Times stated on Monday:
"Britain's reaction to the weekend's massacre … has been a measured one. Baroness Chalker … was correct to emphasise the wider context of events and the fact that Kibeho had been in the grip of Hutu extremists".
We had little experience or involvement in Rwanda before April 1994. It was a Belgian colony prior to independence in 1962. Since last April, the United Kingdom has made an important and valued contribution to international efforts to alleviate the serious humanitarian problems among the refugees in Zaire, Burundi and Tanzania as well as those displaced within Rwanda itself.
We were among the first into Mwanza in Tanzania providing a vital air bridge into Rwanda, among the first into Goma with water facilities and airport handling services to help get vital supplies moving, and among the first in Rwanda itself as soon as Kigali airport reopened to help relief to get to the people of Rwanda. There was nothing slow about the reaction of the United Kingdom. It was always, throughout this process, in the forefront, seeking to help.
Six hundred and fifty British Army peacekeepers spent three valued months last year with the UN peacekeeping forces and were widely and justly praised for their work in Rwanda, their professionalism in rebuilding damaged infrastructure and for ensuring the delivery of vitally needed emergency and medical assistance. Before anyone even considers criticising the UK peacekeeping commitment to the United Nations, it is perhaps worth recalling that, at this very moment, UK peacekeepers are serving with UN forces throughout the world. Indeed, there are more UK peacekeepers committed to the UN than there are from practically any other country.
We have committed more than £90 million in just over 12 months towards alleviating the terrible human costs of the Rwanda crises. In people and in money, we have
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made, and continue to make, a full contribution to the international effort, which was fairly acknowledged by the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook), who observed:
"Britain has already done much, and more than most".
Humanitarian aid and help to the people of Rwanda must continue. The international community, with Britain continuing to play a full part, will provide help for those refugees in need, wherever they may be.
Following last weekend's tragedy, we have been in constant touch with our non-governmental organisation partners—Save the Children, Feed the Children and others which are doing vital work on the ground. We have made it clear that we shall continue to provide the money so that they may continue their life-saving activities. Baroness Chalker and I will meet British NGOs tomorrow to discuss that further.
Andy Bearpark, the head of the ODA's emergency aid department, will visit Rwanda next week with Edward Clay, our high commissioner in Kampala, who is also accredited as ambassador in Kigali. They will assess the needs at first hand, and they will have clear messages to deliver to the Rwandan Government from my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. We also plan to reinforce our diplomatic presence in Rwanda and Burundi to ensure that our views are conveyed to best effect.
Since the start of this year, the emphasis has rightly been on helping the new multi-party and broad-based Government in Kigali to create conditions conducive to the safe return of refugees to their homes in Rwanda. That is not an easy task. Their country was devastated; the infrastructure severely damaged; and human and physical resources decimated. In January, the international community, including Britain, expressed its support for Rwandan rehabilitation plans at a pledging conference held in Geneva. Almost $580 million was pledged for an immediate one-year programme.
British assistance was specifically offered as quick disbursing aid to help meet immediate needs. The Rwandan Government, including the Prime Minister and the Vice-President during their visits to London, have expressed their appreciation for our contribution. We met in full what we pledged at that conference.
Unfortunately, the Rwandan Government, under pressure to rebuild, have shown frustration at what they see as the international community's slowness in bringing those guilty of genocide to trial. In their view, the international community continues to feed those responsible for the genocide in the refugee camps just beyond their borders, while doing little to separate the former Rwandan army and militia. We cannot and do not condone their decision to close their border with Zaire, which prevents humanitarian assistance getting to the innocent, the young and the infirm. We condemn the indiscriminate firing into crowds of stampeding and frightened people at Kibeho.
But we understand the frustrations of the Rwandan Government. We share their desire to deal with the perpetrators of genocide and to sort out the innocent from the guilty and the armed militia within their borders. That is why we were in the forefront of support for United Nations Security Council resolutions establishing an international war crimes tribunal for Rwanda and calling for all countries to co-operate in tracking down and bringing to justice those implicated in genocide. We have

961
provided money and material support to the international tribunal's work, and offered help to rebuild the shattered judicial system in Rwanda.
The Rwandan Government know our commitment and our concern, and they must avoid intemperate action. The reconstruction programme has only just begun. It will take time. Precipitate and impatient military action will lose them international good will. It risks making them, in the eyes of the world, no better than their predecessors.
We welcome the apology made on Monday to all the people of Rwanda by the Prime Minister of Rwanda. We hope that level-headed members within the coalition Government, itself comprising more Hutus than Tutsis even now, will ensure that progress is resumed. We hope that they will control any who may be intent on vengeful actions, which will get them nowhere.
In Rwanda the need is to continue to press ahead with the agreed international strategy for reconciliation, including the provision of security in the refugee camps outside Rwanda, the rehabilitation of the Rwandan infrastructure, support for the Rwandan judiciary and consolidating the work of the war crimes tribunal, for which Britain has pledged £200,000, part of which will be used to second three British police officers early next month. The United Nations General Assembly will elect the tribunal's judges next week.
Mr. Worthington: I hope that, among the interesting things that the Minister is saying, he will comment on what the European Commission is reported to have done today, in recommending the suspension of much non-humanitarian aid. Does he oppose or support that move? It seems to me to send exactly the wrong message.
Mr. Baldry: I have every intention of dealing with that point. I hope that, by the time I finish speaking, I shall have responded reasonably comprehensively to all the issues that the hon. Gentleman raised, including that one, which is of course important.
We work to ensure that the arms embargo is effective and that no weapons get through to the extremists in the camps. We expect the Government of Rwanda to address the concerns and fears of those innocent refugees in the camps outside Rwanda—fears that will have been widened by the events last weekend. The Government of Rwanda must continue to work to create conditions conducive to the secure return of refugees, and must resolve urgently the problems over land and property tenure.
The Government there also have to address the problems of the expanding prison population. It is imperative that the international community continue to help them to strengthen the legal process. The Rwandans also need to free women, children, elderly people and those against whom their case may be slight. The consequence of failure to bring about effective national reconciliation will be further civil unrest and loss of life within Rwanda.
We continue to work with and within the international community to find lasting solutions to the problems in Rwanda. But the international community cannot dictate, cannot impose solutions. We can help. We can provide resources and expertise. We can train and advise. We can monitor. There is too great a readiness on the part of some
962
commentators simply to blame "the west" or "the international community". Rwanda is first and foremost the responsibility of the people of Rwanda.
The regional Governments of the countries that border Rwanda—Zaire, Tanzania, Uganda and Burundi—which are already bearing the impact of the huge number of refugees seeking sanctuary within their borders, also have an important part to play. We shall encourage those regional leaders to play a constructive role. We believe that the Organisation of African Unity and democratic African leaders can have a positive influence on the outcome of what are fundamentally African problems. They have a clear interest in helping to bring about greater regional stability and security.
Against that background, and with the experience of conflict in Rwanda and elsewhere in Africa in mind, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary launched his initiative on conflict prevention and peacekeeping in Africa at last year's United Nations General Assembly. It is designed to help Africans to help themselves, by setting up a system of support structures, running from early warning and preventive action through to humanitarian and peacekeeping missions on the ground, should preventive diplomacy fail.
The proposals contain three elements: the development of an early warning system to give notice of impending crises; an institutional framework for preventive diplomacy; and the enhancement of African peacekeeping capabilities through, for example, the establishment of UN peacekeeping skills centres and UN logistics bases in Africa.
We are already putting some of those ideas into action, through, for example, providing specialised training for African troops about to deploy on UN peacekeeping missions. We will be doing more this year to develop the practical capabilities of African peacekeepers through training and exchange.
Our aim is to encourage Africans themselves to take the lead, with the international community providing support. Africans have already shown a determination to develop capacity in conflict resolution and peacekeeping with the creation of the OAU's conflict resolution mechanism. We must support and enhance these measures to ensure that in future Africans are better equipped to respond appropriately to problems on their continent.
Whenever a tragedy such as this occurs, there is a tendency to blame the UN. Such a rush to judgment is rarely justified. The UN is only the sum of its parts—the member states—and its failings are, more often than not, their failings. But one must also take into account the burden that the UN has had to carry in the past five years, with an exponential demand in not only the number but the complexity of the problems that it now has to deal with.
The very intractability of many of these problems, most of them within states rather than between them, has underlined the need for more emphasis on preventing them from reaching boiling point. The UN has recognised this need. In his 1992 report "An Agenda For Peace", the Secretary-General identified the need for the UN to develop its capacity to spot and head off crises before they developed. Since then, the UN's preventive diplomacy capacities have been built up.

963
We have all been deeply saddened by the news of the tragic events at Kibeho in recent days. They represent a setback to the process of reconstruction and national reconciliation to which we are all committed. They come in the wake of increasing concerns about the deterioration of the situation inside Rwanda and in the region more generally.
The position of the European Union is clear. Yesterday, the presidency, on behalf of the European Union, issued a clear statement. It said:
"The European Union utterly condemns the violence which led to several thousand civilian deaths in the Kibeho camp during Rwandan army operations to close down the camp on 22 April. The Union urges the Rwandan authorities to launch an inquiry without delay in order to identify those responsible for the massacre and to take all the necessary sanctions speedily.
Events of this gravity can only make it more difficult for refugees and displaced persons to return, this being an essential prerequisite for national reconciliation and a lasting solution to the Rwandan problem.
The European Union would point out that its development aid for Rwanda is conditional on respect for human rights and progress towards national reconciliation.
It emphasizes that international aid to the local population must be allowed to proceed unhindered. It therefore calls on the Rwandan authorities to make it easier for the international and non-governmental organizations to carry out their task of relieving suffering."
So we are all agreed on the need for humanitarian aid. The Commission's proposal today, which is of course subject to consultation with member states, including
964
Britain, appears to cover longer-term development assistance. Obviously, we will study that, but our position on the need for rehabilitation is clear. It is vital that it proceeds to ensure the stability of Rwanda.
We must not allow the latest events to derail the process to promote peace and reconciliation. We have fulfilled all our pledges to help Rwanda towards rehabilitation and reconstruction, and we shall be working with our partners in the international donor community to ensure that others do so, too. We need to continue to work with the Rwandan Government to remind them of their own responsibilities to work towards the achievement of lasting peace and ensure that they send the right signals to the innocent Hutu refugees that they may return home safely.
As I say, to that end, we shall be reinforcing our diplomatic presence in Kigali. We shall also continue to support the NGOs, many of them British, and UN agencies which are providing life-saving humanitarian assistance throughout the region, particularly for those internally displaced people currently on the move within Rwanda. We will continue to provide funds to support their programme.
In short, we will do all that we can to support the international effort to reduce suffering in Rwanda and to help bring that troubled country to a longer and more peaceful future.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Ten o'clock.

TREASURY

  Adult Placement Carers
  Mr. Hinchcliffe
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his policy in respect of income tax contributions by adult placement carers. [21041]

  Sir George Young
  Income received by adult placement carers is subject to the normal taxation rules, which are generally those applicable to the self-employed. Carers are liable to income tax on any profits from caring to the extent that income received exceeds allowable expenditure incurred, and any general income tax allowances available to set against the net income. Relief may also be available under the rent-a-room scheme. Within these rules, it is the Inland Revenue's policy to treat carers sympathetically and, as with other very small businesses, to establish any profits with the minimum of fuss.

  National Insurance Numbers
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give the Data Protection Registrar an undertaking that the national insurance number will not be used for purposes unconnected with the tax and benefits system; and if he will make a statement. [20037]

  Sir George Young
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my hon. Friend the Minister of Social Security on 25 April. The policy of the Inland Revenue is in accordance with that of the Department of Social Security.

  Smuggling
  Mrs. Lait
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the scale of value of diamond smuggling into the United Kingdom; and how many Customs and Excise staff are involved in its prevention; and what are the corresponding estimated figures for tobacco, alcohol and drugs. [19529]

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  Information on the value of diamonds seized is not immediately available and could be provided only at a disproportionate cost.

  Information on the value of drugs prevented from entering the United Kingdom and the number of seizures made is contained in the Customs and Excise annual

  Debt written off and debt injected prior to privatisation

  Industry

  Debt written off Year

  £ million

  Debt injected Type of debt

  Year

  £ million

  British Steel

  1980–81

  509.3

  National Loans Fund

  —

  —

  British Aerospace

  1980–81

  60.0

  Public Dividend Capital

  —

  —

  National Freight Corporation1

  1980–81

  100.0

  National Loans Fund

  —

  —

  British Airways

  1980–81

  160.0

  Public Dividend Capital

  —

  —

  526
  report. Information for 1993–94 is that drugs to the value of £1,979 million were prevented from entering. A total of 8,510 seizures were made.

  For single market excise-related offences the number and value of seizures of tobacco and alcohol products for the year to December 1994 are as follows:

  Number of seizures

  Value (revenue) £

  Tobacco

  1,850

  3,195,353

  Alcohol

  898

  1,832,879

  Customs staff employed at ports and airports are responsible for preventing the illegal importation of a wide range of prohibited and restricted goods and for the collection of revenue. They are not assigned to the prevention of smuggling of particular goods.

  Income tax
  Mr. Denzil Davies
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his estimate of the total cost in a full year of(a) an increase in the lower rate band of income tax to £3,500, (b) an increase in the basic rate band of income tax to £30,000 and (c) a reduction in the basic rate of income tax to 24 per cent.

  Sir George Young
  Estimates are as follows:

  1995–961 Full year revenue cost £ million

  (a) Increase in the lower rate band from £3,200 to £3,500

  310

  (b) Increase in the basic rate limit from £24,300 to £30,000

  1,670

  (c) Reduction in the basic rate of income tax to 24 per cent.

  1,900

  1 The figures include consequential effects on the yield of capital gains tax. Each option has been costed separately; the combined cost of the three options may be different from the sum of the figures for the individual options.

  Privatisation
  Mr. Hain
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the debts written off by the Government for each industry privatised since 1979 and the total. [19972]

  Sir George Young
  It is common practice for capital restructuring to be undertaken where necessary before privatisation. For some privatisations debt is written off; for others debt is injected. The table shows the debt written off—and the type of debt concerned—and debt injected for each company privatised where either occurred. Debts shown as written off include all debt written off since 1979 in companies subsequently privatised. Receipts from privatisation have amounted to £60 billion over the past 15 years.
  527

  Debt written off and debt injected prior to privatisation

  Industry

  Debt written off Year

  £ million

  Debt injected Type of debt

  Year

  £ million

  British Transport Docks Board2

  1982–83

  81.3

  National Loans Fund

  1982–83

  25

  British Telecommunications

  1984–85

  2,789.9

  National Loans Fund

  1984–85

  3,500

  British Gas

  —

  —

  —

  1986–87

  2,500

  BAA

  1986–87

  43.5

  National Loans Fund

  —

  —

  British Steel

  1988–89

  500.0

  Public Dividend Capital

  —

  —

  British Steel

  1988–89

  3,480.0

  Borrowing under Iron and Steel Act 1982

  —

  —

  Harland and Wolff

  1989–90

  422.5

  Assistance under Aircraft & Shipbuilding Industries (Northern Ireland) Order 1979

  —

  —

  Short Brothers

  1989–90

  390.0

  Loan by DED

  —

  —

  Water companies

  1989–90

  4,973.3

  National Loans Fund

  1989–90

  72.9

  Water companies

  1989–90

  55.0

  Public Works Loan Board

  —

  —

  Electricity (England and Wales)

  —

  —

  —

  1990–91

  3,583

  Electricity (Scotland)3

  1991–92

  1,043.6

  National Loans Fund

  1991–92

  625.9

  NTL

  —

  —

  —

  1991–92

  22

  Northern Ireland Electricity

  —

  —

  —

  1993–94

  70.3

  Belfast Airport

  —

  —

  —

  1994–95

  15.2

  British Coal

  1994–95

  1,633.4

  Voted Loans

  —

  —

  Total

  —

  16,241.8

  —

  —

  10,414.3

  Notes:

  1 Privatised as National Freight Consortium (now NFC).

  2 Privatised as Associated British Ports Holdings.

  3 Prior to privatisation, National Loans Fund Debt due to the South of Scotland Electricity Board nuclear programme of £1,368.4 million was transferred to Scottish Nuclear Ltd. and subsequently written off.

  Agencies
  Mr. Macdonald
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the number and location of Central Statistical Office, Paymaster and Royal Mint offices closed and the number of jobs lost or transferred as a result of agency work transferring from Scotland to the rest of the United Kingdom over the past five years; and if he will list the number and location of the offices opened and jobs gained in Scotland as the result of agency work transferring to Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom over the same period. [19964]

  Mr. Nelson
  There have been no offices opened or closed in Scotland by the Central Statistical Office, Paymaster or Royal Mint in the last five years.

  Beer
  Sir Ivan Lawrence
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his estimate of the cost to the Exchequer of lowering the excise duty on beer to the level obtaining in France and Germany. [20976]

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  Cutting United Kingdom beer rates to French or German levels would reduce revenue by about £2 billion.

  Public Bodies
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) which of the executive non-departmental public bodies sponsored by his Department publish(a) annual reports, (b) annual accounts, (c) the minutes of meetings, (d) the agendas of meetings and (e) registers of members' interests; and whether this in each case is (i) under a statutory requirement or (ii) voluntary; [20507]

  (2) if he will list the executive non-departmental public bodies sponsored by his Department which are subject to (a) investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner, (b) scrutiny by the Audit Commission, (c) scrutiny by the
  528
  National Audit Office, (d) statutory provisions for open government, (e) performance indicators and (f) provisions under the citizens charter. [20667]

  (3) which of the executive non-departmental public bodies sponsored by his Department have (a) a statutory requirement to admit members of the public to all board or committee meetings and (b) a statutory requirement to hold open meetings for the public. [20877]

  Mr. Nelson
  There are no executive non-departmental public bodies sponsored by the Chancellor's departments.

  Income Tax
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to his answer of 25 November 1994,Official Report, column 463, if he will provide equivalent figures for 1993–94 on top rate taxpayers. [20476]

  Sir George Young
  [holding answer 24 April 1995]: Currently available data were given in my reply of 25 November 1994.

  House Buyers
  Mr. Bill Michie
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of the additional cost which house buyers will have to meet this year as the result of the interest rate rises, the cut in MIRAS and the costs of private insurance to cover the withdrawal of income support. [17920]

  Mr. Nelson
  [holding answer 19 April 1995]: Housing costs have fallen substantially in recent years. For the average existing homeowner, even after taking into account the recent interest rate rises and the reduction in MIRAS, housing costs will still be over £1,550 per annum lower than in late 1990.

  The combined effect of the recent increase in interest rates and the reduction of MIRAS from 20 to 15 per cent.

  529
  will be to increase housing costs for the average existing home owner by about £270 per annum.

  Without knowing what proportion of house buyers will insure themselves following the changes in income support, it is impossible to estimate what, if any, additional costs house buyers will incur.

PRIME MINISTER

  Kashmir
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Prime Minister what dicussions he proposes to hold with the Prime Minister of India as to what action India will be taking on the future of direct rule in the indian occupied area of Kashmir from 18 July; and if he will make a statement. [21101]

  The Prime Minister
  I have no plans to discuss the question of President's rule in Kashmir with the Indian Prime Minister. Any decision to extend President's rule in Kashmir after 17 July is for the Indian Government.

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

  Public Bodies
  Dr Wright
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department which of the executive non-departmental public bodies sponsored by his Department have(a) a statutory requirement to admit members of the public to all board or committee meetings and (b) a statutory requirement to hold open meetings for the public. [20884]

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  The Lord Chancellor's Department sponsors two such bodies: the Legal Aid Board and the Authorised Conveyancing Practitioners Board. However, the latter has been inactive since March 1992 when the Lord Chancellor announced his decision to postpone implementation of the authorised practioners scheme.

  The Legal Aid Board has no statutory requirement to admit members of the public to meetings or to hold open meetings.

  Legal Aid
  Mr. Fabricant
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what action he proposes to take in the light of the responses to the consultation paper, "Legal Aid for the Apparently Wealthy". [21310]

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  Fifty responses to the consultation paper were received. The Lord Chancellor and I are grateful to all these who expressed views. As a result of the consultation exercise, the Lord Chancellor is planning to take the following action:

  (1) The Lord Chancellor intends that a special investigations unit should be established to handle means assessments in both civil and criminal cases where the applicant's financial circumstances are unusually complex. The Lord Chancellor has invited the Legal Aid Board to advise him on the feasibility of establishing such a unit, and on the practical arrangements necessary to establish and run it.

  530

  (2) The Lord Chancellor intends to amend the legal aid regulations to provide those assessing the means of applicants for legal aid with a discretionary power to include in the means assessment the assets of friends, relatives and children where these appear to be providing, a significant material advantage to the applicant.

  (3) The Lord Chancellor intends to examine further the practical implications of allowing the trial judge in criminal cases to release details of the statement of means of an applicant for legal aid in specified circumstances.

  (4) The Lord Chancellor intends to take powers to require applicants for legal aid to transfer ownership of any assets that they fail to declare in their application to the legal aid authorities so that the money disbursed in legal aid can be recovered from those assets.

  (5) The Lord Chancellor intends to amend the legal aid regulations to provide that there shall be a limit of £100,000 on the amount of equity value in a house that is ignored in the legal aid means assessment. He also intends to limit the maximum amount of mortgage that can be offset against the equity value of a house to £100,000, and to limit the amount of mortgage repayment allowable against income to the amount due on a £100,000 mortgage.

  The Lord Chancellor was persuaded by the weight of the responses that the other proposals in the consultation paper should not be pursued.

  The overwhelming weight of the responses supported the view expressed in the consultation paper that it would not be right to impose nationality restrictions on the availability of either criminal or civil legal aid. The Lord Chancellor therefore proposes to make no change in the present arrangements on this point. Assets held abroad by those applying for legal aid in this country will continue to be taken into account in the means assessment process.

DUCHY OF LANCASTER

  Public Bodies
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster which of the executive non-departmental public bodies sponsored by his Department have(a) a statutory requirement to admit members of the public to all board or committee meetings and (b) a statutory requirement to hold open meetings for the public. [20871]

  Mr. Horam
  None.

ENVIRONMENT

  Derelict Land Grant
  Mr. William Powell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how much was paid by way of derelict land grant to the Corby district borough council in each year since 1979. [20269]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  The amount of derelict land grant paid to Corby district council since 1979 is as follows:

  Year

  Grant Paid (£m)

  1979–80

  nil

  1980–81

  nil

  1981–82

  1,260,937

  531

  Year

  Grant Paid (£m)

  1982–83

  1,241,666

  1983–84

  2,906,929

  1984–85

  1,818,038

  1985–86

  3,667,586

  1986–87

  1,287,455

  1987–88

  3,817,553

  1988–89

  3,529,020

  1989–90

  2,866,205

  1990–91

  2,486,167

  1991–92

  2,730,477

  1992–93

  3,819,479

  1993–94

  1,873,663

  1994–95

  2,487,319

  Total

  35,792,494

  Since 1 April 1994 payments of derelict land grant have been made by English Partnerships on behalf of the Secretary of State.

  Dry Stone Walls
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what estimate he has made of the length of dry stone walls that(a) have collapsed and (b) are in need of substantial repair (i) in the national parks and (ii) elsewhere in England and Wales. [20397]

  Mr. Atkins
  The Secretary of State commissioned a comprehensive survey of countryside features in 1990—the countryside survey 1990. The survey included the length and condition of dry stone walls in Great Britain. The main results of the survey were published by the Department in 1993. There are an estimated 107,000 km of stone walls in England and Wales. This total includes walls which are derelict or collapsed. No further breakdown of the results, by condition of walls or designated areas, is currently available.

  Local Government Reorganisation
  Mr. David Atkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his statement to the House on 21 March,Official Report, column 146, when he expects election to the new unitary authority of Bournemouth to take place; and what will be the period of service of those elected. [20819]

  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  Subject to Parliament approving the relevant order, the existing authority for Bournemouth will continue but with unitary powers from 1 April 1997. There will be elections on 2 May 1996 to elect a council with a fresh mandate; those elected will serve for three years until May 1999 when the normal four-year cycle will resume.

  Mr. Berry
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many county councils there are in England; and how many he proposes to abolish in his reorganisation of local government structures. [20795]

  Mr. Curry
  [holding answer 25 April 1995]: There are at present 39 county councils in England. We have accepted the Local Government Commission's recommendations for four of these to be abolished—the county councils of Avon, Berkshire, Cleveland and Humberside.

  Secondary Liquid Fuel
  Mrs. Anne Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the periods of the trials which have been carried out at Barrington cement works into the burning of secondary liquid fuel; what was the effect, during the trials, on the levels of dioxin and particulate matter which were permitted whilst the cement kilns were burning secondary liquid fuel; what criteria were used to determine whether future trials will be permitted; and what is the percentage of dioxin in the secondary liquid fuel and the percentage of dioxin in the emissions. [20072]

  Mr. Atkins
  The trials that have been carried out are as follows:

  Trial 1: Secondary Liquid Fuel (SLF) burnt from 9/11/93 to 22/12/93.

  Trial 2: SLF burnt 1/3/94–31/5/94 and 1/7/94–31/8/94.

  Trial 3: SLF burnt 26/9/94–16/12/94.

  Trial 4: Started 24/1/95, ongoing.

  The effect of burning SLF on the levels of dioxins and particulates was insignificant. Dioxins were below the limits set for chemical waste incinerators, and particulates were below the level set in the authorisation.

  The criteria used to determine whether further trials would be permitted were based on a comparison of the emissions and their environmental effect and on the conditions set out in my written reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) on 23 June 1994, Official Report, columns 259–60. The operator was required to demonstrate that burning of SLF will not result in a net adverse effect on the environment.

  The level of dioxins in the secondary liquid fuel is below the limit of detection. The amount of dioxins as a percentage of exhaust gas weight is approximately 5 x 10-11.

  Mrs. Anne Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) whether secondary liquid fuel is classified as waste by the European Union; [20073]

  (2) what legal action is outstanding by the European Union against the United Kingdom in respect of the classification of secondary liquid fuel; [20074]

  (3) which commercial companies producing waste allow their waste to be blended into fuels. [20075]

  Mr. Atkins
  The definition of waste in article 1(a) of Council directive 75/442/EEC, as amended by Council directive 91/156/EEC, has been transposed into national legislation in the Waste Management Licensing Regulations 1994. Whether or not a substance is waste within the meaning of article 1(a) depends on the facts of each case; and interpretation of the law is a matter for the courts. Guidance on the definition of waste is provided in annexe 2 to DOE circular 11/94.

  There is no outstanding legal action by the European Commission against the United Kingdom in relation to the definition of waste and the classification of secondary liquid fuel.

  No information is held centrally on commercial companies which allow waste which they have produced to be blended into fuels. All commercial companies producing waste are subject to the duty of care under section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990; and each waste regulation authority is required to maintain a public register containing the information prescribed by regulation 10 of the 1994 regulations.

  Defective Housing
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many Pre-cast reinforced concrete houses have been repaired using grants provided under the housing defects legislation; and what has been the total expenditure to date. [20537]

  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  Local authorities in England report that between 1 December 1984 and 31 March 1994, 10,346 defective houses were reinstated under the housing defects legislation. Over the period, it is estimated that local authorities spent £275.626 million on reinstatement grants to eligible owners.

  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many complaints have been received by Pre-cast Reinforced Concrete Homes Ltd. regarding the quality of repairs carried out using grants provided under the housing defects legislation. [20538]

  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  PRC Homes Ltd. receives a low level of complaints about various matters, and does not keep statistics on individual subjects.

  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many companies have been licensed to repair homes under the terms of the Housing Defects Act; and, in each case, how many homes they have been responsible for repairing. [20539]

  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  The table shows the number of repairs completed under each licensed scheme, as recorded by PRC Homes Ltd. between 1 January 1986 and 31 March 1995. Information is not readily available on the number of repairs carried out under each licence by each builder registered with PRC Homes Ltd.

  PRC Homes Ltd. Dwelling registrations from 1 January 1986 to 31 March 1995

  Licence number

  Designer

  House type

  Completions 1 January 1986 to 31 March 1995

  001

  Curtins Cons. Eng.

  Cornish

  1,686

  002

  Swan Developments

  Cornish

  278

  003

  Swan Developments

  Orlit

  253

  004

  Swan Developments

  Stent

  342

  005

  Curtins Cons. Eng.

  Airey

  196

  006

  Curtins Cons. Eng.

  Woolaway

  335

  009

  John Laing Const.

  Cornish

  912

  012

  Rok-Crete Units

  Airey

  49

  013

  Rok-Crete Units

  Cornish

  32

  014

  PRC Design Assocs.

  Airey

  15

  015

  Williams Davis Ltd.

  Cornish

  61

  016

  Michael Dyson Assocs.

  Cornish

  962

  017

  Michael Dyson Assocs.

  Reema HP

  98

  018

  Michael Dyson Assocs.

  Airey

  338

  019

  John Laing Const.

  Unity

  862

  020

  Curtins Cons. Eng.

  Unity

  672

  021

  Michael Dyson Assocs.

  Unity

  523

  022

  Swan Developments

  Airey

  2

  023

  Michael Dyson Assocs.

  Wates

  1,03

  024

  PRC Design Assocs.

  Cornish

  541

  025

  Michael Dyson Assocs.

  Woolaway

  74

  028

  Bristol City Council

  Woolaway

  28

  029

  PRC Design Assocs.

  Unity

  198

  032

  Kirkham Williams Lewis

  Cornish

  228

  033

  Leeds City Council

  Airey

  290

  035

  The Johns Partnership

  Unity

  29

  039

  J. R. Bacon

  Unity

  72

  041

  Broadway Const. Ltd.

  Wates

  7

  042

  Avebury Design Ass.

  Parkinson

  1

  043

  Swan Developments

  Wates

  253

  044

  Ove Arup and Ptnrs.

  Woolaway

  3

  045

  Curtins Cons. Eng.

  Wates

  582

  046

  Curtins Cons. Eng.

  Reema HP

  74

  048

  M. Dyson Assoc.

  Tarran

  70

  049

  Walsall MBC

  Cornish

  13

  050

  M. Dyson Assoc.

  Parkinson

  2

  051

  Curtins Cons. Eng.

  Smith

  341

  052

  Curtins Cons. Eng.

  Orlit

  57

  534

  PRC Homes Ltd. Dwelling registrations from 1 January 1986 to 31 March 1995

  Licence number

  Designer

  House type

  Completions 1 January 1986 to 31 March 1995

  054

  M. Dyson Assoc.

  Boot

  58

  056

  Curtins Cons. Eng.

  Stent

  45

  058

  John Laing Const.

  Wates

  16

  059

  Kier Ltd.

  Wates

  33

  060

  Dinardo and Ptnrs.

  Dorran

  53

  061

  Swan Developments

  Unity

  65

  063

  KPA Consulting Engs.

  Reema HP

  21

  064

  Curtins Cons. Eng.

  Cornish

  45

  065

  M. Dyson Assoc.

  Sch/Hawks

  196

  067

  Kirkham Williams Lewis

  Unity

  32

  070

  Kirkham Williams Lewis

  Sch/Hawks

  130

  071

  KPA Consulting Engs.

  Parkinson

  18

  072

  Curtins Cons. Eng.

  Gregory

  19

  074

  PRC Design Assocs.

  Sch/Hawks

  68

  075

  PRC Design Assocs.

  Wates

  14

  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how companies have had their licence to improve homes under the terms of the Housing Defects Act suspended; and what, in each case, was the date of the suspension, the duration of the suspension and the reason for the suspension. [20540]

  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  I understand that PRC Homes Ltd. has not suspended any repair licences.

  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what assessment he has made of the willingness of mortgage lenders to provide mortgages on homes repaired under the provision of the Housing Defects Act. [20541]

  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  A survey of the largest building societies carried out in 1986 by the Building Societies Association suggested that almost all will consider, subject to normal conditions and valuation, an application for mortgage on a defective house repaired under the housing defects legislation. Generally this remains the position today. The structural condition of any property is one of a number of factors which lending institutions take into account when considering an application for mortgage.

  Sunspots
  Mr. Paul Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what analysis he has made on the effects of sunspots on(a) global warming, (b) the trade cycles and (c) landslides. [20807]

  Mr. Atkins
  The Government have undertaken no such analyses. However on(a), the 1994 report of the scientific assessment working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests that any influence of solar intensity varying on the 11–year cycle associated with sunspots is likely to be small. Longer term variation in solar intensity may have accounted for around 10 per cent. of the warming influence of additional greenhouse gases since 1850.

  Public Bodies
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment which of the executive non-departmental public bodies sponsored by his Department have(a) a statutory requirement to admit members of the public

  535
  to all board or committee meetings and (b) a statutory requirement to hold open meetings for the public. [20875]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  None of the executive non-departmental public bodies sponsored by my Department has a statutory requirement to admit members of the public to all board or committee meetings, nor do any have a statutory requirement to hold open meetings for the public.

  Housing Association Rents
  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the average rent charged by English housing associations for(a) one bedroom, (b) two bedroom and (c) three bedroom properties in each year since 1979. [21085]

  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  A full breakdown of housing association rents by bedroom size is available only for the last three years. The figures are published by the Housing Corporation in three annual volumes: Housing

  Emissions from large combustion plant in England and Wales 1992 and 1993

  1992

  1992

  1993

  1993

  1992

  1993

  Company

  NOx/te

  SO2/te

  NOx/te

  SO2/te

  Particulates/te

  BAA

  Heathrow

  133

  30

  128

  22

  0

  0

  BASF

  Seal Sands

  2,031

  431

  2,194

  631

  n/a

  0

  Bass

  Burton

  120

  380

  132

  414

  89

  94

  Boots

  Nottingham

  89

  34

  54

  0

  98

  22

  BP Chemicals

  Baglan Bay

  4,818

  24,278

  4,737

  23,008

  —

  —

  Hull

  111

  257

  77

  47

  4

  0

  BPB

  Purfleet

  181

  1,072

  227

  1,497

  n/a

  n/a

  British Coal

  Nottingham

  13

  57

  33

  191

  10

  21

  BP Oil

  Llandarcy

  836

  5,047

  838

  4,776

  n/a

  n/a

  Bridgewater Paper

  Ellesmere Port

  1,110

  3,325

  1,144

  3,702

  500

  307

  British Alcan

  Lynemouth

  10,676

  26,697

  11,555

  26,910

  1,770

  2,152

  British Sugar

  Bardney

  223

  998

  190

  1,304

  —

  —

  Bury St. Edmunds

  194

  351

  169

  46

  —

  —

  Ipswich

  112

  799

  139

  365

  —

  —

  Kings Lynn

  195

  1,109

  235

  1,338

  —

  —

  Wissington

  106

  0

  112

  3

  —

  —

  Newark

  113

  533

  190

  1,112

  —

  —

  York

  53

  0

  61

  1

  175

  639

  British Steel

  Port Talbot

  799

  4,859

  842

  4,458

  —

  —

  Llanwern

  438

  1,306

  350

  874

  —

  —

  Scunthorpe

  457

  1,642

  373

  1,195

  —

  —

  Redcar

  484

  1,040

  461

  593

  173

  250

  536
  Associations in 1992, 1993 and 1994 which are held in the Library.

  Power Station Emissions
  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the annual emissions level from all large combustion plants in the United Kingdom for sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and particulates since 1983. [20843]

  Mr. Atkins
  [holding answer 25 April 1995]: I refer the hon. Member to my written reply on 14 March 1995, Official Report, columns 536–38, detailing the SO2, NOx, and particulate emissions from power stations in England and Wales for 1991, 1992 and 1993.

  For the remaining large combustion plants, at present Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution holds validated data only for 1992 and 1993. Data for the preceding years is not held in the form requested.

  HMIP is responsible for large combustion plant within England and Wales only.
  537

  Emissions from large combustion plant in England and Wales 1992 and 1993

  1992

  1992

  1993

  1993

  1992

  1993

  Company

  NOx/te

  SO2/te

  NOx/te

  SO2/te

  Particulates/te

  Brunner Mond

  Lostock

  1,251

  5,032

  1,151

  5,741

  —

  —

  Winnington

  1,952

  6,829

  1,880

  9,574

  n/a

  1,054

  Ciba Geigy

  Manchester

  240

  576

  174

  494

  n/a

  n/a

  Cleveland Power

  Redcar

  109

  267

  82

  365

  n/a

  n/a

  Coal Products

  Chesterfield

  48

  236

  0

  0

  n/a

  0

  Colthrop Board Mill

  Newbury

  89

  126

  73

  0

  0

  0

  Courage

  Reading

  80

  175

  114

  370

  10

  23

  Courtaulds

  Bridgwater

  345

  799

  236

  0

  —

  —

  Coventry

  136

  0

  95

  0

  —

  —

  Great Coates

  1,196

  7,693

  1,157

  5,267

  —

  —

  Spondon

  658

  2,683

  607

  2,689

  2,502

  1,613

  Ford

  Dagenham

  668

  1,620

  291

  1,288

  —

  —

  Halewood

  37

  55

  38

  72

  70

  171

  Forgemasters Steels

  Sheffield

  55

  55

  59

  45

  n/a

  0

  Glaxochem

  Ulverston

  138

  43

  137

  169

  0

  0

  Goodyear

  Wolverhampton

  163

  28

  159

  0

  n/a

  n/a

  Grovenhurst Energy

  Sittingbourne

  2,257

  8,277

  2,408

  7,003

  232

  227

  Guinness

  London

  174

  556

  176

  387

  35

  63

  Hickson and Welch

  Castleford

  142

  78

  130

  1

  n/a

  n/a

  Hydro Fertilizers

  Immingham

  25

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  ICI

  Hillhouse

  581

  2,576

  850

  2,415

  —

  —

  North Tees

  552

  3,255

  610

  3,743

  —

  —

  Runcorn

  802

  951

  1,321

  1,192

  —

  —

  Wilton

  7,598

  27,139

  7,270

  26,040

  —

  —

  Billingham

  65

  1

  57

  0

  n/a

  649

  Iggesund

  Workington

  222

  9

  219

  0

  0

  0

  Ind Coope

  Burton

  85

  166

  60

  0

  0

  0

  Kodak

  Harrow

  154

  695

  115

  768

  0

  0

  London Underground

  London

  1,066

  47

  473

  25

  0

  2

  Phillips Petroleum

  Seal Sands

  337

  4

  220

  5

  n/a

  n/a

  538

  539

  Emissions from large combustion plant in England and Wales 1992 and 1993

  1992

  1992

  1993

  1993

  1992

  1993

  Company

  NOx/te

  SO2/te

  NOx/te

  SO2/te

  Particulates/te

  SAPPI

  Hemel Hempstead

  120

  798

  121

  773

  n/a

  6

  SCA

  Aylesford

  705

  2,006

  766

  1,801

  165

  0

  Shell

  Stanlow

  185

  792

  209

  74

  1

  0

  Shotton Paper

  Shotton

  369

  369

  338

  493

  n/a

  n/a

  Slough Trading Est.

  Slough

  286

  1,444

  216

  408

  73

  21

  St. Regis Paper Co

  Darwen

  96

  179

  84

  53

  —

  —

  Sudbrook

  198

  1

  50

  0

  —

  —

  Watchet

  145

  6

  123

  0

  179

  16

  Tate and Lyle

  Silvertown

  404

  1,706

  170

  609

  33

  72

  Tioxide

  Grimsby

  237

  1,335

  240

  1,380

  —

  —

  Hartlepool

  144

  10

  126

  11

  n/a

  22

  UCB Films

  Wigton

  135

  1,020

  375

  833

  n/a

  n/a

  UML

  Bromborough

  715

  2,449

  650

  2,067

  300

  123

  University of Leeds

  Leeds

  66

  217

  63

  297

  n/a

  n/a

  Zeneca

  Huddersfield

  672

  3,390

  233

  1,054

  n/a

  n/a

  Sub Total

  50,178

  161,456

  47,810

  149,991

  751

  262

  All figures given in tonnes (te). n/a = information not available.

  New plant (within national plan)

  1992

  1992

  1993

  1993

  1992

  1993

  Company

  NOx/te

  SO2/te

  NOx/te

  SO2/te

  Particulates/te

  Albright and Wilson

  122

  5

  91

  0

  n/a

  n/a

  Glaxo

  Stevenage

  0

  0

  2

  0

  n/a

  n/a

  Slough Trading Estate

  Slough

  0

  0

  88

  824

  73

  21

  Toyota

  Burnaston

  0

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Sub total

  122

  5

  182

  824

  73

  21

  All figures given in tonnes (te). n/a = information not available.

  Refineries

  1992

  1992

  1993

  1993

  1992

  1993

  Company

  NOx/te

  SO2/te

  NOx/te

  SO2/te

  Particulates/te

  BP Oil

  Llandarcy

  836

  5,047

  838

  4,776

  n/a

  161

  Conoco

  South Killingholme

  2,128

  2,405

  2,085

  1,367

  n/a

  n/a

  540 541

  Refineries

  1992

  1992

  1993

  1993

  1992

  1993

  Company

  NOx/te

  SO2/te

  NOx/te

  SO2/te

  Particulates/te

  Elf

  Milford Haven

  1,003

  297

  971

  543

  230

  —

  Esso

  Fawley

  5,174

  13,173

  5,051

  12,930

  1,020

  1,029

  Gulf

  Milford Haven

  875

  4,013

  764

  3,264

  n/a

  n/a

  Lindsey

  Killingholme

  2,511

  10,858

  2,773

  11,793

  n/a

  n/a

  Mobil

  Coryton

  2,465

  8,869

  2,513

  6,506

  n/a

  n/a

  Pip

  North Tees

  515

  330

  299

  315

  n/a

  n/a

  Shell

  Shell Stanlow

  4,399

  17,074

  4,655

  17,729

  n/a

  n/a

  Shell Haven

  1,373

  3,314

  1,728

  5,353

  n/a

  n/a

  Texaco

  Pembroke

  3,051

  2,666

  3,070

  3,137

  1,200

  250

  Sub Total

  24,330

  68,046

  24,747

  67,713

  2,450

  1,440

  All figures given in tonnes (te). n/a = information not available.

  There are further large combustion plants which are not regulated under the national plan for the reduction of

  1992

  1992

  1993

  1993

  1992

  1993

  NOx/te

  SO2/te

  NOx/te

  SO2/te

  Particulates/te

  4,140

  5,460

  12,575

  11,600

  1,170

  1,340

  Grand total

  78,770

  234,967

  85,314

  230,128

  4,444

  3,063

  All figures given in tonnes (te).

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Allowances
  Mr. David Shaw
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the total amount paid by his central Department and each agency for which he is responsible in subsistence allowances for travel(a) within the United Kingdom and (b) outside the United Kingdom in each of the last three years. [19547]

  Mr. Waldegrave
  The costs incurred by my Department on subsistence for each of the last three years are as follows:

  £

  1992–93

  1993–94

  1994–95 (provisional)

  (a) United Kingdom

  1,857,423

  1,845,800

  1,473,335

  (b) Overseas

  773,353

  776,681

  673,660

  542
  emissions of sulphur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen. The total emissions from these plants were:

  The figures for 1992–93 and 1993–94 include those for the pesticides safety and veterinary medicines directorates.

  Responsibility for such matters within ADAS, the Central Science Laboratory, the Central Veterinary Laboratory and the pesticides safety and the veterinary medicines directorates has been delegated to the agency chief executives and I have asked them to reply to my hon. Friend direct.

  Letter from G. K. Bruce to Mr. David Shaw, dated 26 April 1995:
  The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has asked me to reply, in respect of the Pesticides Safety Directorate (PSD), to your question about expenditure on subsistence allowances for travel in each of the last three years.
  The Directorate was launched as an executive agency on 1 April 1993 and figures prior to this date have been included in the core—MAFF response and are not separately available. However, I am able to advise that subsistence allowances paid to staff for travel in the UK since the agency was launched have totalled £10,956 in 1993/94, and £20,787 in 1994/95. For travel outside the UK, subsistence allowances paid to PSD staff have totalled £38,516 and £32,611 in 1993/94 and 1994/95 respectively.
  543
  Letter from Dr. J. M. Rutter to Mr. David Shaw, dated 26 April 1995:
  The Minister has asked me to reply to your question about the total amount of subsistence allowance paid by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate within and outside the United Kingdom for each of the last three years, as this is an operational matter for which I am responsible.
  The information requested is as follows:

  Subsistence payments

  1992–93 £

  1993–94 £

  1994–95 £

  Within UK

  8,052

  4,049

  3,956

  Outside UK

  46,868

  48,483

  34,444

  Subsistence payments outside the UK include those incurred on inspections overseas of manufacturing premises for veterinary immunological medicines. These are recovered from the company concerned as part of the inspection fee.

  Letter from Dr. J. M. Walsh to Mr. David Shaw, dated 21 April 1995:
  The Minister of Agriculture has asked me to reply directly to you in answer to your Parliamentary Question number 1055.
  In this you asked for the total amount paid by this Agency for travel within the United Kingdom and outside the United Kingdom in each of the last three years.
  ADAS was formed in June 1992 as an Executive Agency, jointly owned by MAFF and the Welsh Office. The majority of expenditure on subsistence is spent by ADAS Consultants pursuing their commercial activities.
  The costs incurred by ADAS on subsistence for each of the last three years are as follows:

  1992–95 £

  1993–94 £

  1994–95 £

  (a) Within the UK

  843,138

  814,520

  757,214

  (b) Overseas

  45,259

  73,919

  87,612

  Letter from Dr. P. I. Stanley to Mr. David Shaw, dated 26 April 1995:
  Subsistence payments to staff of the Central Science Laboratory (CSL) in respect of travel within the UK for the past three financial years were:

  £000

  1992–93

  63.10

  1993–94

  87.64

  1994–95

  153.33

  I should explain that in April 1994 CSL was re-launched as an enlarged Agency following its merger with the Food Science Laboratories at Norwich and Aberdeen. The merger meant that the number of staff employed by CSL rose from about 450 to 700 and the incidence of UK travel increased with the addition of two major distant sites. This accounts for last year's significant rise in subsistence payments.
  Regarding subsistence payments for travel outside of the UK, such statistics are not recorded separately from travel and other associated expenses and the cost of obtaining them would be disproportionately high.
  544
  Letter from Guy Stapleton to Mr. David Shaw, dated 26 April 1995:
  The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has asked me to reply to your question about subsistence allowances paid by the Agency for travel within the United Kingdom and outside the United Kingdom for each of the last three years as the information for the Intervention Board is a matter within my operational responsibility.
  The Intervention Board has spent the following sums on subsistence allowances since 1992–93:

  1992–93 £

  1993–94 £

  1994–95 £

  Subsistence on travel within the United Kingdom

  193,890

  191,623

  180,750

  Subsistence on travel outside the United Kingdom

  36,262

  43,310

  53,425

  Subsistence is payable when an officer works away from their normal office and because they incur necessary expenses for accommodation or meals. The rates of subsistence are those currently indicated by Treasury. Approximately three-quarters of the Agency's subsistence for travel within the United Kingdom is paid to staff who regularly travel in their role as investigators, scrutineers and verifiers. Subsistence for travel outside the United Kingdom is incurred mainly by the attendance of Agency staff at meetings with European Commission and other officials in Brussels.

  Letter from T. W. A. Little to Mr. David Shaw, dated 26 April 1995:
  The Minister has asked me to reply to your question about subsistence allowance paid by CVL.
  The total amounts paid over the last three years are:

  Within UK £

  Outside UK £

  1992–93 (Est)

  38,700

  27,250

  1993–94

  24,676

  24,382

  1994–95

  23,638

  26,345

  A word of explanation on the 1992–93 figures may be useful. CVL became an Executive Agency in 1990. Up to and including November 1992 our accounts were processed and produced by MAFF and it has only been possible to identify separately the subsistence allowances paid from 1 December 1992. The 1992–93 figure is derived from the amounts paid between 1 December and 31 March 1993.

  Pesticides
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the cases in which the Advisory committee on Pesticides has been consulted in each of the last five years, and what subsequent action was taken. [20065]

  Mrs. Browning
  Ministers are required by the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985 to consult the Advisory Committee on Pesticides on approvals they propose to give or revoke, on the conditions to be attached to approvals and on regulations to be made under the Act. Ministers also consult the committee on other current pesticides issues.

  Consequently the committee has discussed many matters at its 28 meetings over the period 1990 to 1994. Details of these discussions and their outcomes are set out in the committee's annual reports, copies of which are in the House Library.
  545
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Health regarding pesticides and animal treatments and their effect on the food chain, and what action resulted. [20066]

  Mrs. Browning
  My right hon. Friends the Minister and the Secretary of State for Health are among the Ministers responsible for the regulation of pesticides and have close contact on such matters. These contacts feed into decisions on individual applications for approval of pesticides and into the shaping of policy.

  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what guidance Her Majesty's Government offer on the minimum level for pesticide usage for effective pest control, at what interval this level is reviewed; and what investigations are made to decide it. [20067]

  Mrs. Browning
  Guidance on minimising pesticide use is provided through the code of practice on the safe use of pesticides on farms and holdings through ADAS and other advisory services. The guidance promotes, in particular, the better targeting of pesticide applications and the use of reduced application rates in appropriate cases. A wide-ranging research programme supports the Government's pesticide minimisation policy. Guidance is kept under constant review in the light of results from the research programme.

  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the European Union regime for regulating pesticides, and how this correlates with his Department's procedures. [20068]

  Mrs. Browning
  Directive 91/414/EEC provides a framework for the harmonisation of national regimes for agricultural pesticides; a framework directive for other pesticides is under negotiation. Under directive 91/414/EEC, active substances will be authorised, or not, by the Community as a whole. Products containing these active substances will be regulated by individual member states who will carry out their evaluations on the basis of agreed "Uniform Principles". Both the UK and EC systems place paramount importance upon human safety, and protecting the environment. Both base decisions on the evaluation of appropriate scientific data and the two systems are of comparable rigour in terms of the data required and the manner in which they are evaluated.

  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what procedures are adopted to investigate the veracity of company data when submitted for approval of a pesticide. [20069]

  Mrs. Browning
  Companies are required to satisfy themselves of the veracity of their data before submitting them. It is an offence under the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985 knowingly or recklessly to provide false information or to withhold a material fact. Those evaluating pesticides are alert to inconsistencies in the data package provided or between the data submitted and those which might be expected based on experience with similar active substances or formulations. Experimental toxicity data to support submissions for approval of new pesticides must be generated in accordance with good laboratory practice—GLP. GLP involves regular internal checks and reviews and facilities operating to GLP are subject to independent inspection for compliance.

  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what are the specific 546
  criteria used by his Department before approval of a pesticide. [20070]

  Mrs. Browning
  The key aims of the approvals system are that proper use of the pesticide carries no unacceptable risk to human health or to the environment and that the product is efficacious. The pursuit of these aims requires the examination of a number of issues including mammalian toxicity, operator exposure, pesticide chemistry, behaviour and toxicity in the environment and residue levels in food. Specific data relating to all relevant matters are required from the applicant company and evaluated according to best current standards and protocols.

  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what plans he has to commission his Department to study the possible connections between the use of pesticides and allergies and other medical problems. [20071]

  Mrs. Browning
  Companies applying for pesticide approvals must provide fully researched data which addresses potential allergic and other medical effects in pesticide users and food consumers. These data are rigorously evaluated before any approval is given.

  The chemical nature of pesticides and the fact that consumers are exposed only to very low levels mean that the risk of allergic reaction to pesticide residues is low compared with food allergens. Therefore, MAFF's continuing research concerned with allergies and intolerances will concentrate on foods rather than on pesticides.

  There will, however, continue to be projects which examine allergic responses or other medical issues at a general level and which assist with the development of risk assessment techniques used in pesticide evaluation. MAFF will also continue to draw on public results of research carried out by other bodies throughout the world.

  Statutory Instruments
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the percentage of statutory instruments introduced by his Ministry which implement EU directives in the latest available year. [19739]

  Mr. Jack
  In the 1994 calendar year 22 per cent. of statutory instruments made or laid by MAFF implemented EU directives.

  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the estimated cost(a) to his Ministry and (b) to the relevant industries of implementing statutory instruments introduced by his Ministry in (i) 1980, (ii) 1985, (iii) 1990 and (iv) 1994. [19739]

  Mr. Jack
  The cost to the Ministry of implementing statutory instruments for the years in question could be provided only at disproportionate cost. As far as costs to the industry are concerned, compliance cost assessments are prepared by the Department in line with Government policy. A list of all such CCAs issued between November 1993 and June 1994 was published in a command paper in December 1994, Cm 2769. Another command paper covering the period July to December 1994 will be published shortly. Copies of the CCAs prepared during these periods and since have been placed in the Library of the House. Details of compliance cost assessments for earlier periods cannot be obtained without disproportionate cost.
  547
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the total number of statutory instruments introduced by his Ministry in(a) 1980, (b) 1985, (c) 1990, (d) 1994 and (e) 1995, to date.

  Mr. Jack
  A total of 143 statutory instruments were made or laid by MAFF in the 1990 calendar year, 121 in 1994 and 55 in 1995 up to 21 April. Figures for the earlier years could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Tuberculosis
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many cases of TB in cattle were reported in each county in each year since 1985. [20554]

  Mrs. Browning
  Complete information in the form requested is not available and that information which is available for the years 1985 to 1987 could be provided only at disproportionate cost. However, the numbers of confirmed cattle tuberculosis breakdowns in each county of England in each of the years form 1988 to 1991 were as follows:

  Year(s) in which cases occurred

  Number of herds

  Number of confirmed reactors

  Avon

  1988

  8

  42

  1989

  10

  49

  1990

  9

  10

  1991

  17

  23

  Bedfordshire

  1988

  1

  1

  1990

  1

  1

  Cheshire

  1991

  1

  2

  Cornwall

  1988

  18

  42

  1989

  45

  110

  1990

  33

  50

  1991

  47

  107

  Derbyshire

  1988

  6

  7

  1989

  2

  3

  Devon

  1988

  17

  33

  1989

  12

  22

  1990

  19

  35

  1991

  10

  19

  Dorset

  1988

  6

  8

  1989

  5

  5

  1990

  4

  6

  1991

  4

  10

  Gloucestershire

  1988

  11

  33

  1989

  13

  31

  1990

  15

  22

  1991

  36

  47

  Hampshire

  1989

  1

  1

  1991

  1

  1

  Lancashire

  1990

  1

  1

  Leicestershire

  1989

  1

  1

  Lincolnshire

  1989

  1

  2

  Northamptonshire

  1990

  1

  1

  Northumberland

  1988

  1

  1

  1989

  1

  1

  1990

  2

  2

  Nottinghamshire

  1988

  1

  1

  548

  Years(s) in which cases occurred

  Number of herds

  Number of confirmed reactors

  Shropshire

  1990

  1

  1

  1991

  1

  1

  Somerset

  1988

  2

  2

  Suffolk

  1989

  1

  3

  Surrey

  1991

  1

  1

  Sussex east

  1989

  1

  5

  1991

  2

  2

  Sussex west

  1989

  1

  12

  1991

  1

  1

  Warwickshire

  1991

  1

  1

  Wiltshire

  1988

  7

  8

  1989

  4

  4

  1990

  5

  5

  1991

  3

  7

  Yorkshire north

  1991

  2

  2

  Yorkshire south

  1989

  1

  1

  1991

  1

  1

  In the period 1992 to 1994 the numbers of confirmed cattle tuberculosis breakdowns in each of the Ministry's administrative areas of England were as follows:

  Year(s) in which cases occurred

  Number of herds

  Number of confirmed reactors

  Berkshire/Buckinghamshire/Oxon

  1993

  2

  9

  1994

  2

  2

  Cheshire

  1994

  1

  1

  Cornwall

  1992

  49

  129

  1993

  82

  277

  1994

  106

  351

  Cumbria

  1992

  3

  12

  1993

  1

  1

  Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire

  1994

  1

  1

  Devon

  1992

  20

  102

  1993

  46

  99

  1994

  75

  189

  Dorset

  1992

  3

  5

  1993

  8

  21

  1994

  2

  19

  Durham/Tyne and Weir/Cleveland/Northumbria

  1992

  2

  2

  1993

  1

  1

  1994

  2

  7

  Gloucestershire and Avon

  1992

  37

  120

  1993

  64

  175

  1994

  63

  214

  Hereford/Worcestershire

  1993

  4

  12

  1994

  12

  83

  Humberside

  1992

  1

  1

  Kent and east Sussex

  1994

  1

  3

  549

  Year(s) in which cases occurred

  Number of herds

  Number of confirmed reactors

  Lancashire/Merseyside

  1992

  1

  1

  1993

  1

  1

  1994

  1

  1

  Leicestershire

  1992

  2

  2

  1993

  1

  1

  1994

  1

  1

  Lincolnshire

  1993

  1

  1

  Somerset

  1993

  14

  65

  1994

  7

  15

  Warwickshire and west Midlands

  1992

  2

  4

  1993

  1

  2

  Wiltshire

  1992

  9

  60

  1993

  18

  89

  1994

  21

  60

  North Yorkshire

  1992

  4

  4

  Smoking Restrictions
  Mr. Peter Griffiths
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what facilities are provided and arrangements made for the well-being and comfort of staff who(a) smoke and (b) do not wish to be affected by smoking at (i) the work station and (ii) rest, recreation and refreshment facilities at Whitehall place, London. [20457]

  Mr. Jack
  Smoking restrictions in the Ministry's London headquarters buildings were introduced on 1 July 1993. MAFF's smoking at work policy came into full force on 1 January 1994. From that date smoking was allowed on Ministry premises only in suitably equipped and ventilated smoking rooms. There are three designated smoking rooms in the Whitehall place complex.

  Rest, recreation and refreshment facilities are available adjacent to one of the designated smoking areas.

  Sheep Scab
  Mrs. Lait
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what reports he has had from markets in the United Kingdom on the prevalence of sheep scab. [21033]

  Mrs. Browning
  Last spring, the state veterinary service launched a month-long surveillance exercise at sheep markets to identify the prevalence of sheep scab in the country and to establish a benchmark for further checks. The result indicated that sheep scab had increased from the levels recorded before deregulation.

  To help reduce the spread of scab the Government announced a joint industry—Government publicity campaign together with a significant increase in the official veterinary presence at markets. Only 46 out of 2,809 market visits conducted between 1 September 1994 and 3 March 1995 resulted in the detection of sheep suspected of being affected with scab. In total, only 363 animals had to be withdrawn and treated for sheep scab; a further 107 suspect animals were sent direct to slaughter.

  The SVS have just repeated last year's exercise and the findings will be compared against those for last year. The
  550
  results are currently being collated and will be announced shortly. The provisional indications are, however, that the amount of scab found at markets has significantly decreased.

  Meat Inspectors
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what plans he has to extend the rebate given on meat inspector costs. [21100]

  Mrs. Browning
  We have been considering how best to deploy the transitional assistance on meat hygiene service charges announced in the answer given by my right hon. Friend to my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) on 29 March,Official Report, columns 653–54, so as to assist the widest possible range of premises within the funds available. The MHS is now consulting plant operators on the following proposed reductions in its charges:
  Charges for Official Veterinary Surgeons' normal time to be capped at £35 per hour at all plants for this financial year
  Charges for Meat Inspectors' normal time to be reduced by £1 per hour at all plants for this financial year
  A rebate equivalent to £1 per hour off Meat Inspectors' normal time after the end of the first two quarters of 1995–96 (i.e. in July and October 1995) to all plants, subject to the need to observe the requirements of European legislation which prohibits the subsidisation of inspection charges below the level of the Community Standard charge in the case of slaughterhouses.

  Final decisions on these proposed charges will not be taken until after the end of the statutory consultation process. The charges would be subject to review in consultation with the Industry Forum—the consultative body which the MHS has set up to discuss issues with the industry—after the first six months of this financial year to see whether there was any further flexibility within the funds available to make any other adjustments for the remainder of the year.

  Corncrake
  Ms. Quin
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what plans he has to encourage the return of the corncrake to its farmland habitat. [20243]

  Mr. Jack
  [holding answer 25 April 1995]: The present UK population of corncrakes is confined almost entirely to the north and west of Scotland where the Government have contributed to schemes designed to increase their numbers. English Nature has advised that a reintroduction programme for England is not considered feasible at present given the lack of any substantial areas of suitable habitat. However, the corncrake is a candidate species under consideration by the biodiversity steering group for an individual action plan to improve its conservation status.

  North Sea (Aggregates)
  Sir Richard Body
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether any sand or aggregates removed from the banks in the North sea off Lincolnshire is being exported abroad. [19747]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  I have been asked to reply.

  Approximately 400,000 tonnes.

HEALTH

  Alzheimer's Disease
  Mrs. Beckett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list the drugs available on the NHS for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. [19900]

  Mr. Sackville
  The national health service provides different types of treatment for Alzheimer's disease which may include tranquillisers, physiotherapy and educational activities.

  There are, however, currently no licensed drugs available for the treatment of this serious condition, although the Medicines Control Agency is aware that the pharmaceutical industry has drugs under development.

  Organ Donor Register
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how many registrations have been made on the national computerised registration system for kidney donors; [20516]

  (2) what guidelines and information have been given to transplant co-ordinators regarding the national computerised registration system; [20517]

  (3) what is the progress of the national computerised registration scheme for kidney donors by region; and if she will make a statement. [20519]

  Mr. Sackville
  Since the national health service organ donor register was launched on 6 October 1994 nearly 1,200,0001 people have joined the register. A regional analysis is not available at present. The United Kingdom Transplant Co-ordinators Association is represented on the Health Departments' steering group for the NHS organ donor register. Transplant unit staff were informed about the register before it was launched and on 31 March 1995 the chief executive of the United Kingdom Transplant Support Service Authority sent transplant co-ordinators the procedure for using the register. A resources and information pack was recently sent to all transplant co-ordinators.
  1 Around 440,000 of these were transferred from the existing Lifeline Wales register.

  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what efforts her Department has made to promote and advertise the national computerised registration system for kidney donors. [20518]

  Mr. Sackville
  We have produced a wide range of publicity material to support the NHS organ donor register since its launch in October 1994, at a cost of £1.53 million in 1994–95. This has included the delivery of leaflets, including registration forms, to over 19 million homes with local free newspapers or via the Royal Mail; national, regional and local newspaper advertisements; TV fillers; 25,000 posters; freepost and freephone facilities; displays in post offices; and distribution of leaflets and forms to all chemists and GPs.

  M.E. Funding
  Ms Lynne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what are the current and future plans for funding the national task force on CFS/PVFS/myalgic encephalomyelitis. [20557]

  Mr. Sackville
  The task force, which is autonomous of the Department of Health, has received £20,000 funding 552
  over the past two years under section 64 of the Health Services and Public Health Act 1968. A bid for further funding has been received from the charity Westcare, which provides the secretariat to the task force, and the Department is in discussion with Westcare regarding this application. The decision on future funding will be made known to Westcare as soon as possible.

  NHS Trust Boards
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if persons with criminal records are eligible for appointment to NHS trusts as chairman or non-executive directors. [20698]

  Mr. Malone
  In accordance with the National Health Service Trusts (Membership and Procedure) Regulations 1990, a person is disqualified from appointment to an NHS trust as chairman or non-executive director if within the preceding five years he has been convicted in the United Kingdom of any offence resulting in a sentence of imprisonment of not less than three months.

  NHS Estates Agency
  Mr. Hendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will publish the key tasks and targets for 1995–96 for the NHS Estates Agency. [21568]

  Mr. Sackville
  I have agreed the agency's key tasks and targets for 1995–96, and have placed copies in the Library.

  Temazepam
  Mrs. Beckett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many deaths occurred from temazepam abuse in each age group in each of the last five years. [19824]

  Mr. Bowis
  This information is shown in the table.

  The number of deaths certified as due to abuse of Temazepam 1(ICDs 304.1, 304.7, 304.8, 305.4, 305.9), alone or with other drugs, by five year age groups for the years 1989–1993 in England and Wales.

  1989

  1990

  1991

  1992

  1993

  15–19

  1

  1

  1

  2

  0

  20–24

  2

  0

  2

  2

  3

  25–29

  0

  3

  1

  5

  4

  30–34

  2

  1

  2

  0

  3

  35–39

  1

  1

  5

  1

  3

  40–44

  0

  1

  0

  1

  1

  45–49

  0

  2

  2

  1

  0

  50–54

  0

  1

  0

  1

  1

  55–59

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  60–64

  1

  1

  0

  0

  0

  65–69

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  70–74

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1 International Classification of Disease 9th revision.

  Mrs. Beckett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans she has for the further control of temazepam capsules; and what indications there are for the use of temazepam capsules instead of temazepam pills. [19825]

  Mr. Bowis
  The abuse of temazepam capsules by drug misusers is of particular concern and we are keeping the position under review.

  My Department, in consultation with other Departments, is considering the recommendation of the

  553
  Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to tighten the control of the drug temazepam.

  The licensed indications for temazepam capsules and tablets are the same, and include short-term use as a hypnotic and premedication before minor surgery.

  GP Recruitment
  Mrs. Beckett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will make a statement on the levels of recruitment of doctors to become general practitioners currently and five years ago. [19826]

  Mr. Malone
  In 1989–90 the number of general practitioners increased by 14–0.6 per cent.—in England. In 1993–94 the number increased by 278–1.0 per cent.—to an all-time high of 26,567.

  Residential Care
  Mr. Tim Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what assessment she has made of the progress made by placing authorities in reviewing placements at Stoke Place and Stoke Green House, residential care homes operated by Longcare Ltd; [20600]

  (2) what conclusions have been drawn by her Department from the investigation by Buckinghamshire county council social services department inspection unit conducted in the period November 1993 to June 1994 of Stoke Place and Stoke Green House; and what account has been taken of these conclusions in the formulation of a new circular to local authorities on the regulation of residential care homes under the Registered Homes Act 1984; [20602]

  (3) if she will list the local authorities that have residents in Stoke Place and Stoke Green House; and if she will give the number of placements by each at 30 June 1994 and at present. [20601]

  Mr. Bowls
  The social services inspectorate is continuing to keep in close contact with Buckinghamshire social services department on developments in the care of residents placed in homes operated by Longcare Ltd. The assessment and placing of residents is a matter for the authorities concerned. Information is not collected centrally on the authorities in relation to which placements in specific homes are made. The social services inspectorate will shortly begin a routine formal inspection of Buckinghamshire's inspection unit to check on the unit's effectiveness.

  Learning Disabilities
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is her current policy in respect of village communities for persons with learning disabilities; what factors led her to holding an evaluation of village communities for persons with learning disabilities; and what is the estimated cost of the exercise. [21040]

  Mr. Bowls
  Guidance on residential services for people with learning disabilities is given in LAC(92)15, copies of which are available in the Library. Local authorities can purchase or provide places in village or residential communities if that is what individuals and their families prefer and the communities meet the criteria set out in the guidance. The planned evaluation will involve comparison with the cost and outcomes of other forms of provision and will help authorities make the best use of resources 554
  in meeting the needs of individuals in their area. Precise details of the evaluation including its cost have yet to be finalised.

  Residential Care and Nursing Homes
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the purpose and scope of the review of registration and inspection of residential care and nursing homes; and when it will begin. [21039]

  Mr. Bowls
  In the consultative document, "Inspecting Social Services", issued in October 1992, the Government indicated that in 1995 they would review progress in implementing new arrangements for social services inspection and would consider what further steps might be necessary to achieve the essential objectives of effectiveness and independence. This review will begin later this year. Its precise scope is still under consideration.

  Mental Illness
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what new policy proposals she has to reduce the number of inmates and remand prisons who are transferred to mental institutions shortly after their arrest. [20803]

  Mr. Bowis
  It is well-established Government policy that offenders suffering from mental disorder should, where necessary, receive care and treatment from the health and social services rather than in the criminal justice system. The transfer to hospital of prisoners requiring specialist psychiatric care plays an important part in this.

  The development of services for mentally disordered offenders and others with similar needs is a high priority for the national health service. My Department is working closely with the Home Department in establishing initiatives, such as multi-agency working in courts and the provision of specialist training, to ensure that mentally disordered people who come into contact with the criminal justice system obtain the care they need at the earliest possible stage.

  Cannabis
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what new proposals she has to legalise the therapeutic use of cannabis. [20806]

  Mr. Bowis
  Any consideration of the therapeutic use of cannabis would have to take account of the potential risks associated with short and long-term use. If, as a result of research, evidence became available that the quality, safety and efficacy of a cannabis-based preparation was suitable for the grant of a product licence under the Medicines Act 1968, the Misuse of Drugs Act controls, for which my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary is responsible, could be modified to make such a medicine available to patients.

  Public Bodies
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health which of the executive non-departmental public bodies sponsored by her Department have(a) a statutory requirement to admit members of the public to all board

  555
  or committee meetings and (b) a statutory requirement to hold open meetings for the public. [20886]

  Mr. Sackville
  None.

  Hospitals, London
  Mrs. Beckett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) when she received the South Thames regional health authority submission on changes to London hospitals; and approximately how many hours she spent studying it before 4 April; [21068]

  (2) when she received the North Thames regional health authority submission on changes to London hospitals; and approximately how many hours she spent studying it before 4 April. [21069]

  Mr. Malone
  I refer the right hon. Member to the reply I gave her on 18 April at column 120.

  St. Bartholomew's and London Chest Hospital
  Mrs. Beckett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the estimated land value of(a) the St. Bartholomew's hospital site and (b) the London chest hospital site. [21102]

  Mr. Malone
  The estimated land values of the St. Bartholomew's hospital site and the London chest hospital site are £65 million and £1.5 million respectively.

  Health Services, London
  Mrs. Beckett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the increased investment in primary care, revenue and capital, in London in 1992–93, 1993–94 and 1994–95; and what is planned for 1995–96 and 1996–97. [21103]

  Mr. Malone
  Total expenditure on primary care by family health services authorities in London in 1992–93 and 1993–94 together with increase over the previous year is shown in the table. Figures for 1994–95 are not yet available. No comparable planned figures are available for 1995–96 and 1996–97.

  £000

  1992–93

  1993–94

  Total expenditure

  859,482

  926,820

  Increase over previous year

  101,848

  67,338

  Notes:

  1. Source—Annual Accounts of FHSAs. Figures for 1993–94 are provisional, being subject to National Audit Office review.

  2. Figures relate to all FHSAs in London.

  3. The figures are for total FHSA expenditure (services and administration) excluding general practitioner fundholder expenditure on hospital services. Services expenditure is for both cash limited and non cash limited services, including general medical services, pharmaceutical services, optical services and dental services administered by FHSAs. Expenditure on dental services centrally administered by the Dental Practice Board is not included. Expenditure on administration is both revenue and capital expenditure. The accounting policy in respect of capital changed between the two years: in 1993–94 capital charges were introduced in respect of FHSAs.

  Survey Organisations
  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if she will list the polling or public survey organisations employed by her Department in the financial year 1990–91; what were the values of 556
  individual contracts with these organisations; and what were the purposes of the research undertaken; [18171]

  (2) how much was spent by her Department on contracts with polling or public survey organisations in the financial year 1994–95; [18172]

  (3) if she will list the polling or public survey organisations employed by her Department in the financial year 1994–95; what were the values of individual contracts with these organisations; and what were the purposes of the research undertaken; [18173]

  (4) what was the total amount of money spent by her Department on contracts with polling or public survey organisations in each financial year since 1990–91; [18189]

  (5) if she will list the polling or public survey organisations employed by her Department in the financial year 1993–94, the values of individual contracts with these organisations and the purposes of the research undertaken; [18180]

  (6) if she will list the polling or public survey organisations employed by her Department in the financial year 1992–93, the value of individual contracts with these organisations and the purposes of the research undertaken. [18181]

  (7) if she will list the polling or public survey organisations employed by her Department in the financial year 1991–92, the values of individual contracts with these organisations and the purposes of the research undertaken. [18182]

  Mr. Sackville
  [holding answer 5 April 1995]: A list of research projects commissioned from polling or public survey organisations for the financial years 1990–91 to 1994–95 will be placed in the Library. The cost of each individual survey is a matter of commercial confidentiality. Total costs of surveys in each year since 1990–91 are estimated as follows:

  £ million

  1990–91

  2.5

  1991–92

  3.4

  1992–93

  5.5

  1993–94

  6.7

  1994–95

  5.3

NATIONAL HERITAGE

  Relocation Costs
  Mr. David Shaw
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage if he will list for each agency and the central Department for which he is responsible(a) the total amount of removal costs and associated expenses reimbursed to officials who were required to relocate as part of their employment, (b) the amount of each of the highest three claims that were concluded and settled and (c) the average amount of each claim in each of the last three years. [19655]

  Mr. Dorrell
  The Department of National Heritage was created in April 1992. It has two agencies—the Royal Parks Agency, created in April 1993 and the Historic Royal Palaces Agency, created in October 1989. The information requested is shown in the following table:
  557

  Total amount of removal costs (£)

  Amounts of highest claims (£)

  Average amount of each claim (£)

  DNH central department

  1992–93

  nil

  n/a

  n/a

  1993–94

  nil

  n/a

  n/a

  1994–95

  nil

  n/a

  n/a

  RPA

  1992–93

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  1993–94

  nil

  n/a

  n/a

  1994–95

  nil

  n/a

  n/a

  HRPA

  1992–93

  nil

  —

  —

  1993–94

  2,521

  Two claims only: 2,021 and 500

  See data re actuals

  1994–95

  6,682

  One claim only: 6,682

  See data re actuals

  Overtime and Sickness
  Mr. David Shaw
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage if he will list for each agency and the central Department for which he is responsible(a) the total hours of overtime worked for which payment has been made, (b) the total amount paid in overtime and (c) the total time in days and its monetary equivalent lost through sickness in each of the last three years. [19680]

  Mr. Dorrell
  The Department of National Heritage was created in April 1992. It has two agencies—the Royal Parks Agency (RPA) created in April 1993 and the Historic Royal Palaces Agency (HRPA) created in October 1989. The information requested is shown in the following tables:

  (a) and (b) Table 1—Overtime

  Total hours of overtime worked

  Total amounts paid in overtime (£)

  DNH central department

  1992–931

  Figures not available

  Figures not available

  1993–94

  Figures not available

  157,661.61

  1994–952

  Figures not available

  133,420.94

  RPA

  1992–93

  Not applicable

  Not applicable

  1993–94

  23,197

  289,570.13

  1994–952

  16,877

  213,354.78

  HRPA3

  1992–93

  Figures not available

  584,000.00

  1993–94

  Figures not available

  650,000.00

  1994–952

  Figures not available

  723,000.00

  Notes:

  1 DNH did not have its own financial and management accounting arrangements in place until August 1992; for the year 1992–93, the information is therefore not available in the format requested.

  2 The 1994–95 figures (for year ending 31 March 1995) may change slightly as year-end accounts are finalised.

  3 The HRPA figures cover both overtime and premium pay (for excess hours worked at weekends and on Public and Bank holidays. It is not possible to disaggregate the two.
  558

  c) Table 2—Sickness

  Number of days lost through sickness:

  DNH central department

  RPA

  HRPA

  1992

  366

  Not applicable

  2,090

  1993

  1,803

  2,350

  3,376

  19941

  —

  —

  —

  Notes:

  1 1994 data is not yet available.

  1. It is not possible to give figures for the monetary equivalent of days lost through sickness as there are too many variables in this calculation and it would be difficult to rely on the accuracy of any such calculations.

EMPLOYMENT

  Workplace Fatal Injuries
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many persons under 16 years died at a place of employment in each year since 1990. [20689]

  Mr. Oppenheim
  The number of fatal injuries to persons under the age of 16 reported to health and safety enforcement authorities in each year since 1990–91 is shown in the following table:

  Fatalities1

  Year

  Employees2

  Non-employees

  Total

  1990–91

  0

  46

  46

  1991–92

  0

  33

  33

  1992–93

  1

  32

  33

  1993–943

  1

  29

  30

  1 Figures are for Great Britain: as reported to the Health and Safety Executive's factory and agricultural and railway inspectorates, and to local authorities.

  2 Includes trainees.

  3 Provisional.

  Labour Statistics
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is the current percentage of adult males who are currently unemployed or economically inactive. [20824]

  Mr. Oppenheim
  The latest estimates from the labour force survey for winter 1994–95 show that 34.8 per cent. of males aged 16 and over in Great Britain are ILO unemployed or economically inactive, a category which includes students, the long-term sick and disabled and retirees.

  Over four out of five of the economically inactive males included in this percentage state, in reply to the LFS, that they do not want a job; many of them are aged 65 or over.

  Employment Service
  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what support schemes for employees who take early retirement, early severance or voluntary redundancy are currently being operated by the Employment Service in the London region; how long these schemes have been in operation; and what plans there are to extend the cover of operation of these schemes. [21046]
  559
  Miss Widdecombe
  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 a reply to be given.

  Letter from M. E. G. Fogden to Ms Harriet Harman, dated 26 April 1995:
  The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your question about early retirement, early severance and voluntary redundancy schemes in the London Region.
  Schemes are operated on a regional basis and the majority of the following information therefore relates to the London and South East region of the Employment Services (ES).
  Voluntary early retirement and early severance schemes have been operated for a number of years by the Department of Employment (ED), such schemes being offered when the prevailing circumstances justify them and are not run separately for the ES. The need for schemes is considered each year by ED, on a regional basis. Schemes are operated where it is clear that staff surpluses will occur that cannot be accommodated in other ways.
  During the current financial year 89 staff in the ED Group in London and the South East left on early retirement. Of these 58 were from the ES. The staff involved were mainly from the more junior grades and in outlying locations (only three were from the Greater London area) for whom redeployment into other alternative posts elsewhere was not a realistic alternative.
  With unemployment continuing to fall sharply in the region, a similar scheme has just been announced for the current financial year. This will provide ED Group staff London and South East with 170 retirement opportunities. Most of these opportunities are likely to affect ES staff.

  Staff allocation 1994/95

  Staff usage 1994/95

  Grade

  Permanent

  Casual

  Total

  Permanent

  Casual

  Total

  4

  1.0

  0.0

  1.0

  1.0

  0.0

  1.0

  5

  1.0

  0.0

  1.0

  1.0

  0.0

  1.0

  6

  4.0

  0.0

  4.0

  3.9

  0.0

  3.9

  7

  26.0

  0.0

  26.0

  26.4

  0.0

  26.4

  SEO

  69.0

  0.0

  69.0

  74.8

  0.0

  74.8

  HEO

  543.0

  0.0

  543.0

  459.0

  0.0

  459.0

  EO

  3393.0

  0.0

  3393.0

  3276.3

  3.5

  3279.8

  AO

  8048.0

  365.0

  8413.0

  8187.7

  611.0

  8798.7

  AA

  829.0

  1.0

  830.0

  367.0

  109.0

  476.0

  Others

  158.0

  12.0

  170.0

  107.8

  7.9

  115.7

  Total

  13072.0

  378.0

  13450.0

  12505.8

  731.4

  13237.2

  Staffing levels and associated resource levels are determined largely, though not exclusively, by levels of unemployment. In LASER, unemployment fell by 15% between April 1994 and March 1995, although the fall was much sharper in some parts of South East England (up to 25%) than in the Region as a whole. This meant that staffing had to be reduced in LASER in phase with this and in fact staffing fell from 14,329 in April 1994 to 11,820 in March, or 17.5% As it is not possible to forecast with any reliability monthly changes in unemployment levels, ES Regions are not allocated staffing resources on a monthly basis.
  It is also not possible to say with any precision how staffing will move in the year ahead, although during the 1980s unemployment rose more rapidly in London and the South East than in other Regions. That trend is now being matched by a more rapid decline in LASER, particularly outside London, although it is not possible to forecast with confidence whether this will continue. LASER is currently resourced on the basis that it will need an average of 11,650 staff during the current financial year.
  As in all ES Regions, staffing levels are managed so as to keep as close a match as possible through the year between the levels of
  560
  Staff who take retirement under these schemes are offered retirement seminars to advise on financial planning and other matters. At this stage there are no plans for further schemes which would affect ES staff.
  I hope this is helpful.

  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will list the number of staff actually employed in the region and the number of established positions which allocated resources allow for in the region, for the Employment Service in the London region, for each of the past 12 months, expressing the data by staff grade; and if he will make a statement about the staffing levels of the Employment Service in the London region. [21045]

  Miss Widdecombe
  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 a reply to be given.

  Letter from M. E. G. Fogden to Ms Harriet Harman dated 26 April 1995:
  The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your question about the levels of staffing in the London region of the Employment Service (ES) over the past 12 months.
  The information you have requested is recorded on an ES Regional basis rather than for specific geographic areas. I have therefore provided the following information for the ES London and South East Region (LASER).
  In common with all ES regions, LASER was allocated resources for the 1994/95 financial year on the basis of expected business volumes. The staff allocation for this twelve month period was 13,450. This is shown by grade and compared with actual usage in the following table.
  business to be performed and the staffing resources allocated. That this has been done successfully has been borne out by the fact that LASER placed 487,000 clients into jobs during the last financial year, 9.5% above target. Of these 37.8% were long term claimants (against a target of 36.0%) and 4.1% people with disabilities, against a target of 3.6%
  I hope this is helpful.

  Public Bodies
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment which of the executive non-departmental public bodies sponsored by his Department have(a) a statutory requirement to admit members of the public to all board or committee meetings and (b) a statutory requirement to hold open meetings for the public. [20874]

  Miss Widdecombe
  None.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Criminal Injuries Compensation
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what has been the total cost to the public purse of administering the change of the criminal injuries compensation awards to a tariff scheme. [20407]

  Mr. Maclean
  A precise figure is not available, but the total additional cost was probably in the order of £1 million.

  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many(a) firefighters, (b) police officers and (c) nurses have been made criminal injuries compensation awards under the tariff scheme which are less than they would have received under the old scheme; and, for each of these categories, what was the average amount by which each claimant received reduced remuneration. [20408]

  Mr. Maclean
  Under the tariff scheme offers of awards were made to 10 firefighters, 226 police officers and 60 health professionals, including doctors and nurses. Until the cases are reassessed under the 1990 scheme by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board it will not be possible to say whether there was any difference in the awards payable under the two schemes.

  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what action he plans to take with regard to claimants for criminal injuries compensation. [20409]

  Mr. Maclean
  I refer the hon. Member to the answers given to the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) on 6 February at column 113 and to the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Ainger) on 5 April at column 1250, pursuant to a reply given on 9 March.

  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many claimants were awarded compensation by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority under the tariff scheme; and what action he now proposes to take with regard to those awards. [20406]

  Mr. Maclean
  At 31 March 1995, 4,891 monetary awards had been offered or paid under the tariff scheme. All applications received on or after 1 April 1994 are now to be considered or reassessed under the 1990 scheme. Where a higher award results, the board will pay the balance to the applicant. In other cases the tariff award will be allowed to stand.

  Mr. McFall
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on legislation to place the criminal injuries compensation scheme on a statutory basis. [20745]

  Mr. Maclean
  Meetings and correspondence between Ministers are confidential.

  Mrs. Currie
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many days a year the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board sits to consider claims; and if he will make a statement. [20616]

  Mr. Maclean
  Claims are decided initially by individual board members or by staff under delegated authority. Only where those decisions are appealed do board members sit in panels of two or three, usually for a week at a time, with a number of panels operating 562
  simultaneously. In 1993–94 the resulting number of sitting days were 969.

  Mrs. Currie
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many cases are currently outstanding with the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board; and what is the average length of time taken to settle a claim. [20617]

  Mr. Maclean
  At 31 March 1995, some 38,500 1990 scheme cases—including nearly 19,000 appeals cases—and some 72,000 former tariff scheme cases—which now fall to be considered or reassessed under the 1990 scheme—were outstanding. The board does not maintain statistics on the time taken to deal with cases in a form which enables the average time per case to be calculated, but the board normally aims to make a first decision within nine months of receipt of an application and to hear an appeal within 18 months of an application for appeal.

  Mentally Ill Prisoners
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what new policy decisions he plans to reduce the number of prisoners who are transferred to mental institutions(a) before sentence and (b) after sentence; and if he will make a statement. [20804]

  Mr. Maclean
  It is well established Government policy that offenders suffering from mental disorder should, where necessary, receive care and treatment from the health and social services rather than in the criminal justice system. The transfer to hospital of prisoners requiring specialist care plays an important part in this.

  The development of services for mentally disordered offenders and others with similar needs is a high priority for the NHS. My Department is working closely with the Department of Health in establishing initiatives, such as multi-agency working in courts and the provision of specialist training, to ensure that mentally disordered people who come into contact with the criminal justice system obtain the care that they need at the earliest possible stage.

  Public Bodies
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which of the executive non-departmental public bodies sponsored by his Department have(a) a statutory requirement to admit members of the public to all board or committee meetings and (b) a statutory requirement to hold open meetings for the public. [20885]

  Mr. Howard
  None. However, the Data Protection Registrar is under a duty, under section 36 of the Data Protection Act 1984 to disseminate information about the operation of the Act.

  Fingerprints
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the abandonment of the advanced fingerprint recognition system. [20685]
  563
  Mr. Maclean
  The national automated fingerprint identification system—NAFIS—which is being procured by the Government on behalf of the police forces of England and Wales, remains on schedule for implementation from 1998. So far as the termination of the contract between the AFR Consortium and IBM for the provision of automated fingerprint recognition services is concerned, I refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave on 5 April at columns 1249–50.

  Miscarriages of Justice
  Mr. Mullin
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 19 April at column 193, if he will list the recently completed investigations to which he refers and the cost in each case. [20775]

  Mr. Nicholas Baker
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 20 April to the question from the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) at column 271.

  Phoenix Database
  Mrs. Golding
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department who will have access to the Phoenix database when it comes into service. [20466]

  Mr. Maclean
  The following organisations, all of which currently have access to the police national computer criminal names file, will have access to the Phoenix criminal justice record service database when it comes into service:

  All police forces maintained under the Police Act 1964, or the Police (Scotland) Act 1967

  The Metropolitan police

  The City of London police

  Regional crime squads, including the Scottish crime squad

  National Identification Service

  Scottish Criminal Record Office

  National Criminal Intelligence Service

  Regional criminal intelligence offices

  Royal Ulster Constabulary

  Isle of Man police

  Jersey police

  Guernsey police

  British Transport police

  Ministry of Defence police

  Dover Harbour Board police

  National Ports Office

  HM Customs and Excise

  The following four organisations will have access to the database for maintenance, development, or training purposes only:

  Hendon data centre

  Central police national computer training centre

  Home Office technical policy division (maintenance and development)

  The Police Staff college, Bramshill (training access only)

  In addition, as I announced to the House on 22 March at column 200, six Government Departments and agencies

  May 1992-April 1993

  May 1993-April 1994

  May 1994-April 1995

  Male

  Female

  Male

  Female

  Male

  Female

  Hunger Strikers

  1—

  1—

  74

  —

  50

  —

  Suicides

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1 Records of hunger-strikers in prisons prior to May 1993 do not distinguish between immigration detainees and others.

  564
  will also be given limited access to the system, for the purpose of conducting preliminary security vetting checks. Limited direct access has also been approved in principle for the Forensic Science Service to allow the addition of markers to indicate that a sample has been taken and whether a DNA profile is available, and to ensure that their separate DNA database is appropriately weeded.

  Asylum Seekers
  Mr. Gerrard
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 5 April,Official Report, columns 1240–41 regarding asylum applications in 1994, if he will provide the comparable statistics for the period from 1 August 1993 to 31 December 1993, in the same format. [20582]

  Mr. Nicholas Baker
  The information requested is provided in the table.

  Decisions during the period August to December 1993, excluding dependants, on applications for asylum1 made before and after the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act, 1993

  Number of principal applicants

  Pre-act applications

  Post-act applications

  Total

  Total decisions2

  4585

  43,355

  4,745

  Recognised as a refugee and granted asylum

  70

  175

  245

  Not recognised as a refugee but granted exceptional leave to remain3

  110

  680

  790

  Total refusals

  4405

  42,500

  3,710

  Refused asylum and ELR after full consideration

  405

  2,140

  2,545

  Refused on safe third country grounds

  0

  360

  360

  Refused under para. 340 of the Immigration Rules4

  —

  —

  805

  1 Provisional figures rounded to the nearest 5.

  2 Figures exclude information on applications made overseas.

  3 Usually granted for a year in the first instance, subject then to further review.

  4 Figures for refusals under para. 340 for failure to provide evidence to support the asylum claim within a reasonable period (para. 180F prior to 1 October 1994) are not available split between pre- and post-Act cases.

  Immigration Detainees
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what has been the number of(a) hunger strikes and (b) suicides by (i) male and (ii) female immigration detainees in prisons in England and Wales during each of the last three years. [20356]

  Mr. Nicholas Baker
  The available information is as follows:
  565
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the policy of his Department regarding keeping immigration detainees being held in prison in England and Wales informed of the position of their cases; which service is responsible for it; and if he will make a statement. [20355]

  Mr. Nicholas Baker
  All immigration detainees, including those held in prisons, receive written notification from the Immigration Service, on a monthly basis, of the progress of their case. Asylum applicants receive, in addition, a report from the asylum division on the position reached in considering their application.

  Airlines
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will state for each year since 1987 the total sum paid in carriers' liability by each airline. [20394]

  Mr. Nicholas Baker
  The administration of the Immigration (Carriers' Liability) Act 1987 involves the Home Office in sensitive discussions with air and sea carriers. These are conducted on a "commercial in confidence" basis, and to disclose information on individual carriers, including the level of charges paid by each airline, would represent a breach of confidentiality, which could jeopardise both the carriers' commercial operations, and our own debt recovery programme.

  The total sums paid between 1987 and the end of 1994 by all carriers, together with total—cumulative—charges outstanding at the end of each year are as follows:

  £ millions

  Year

  Paid

  Total outstanding

  1987

  1,403,000

  2,361,000

  1988

  2,274,000

  4,680,000

  1989

  1,721,000

  10,170,000

  1990

  3,433,000

  15,653,000

  19911

  7,581,000

  19,440,000

  1992

  4,789,000

  25,775,000

  1993

  11,500,000

  22,003,000

  1994

  8,652,000

  224,527,000

  Total paid

  41,353,000

  1 Charge increased from £1,000 to £2,000 per improperly documented passenger on 1 August 1991.

  2 Of this sum, £9.269 million is currently the subject of settlement discussions.

  Wandsworth Prison
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received from the board of visitors at Wandsworth prison as to the physical conditions in A wing; and if he will make a statement of his Department's policy to improve conditions there. [20357]

  Mr. Nicholas Baker
  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 B. Landers to Mr. Tom Cox, dated 26 April 1995:
  The Home Secretary has asked me, in the absence of the Director General from the office, to reply to your recent Question about what representations he had received from the Board of Visitors at Wandsworth prison about the physical conditions in A wing and what plans there are to improve the conditions there.
  566
  The Board of Visitors raised their concerns about the physical conditions on A wing in their Annual Report for 1994.
  A wing will be closed at the end of January 1996 for major refurbishment, although showers have already been installed. A wing already provides better accommodation and facilities than would be available to prisoners in police cells. The delay in closing A wing was necessary in order to avoid the locking out of prisoners into police cells in the London area this year.

  Police National Computer
  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what bodies other than police forces have access to the police national computer or criminal records; what safeguards exist against misuse; and what sanctions can be taken to remove access when individuals or organisations misuse the data. [20583]

  Mr. Maclean
  The following bodies other than police forces currently have direct access to the police national computer:

  HM Customs and Excise

  The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (vehicles application only)

  National Ports Office

  National Identification Service

  Scottish Criminal Record Office

  National Criminal Intelligence Service

  Regional criminal intelligence offices

  Regional crime squads, including the Scottish crime squad

  The following four organisations have access for maintenance, development, or training purposes only:

  Hendon data centre

  Home Office technical and policy division

  Central police national computer training centre

  Police staff college, Bramshill

  In addition, I announced to the House on 22 March at column 200 that limited direct access for security vetting purposes would be made available to six Government Departments and agencies. Data on stolen vehicles is also supplied directly on tape from the police national computer to HPI (Equifax), CCN Group Limited and the Association of British Insurers.

  All data on the police national computer so far as it relates to identifiable individuals is subject to the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1984, and the provisions of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 are also relevant. All transactions undertaken on the police national computer are automatically logged. Security arrangements are formalised in access agreements which have been or will be concluded with each user. These agreements specify, amongst other matters, the purposes for which the data may be used, security procedures, and arrangements for audit, including external compliance audits to be conducted by Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary. Provisions exist for terminating direct access should this prove necessary.

  There are also statutory and administrative arrangements under which the police conduct criminal record checks on individuals on behalf of a range of employers and licensing authorities, without the recipients of the information having direct access to the police national computer. These bodies are listed in the

  567
  applications for registration completed separately by each data user and subsequently entered on the register held by the Office of the Data Protection Registrar.

  Vulnerable Prisoner Units
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the number of vulnerable prisoner units in prisons in England and Wales as of 24 April(a) for men and (b) for women. [20353]

  Mr. Nicholas Baker
  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 Richard Tilt to Mr. Tom Cox, dated 26 April 1995:
  The Home Secretary has asked me, in the absence of the Director General from the Office, to reply to your recent Question about the number of vulnerable prisoner units for men and women in prisons in England and Wales as of 24 April.
  The latest available information is for 30 June 1994, when there were 38 vulnerable prisoner units for males and three for females.

  Prisoners (Rule 43)
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the number of(a) men and (b) women, who were on rule 43 in prisons in England and Wales on 17 April. [19953]

  Mr. Nicholas Baker
  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.

  £000

  1992–93

  1993–94

  1994–95 (provisional)

  Home Office (excluding HM Prison Service, the Forensic Science and the Fire Service College)

  3,944

  3,758

  2,646

  HM Prison Service1

  237,500

  29,830

  18,189

  Forensic Science Service

  n/a

  96

  71

  Fire Service College

  10

  nil

  nil

  1 Prison Service figures cover payments made centrally but exclude payments made locally.

  2 Figure includes repayable advances of salary which cannot be identified centrally.

  At the Fire Service college, there were two claims in 1992–93 involving amounts of £5,774 and £4,241. The average was £5,007.

  It is not possible to identify the highest claims that were concluded and settled in any one year or the average amount of each claim in any one year in other parts of the Home Office without disproportionate cost.

  Prison Service Director
  Lady Olga Maitland
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the Director General of the Prison Service's contract ceases; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Howard
  [pursuant to his reply 20 January 1995, column 695]: Mr. Lewis's original contract was for three years from 6 January 1993 extendable to five years by agreement. He was informed in March 1995 that the Home Office would not be offering him the two-year extension.

  His contract has, however, been varied so that as from 22 April 1995 he continues to serve as Director General
  568
  Letter from Richard Tilt to Mr. Tom Cox, dated 26 April 1995:
  The Home Secretary has asked me, in the absence of the Director General to reply to your recent Question about the number of men and women who were on Rule 43 in prisons in England and Wales on 17 April.
  The latest available information is for 30 June 1994. On that date the number of inmates held on Prison Rule 43 or Young Offender Institution Rule 46 for their own interests or for good order and discipline were as follows:

  Good order and discipline

  Own interest

  Males

  302

  887

  Females

  8

  0

  Total

  310

  887

  Relocation Costs
  Mr. David Shaw
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list for each agency and the central Department for which he is responsible(a) the total amount of removal costs and associated expenses reimbursed to officials who were required to relocate as part of their employment, (b) the amount of each of the highest three claims that were concluded and settled and (c) the average amount of each claim in each of the last three years. [19658]

  Mr. Howard
  Following is the available information about expenditure on removal costs and associated expenses reimbursed to officials of my Department.

  for a period of 12 months which may be rolled forward on a month-by-month basis. The contract will in any event not continue beyond 6 January 1998.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Local Enterprise Development Unit
  Ms Mowlam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what were the results of the survey of the client companies of the Local Enterprise Development Unit on the success of its total quality policy as announced in section 6.22 of the Northern Ireland expenditure plans and priorities 1994–95 to 1996–97; and how these results are being made available. [19864]

  Mr. Ancram
  LEDU's 1994 "Client Company Quality of Service Survey" showed an overall rate of satisfaction for its services of 78 per cent. among its clients. An analysis of the survey results was published in LEDU's "Business Brief' magazine in February 1995, a copy of which will be placed in the Library.

  Damage to Property (Compensation Claims)
  Ms Mowlam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what assessment he has made of the reasons for the trend in the level of outstanding claims for damage to property in Northern Ireland between 1990 and 1994; and what provision he intends to make to deal with these outstanding claims as quickly as possible. [19873]

  Sir John Wheeler
  Responsibility for the subject in question has been delegated to the Compensation Agency under its chief executive, Mr. Denis Stanley. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from D. A. Stanley to Ms Marjorie Mowlam, dated 21 April 1995:
  The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has asked me to reply, on behalf of the Compensation Agency, to your recent Question regarding claims for criminal damage to property.
  The following table shows the number of criminal damage claims outstanding at each year ending 31 March from 1991 to 1995 along with the projected figure for the end of the current year:

  Year

  Number of claims outstanding at year end

  1990–91

  4,213

  1991–92

  6,238

  1992–93

  6,432

  1993–94

  6,612

  1994–95

  2,795

  1995–96

  1950

  1 Estimated. The number of claims outstanding at the end of any year is directly related to the numbers of new claims received in that year. The rising trend over the three years up to 1993–94 reflected the terrorist bombing campaign over this period when, in particular, town centres were targeted resulting in a large number of claims involving commercial property, much of which took considerable time to rebuild.

  A significant downturn in new claims occurred in 1994–95 particular following the paramilitary ceasefires of last Autumn. As a consequence, a substantial reduction was made in the number of outstanding claims. On the assumption that this downturn in new claims will continue, it is estimated that by the end of 1995–96 the number of outstanding claims will have been reduced to about 950.
  The Agency remains committed to processing claims as quickly as possible. Resources and procedures are targeted at ensuring that the Agency provides the best possible service to the innocent victims of violent crime.

  Arrests
  Ms Mowlam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many arrests were made in Northern Ireland in each year since 1991. [20480]

  Sir John Wheeler
  Figures for all arrests are not held centrally and to obtain these would incur disproportionate cost. Arrests under the Police and Criminal Evidence Order and section 14 of the Prevention of Terrorism Act are set out below:

  PACE

  Section 14 PTA

  1991

  145

  1,620

  1992

  267

  1,748

  1993

  441

  1,640

  1994

  628

  1,503

  Conviction Rates
  Ms Mowlam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many convictions there have been 570
  for offences committed in Northern Ireland in each year since 1991. [20479]

  Sir John Wheeler
  The number of persons convicted of offences in Northern Ireland in each year since 1991 is as follows:

  1991: 33,303

  1992: 33,459

  1993: 35,085

  1994: 34,216

  Housing Associations (Capital Grants)
  Ms Mowlam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what plans he has to reduce the capital grants available to housing associations in Northern Ireland. [20536]

  Mr. Moss
  None. The capital grants available to housing associations in Northern Ireland increased from £41.4 million in 1994–95 to £45.7 million in 1995–96.

  Emergency Provisions Act
  Ms Mowlam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many people have been(a) arrested and (b) convicted under the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1991 in each year since 1991. [20228]

  Sir John Wheeler
  [holding answer 24 April 1995]: Figures for arrests under the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1991 are not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  The number of persons convicted under the Act is as follows:

  Year of court

  Number

  1991

  2

  1992

  233

  1993

  241

  1994

  177

  Ms Mowlam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list by category of offence each(a) arrest made and (b) conviction obtained under the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1991 in each year since 1991. [20229]

  Sir John Wheeler
  [holding answer 24 April 1995]: Figures for arrests under the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1991 are not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Convictions for offences under the Act are as follows:

  Year of court

  Conviction obtained

  Number of persons convicted

  1991

  Unattended parking within control zone

  2

  1992

  Unattended parking within control zone

  184

  Insecure vehicle

  25

  Failing to rendervehicle incapable ofbeing driven

  16

  Possessinginformation useful to terrorists

  3

  Failing to answer question of security forces

  2

  Failing to stop for member of security forces

  1

  571

  Year of court

  Conviction obtained

  Number of persons convicted

  Possessing items for terrorist purposes

  1

  Recording information useful to terrorists

  1

  1993

  Unattended parking within control zone

  179

  Insecure vehicle

  30

  Failing to render vehicle incapable of being driven

  14

  Possessing items for terrorist purposes

  10

  Possessing information useful to terrorists

  6

  Attempting to elicit information useful to terrorists

  1

  Wearing hood in public place

  1

  1994

  Unattended parking within control zone

  129

  Insecure vehicle

  29

  Possessing items for terrorist purposes

  6

  Failing to lock doors

  3

  Failing to render vehicle incapable of being driven

  2

  Belonging to proscribed organisation

  2

  Arrange meeting to support proscribed organisation

  2

  Possessing information useful to terrorists

  2

  Collecting information useful to terrorists

  1

  Recording information useful to terrorists

  1

  Name of body

  Publish annual report

  Publish annual accounts

  Publish minutes of meetings

  Publish agendas of meetings

  Publish register of members' interests

  Department of Agriculture:

  Livestock and Meat Commission

  Yes(S)

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  Pig Production Development Committee

  Yes(S)

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  Agricultural Wages Board

  Yes(S)

  1No

  No

  No

  No

  Agricultural Research Institute

  Yes(S)

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  Foyle Fisheries Commission

  Yes(S)

  Yes(V)

  No

  No

  No

  Fishery Harbour Authority

  Yes(V)

  Yes(V)

  No

  No

  No

  Fisheries Conservancy Board

  Yes(S)

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  Department of Economic Development:

  Labour Relations Agency

  Yes(S)

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  NI Commissioner for the Rights of Trade Union Members

  Yes(S)

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  Northern Ireland Tourist Board

  Yes(S)

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  Local Enterprise Development Unit

  Yes(S)

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  Fair Employment Commission

  Yes(S)

  Yes(V)

  No

  No

  No

  Equal Opportunities Commission

  Yes(S)

  Yes(V)

  No

  No

  No

  General Consumer Council

  Yes(S)

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  Construction Industry Training Board

  Yes(S)

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  Enterprise Ulster

  Yes(S)

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  Ulster Sheltered Employment Ltd.

  Yes(S)

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  Department of Education:

  Belfast Education and Library Board

  Yes(V)

  Yes(S)

  Yes(V)

  No

  No

  South Eastern Education and Library Board

  Yes(V)

  Yes(S)

  Yes(V)

  No

  No

  North Eastern Education and Library Board

  Yes(V)

  Yes(S)

  Yes(V)

  No

  No

  Southern Education and Library Board

  Yes(V)

  Yes(S)

  Yes(V)

  No

  No

  Western Education and Library Board

  Yes(V)

  Yes(S)

  Yes(V)

  No

  No

  Youth Council for NI

  Yes(V)

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  572
  Ms Mowlam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1) how many people have been(a) arrested and (b) convicted for offences under (i) section 27, (ii) section 28 and (iii) section 29 of the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1991 in each year since 1991; [20230]

  (2) how many people have been (a) arrested and (b) convicted under (i) section 53, (ii) section 54 and (iii) section 54A of the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1991 in each year since 1991. [20231]

  Sir John Wheeler
  [holding answer 24 April 1995]Figures for arrests under the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1991 are not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  The number of persons convicted under specific sections of the Act is as follows:

  Section

  1991

  1992

  1993

  1994

  27

  0

  0

  0

  0

  28

  0

  0

  0

  4

  29

  0

  0

  0

  0

  53

  0

  0

  0

  0

  54

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Public Bodies
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern bodies sponsored by his Department publish(a) annual reports, (b) annual accounts, (c) the minutes of meetings, (d) the agendas of meetings and (e) registers of members' interests; and whether this in each case is (i) under a statutory requirement or (ii) voluntary. [20502]

  Sir John Wheeler
  [holding answer 25 April 1995]: The information requested is as follows:
  573

  Name of body

  Publish annual reports

  Publish annual accounts

  Publish minutes of meetings

  Publish agendas of meetings

  Publish register of members' interests

  Arts Council for NI

  Yes(V)

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  NI Museums Council

  Yes(V)

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  Sports Council for NI

  Yes(S)

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  Ulster Museum

  Yes(S)

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  Ulster Folk and Transport Museum

  Yes(S)

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  Council for Catholic Maintained Schools

  No

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  NI Council for the Curriculum, Exams and Assessment (NICCEA)

  No

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  Staff Commission for Education and Library Boards

  No

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  Department of the Environment:

  Fire Authority for NI

  Yes(S)

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  Langanside

  Yes(S)

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  NI Housing Executive

  Yes(S)

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  NI Transport Holding Company

  Yes(S)

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  NI Local Government Officers' Staff Commission

  Yes(V)

  Yes(V)

  No

  No

  No

  Department of Finance and Personnel:

  The Department does not sponsor any executive non-departmental public bodies.

  Department of Health and Social Services:

  National Board for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting for Northern Ireland

  Yes(S)

  Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  Northern Ireland Council for Postgraduate Medical and Dental Education

  No

  No

  No

  No

  No

  Mental Health Commission for Northern Ireland

  Yes(S)

  2Yes(S)

  No

  No

  No

  (S) Statutory requirement. (V) Voluntary.

  1 Report is published bi-annually.

  2 Report is published biennially.

  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland which of the executive non-departmental public bodies sponsored by his Department have(a) a statutory requirement to admit members of the public to all board

  Statutory requirements to

  Executive Non-Departmental Public Bodies

  Admit members of the public to all board/committee meetings

  Admit members of the public to all sub-committee meetings

  Hold open meetings for the public

  Department of Education

  Belfast Education and Library Board

  Yes

  Yes

  No

  South-Eastern Education and Library Board

  Yes

  Yes

  No

  North-Eastern Education and Library Board

  Yes

  yes

  No

  Southern Education and Library Board

  Yes

  Yes

  No

  Western Education and Library Board

  Yes

  Yes

  No

  Council for Catholic Maintained Schools

  Yes

  No

  No

  NIO

  Boundary Commission—Public inquiries only

  In respect of all other executive non-departmental pubic bodies in Northern Ireland, the answer is Nil.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  British High Commission, Nairobi
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what has been the total cost to date of building the new British high commission office in Nairobi. [20940]

  Mr. Goodlad
  The total cost to date of building the British high commission office in Nairobi is £4,989,917 including consultants' fees.
  574
  or committee meetings; and (b) a statutory requirement to hold open meetings for the public. [20882]

  Sir John Wheeler
  The information requested is as follows:

  Public Bodies
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs which of the executive non-departmental public bodies sponsored by his Department have(a) a statutory requirement to admit members of the public to all board or committee meetings and (b) a statutory requirement to hold open meetings for the public. [20887]

  Mr. Goodlad
  None.

EDUCATION

  Public Bodies
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education which of the executive non-departmental public bodies sponsored by her Department have(a) a statutory requirement to admit members of the public to all board or committee meetings and (b) a statutory requirement to hold open meetings for the public.

  Mr. Boswell
  None.

  Mature Students
  Mrs. Anne Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education how many mature students were registered for degrees at British universities in the last three years for which figures are available.[20790]

  Mr. Boswell
  The latest available data on all home domiciled, first year, full-time and part-time mature students on higher education courses at publicly funded institutions in Great Britain was published in September 1994 in statistical bulletin 16/94. The numbers of mature students enroling on a first degree course are shown in the table.

  Thousands

  Academic year beginning

  1990

  1991

  1992

  Full-time

  34.7

  50.5

  66.4

  Part-time

  14.6

  21.2

  27.1

  Illiteracy
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what is the current reported rate of illiteracy; and what were the figures for each of the previous four years. [20725]

  Mr. Boswell
  The number of people in England and Wales who cannot read and write at all is minimal. However, the Basic Skills Agency estimates that one in six adults in England and Wales is unable to read, write and/or speak in English at a level necessary to function and progress at work and in society in general. There is no evidence that this proportion has changed significantly in recent years.

  Barnsley and Doncaster Training and Enterprise Council
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education when the contract of the current chairman of the Barnsley and Doncaster TEC was terminated; when the new chairman will be appointed; and what organisations were or are being consulted over this appointment. [20739]

  Mr. Paice
  I have been asked to reply.

  The chairman of the Barnsley and Doncaster training and enterprise council has informed the TEC's board of directors that he intends to step down from the role of chairman before the end of 1995. The appointment of a new chairman is a matter for the TEC board, which has appointed a sub-group to consult local organisations,
  576
  including both local authorities and chambers of commerce in the TEC area.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Coal Privatisation
  Mr. Byers
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what plans he has to release details of the advice given by civil servants to the Secretary of State for Energy in 1991 on the awarding of the contract for advice on the privatisation of the coal industry to the National Audit Office. [20513]

  Mr. Page
  The National Audit Office has access to all the relevant papers on the appointment of N. M. Rothschild as advisers to the Government on coal privatisation.

  Mr. Byers
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if any of the information concerning the reasons for awarding the consultancy contract on the privatisation of the coal industry to N. M. Rothschild, the advice given by civil servants to Ministers, the terms on which the contract was awarded, how value for money was to be judged and subsequent costs controlled is held in files marked as being not for National Audit Office eyes. [20514]

  Mr. Page
  No.

  Mr. Byers
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade on what date his Department became aware that Mr. Richard Budge had provided advice to N. M. Rothschild and Son on matters relating to the privatisation of the coal industry. [20515]

  Mr. Page
  In connection with the privatisation of the coal mining operations of British Coal the Department and N. M. Rothschild and Sons Ltd. held discussions with a wide selection of then existing and prospective coal industry participants, including Mr. Budge, in the period prior to the submission of tenders for the regional coal companies in September 1994. At no time has Mr. Budge provided advice to N. M. Rothschild and Sons Ltd.

  Instruments of Torture
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what Government or training and enterprise council support has been provided in the last five years to companies that produced equipment used for purposes of torture. [20286]

  Mr. Eggar
  My Department has not knowingly supported companies which produce equipment intended for the purpose of torture.

  Questions on TEC support should be addressed to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment.

  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what estimate he has made of the value of the trade in British torture equipment. [20296]

  Mr. Ian Taylor
  I know of no such trade. Export licences would not be granted for licensable goods if there were good reasons to suppose that they would be used for the purposes of torture.

  Business Links
  Dr. John Cunningham
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade how much was spent on business links before September 1994. [19454]

  Mr. Heseltine
  The total amount spent on the development of business links by DTI up to 31 August 1994 was £3.61 million.

  Allowances and Costs
  Mr. David Shaw
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will list for each agency and the central Department for which he is responsible(a) the total amount of removal costs and associated expenses reimbursed to officials who were required to relocate as part of their employment, (b) the amount of each of the highest three claims that were concluded and settled and (c) the average amount of each claim in each of the last three years. [19650]

  Mr. Ian Taylor
  As regards the central DTI, the following amounts of removal costs and associated expenses were reimbursed to officials required to relocate as part of their employment:

  £

  £

  1994–95

  2,234,526

  (includes 694,559 provision for relocation costs for merger of WSL with AEA)

  1993–94

  1,634,070

  (includes 143,108 provision for relocation costs for merger of WSL with AEA)

  1992–93

  1,418,515

  —

  The other expenditure details requested are not identified separately and to provide the information would entail disproportionate cost.

  I have asked agency chief executives to reply direct in respect of the expenditure for which they are responsible.

  Letter from W. Edgar to Mr. David Shaw, dated 26 April 1995:
  I refer to your question to the President of the Board of Trade concerning the amount of removal costs and associated expenses reimbursed to officials who are required to relocate as part of their employment. The expenditure of NEL is as shown below. Please note that in both years where expenditure was incurred only one official was involved and thus the total also represents the answer to part (b) and part (c) of your question. I trust you will find the information supplied to be satisfactory for your purposes.

  £

  1992–93

  nil

  1993–94

  1,927

  1994–95

  3,073

  Mr. David Shaw
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will list the total amount paid by his central Department and each agency for which he is responsible in subsistence allowances for travel(a) within the United Kingdom and (b) outside the United Kingdom in each of the last three years. [19564]

  Mr. Ian Taylor
  As regards the central DTI, the subsistence element of claims by officers who travel on official business(a) within the United Kingdom and (b)
  578
  outside the United Kingdom is not recorded separately from the travel costs element.

  To provide the information requested would entail disproportionate cost.

  I have asked agency chief executives to reply direct to the hon. Member as they have their own budgetary responsibility for United Kingdom and overseas travel and subsistence.

  Letter from W. Edgar to Mr. David Shaw, dated 26 April 1995:
  I would refer to your question to the President of the Board of Trade concerning the total amount paid in subsistence allowances for travel, within and outside the United Kingdom in the last three years. The management information system NEL does not separate travel and subsistence costs and does not differentiate between travel and subsistence within or outside the UK. It is not possible therefore to supply the information you require.

  Letter from Peter Clapham to Mr. David Shaw, dated 26 April 1995:
  I am writing in response to your questions to the President of the Board of Trade regarding i) subsistence allowances and ii) removal costs and associated expenses, in each of the last three years.
  Subsistence Allowances

  a) Within the UK—disproportionate cost rule applies. NPL's accounts do not separately identify subsistence costs from travel costs.

  b) Overseas—disproportionate cost rule applies for the reason given above.

  Removal Costs

  a) Total removal costs and associated expenses reimbursed—£17,643 in 1992/93, £15,613 in 1993/94 and £9,354 in 1994/95.

  b) Amount of each of the three highest claims concluded and settled—disproportionate cost rule applies. To obtain this information NPL would need to request that CSL Managed Services (formerly ASA), who handle claims on NPL's behalf, consult each individual relocation file for the last three years and total all expenses paid from each individual file.

  c) Average amount of each claim in the last three years—disproportionate cost rule applies. All files from last three years would need to be consulted to endure that cases did not start outside the three year period, or started within the three year period but have yet to be completed.

  I hope this provides the information you require.

  Letter from P. R. S. Hartnack to Mr. David Shaw, dated 26 April 1995:
  You recently tabled two questions to the President of the Board of Trade, concerning subsistence allowances and removal costs. I have been asked to reply with respect to the Patent Office.
  I am afraid that subsistence payments—in connection with both UK and overseas travel—are not separately identified from the related travel costs on our information system, and differentiating them would involve disproportionate cost.
  The total amount of removal costs and associated expenses reimbursed to Patent Office officials over the past three years was £748,000 in 1992–93; £381,000 in 1993–94; and £354,000 in 199495. These figures exclude advance of salary for house purchase, since this amounts to a repayable loan. The number of relocation cases in the Patent Office has been high over the past three years, since we have been completing the move from London to South Wales. We would need to research individual files in order to determine the three highest claims, which I regret would involve disproportionate cost. The same is true for the average amount of each claim, since many cases are protracted and will overlap with the three years in question.
  579
  Letter from Peter Joyce to Mr. David Shaw, dated 26 April 1995:
  The President of the Board of Trade has asked me to reply to your Question about removal costs paid to officers relocated in the last three years.
  The Insolvency Service Executive Agency paid the following removal and associated costs:

  1992–93: £427,000

  1993–94: £252,000

  1994–95: £250,000

  The figure for 1994–95 is provisional pending clearance of the final accounts for the year.
  The further information which you have sought about the three highest claims and the average amount of each claim is not readily identified by CSL Managed Services (formerly the Accounts Services Agency) which maintain The Insolvency Service's Vote accounts, and could only be obtained from the examination of individual files at disproportionate cost.

  Letter from Peter Joyce to Mr. David Shaw, dated 26 April 1995:
  The President of the Board of Trade has asked me to reply to your Question about the amounts paid in subsistence allowances in the last three years.
  The Insolvency Service Executive Agency paid the following travel costs and subsistence allowances, chargeable against the Vote:

  1992–93: £328,000

  1993–94: £342,000

  1994–95: £370,000

  CSL Managed Services (formerly the Accounts Services Agency) which maintain The Insolvency Service's Vote accounts do not separately identify subsistence allowances from travel costs nor differentiate between UK and overseas travel and subsistence. The specific information which you have sought in relation to subsistence allowances could only be obtained at disproportionate cost. The figure for travel and subsistence for 1994–95 is provisional pending clearance of the final accounts for the year.
  The figures do not include travel costs and subsistence allowances chargeable against the estates of bankrupts and companies in compulsory liquidation incurred by Official Receivers and their staff in carrying out their functions under the Insolvency Act 1986. Information in relation to such costs and allowances could only be obtained from the examination of individual estate accounts at disproportionate cost.

  Letter from Jim Norton to Mr. David Shaw, dated 26th April 1995:
  The President of the Board of Trade has asked me to reply on behalf of the Radiocommunications Agency to your two written Parliamentary Questions concerning subsistence allowances and removal costs.

  SUBSISTENCE ALLOWANCES
  There would be a disproportionate cost involved in providing the information requested for each of the last three years as we do not separately identify subsistence costs and travel costs for either UK or overseas travel.

  REMOVAL COSTS
  The Radiocommunications Agency has spent the following amount on removal costs for its staff relocating as part of their employment:

  1992–93: £64,439

  1993–94: £55,338

  1994–95 £104,038

  You have asked for details of the three highest claims and the average amount of each claim in the last three years. There would be a disproportionate cost invovled in providing this information as we would have to consult each case for the last three years to total all expenses paid from each individual file and to ensure that cases did not start outside the three year period or started within the three year period but have yet to be completed.
  I am sorry that I cannot be more helpful.
  580
  Letter from R. D. Worswick to Mr. David Shaw, dated 11 April 1995:
  The President of the Board of Trade has asked me to reply to your questions about subsistence allowances and removal and associated expenses with respect to the Laboratory of the Government Chemist.
  Most of the information you requested is not readily available, and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
  We do not keep records which distinguish between the subsistence costs of any trip and the travel costs. We record the total of "travel and subsistence". The total "travel and subsistence" costs for the last three years is (in £k):

  1992–93

  1993–94

  1994–95

  Within UK

  167

  156

  115

  Outside UK

  47

  72

  98

  This expenditure is associated with fulfilling contracts for customers, attending scientific meetings and pursuing new areas of business.

  Removal Allowances
  The total amount of removal costs and associated expenses charged to the Laboratory of the Government Chemist are (£k):

  1992–93: 18

  1993–94: 6

  1994–95: 6

  I regret that it would require manual searches of records and would not be cost effective to provide further breakdown of these figures.

  Letter from Seton Bennett to Mr. David Shaw, dated 26 April 1995:
  The President of the Board of Trade has asked me to reply on behalf of the National Weights and Measures Laboratory to your questions about subsistence allowances and removal costs.
  (a) Subsistence allowances
  The CSL Managed Services (formerly ASA) do not separately identify subsistence costs from travel costs, nor do they differentiate between UK and overseas travel and subsistence. However, I am able to provide composite figures for expenditure on all travel and subsistence for the last three years.
  They are:—

  1992–93: £55,126

  1993–94: £66,098

  1994–95: £46,529 (Provisional)

  (b) Removal costs
  This Agency has had no expenditure on removal costs in the last three years.

  Letter from David Durham to Mr. David Shaw, dated 6 April 1995:
  You recently tabled two Parliamentary Questions requesting information about removal costs and associated expenses reimbursed to officials on relocation, and subsistence allowances for travel within and outside the United Kingdom. I have been asked to reply as Chief Executive of the Companies House Executive Agency.
  As far as removal costs are concerned, this agency has not incurred any of these expenses. As regards subsistence allowances, I am afraid this information is not available except at disproportionate costs. This is because we do not separately identify subsistence costs from travel costs when recording claims in our accounting system.

  Manufacturing Firms
  Mr. Sheerman
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what percentage of United Kingdom companies he now assesses to be world class. [20561]
  581
  Mr. Eggar
  A recent study by IBM and the London The table shows the estimated staff time and associated business school shows that the United Kingdom has a costs of the editorial team for each departmental report similar proportion to Germany of world-class manufacturing firms. Forty UK firms are in the Fortune 500 list of top global companies. In terms of profitability, 16 of the top 25 companies in Europe are UK-based.

  Sellafield
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what application British Nuclear Fuels has made for a change of use in its site licence for Sellafield, as part of its decision to offer Nuclear Electric and Scottish Nuclear long-term storage contracts for spent nuclear fuel. [20398]

  Mr. Page
  None. No change is required to BNFL's Sellafield site licence to allow long term storage of spent fuel, although BNFL will be submitting a revised safety case to the Health and Safety Executive's nuclear installations inspectorate which takes account of the new contracts.

  Royal Mail
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make it his policy that the Royal Mail should be able to negotiate a single contract with all the train operating units or companies. [20647]

  Mr. Page
  Contracts for transport services are a commercial matter for the Post Office. I understand from the Post Office that all Royal Mail's external rail transport services are covered by contractual arrangements with Rail Express Systems.

  Departmental Report
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade how much staff time, and at what estimated cost, was put into compiling the departmental annual report; and what were the figures for each year for which figures are available since 1990. [20175]

  Mr. Heseltine
  Drafting and editing of the departmental report is co-ordinated by a small editorial team, using information gathered from a wide variety of sources within the Department. It is not possible to quantify the time devoted by staff other than the editorial team to these activities.

  Annual Reports

  Annual Accounts

  Minutes of Meetings

  Agendas of Meetings

  Register of Members Interests

  British Hallmarking Council

  1Y

  1Y

  2Y

  2Y

  2Y

  English National Advisory Committee on Telecommunications

  1Y

  N

  2Y

  2Y

  2Y

  Northern Ireland Advisory Committee on Telecommunications

  1Y

  N

  2Y

  2Y

  2Y

  Scottish Advisory Committee on Telecommunications

  1Y

  N

  2Y

  2Y

  2Y

  Welsh Advisory Committee on Telecommunications

  1Y

  N

  2Y

  2Y

  2Y

  Gas Consumers Council

  1Y

  N

  2Y

  2Y

  N

  Post Office Users National Council

  1Y

  N

  2Y

  2Y

  N

  Post Office Users Council for Northern Ireland

  1Y

  N

  2Y

  2Y

  N

  Post Office Users Council for Scotland

  1Y

  N

  2Y

  2Y

  N

  Post Office Users Council for Wales

  1Y

  N

  2Y

  2Y

  N

  National Consumer Council

  1Y

  1Y

  2Y

  2Y

  2Y

  Design Council

  3Y

  3Y

  N

  N

  N

  Hearing Aid Council

  1Y

  1Y

  N

  N

  N

  Monopolies and Mergers Commission

  2Y

  N

  N

  N

  N

  582
  The table shows the estimated staff time and associated costs of edtorial team for each departmental report since 1992–92. These figures are published each year in MINIS. Figures are not available for the year 1990–91 report, which predated MINIS, but are not expected to have been substantially different from 1991–92. Costs are expressed in 1994–95 prices.

  Time man years

  Cost £000

  1992

  0.6

  20

  1993

  0.8

  26

  1994

  1.1

  36

  1995

  1.1

  36

  In addition, some staff time is devoted to the design and production of the report. In 1993–94 and 1994–95, this amounted to 0.1 and 0.2 man years and £12,000 and £21,000 respectively—costs expressed in cash terms. These figures are not shown separately in MINIS and information on similar costs for earlier years is not available.

  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what measures the Department takes to assess the cost and staff implications of compiling material for the departmental annual report. [20176]

  Mr. Heseltine
  The resources needed to coordinate drafting and production of the departmental report are considered as part of my annual examination of the Department's activities and resources in MINIS, the results of which are published each year. Budgets are set for non-staff costs at the beginning of work on each report.

  Public Bodies
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade which of the executive non-departmental public bodies sponsored by his Department publish(a) annual reports, (b) annual accounts, (c) the minutes of meetings, (d) the agendas of meetings and (e) registers of members' interests; and whether this in each case is (i) under a statutory requirement or (ii) voluntary. [20505]

  Mr. Heseltine
  [holding answer 25 April 1995]: The information requested is as follows:
  583

  Annual Reports

  Annual Accounts

  Minutes of Meetings

  Agendas of Meetings

  Register of Members Interests

  NEB/NRDC

  N

  N

  N

  N

  N

  Policyholders Protection Board

  1Y

  1Y

  N

  N

  N

  Simpler Trade Procedures Board

  3Y

  3Y

  N

  N

  N

  United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority

  1Y

  1Y

  N

  N

  N

  1 Statutory requirement.2 Voluntary.

  3 Condition of grant in aid.

  British Coal Projects
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will list those British Coal projects which received European regional development funding over the last 10 years, indicating(a) the level of funding and (b) the dates when it was received. [20402]

  Mr. Eggar
  [holding answer 24 April 19951: The amounts of European regional development fund grant approved for British Coal projects up to 31 March 1995 are as listed, except for information for Scotland before 1989, which is not readily available. The dates shown are those of the offers of grant. Most of the grants have been for British Coal Enterprise job creation projects. Most of the others have been to British Coal property for activities such as clearing and renovating old mine areas.

  Date

  Area

  £

  20 October 1988

  Carcroft

  215,640

  19 December 1988

  South Tyneside

  159,250

  2 February 1990

  Carcroft

  135,765

  2 February 1990

  Carcroft

  326,285

  2 February 1990

  Carcroft

  110,000

  15 March 1990

  Coatbridge

  350,400

  14 August 1990

  Tyne and Wear

  69,896

  14 August 1990

  Tyne and Wear

  292,000

  14 August 1990

  Tyne and Wear

  171,997

  30 October 1990

  Durham and Cleveland

  179,656

  21 February 1991

  Strathclyde

  602,500

  9 April 1991

  Durham and Cleveland

  157,962

  21 June 1991

  Lothian

  200,000

  21 June 1991

  Cowdenbeath

  40,000

  28 November 1991

  Strathclyde

  100,000

  14 January 1992

  Mansfield

  184,763

  17 January 1992

  Dinnington

  113,659

  17 January 1992

  Dinnington

  323,492

  17 January 1992

  Dinnington

  196,111

  17 March 1992

  Mansfield

  164,446

  23 June 1992

  Mansfield

  498,187

  29 June 1992

  Midlothian

  64,000

  29 June 1992

  Midlothian

  35,900

  29 June 1992

  Central Scotland

  50,000

  29 June 1992

  Central Scotland

  10,000

  29 June 1992

  Bathgate

  64,000

  29 June 1992

  Bathgate

  36,000

  29 June 1992

  Kirkcaldy

  45,000

  29 June 1992

  Kirkcaldy

  25,000

  18 July 1992

  Bolsover

  292,596

  29 July 1992

  Fife

  520,000

  3 August 1992

  Bolsover

  112,305

  12 August 1992

  Falkirk

  188,400

  26 August 1992

  Lothian

  660,400

  13 October 1992

  Ashfield

  128,833

  13 October 1992

  Ashfield

  9,637

  20 October 1992

  South Yorkshire

  500,000

  26 October 1992

  Mansfield

  117,252

  27 November 1992

  Cumnock

  10,272

  584

  Date

  Area

  £

  27 November 1992

  Cumnock and Doon Valley

  32,000

  27 November 1992

  Cumnock and Doon Valley

  66,500

  27 November 1992

  Cumnock and Doon Valley

  33,750

  10 December 1992

  South Yorkshire

  493,819

  15 December 1992

  Blaenavon

  76,396

  18 Decmber 1992

  Ashfield

  3,871

  18 December 1992

  Newark and Sherwood

  284,500

  18 December 1992

  Bassetlaw

  133,000

  5 February 1993

  Carcroft

  136,513

  23 February 1993

  South Yorkshire

  209,379

  2 March 1993

  Whitehaven

  76,750

  16 March 1993

  West Lothian

  375,000

  16 March 1993

  West Lothian

  150,000

  16 March 1993

  Lothian

  240,000

  31 March 1993

  Tyne and Wear

  711,049

  31 March 1993

  Tyne and Wear

  350,000

  31 March 1993

  Tyne and Wear

  300,000

  31 March 1993

  Tyne and Wear

  10,000

  1 April 1993

  Durham

  439,201

  30 April 1993

  South Yorkshire

  800,000

  25 June 1993

  Durham

  143,955

  29 June 1993

  Lothian

  240,000

  16 July 1993

  Dinnington

  826,165

  20 July 1993

  Tyne and Wear

  1,250,000

  13 August 1993

  Newark and Sherwood

  175,553

  17 September 1993

  Durham

  620,400

  17 September 1993

  Templeborough

  1,089,021

  23 September 1993

  Sherbourn

  46,844

  28 September 1993

  Nottingham

  11,574

  2 November 1993

  Coventry

  695,250

  4 November 1993

  Blaenavon

  75,000

  16 November 1993

  Wombwell

  294,500

  16 November 1993

  Armthorpe

  233,611

  18 November 1993

  Strathclyde

  78,125

  18 November 1993

  East Midlands

  25,258

  19 November 1993

  East Midlands

  75,000

  19 November 1993

  East Midlands

  50,000

  22 November 1993

  East Midlands

  128,500

  22 November 1993

  East Midlands

  350,000

  24 November 1993

  Bassetlaw

  442,049

  26 November 1993

  Chesterfield

  222,500

  30 November 1993

  Ashfield

  470,447

  15 December 1993

  Ashfield

  40,031

  15 December 1993

  Ashfield

  157,126

  15 December 1993

  Newark and Sherwood

  55,000

  15 December 1993

  Ashfield

  422,550

  15 December 1993

  Mansfield

  191,250

  15 December 1993

  East Midlands

  174,750

  15 December 1993

  South Yorkshire

  901,215

  23 December 1993

  Cumnock and Doon Valley

  142,669

  23 December 1993

  Cumnock and Doon Valley

  171,204

  31 December 1993

  Mansfield

  127,872

  31 December 1993

  East Midlands

  210,500

  31 December 1993

  East Midlands

  73,000

OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION

  RMS St. Helena
  Sir David Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will place in the Library a copy of the MARSPEC report on the condition of RMS St. Helena. [20366]

  Mr. Baldry
  The MARSPEC report was produced for the Government of St. Helena. With the agreement of the Governor, a copy of the report has been placed in the Library of the House.

  Forest Stewardship Council
  Mr. Gale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what funding has been made available by the Overseas Development Administration to the Forest Stewardship Council; and for what purpose. [20781]

  Mr. Baldry
  The ODA made a grant of £14,000 to the World Wide Fund for Nature to meet the costs of attendance of developing country representatives at the founding assembly of the council in 1993. We are presently discussing with the Forest Stewardship Council the possibility of providing funding to support national workshops in developing countries to discuss timber certification issues.

  English Language Book Society
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs for what reasons he has indicated that he wishes to terminate the subsidy to the English Language Book Society. [19891]

  Mr. Baldry
  [holding answer 25 April 1995]: The subsidy to British publishers under the educational low-priced books scheme—ELBS—is being phased out over two years because it is not fully meeting ODA's developmental priorities. A review carried out in 1994 revealed that about a third of books sold under ELBS went to prosperous countries, including Hong Kong, Malaysia and Turkey, although our aim for the scheme was to reach poorer students in poorer countries who cannot afford to buy books. The review concluded that the money could be spent more effectively if targeted at specific countries and institutions to which poorer students have access. Over the coming months we will be developing new strategies to achieve improved targeting of and access to key text books and other essential learning materials for students in the poorer countries, in pursuit of our developmental objectives.

DEFENCE

  Russian Forces
  Mr. William Powell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is his latest estimate of the number of Russian forces stationed in each sovereign state outside present Russian borders. [20280]

  Mr. Soames
  Some Russian-controlled military units stationed outside Russia are mixed-manned with Russians and local ethnic groups. The rounded figures for Russian-controlled units are as follows:586

  Turkmenistan around 1,000

  Tajikistan: 25,000

  Kazakhstan: 23,000

  Uzbekistan: around 100

  Kyrgyzstan: around 500

  Estonia: none

  Lithuania: none

  Latvia: 600

  Armenia: 15,000

  Azerbaijan: 300

  Georgia: 25,000

  Moldova: 8,000

  Ukraine: 35,000

  Belarus: 3,000

  Low Flying
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he is likely to complete his investigation into the low-flying incident over Barnoldswick and Earby in January. [20002]

  Mr. Soames
  Although the RAF police investigation is well advanced, there is still a need to interview eye witnesses. The RAF police aim to conduct these interviews as soon as possible and to conclude their investigation shortly thereafter.

  Military Attaches
  Mr. Jopling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence in what countries the United Kingdom posts have defence attaches; and what number of serving military personnel is attached to each one, together with their rank. [19958]

  Mr. Soames
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett) on 2 March,Official Report, column 687.

  Rifle Grenades
  Mr. Colvin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what United Kingdom capability exists for the design and manufacture of rifle grenades: which company was responsible for the production of rifle grenades currently in service: for what reasons no British company has been invited to tender for the design and supply of rifle grenades under tender No. LWS 2a/459; and if he will make a statement. [20332]

  Mr. Freeman
  Any accredited United Kingdom ammunition manufacturer would have the capability to design and manufacture rifle grenades as the technology is not complex. Current in-service grenades were manufactured by Luchaire (France) and Martin Marietta (US). Two UK companies registered an interest in the advance notice of tender LWS 2a/459, Heckler and Koch (UK) and Hunting Engineering. However, Heckler and Koch (UK) withdrew from the tender in August 1993, and the Hunting Engineering proposal did not meet the services' requirements.

  Helicopters
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will place in the Library the six reports on cost and operational effectiveness investment appraisal of the EH101 helicopter. [20478]
  587
  Mr. Freeman
  This material is classified, and it would not therefore be appropriate to place it in the House of Commons Library.

  Abbey Wood
  Mr. Fatchett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list(a) the functions and (b) the staff which he intends to transfer to the new facilities at Abbey wood, Bristol. [20801]

  Mr. Freeman
  The function to be transferred is defence equipment procurement and related policy support which is undertaken by the Department's Procurement Executive. Current plans envisage transferring some 4,300 PE civilian and military posts together with a further 600 PE-related project support and integrated logistics specialist personnel. Of the total PE strength, some 500 administrative or secretarial staff will be recruited locally with the balance transferring from existing locations. Consideration is being given to accommodating additional staff at Abbey wood to allow further rationalisation of MOD property holdings.

  Mr. Fatchett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will set out(a) the original completion date, (b) the current completion date, (c) the confirmed cost and (d) the expected cost for the construction of Abbey wood, Bristol. [20802]

  Mr. Freeman
  The original completion date including occupation of Abbey wood by the Procurement Executive headquarters staff was autumn 1996. The current completion date is 31 October 1996. The approved and estimated cost of the development is £254.136 million—inclusive of VAT—at 1993 prices. The project remains within budget.

  University Recruits
  Mr. Byers
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many flying members of each university air squadron were recruited into the RAF on leaving university in the last available year. [20888]

  Mr. Soames
  The number of former university air squadron flying members who were recruited into the Royal Air Force as pilots on leaving university during financial year 1993–94 is as follows:

  Aberdeen, Dundee and St. Andrews

  1

  Birmingham

  6

  Bristol

  3

  Cambridge

  2

  East Lowlands

  1

  East Midlands

  4

  Glasgow and Strathclyde

  1

  Liverpool

  3

  London

  4

  Manchester and Salford

  4

  Northumbrian

  6

  Oxford

  6

  Queen's

  0

  Southampton

  6

  Wales

  1

  Yorkshire

  4

  Plutonium
  Mr. Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if the fuel-grade plutonium owned by his Department and stored at Sellafield will be transferred to the civilian stockpile, following the announcement of an end to the production of fissile materials for explosive purposes. [21015]

  Mr. Soames
  We have no such plans. Radioactive Waste

  Radioactive Waste
  Mr. Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans his Department has to take any action against the individuals who, on 17 April, damaged the radioactive waste discharge pipeline which runs from AWE Aldermaston to the River Thames. [21010]

  Mr. Soames
  This matter is currently under consideration by my Department.

  Public Bodies
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence which of the executive non-departmental public bodies sponsored by his Department have(a) a statutory requirement to admit members of the public to all board or committee meetings and (b) a statutory requirement to hold open meetings for the public. [20872]

  Mr. Soames
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to him on this subject on 25 April,Official Report, column 497.

  US Naval Facility, Brawdy
  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if the US Navy has provided the Ministry of Defence with a base closure report on environmental issues for the US naval facility at Brawdy in Pembrokeshire. [21081]

  Mr. Soames
  Although the US naval facility at Brawdy has not yet closed, we have discussed such a document with the US authorities and they have agreed to provide one at the appropriate time.

TRANSPORT

  British Rail Rolling Stock
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) when he expects to announce the outcome of the bids for the privatisation of British Rail Maintenance Ltd.; [20546]

  (2) what legal rights are held by Asea Brown Boveri to undertake rolling stock engineering and maintenance work for British Rail and rolling stock leasing companies; [20544]

  (3) if he will place in the Library a copy of the agreement reached with Asea Brown Boveri at the time of the privatisation of British Rail Engineering Ltd. regarding the future placing of orders for rolling stock engineering and maintenance work by British Rail; [20542]

  (4) what reference was made to legal obligations on the railway rolling stock leasing companies regarding any requirement to place heavy engineering and maintenance work with any publicly or privately owned maintenance companies and to legal rights held by Asea Brown Boveri

  589
  to undertake rolling stock engineering and maintenance work for British Rail and rolling stock leasing companies, in the documentation provided to potential purchasers of British Rail Maintenance Ltd.; [20545]

  (5) what legal obligations rest on the railway rolling stock leasing companies regarding any requirement to place heavy engineering and maintenance work with any publicly or privately owned maintenance companies. [20543]

  Mr. Watts
  The British Railways Board and the rolling stock companies have contractual commitments for rolling stock maintenance with a number of private sector suppliers, and with BR Maintenance Ltd.—level 5 maintenance depots. BR described these latter commitments and associated matters in the British Rail Maintenance Ltd.—level 5 information memoranda, other sales documents and in subsequent discussions with bidders for the depots. The documents are commercially confidential and cannot therefore be released. BR hopes to announce sales of the depots shortly.

  Bull Bars
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what plans he has to sponsor new research by the Transport Research Laboratory into accidents in which bull bars are involved. [20805]

  Mr. Norris
  None. I am waiting for the results of the accident study based on police reports of injuries to pedestrians involving cars fitted with bull bars, which should be available towards the end of this year.

  Public Bodies
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport which of the executive non-departmental public bodies sponsored by his Department have(a) a statutory requirement to admit members of the public to all board or committee meetings and (b) a statutory requirement to hold open meetings for the public. [20878]

  Mr. Norris
  Only the London regional passengers committee is subject to any statutory requirements. Meetings of the committee are required to be open to the public, except during discussion on items of business defined in paragraph 11A of schedule 3 to the London Regional Transport Act 1984—for example, where a breach of confidence would be involved.

  Railway Passenger Services
  Mr. Illsley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if passenger transport executives will be able to specify timetabling and fares for the rail services they support. [18015]

  Mr. Watts
  The Railways Act 1993 provides for passenger transport executives to submit to the franchising director a statement of their requirements for inclusion in the specification of services in respect of which the franchising director proposes to issue an invitation to tender. Such a statement shall specify the railway passenger services which the passenger transport authority considers it appropriate to secure to meet any public transport requirements within the relevant passenger transport area. The statement may also specify requirements with respect to the fares to be charged to persons using those services.

  Ship Inspections
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list the number of ship inspectors employed at each marine office for each of the last five years. [19381]

  Mr. Norris
  This is an operational matter for the Marine Safety Agency. I have asked the chief executive to write to the hon. Member.

  Letter from R. M. Bradley to Ms Joan Walley, dated 26 April 1995:
  The Secretary of State for Transport has asked me to reply to your Question about the number of ship inspectors employed at each Marine Office during the last five years.
  The number of ship inspectors, including fishing vessel inspectors, in post in each marine district are set out in the table below. The number of inspectors in post by district is not available for the financial years 1989–90 and 1990–91.

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1991–92

  1992–93

  1993–94

  London

  —

  —

  18

  18

  19

  Southampton

  —

  —

  30

  23

  21

  Liverpool

  —

  —

  20

  19

  21

  Glasgow

  —

  —

  22

  21

  21

  Aberdeen

  —

  —

  17.5

  20

  20.5

  Newcastle

  —

  —

  25

  27.5

  27.5

  Total number of inspectors in post

  129

  137

  132.5

  128.5

  130

  The figure for the number of inspectors in post in 1994–95 is being collated and will be published in the MSA's annual report.

  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) how many unannounced inspections have been carried out by the Marine Safety Agency for each of the last five years; [19383]

  (2) if he will list for each of the last five years the number of ship inspections undertaken by the Marine Safety Agency. [19379]

  Mr. Norris
  These are operational matters for the Marine Safety Agency. I have asked the chief executive to write to the hon. Member.

  Letter from R. M. Bradley to Ms Joan Walley dated 26 April 1995:
  The Secretary of State for Transport has asked me to reply to your two Questions about the number of ship inspections and the number of unannounced ship inspections carried out by the Marine Safety Agency (MSA) in each of the last five years.
  Virtually all inspections made by the MSA are unannounced, by occasionally for operational reasons the inspection may be pre-arranged. The records held by the MSA do not identify which inspections might have been announced in advance.
  The number of inspections carried out in the last five years by the MSA and the Surveyor General's Organisation (before 1993) are set out in the table below. The figures include fishing vessel inspections and port state control inspections.

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1991–92

  1992–93

  1993–94

  Total number of inspections

  6,018

  5,801

  6,654

  6,211

  6,663

  The inspection figures for 1994–95 are being collated and will be published in the MSA's annual report.

  Marine Safety Agency
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list the total budget for the Marine Safety Agency and its predecessor for each of the last five years. [19387]

  Mr. Norris
  The gross budgets for the Marine Safety Agency for the financial years 1990–91 to 1994–95 are as follows:

  £ million

  1990–91

  26.9

  1991–92

  28.6

  1992–93

  27.6

  1993–94

  28.5

  1994–95

  31.7

  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list for each of the last two years the number of port state control checks undertaken by the Marine Safety Agency. [19380]

  Mr. Norris
  This is an operational matter for the Marine Safety Agency. I have asked the chief executive to write to the hon. Member.

  Letter from R. M. Bradley to Ms Joan Walley, dated 26 April 1995:
  The Secretary of State for Transport has asked me to reply to your Question about the number of port state control inspections undertaken by the Marine Safety Agency (MSA) in the last two years.
  The MSA carried out 2,132 port state control inspections in the financial year 1992/93 and 2,218 inspections in 1993/94. Information on the inspections undertaken in 1994/95 is being collated and the number of port state control inspections carried out will be published in the MSA's annual report.

  Ferry Safety
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list the ferries sailing from United Kingdom waters that do not meet the standards set out in SOLAS 90. [19382]

  Mr. Norris
  In his oral statement to the House on 5 April 1995,Official Report, columns 1753–61, the Secretary of State announced the publication of lists of roll-on roll-off ferries serving the United Kingdom ports. The lists show whether the vessels meet the SOLAS 90 survivability standard or the date by which they need to be modified in accordance with the north-west European ferry stability agreement which applies SOLAS 90 to roll-on roll-off ferries built before 1990. A copy of those lists and an explanatory note were placed in the Library of the House.

  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if it is mandatory for ferry operators to carry out fire evacuation exercises while passengers are on board; and if he will make a statement. [19384]

  Mr. Norris
  This is an operational matter for the Marine Safety Agency. I have asked the chief executive to write to the hon. Member.

  Letter from R. M. Bradley to Ms Joan Walley, dated 26 April 1995:
  The Secretary of State for Transport has asked me to reply to your question about fire evacuation exercises whilst passengers are on board ferries.
  Passengers are not required to participate in fire drills unless the ship is engaged on a long international voyage, in which case a muster of the passengers must take place within 24 hours of their
  592
  embarkation. In addition, all passenger ships on international voyages, including ferries, are subject to requirements that call for a weekly fire drill when the crew receive training and practise the functions that they are expected to carry out in an emergency. In the event of a fire passengers would be alerted using the general emergency alarm system and instructed on the public address system to muster at specified positions in the same way as any other emergency. Instructions are required to be posted in passenger cabins, muster stations and other passenger spaces to inform passengers of their muster station and the essential actions they must take in an emergency.

  Railway Signalling Systems
  Mr. Bayley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport on what dates work started or will start on site on the renewal of(a) Winchester/Weston, (b) Dorking-Arundel AHB level crossings, (c) Kingmoor area, (d) east Kent AHB level crossings, (e) Holmwood, (f) central Scotland, (g) Medway valley, (h) Olive Mount, (i) Great Eastern, (j) Manchester north, (k) Manchester south—Stockport(l) Manchester south, (m) Hither Green, (n) Willesden, (o) Barnes, (p) Dartford and (q) Guildford railway signalling systems; and in each case when the renewal is due to be completed. [20303]

  Mr. Watts
  Railtrack has supplied me with the following information:

  a. Winchester/Weston
  The start date was April 1994. The implementation phase started in June 1994. The project is due to be completed in early 1996.

  b. Dorking—Arundel AHB Level Crossings
  Crossings are renewed when their life has expired. No indication that remedial action is required at present.

  c. Kingmoor Area
  The programme for this project is currently under review.

  d. East Kent AHB Level Crossings
  No specific programme. Crossings are renewed when their life has expired. No indication that remedial action is required at present.

  e. Holmwood
  This signal box has not been used for over 10 years. Plans are being drawn up for decommissioning, but no date fixed.

  f Central Scotland
  Installation work has been completed at Hilton and largely completed at Grangemouth junction. At Carmuirs East and Dunblane work has been completed.

  g. Medway Valley
  Most boxes have had their interlocking refurbished over the last two years. There is no immediate plan to renew.

  h. Olive Mount
  No scheme is in progress at this moment in time.

  i. Great Eastern
  The project started in 1988 and is due to finish commissioning at Easter 1998.

  j. Manchester North
  The design contracts for this project are about to be let. Site surveys are beginning now but implementation is likely to start in early 1996 and to end towards the close of 1997.

  k. Manchester South (Stockport)
  Signalling work will be started this year and finished during 1996.

  l. Manchester South
  No work currently under way except that on the Stockport section.

  m. Hither Green
  No plans at present for this location.

  n. Willesden
  The Willesden work is due to start during 1995 and finish during 1996.
  593
  o. Barnes
  The implementation phase of this project is planned to start during 1995 and the project completed during 1997.

  p. Dartford
  Repairs were undertaken in November 1994 which removed immediate problems. Various options are currently under consideration, but at this stage, no fixed date for start of works.

  q. Guildford
  The start date was July 1994. The implementation phase is planned to start in April 1996. The project is due to be completed in July 1998.

  Jubilee Line
  Mr. Spellar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on progress towards meeting the completion deadline for construction of the Jubilee line. [20988]

  Mr. Norris
  Construction of the line continues. London Underground is still aiming for it to be completed in early 1998.

  Container Freight Lorries
  Dr. Howells
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many container freight lorries enter each United Kingdom port annually through ferry facilities. [20765]

  Mr. Norris
  The information requested is not available.

  Dr. Howells
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many container freight lorries have entered the United Kingdom via the channel tunnel since its opening. [20764]

  Mr. Norris
  The information requested is not available.

  Motorways (Abnormal Loads)
  Mr. David Atkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what plans he has to privatise the escorting of wide and heavy loads on motorways by the police; and if he will make a statement. [20470]

  Mr. Maclean
  I have been asked to reply.

  The Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers are examining the idea that on motorways and linking dual carriageways the escorting of abnormal loads which are between 4.3 and 4.6 m wide and 80 to 150 tonnes in weight might be carried out by suitably trained and qualified private escorts. The issue has recently been examined by consultants and their report is under consideration. The road haulage industry associations concerned with abnormal loads will be invited to comment on the report.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Pensioners
  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many pensioners in Scotland(a) are dependent on income support, (b) have incomes less than £10 above income support levels and (c) are placed above these levels by receipt of a contributory pension or superannuation scheme. [18986]

  Mr. Roger Evans
  The number of pensioners1 in Scotland in receipt of income support is 153,00022.
  594
  It is estimated that 95,000 pensioners in Scotland will have income within £10 of income support thresholds including housing requirements in 1995–96 3.

  It is estimated that 500,000 pensioners in Scotland would be placed above income support thresholds including housing requirements by the receipt of a contributory pension or superannuation scheme in 1995–963.

  Notes:

  1 The definition of "pensioner" used throughout is women aged 60 and over and men aged 65 and over.

  2 The figure is rounded to the nearest 1,000.

  Source: income support statistics quarterly inquiry May 1994.

  3 (a) Case load figures are rounded to the nearest 5,000.

  (b) This is estimated using income brought to account for income support purposes, modelled from 1990, 1991 and 1992 family expenditure survey data uprated to 1995–96 prices and benefit levels.

  (c) The definition of "contributory pension or superannuation scheme" used is:

  —public and private pensions—occupational pensions;

  —state retirement pensions.

  Income-related Benefits
  Mr. Murphy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many British nationals who have paid tax and national insurance contributions in the United Kingdom have been excluded from income-related benefits on the grounds of the habitual residence test, before taking up appeals after returning to the United Kingdom from another member state of the European Union. [19267]

  Mr. Roger Evans
  This information is not available.

  Mr. Murphy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans he has to limit income-related benefit payments to claimants who have paid tax and national insurance contributions in the United Kingdom. [19271]

  Mr. Roger Evans
  None. Tax and national insurance contributions are not taken into account when deciding entitlement to the income-related benefits.

  Executive Agencies
  Mr. MacDonald
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will give the number and location of Benefits Agency, Child Support Agency, Contributions Agency, the Information Technology Services Agency, Resettlement Agency, War Pensions Agency offices closed and the number of jobs lost or transferred as a result of agency work transferring from Scotland to the rest of the United Kingdom over the past five years and the number and location of offices opened and jobs gained in Scotland as the result of agency work transferring to Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom over the same period. [20263]

  Mr. Hague
  The Benefits Agency opened the Glasgow benefit office in August 1989 and over the following 18 months 831 posts were gained as a result of work transferring from the rest of the United Kingdom. The central office for Scotland was closed in March 1992. During the 18–month run-down period the majority of posts were redistributed within Scotland and approximately 50 posts transferred to Leeds.

  The Child Support Agency opened an agency center—CSAC—at Falkirk during 1993. As at the end of February 1995, the CSAC had a total of 721 posts dealing with new work created following the Child Support Act 1991.
  595
  Over the last four years, the Contributions Agency has centralised some work at Newcastle while maintaining a local presence for face-to-face contact with customers. This has entailed some posts transferring to Newcastle from around the United Kingdom. Exact figures for posts transferring from Scotland to Newcastle could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  The Information Technology Services Agency, the Resettlement Agency and the War Pensions Agency have not transferred any work between Scotland and the rest of the UK.

  Residential and Nursing Homes
  Mr. Wicks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what information his Department has in respect of the numbers of people who are entering private residential or nursing homes, where such care is publicly financed but does not involve the local authority social services department in any assessment of need, or in any expenditure. [19898]

  Mr. Roger Evans
  Information is not available in the form requested. In November 1994, the number of residents who were in receipt of income support that included residential allowance was 80,000. It is not known how many of these had been assessed or financially supported by social services. In addition, 201,000 residents have preserved rights to the higher levels of income support. It is not known how many of these receive financial support from the local authority.

  Source: income support statistics quarterly enquiry, November 1994.

  Expenditure
  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the underlying rate of growth in social security expenditure in the next 10 years, assuming level unemployment and assuming the full effects of all recently announced changes from the previous year. [20464]

  Mr. Hague
  The latest long-term projections of underlying growth in expenditure were published in the departmental report "The Government's Expenditure Plans 1995–96 to 1997–98", Cm 2813, which stated that recently announced reforms would contain growth between 1997–98 and 2000–01 to 2.1 per cent. a year, assuming level unemployment. Projections of social security expenditure over a 10–year period would be subject to considerable uncertainty.

  Consultants
  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) how many former members of staff of his Department or its agencies are currently employed as consultants within his Department or its agencies; what is the length of the consultancy in each case; and what were their previous grades; [20343]

  (2) how many former members of his staff are currently employed as consultants by DSS headquarters; what is the length of the consultancy in each case; and what were their previous grades. [20344]

  Mr. Hague
  Two former members of staff are currently employed as consultants by DSS headquarters. Their previous grade and length of consultancy are as follows:
  596

  Previous grade

  Length of consultancy

  Grade 2

  Four days in total during April and May 1995.

  Grade 3

  Two/three days per week on continuing basis.

  The information requested for the Department's agencies is not readily available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Family Credit
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list the proportion of(a) married couples and (b) single parents who claim family credit. [20390]

  Mr. Roger Evans
  The information is set out in the table.

  Family credit case load July 1994

  Cases

  Percentage

  Couples1

  327,700

  57

  Lone parents

  243,980

  43

  Note:

  1 Not categorised by marital status.

  Source:

  Family credit statistics: quarterly tables, July 1994.

  Incapacity Benefit
  Mr. Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security, pursuant to his answer of 28 March,Official Report, column 557, (1) how many of the 45,000 new incapacity benefit claimants who will be found capable of work in 1995–96 he estimates will (a) sign on as unemployed and receive unemployment benefit, (b) sign on as unemployed and receive income support only, (c) sign on and receive national insurance credits only, (d) receive retirement pension, (e) receive invalidity care allowance, (f) receive widows benefits and (g) receive income support without having to sign on; [21020]

  (2) how many of the 55,000 new incapacity benefit claimants who will be found capable of work in 1996–97 he estimates will (a) sign on as unemployed and receive unemployment benefit, (b) sign on as unemployed and receive income support only, (c) sign on and receive national insurance credits only, (d) receive retirement pension, (e) receive invalidity care allowance, (f) receive widows benefits and (g) receive income support without having to sign on; [21021]

  (3) how many of the 80,000 existing invalidity benefit claimants who will be found capable of work in 1996–97 he estimates will (a) sign on as unemployed and receive unemployment benefit, (b) sign on as unemployed and receive income support only, (c) sign on and receive national insurance credits only, (d) receive retirement pension, (e) receive invalidity care allowance, (f) receive widows benefits and (g) receive income support without having to sign on; [21018]

  (4) how many of the 140,000 existing invalidity benefit claimants who will be found capable of work in 1995–96 he estimates will (a) sign on as unemployed and receive unemployment benefit, (b) sign on as unemployed and receive income support only, (c) sign on and receive national insurance credits only, (d) receive retirement pension, (e) receive invalidity care allowance, (f) receive widows benefits and (g) receive income support without having to sign on. [21016]
  597
  Mr. Hague
  There are no estimates of the number of Figures based on the estimated number of people found capable of work who will receive retirement pension, invalidity care allowance or widow's benefits. Such information as is available is in the table.

  1995–96

  1996–97

  Invalidity benefit/incapacity benefit claimants

  Existing cases

  New cases

  Existing cases

  New cases

  Estimated number of claimants found capable of work

  140,000

  45,000

  80,000

  55,000

  Estimated number who will be unemployed and receive unemployment benefit/contributory jobseeker's allowance

  70,000

  25,000

  40,000

  30,000

  Estimated number who will be unemployed and receive Income support/income-based jobseeker's allowance only1

  25,000

  10,000

  15,000

  10,000

  Estimated number who will be unemployed and receive national insurance credits only

  20,000

  10,000

  15,000

  10,000

  Estimated number who will receive income support without having to sign on as unemployed

  10,000

  5,000

  5,000

  5,000

  Note:

  1 Not receiving unemployment benefit/contributory jobseeker's allowance but may receive other benefits—for example, housing benefit, council tax benefit.

  All estimates rounded to nearest 5,000. Totals may not sum due to rounding and because not all groups are included—for example, those found capable of work who do not register for employment or receive any other benefit.

  Mr. Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security, pursuant to his answer of 28 March,Official Report, column 557 (1) if he will break down by region the estimates of the numbers of (a) existing invalidity benefit claimants, (b) existing income support claimants, (c) new incapacity benefit claimants and (d) new income support claimants who will be found capable of work in each of the years (i) 1995–96, (ii) 1996–97 and (iii) 1997–98; [21019]

  (2) if he will break down by gender the estimates of the numbers of (a) existing invalidity benefit claimants, (b) existing income support claimants, (c) new incapacity benefit claimants and (d) new income support claimants who will be found capable of work in (i) 1995–96, (ii) 1996–97 and (iii) 1997–98. [21017]

  Mr. Hague
  The information is not available in the form requested. Estimates are available only on a national basis. There is insufficient data to allow them to be broken down regionally, or by gender.

  Mr. Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) how many of those who move off incapacity benefit in 1995 he estimates will not qualify for unemployment benefit for reasons of(a) failing the contribution test or (b) failing the availability test;
  [21011]

  (2) pursuant to this answer of 28 March, Official Report. column 557, how many of the people who will fail to qualify for contributory jobseeker's allowance will do so for reasons of (a) failing the contributions test or (b) failing the availability tests; [21022]

  (3) how many people who move off incapacity benefit in 1995–96 he estimates will not qualify for unemployment benefit. [21012]

  Mr. Hague
  It is estimated that around 95,0001 new and existing claimants found fit for work in 1995–96 will not qualify for unemployment benefit because of failure to satisfy the contribution conditions.

  Information is not available as to the number of people who will not qualify for unemployment benefit or contributory jobseeker's allowance due to failure to satisfy the availability for work tests.

  1 Figure rounded to the nearest 5,000.
  598
  Figures based on the estimated number of people leaving incapacity benefit earlier than they would done under current arrangements.

  Mr. Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people who move off incapacity benefit in 1995–96 will qualify for contributory jobseeker's allowance in each of the years 1996–97 and 1997–98. [21013]

  Mr. Hague
  The information requested is not available.

  Public Bodies
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security which of the executive non-departmental public bodies sponsored by his Department have(a) a statutory requirement to admit members of the public to all board of committee meetings and (b) a statutory requirement to hold open meetings for the public. [20880]

  Mr. Hague
  The Occupational Pensions Board is the only executive non-departmental public body sponsored by this Department. There is no statutory requirement to admit members of the public to its board or committee meetings. However, there is a statutory requirement, under the provisions of the Occupational Pensions Board (Determinations and Review Procedure) Regulations 1973 to hold formal public hearings, in connection with reviews of the board's determinations, unless the board for any special reasons directs otherwise. If such a hearing is held privately, a member of the Council on Tribunals is entitled to attend.

  Child Support Agency
  Mr. Rogers
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many complaints have now been made to his Department or the Child Support Agency concerning the Child Support Agency. [19239]

  Mr. Burt
  The administration of the Child Support Agency is a matter for the chief executive, Miss Ann Chant. She will write to the hon. Member.

  Letter from Miss Ann Chant to Mr. Allan Rogers, dated 26 April 1995:
  I am replying to your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Social Security about the number of complaints received by the Child Support Agency.
  The precise information you request is not available. Since launch to the end of February 1995, the Agency has recorded a total of

  599
  34,449 letters of complaint; but a significant proportion of those complaints concern areas such as general policy or the powers of this Agency. Many of these letters are from persons who are opposed to the legislation but not actually affected by it. The number of letters received that contain complaints specifically about the Agency's performance is not separately identified, but it is considerably less than the overall figure shown above.
  I hope this is helpful.

  Mr. Dewar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what was the average amount of maintenance payable as a result of a full assessment by the Child Support Agency in cases where there are(a) one, (b) two and (c) more than two children, and the overall average figure excluding cases where the absent parent is on income support or other benefit and so paying the standard minimum contribution at the latest date for which figures are available. [19281]

  Mr. Burt
  The administration of the Child Support Agency is the responsibility of the chief executive, Miss Ann Chant. She will write to the hon. Member.

  Letter from Miss Ann Chant to Mr. Donald Dewar, dated 26 April 1995:
  I am replying to your recent Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Social Security about the average amount of child maintenance payable following a full maintenance assessment by the Child Support Agency.
  As at 11 March 1995, the average weekly maintenance payable by absent parents with income from employment, but excluding those receiving income support, following a full maintenance assessment, was £43.46. Information on the average maintenance payments broken down by the number of qualifying children involved is not available.
  I hope this is of help.

  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what was the total number to date of maintenance application forms issued by the Child Support Agency to parents with care that have not been returned, broken down to show(a) where good cause was accepted, (b) where good cause was investigated and not accepted, (c) where MAFs were issued at a parent with care's request which were subsequently found to have been duplicated, (d) where the parent with care ceased to claim benefit before returning the MAF and (e) the number of unreturned MAFs which were issued prior to 1 July 1994. [19152]

  Mr. Burt
  The administration of the Child Support Agency is a matter for the chief executive, Miss Ann Chant. She will write to the hon. Member.

  Letter from Miss Ann Chant to Mr. Frank Field, dated 26 April 1995:
  I am replying to your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Social Security about the number of maintenance application forms (MAF) issued by the Child Support Agency that have yet to be returned by the parent with care.
  Since launch to the end of February 1995, a total of 1,217,941 maintenance application forms (MAF's) have been issued 867,883 of which have been returned, leaving an outstanding balance of 350,058. At that time 27,800 of the outstanding forms had only been issued during February. It is not possible to break the remaining 322,200 forms down into the categories that you request.
  Some information that is available is as follows. The requirement to co-operate has been considered in a total of 146,790 cases. Good cause was accepted in 69,228 cases and refused in a further 53,174. The remainder (24,388) were cases where the parent with care (PWC) chose to name the absent parent (AP) before a decision on good cause was made.
  Since September 1994, it has been possible to conduct good cause investigations without a MAF having been issued. No separate record is made of this type of investigation. Good cause may also
  600
  be considered, for example, after a MAF has been returned if, in the case of a multiple assessment unit, the PWC chooses to name one or more APs while claiming good cause not to name one or more of the other APs, or where a MAF is returned incomplete but with a claim for good cause. The number of good cause investigations completed does not therefore provide a direct comparison with the number of MAF's not yet returned.
  Cases where a MAF is issued and is subsequently found to have been a duplicate, along with cases where a PWC ceases to claim benefit before a maintenance assessment is completed, are recorded as "other" clearances or closures. This is regardless of whether the MAF has been returned or not. No data are collected on the number of closures falling into particular categories, except for cases where good cause is accepted. Other examples of closures are: reconciliation of AP and PWC; AP abroad; AP not traced. This list is not exhaustive.
  At present the Agency cannot provide a detailed analysis of the age of those cases where a MAF has not been returned but future enhancements to the Child Support Computer System which will provide this information are planned. However, as at the end of February, 16,254 cases had been identified as part of the one off deferral exercise, announced in December 1994, referring to MAFs issued before 1 July 1994. This figure includes cases where no MAF had been returned and those where a partially completed form was received by the Agency and the PWC does not wish to pursue the matter.

WALES

  West Wales Ambulance NHS Trust
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list, in respect of the newly established West Glamorgan and Dyfed ambulance trust,(a) the date when the trust commenced its operational duties, (b) the date on which the chief executive was appointed, (c) the date when the chairman was appointed, (d) the number of applications he has received for the executive positions and the date he will announce the appointments and (e) the number of applications he has received for the lay membership and the date he will announce the appointments. [19929]

  Mr. Richards
  The information requested is as follows:

  a. The Trust became operational on 1 April 1995.

  b. The appointment of the Chief Executive is a matter for the Trust Board (i.e. Chairman and non-Executive Director).

  c. The appointment of Mr. Roger Hayes as Chairman of the Trust was announced on 27 March 1995 and took effect from 1 April 1995.

  d. Responsibility for the appointment of the Executive Directors lies with the Trust Board, including the Chief Executive.

  e. More than 300 applications have been received for the non-Executive Director posts of the five new NHS Trusts. I shall announce the names of those who have been appointed as soon as possible.

  General Dental Services
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will publish information for Wales corresponding to that contained in table 23 on page 63 of the Department of Health's departmental report, cm 2812 (March 1995). [19918]

  Mr. Richards
  The information is given in the following table.
  601

  Family Health Services—Key Statistics on General Dental Services

  General Dental Services1

  1983–84

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1991–92

  1992–93

  1993–94

  Per cent. change 1983–84 to 1993–94

  Per cent. change 1992–93 to 1993–94

  Gross expenditure (£ millions)2

  30.320

  50.115

  57.055

  69.513

  73.794

  67.964

  124.2

  -7.9

  Gross expenditure in real term (1994–95 prices)(£ millions)

  52.201

  62.886

  66.284

  75.983

  77.573

  69.323

  32.8

  -10.6

  Proportion of gross expenditure met from charges (per cent.)3

  23.5

  33.3

  31.8

  28.9

  27.7

  28.0

  19.1

  1.1

  Number of general dental practitioners (GDPs)4

  702

  827

  837

  832

  831

  843

  20.1

  1.4

  Adult courses of treatment (thousands)

  1,048

  1,192

  1,327

  1,031

  1,398

  1,409

  34.4

  0.8

  Adult courses of treatment per GDP

  1,493

  1,441

  1,585

  1,239

  1,682

  1,671

  11.9

  -0.7

  Children registered into capitation (thousands)5

  —

  —

  —

  338

  416

  431

  —

  3.6

  Children registered per GDP6

  —

  —

  —

  407

  501

  511

  —

  2.0

  Average gross cost of adult courses of treatment in real terms (1994–95 prices) (£)7

  38.79

  43.71

  39.96

  39.77

  36.93

  31.99

  -17.5

  -13.4

  Gross cost of general dental services per GDP in real terms 1994–95 prices)

  74,360

  76,041

  79,192

  91,326

  93,349

  82,234

  10.6

  -11.9

  1 General dental services are the care and treatment provided by independent dental practitioners, who provide services under arrangements made with local Family Health Services Authorities.

  2 Gross expenditure is based on Appropriation Account (cash) figures. It includes that proportion of costs met from patient charges and excludes charge refunds. Appropriation Account figures.

  3 Charge income collected from patients (net of refunds) as a proportion of gross expenditure.

  4 Principals and assistants at 30 September.

  5 Number of children registered as at 30 September. Capitation registration only began with the introduction of the new dental contract from 1 October 1990.

  6 Average number of children registered per dentist, including principals and assistants, although patient registrations are formally attributed to principals only.

  7 Average cost of adult courses of treatment, as measured by Dental Practice Board data recording only item of service fees payable for such treatments up to September 1990, from October 1990 onwards, costs are based on item of service fees payable and adult continuing care payments. Prior to 1986–87, data is only available on a calendar year basis.

  Health Authorities
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what assessment he has made of whether all health authorities' members in Wales have now publicly declared any outside interests in which they participate. [19931]

  Mr. Richards
  At the annual review meetings to be held in June authorities will be asked to confirm that they have implemented a recently introduced requirement that they maintain a register of relevant private interests.

  Paramedical Services
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what information is collected by his Department on

  Community nursing and midwifery

  Chiropodists

  Speech therapists

  Expenditure1

  Staff in post (Wte)2

  Expenditure1

  Staff in post (Wte)2

  Expenditure1

  Staff in post (Wte)2

  September 1993

  December 1994

  September 1993

  December 1994

  September 1993

  December 1994

  Trusts

  Bridgend and District

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  8

  9

  n/a

  6

  5

  Carmarthen and District

  2,259.8

  n/a

  n/a

  158.0

  6

  6

  81.1

  5

  5

  Ceredigion and Mid Wales

  1,555.9

  n/a

  n/a

  88.1

  3

  3

  68.5

  3

  2

  Clwydian Community Care

  12,515.2

  n/a

  n/a

  454.5

  18

  19

  682.6

  26

  25

  Glan Clwyd General Hospital

  647.8

  n/a

  n/a

  12.1

  —

  —

  69.7

  2

  3

  Glan Hafren

  1,309.1

  n/a

  n/a

  14.6

  —

  —

  41.0

  —

  —

  Gwent Community

  11,200.5

  n/a

  n/a

  510.4

  23

  27

  337.0

  24

  20

  602
  the numbers employed, expressed as whole-time equivalents, and the total expenditure for each NHS provider in Wales on each of the paramedical services in the community, with particular reference to (a) community nurses, (b) health visitors, (c) chiropodists, (d) speech therapists, (e) occupational therapists, (f) physiotherapists and (g) community dentists. [19930]

  Mr. Richards
  The available information is in the following table. Reliable estimates of the numbers of nursing staff employed in specific occupational groups, such as community nursing and health visiting, are not available centrally. As the expenditure data relates to the financial year 1993–94, staffing figures for September 1993 and 1994 are given.
  603

  Community nursing and midwifery

  Chiropodists

  Speech therapists

  Expenditure1

  Staff in post (Wte)2

  Expenditure1

  Staff in post (Wte)2

  Expenditure1

  Staff in post (Wte)2

  September 1993

  December 1994

  September 1993

  December 1994

  September 1993

  December 1994

  Llandough Hospital

  360.0

  n/a

  n/a

  3.1

  —

  —

  20.8

  —

  —

  Llanelli/Dinefwr

  2,881.5

  n/a

  n/a

  171.1

  8

  8

  100.4

  4

  4

  Pembrokeshire

  3,902.7

  n/a

  n/a

  242.1

  5

  —

  115.7

  5

  4

  Powys Health Care

  3,697.0

  n/a

  n/a

  333.8

  15

  —

  225.2

  8

  10

  Swansea

  675.3

  n/a

  n/a

  22.4

  —

  —

  22.4

  —

  1

  Wrexham Maelor Hospital

  508.1

  n/a

  n/a

  5.7

  —

  —

  90.6

  4

  3

  Directly Managed Units:

  East Dyfed Mental Health Unit

  2,435.3

  n/a

  n/a

  17.7

  1

  1

  125.6

  5

  5

  North Gwent Unit

  396.2

  n/a

  n/a

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Gwynedd DHA3

  8,404.2

  n/a

  n/a

  386.0

  14

  14

  447.0

  14

  15

  Mid Glamorgan

  Hensol

  308.8

  n/a

  n/a

  —

  —

  —

  89.7

  5

  7

  Merthyr/Cynon

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  —

  10

  10

  n/a

  5

  7

  Rhondda

  4,169.4

  n/a

  n/a

  279.4

  11

  11

  97.4

  6

  7

  Rhymney Valley

  2,321.4

  n/a

  n/a

  132.9

  6

  5

  37.8

  3

  5

  Taff Ely

  1,074.0

  n/a

  n/a

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  South Glamorgan

  Community

  10,746.9

  n/a

  n/a

  736.0

  29

  30

  550.8

  33

  29

  UHW/CRI

  333.0

  n/a

  n/a

  —

  —

  —

  26.1

  1

  1

  West Glamorgan

  DHA4

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  35

  35

  n/a

  17

  16

  Occupational therapists

  Physiotherapists

  Community dentists

  Expenditure1

  Staff in post(Wte)2

  Expenditure1

  Staff in post (Wte)2

  Expenditure1

  Staff in post (Wte)2

  September 1993

  December 1994

  September 1993

  December 1994

  September 1993

  December 1994

  Trusts

  Bridgend and District

  n/a

  24

  21

  n/a

  19

  19

  n/a

  —

  —

  Carmarthen and District

  86.2

  3

  3

  402.1

  16

  17

  96.1

  2

  2

  Ceredigion and Mid Wales

  143.3

  4

  3

  311.3

  14

  13

  219.7

  4

  4

  Clwydian Community Care

  962.4

  34

  35

  1,124.6

  44

  42

  1,063.8

  10

  14

  Glan Clwyd General Hospital

  134.5

  6

  5

  510.7

  24

  23

  —

  —

  —

  Glan Hafren

  430.3

  21

  17

  1,215.2

  51

  56

  —

  —

  —

  Gwent Community

  1,172.4

  34

  40

  378.0

  20

  23

  910.0

  14

  12

  Llandough Hospital

  427.0

  16

  16

  667.7

  30

  32

  —

  —

  —

  Llanelli/Dinefwr

  181.6

  8

  9

  362.7

  14

  15

  197.2

  2

  3

  Pembrokeshire

  327.0

  5

  —

  621.0

  16

  —

  373.8

  6

  6

  Powys Health Care

  708.3

  19

  1

  950.5

  36

  1

  449.5

  4

  6

  Swansea

  166.8

  4

  7

  742.9

  21

  24

  —

  —

  —

  Wrexham Maelor Hospital

  166.1

  8

  7

  517.4

  24

  26

  —

  —

  —

  Directly Managed Units

  East Dyfed Mental Health Unit

  604.6

  16

  17

  116.6

  3

  5

  —

  —

  —

  North Gwent Unit

  274.9

  13

  11

  517.6

  23

  23

  —

  —

  —

  Gwynedd DHA3

  796.9

  34

  35

  1,535.6

  64

  63

  594.2

  8

  9

  Mid Glamorgan:

  Hensol

  178.8

  4

  7

  124.6

  3

  4

  —

  —

  —

  Merthyr/Cynon

  n/a

  12

  13

  n/a

  22

  18

  n/a

  —

  —

  Rhondda

  298.8

  10

  12

  351.5

  14

  13

  —

  —

  —

  Rhymney Valley

  81.7

  3

  3

  172.7

  8

  7

  —

  3

  1

  Taff Ely

  181.6

  7

  7

  504.7

  23

  21

  —

  5

  5

  South Glamorgan

  Community

  729.7

  34

  35

  680.2

  32

  33

  808.4

  12

  11

  UHW/CRI

  967.0

  41

  37

  1,940.7

  81

  85

  —

  1

  1

  West Glamorgan DHA4

  n/a

  32

  38

  n/a

  62

  69

  n/a

  12

  11

  1 £ thousands 1993–94.

  2 Qualified staff. Staff paid on local payscales for whom no details of occupation are available centrally are excluded from the table. In order that a comparison of the two figures can be made staff employed in provider units which obtained Trust status on 1 April 1994 are shown under their previous management unit.

  3 Includes staff employed by Gwynedd Acute NHS Trust, Gwynedd Community NHS Trust (Data for these were not available separately in 1993) and Gwynedd DHA.

  4 Includes staff employed centrally by West Glamorgan DHA.

  n/a Information not available.

  Dental Caries
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what percentage of children had caries-free permanent teeth in(a) 1973, (b) 1983 and (c) 1993, and what was the dental caries experience of deciduous teeth of five-year-old children in the same years. [19917]

  Mr. Richards
  Three national surveys of children's dental health have been carried out—1973, 1983 and 604
  1993–by the social survey division of the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys and results were published by HMSO. The publications show separate information for Wales and copies are in the Library of the House. The ISBN numbers are as follows:

  1973: ISBN 0 11 700687 4

  1983: ISBN 0 11 691136 0

  1993: ISBN 0 11 691136 0

  Environment Powers
  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) if he will list those powers available to him, by order, to further the interest of the natural environment, forestry and agriculture; [19993]

  (2) if he will list those powers available to him by executive action to further the interests of the natural environment, forestry and agriculture. [19992]

  Mr. Redwood
  This information could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Official Receivers
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will publish in full the replies of the official receivers to the consultation on privatisation under the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994. [20262]

  Mr. Redwood
  This is a matter for the President of the Board of Trade.

  Electoral Reviews
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he will next instigate a review of electoral wards by the Local Government Boundary Commission for Wales; and if he will make a statement. [20373]

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  The reviews of local government electoral arrangements are instigated not by my right hon. Friend, but by the relevant provisions of the Local Government Act 1972. Section 64(1) of that Act, as substituted by section 6 of the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994, requires the Local Government Boundary Commission for Wales to undertake reviews of the electorial arrangements in each of the new unitary authorities "as soon as practicable" after the first elections to be held next month.

  Planning Policy Guidance
  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list(a) the planning policy guidance notes and (b) the mineral policy guidance notes that have been issued in England but not in Wales over the last five years; and if he will make a statement. [21051]

  Mr. Redwood
  The following is the information.(a) Planning Policy Guidance—(PPG)—note 2 "Green Belts" (DOE: January 1995);
  PPG9 "Nature Conservation" (DOE: October 1994);
  PPG13 "Transport" (DOE/DOT: March 1994);
  PPG15 "Planning and the Historic Environment" (DOE/DNH: September 1994);
  PPG23 "Planning and Pollution Control" (DOE: July 1994); and
  PPG24 "Planning and Noise" (DOE: September 1994).
  (b) Minerals Planning Guidance note 6 "Guidelines for Aggregates Provision in England" (DOE: April 1994).

  Draft planning policy guidance for Wales is currently being prepared and consultation with Welsh interests will follow.

  Housing
  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what has been the percentage grant available to Welsh housing associations for new and existing properties in each year since Tai Cymru was established. [21083]
  606
  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  Percentage rates for the standard housing association grant in Wales are set out as follows:

  Date

  Percentage

  1989–90

  72

  1990–91

  75

  1991–92

  70

  1992–93

  67

  1993–94

  65

  1994–95

  62

  1995–96

  58

SCOTLAND

  Tourism
  Mr. Bill Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what representations he has received about the way in which Scottish Enterprise, Tayside supports tourist-related capital projects. [19585]

  Mr. Kynoch
  The only representations received by my right hon. Friend about the way in which Scottish Enterprise, Tayside supports tourist-related capital projects have been those made by my hon. Friend.

  Public Inquiries
  Sir David Steel
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will consider paying local authorities' costs of holding public inquiries where these are caused by his own amendments to local plans. [19586]

  Mr. Kynoch
  My right hon. Friend has no plans to make payments in respect of the costs to local authorities of holding public inquiries. Such costs are provided for within the rate support grant.

  Local Government
  Mr. Davidson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what plans he has to reorganise Scottish local government. [19587]

  Mr. Kynoch
  None.

  Mr. Nigel Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will re-evaluate his proposals for local government. [19593]

  Mr. Kynoch
  I refer to the reply given earlier to the hon. Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan) by my right hon. Friend.

  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he next intends to meet representatives of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to discuss local government funding. [19595]

  Mrs. Adams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he next plans to meet representatives of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to discuss local government finance. [19596]

  Mr. Kynoch
  My right hon. Friend and I are scheduled to meet representatives of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities on 12 June as part of the normal consultation on local government finance matters.

  Psychiatric Hospitals
  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he last discussed the closure of psychiatric hospitals with the health boards; and if he will make a statement. [19588]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  My noble and learned Friend the Minister of State regularly meets representatives from all health boards to discuss health issues.

  Strathclyde Regional Council
  Mr. Watson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what plans he has to meet the leadership of Strathclyde regional council to discuss the resources available to the council in the current financial year. [19590]

  Mr. Kynoch
  My right hon. Friend has no plans for such a meeting; such discussions on local government finance are conducted with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities.

  Scottish Homes
  Mr. McKelvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he next plans to meet officials of Scottish Homes to discuss transfer of properties. [19591]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  My right hon. Friend meets the board of Scottish Homes from time to time. He has issued guidance to Scottish Homes on the future ownership of its housing stock following which it has published procedures for the disposal of its stock.

  Nursery Education
  Mr. Chisholm
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what proposals he has for the development of nursery education. [19592]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The Government have given a commitment to provide, over time, quality pre-school places for all four-year-olds whose parents wish to take them up. Work is currently going on to develop the details of the policy and this has involved contacts with a number of organisations in Scotland. An announcement will be made as soon as possible.

  Dentistry
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many dentists in Scotland are refusing to treat certain categories of NHS patients. [19597]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The information requested is not available. General dental practitioners on health board NHS dental lists are free to decide in each case whether to provide NHS treatment to an individual patient.

  Inward Investment
  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement about inward investment in Scotland. [19598]

  Mr. Kynoch
  The Government's pro-business policies have created a business climate in which companies can flourish and this continues to make Scotland—and indeed the United Kingdom as a whole—a very attractive location for inward investment.
  608
  In the five years to March 1994, Locate in Scotland and the Scottish Office industry department helped to attract to Scotland nearly 350 inward investment projects involving planned investment of £2.6 billion associated with the expected creation or safeguarding of over 47,000 jobs. That success was maintained during 1994–95, with Scotland attracting inward investment projects at the rate of almost two per week.

  The success announced during the year to March 1995 included Motorola's decision to invest a further £250 million at its East Kilbride plant, creating 250 new jobs; NEC's decision to invest £530 million in setting up a new state-of-the-art wafer fabrication facility in Livingston, creating 430 new jobs; and BSkyB's decision to set up a new subscriber management centre in Dunfermline, creating up to 1,000 full-time jobs over the next few years.

  Detailed figures for inward investment in Scotland in 1994–95 will be published in the Locate in Scotland annual review in June.

  Japanese Companies
  Mr. Stewart
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what recent meetings he has had with Japanese companies concerning trade and investment; and if he will make a statement. [19599]

  Mr. Kynoch
  My right hon. Friend and I regularly meet representatives of Japanese companies to discuss trade and investment. My right hon. Friend's most recent such meeting was on 24 February when he accompanied my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister at a ground-breaking ceremony on the site of NEC's proposed new silicon wafer fabrication facility in Livingston.

  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will also visit Japan later this year, when trade promotion activities and meetings with existing and potential inward investors will play a key part in his programme.

  Bus Services, Strathclyde
  Mrs. Ray Michie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he plans to meet the director general of Strathclyde passenger transport executive to discuss bus services in Strathclyde. [19600]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  No such meeting has been arranged.

  Employment Prospects
  Mr. Ernie Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he next intends meeting the chair of Scottish Enterprise to discuss employment prospects. [19601]

  Mr. Kynoch
  My right hon. Friend meets the chairman of Scottish Enterprise from time to time to discuss a range of issues affecting the Scottish economy. No date has yet been arranged for the next meeting.

  Monklands District Council
  Mr. David Shaw
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many police inquiries have been initiated into(a) Monklands district council's affairs and (b) those of its councillors in the last five years. [19602]

  Mr. Kynoch
  During this period Strathclyde police conducted one inquiry into the affairs of Monklands district council and two separate inquiries into those of some councillors.

  Education, South Lanarkshire
  Mr. McAvoy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will undertake to meet representatives of the new South Lanarkshire council to discuss educational priorities within the council area. [19603]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The setting of educational priorities within its area will be an important matter for the new South Lanarkshire council. If the council in due course seeks a meeting, its request would be given full consideration as are all such requests for meetings. My hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government will wish to meet the new councils individually in due course.

  Arts Funding
  Mr. Maxton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he next intends to meet the chairman of the Scottish Arts Council to discuss the funding of the arts in Scotland. [19604]

  Sir Hector Monro
  My right hon. Friend meets the chairman of the Scottish Arts Council from time to time to discuss a range of issues concerning the arts in Scotland. He has no current plans for a meeting.

  Non-domestic Rates
  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will review the system of non-domestic rates relief available to small businesses in Scotland; and if he will make a statement. [19605]

  Mr. Kynoch
  The Non-domestic Rates (Levying) (Scotland) Regulations 1995 introduced provisions to protect all ratepayers including small businesses from unexpected and significant increases in rates bills resulting from the combined effects of the 1995 Revaluation and the introduction of the national non-domestic rate in Scotland.

  The Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994 also introduced with effect from 1 April 1995 a power permitting rating authorities to remit any rate levied by them where the ratepayer would otherwise suffer hardship and where it would be in the interests of the authority's council tax payers to do so.

  I have no plans to review further the arrangements for non-domestic rating relief.

  Drug-taking Kits
  Mr. David Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will introduce legislation making it an offence for anyone to sell drug-taking kits; and if he will make a statement. [19606]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  It is already an offence under section 9A of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 for a person to supply any article which may be used for the administration of a controlled drug, if he believes that the article is to be so used in circumstances where the administration is unlawful. If the hon. Member has a specific issue in mind, he might wish to write to my right hon. Friend.

  EC Aid
  Sir David Steel
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he expects funds from the EC aid programme the borders objective 5b scheme to be made available to the appropriate authorities for distribution in the borders region; and what measures he is taking to ensure that receipt of funds is as soon as possible. [20249]

  Mr. Lang
  I understand the Commission will take the formal decision on the borders objective 5b single programme document before the end of April. To facilitate early release of funds, the monitoring committee met on 20 April and decided in principle which projects should be supported in the first round of applications under the programme. Formal offer letters will be issued to successful project sponsors immediately after the decisions of the committee are ratified, following the formal decision. Successful applicants can then claim structural funds grant against progress on their projects.

  Urban Programme
  Mrs. Adams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what powers he has to investigate(a) an inquiry, (b) an investigation and (c) an audit into the accounts or trading activities of community businesses established with public funds; and if he will make a statement. [21008]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  [holding answer 25 April 1995]: Where financial assistance is being provided through the urban programme, my right hon. Friend has the right to ensure that the expenditure has been incurred for the purposes approved by him and seeks re-assurance from the sponsoring local authorities on this. My right hon. Friend has no powers in relation to community businesses once the period of any urban programme funding has expired.

  Auditors
  Mrs. Adams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland which body is responsible for auditing the accounts or trading activities of FCB Enterprise Securities; and if he will make a statement. [21009]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  [holding answer 25 April 1995]: Under the Companies Act 1985 all companies other than certain categories of small companies and dormant companies are required to appoint auditors. The Companies Act 1989 makes provision to secure that persons appointed as company auditors are appropriately qualified and independent. A copy of a company's annual accounts must be lodged, normally in the case of a private company within 10 months after the end of the company's financial year, with the Registrar of Companies. As my right hon. Friend is not involved in the running of FCB Enterprise Securities, he is unable to supply the information requested, which should be available from the Registrar of Companies.

  Large Combustion Plant Directive
  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many installations in Scotland are covered by the large combustion plant directive; and if he will list them. [20845]

  Sir Hector Monro
  [holding answer 25 April 1995]: In Scotland, 19 installations, as listed, are subject to control under the United Kingdom's programme and national plan for reducing emissions of sulphur dioxide and oxides of

  611
  nitrogen from existing large combustion plants which addresses the requirements of the large combustion plant directive in respect of existing plants. To date there is one plant at BP Chemicals Ltd. subject to the controls contained in the directive relating to new plants. The plants covered by the national plan are:

  Electricity Supply Industry:

  Longannet PS

  Cockenzie PS

  Peterhead PS

  Kincardine PS

  Refineries:

  BP Oil Grangemouth Refinery Limited

  Other Industry:

  Methill PS

  Roche Products Limited

  Exxon Chemicals Olefins Inc

  C. Davidson and Sons

  Limited Nobels Explosives Co. Limited

  BP Chemicals Limited

  Tullis Russell Limited

  Caledonian Paper plc

  Michelin Tyre plc

  Donside Paper Co. Limited

  BP Sullom Voe Terminal

  Ciba-Geigy plc

  Royal Ordnance plc

  Allied Distillers Limited

  TABASCO
  Mr. Davidson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what action has been taken by his Department 612
  to support the TABASCO application by Strathclyde regional council and others for EU 4th framework programme funding. [20799]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  [holding answer 25 April 1995]: TABASCO is based on collaborative links actively promoted by The Scottish Office with partners in Germany. Within the TABASCO project the Scottish Office is leading the work modules relating to travel and traffic control and information management and regional traffic control. The Scottish Office is supporting the TABASCO project bid through the implementation of the forth estuary driver information and control system—FEDICS—its committed joint funding with Strathclyde region of the new CITRAC traffic control system and the plans to develop a Scottish travel information centre.

  Marine Discharges
  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many installations in Scotland require consents for marine discharges; and if he will list them. [20841]

  Sir Hector Monro
  [holding answer 25 April 1995]: Marine discharges are controlled either by the river purification authorities under the Control of Pollution Act 1974, part II as amended or, where relevant, by Her Majesty's industrial pollution inspectorate and river purification authorities acting together under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 part 1. Information relating to all such discharges is available for public inspection in registers maintained by river purification authorities, but a complete record is not held centrally.

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

Registrars of Births
Lord Young of Dartington Lord Young of Dartington asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will introduce legislation empowering Registrars of Births to conduct civil naming ceremonies; and whether they will require registrars to make available to cohabiting couples who both sign birth certificates parental responsibility agreements which recognise that fathers as well as mothers have legal rights and duties in relation to their children.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Cumberlege): My Lords, the Government have no plans to change the law in respect of the duties and responsibilities of registrars. However, consideration will be given to introducing an information leaflet which registrars will be asked to issue to all parents who register a birth outside marriage, explaining among other things about the making of a parental responsibility agreement under the Children Act 1989, the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995, or such arrangements as may be introduced under the Children (Scotland) Bill which is presently before another place.
Lord Young of Dartington: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer, in particular her comment about the joint responsibility agreement. Is she aware that there are large and ever-growing numbers of cohabiting parents and that if Church baptism is ruled out for them there is no ceremony for welcoming new-born children into the world and affirming a parental commitment to their welfare? Despite what the Minister said at the beginning of her Answer, is she prepared to say that the Government will at least consider allowing registrars to conduct civil naming ceremonies, as they already conduct civil marriages? That would be a logical next step.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, primary legislation would be required. Before taking that step, the Government would have to consider very carefully before coming to any definitive view.
The Earl of Clanwilliam: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the problems would be overcome if the couples got married?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, that could be a solution for some but perhaps not for others.
The Lord Bishop of Lichfield: My Lords, does the Minister accept that while we on these Benches strongly support all measures to strengthen family life, in particular parental responsibility—and it is not invariably the case that baptism is refused to the children of cohabitees—we are nevertheless bound to have
912
reservations about a civil naming ceremony which seems to adopt many of the features of Christian baptism while emptying them of their spiritual content? Would it not therefore be preferable for the Churches to redouble their efforts to reach out and encourage parents to consider bringing their children to baptism rather than adopting a confusingly similar imitation which is deprived of its full spiritual meaning?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, if there were any suggestion that primary legislation was to be introduced, the Government would wish to consult widely with all sections of society, including the Churches. I believe that the issue of baptism is for other authorities rather than the Government.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, as the Marriage Act 1994 is now on the statute book, would it not be logical for the Government to encourage the step forward described by my noble friend Lord Young? More importantly, when will the Government realise that 25 per cent. of the population of this country hold no religious beliefs? Does the noble Baroness agree that those people should be recognised and should not have placed before them such obstacles as have been mentioned today?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, there is nothing to stop couples holding the kind of ceremonies that they desire. The Question requires that the registrar should be involved. Registrars are statutory officers and at present their duties and responsibilities are limited to those set out in the Acts relating to marriage and registration. As I have said, primary legislation would be required, which would be a big step.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, if registrars can consecrate a marriage what is to stop them from consecrating the product of marriage? Is that not sensible? May we take it that the view expressed by the right reverend Prelate is the view of the Church, or is there some discussion and dissent on the subject?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, of course, registrars do not consecrate a marriage. Marriage is a sacrament and it is usually carried out by religious leaders. With regard to the second point, that is very much a matter for the Church.
Lord Teviot: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1836, which has been left almost intact, has worked extremely satisfactorily for more than 100 years?
Baroness Cumberlege: Yes, my Lords.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the Minister rightly said that any change in the responsibilities of registrars would be a matter for primary legislation. Is she aware that Mr. Frank Field in another place and my noble friend Lord Young of Dartington are proposing to introduce legislation on that issue in Parliament? Can she give any indication of whether the Government will treat that Bill with anything other than outright opposition or will they wish at best a fair wind for such a small but useful additional piece of legislation?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I am well aware that Mr. Frank Field and the noble Lord, Lord Young, are

913
intending to introduce that legislation. As I have said, it will require a great deal of consultation before the Government make up their mind either way. At the moment, we are prepared to produce a leaflet which will ensure that unmarried couples have an opportunity to accept joint parental responsibility because, at present, parental responsibility lies with the mother. That is a way in which to encourage fathers to be involved.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, in order to avoid any misunderstanding, does the Minister understand from the intervention of the Front Bench spokesman opposite that if the noble Lord's party had the power, it would introduce the legislation necessary to implement the provisions referred to in the Question?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, we shall try to ensure that the party opposite does not gain that power.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I do not believe that that issue can be allowed to pass. Will the Minister inform her noble friend that when I make a comment from the Dispatch Box about a proposed Private Member's Bill, that is not in any way in conflict with the convention to which we adhere; namely, that the Opposition as such does not take a view on Private Member's Bills?

Burundi: Peace-keeping Measures
2.45 p.m.
Viscount Waverley Viscount Waverley asked Her Majesty's Government:
What contribution they are proposing to make to peace-keeping measures in Burundi.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Chalker of Wallasey): My Lords, we are giving our strong support to action by the UN, the EU, the OAU and other regional parties to help resolve the conflict in Burundi peacefully. The EU plans to give help with the deployment of UN human rights experts and OAU military observers. We continue to follow developments closely and an FCO officer in Bujumbura will augment the coverage provided by our mission in Kampala.
Viscount Waverley: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that realistic reply. But are the policies deemed to be working? Is it not high time that a regional conference be brokered to seek political solutions through dialogue to the full range of political, economic and social issues confronting that region?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, it is fair to say that even in the very confused situation which still exists in many parts of Burundi, some of the measures are working, but they are by no means working universally. As I said in a statement which I made this morning about the region, and in particular about Rwanda, there really is a role for the regional governments to support the peace process. That is what we have been encouraging through the OAU, the UN and with our EU partners. We need to see a system where people talk out rather than fight out their differences.
Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, is the problem in Burundi as important as that in Rwanda? What does my noble friend the Minister intend to do with regard to Rwanda?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, the resolution of the problems of Burundi would obviously help to create a greater stability in the whole region. I have no doubt that in Rwanda the prime problem is that of promoting national reconciliation. That is why the states of the area—Tanzania, Uganda, Zaire, Burundi and Rwanda—all have a key role to play. It is essential also that any flow of arms from neighbouring states should be stopped. The UN must really help us to concentrate on that if we are to prevent any repetition of the horrors which we saw a year ago in Rwanda and, indeed, the smaller but just as terrifying situation which we saw last Saturday.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, given the importance of taking urgent action in Burundi to prevent the kind of slaughter which took place last week in Rwanda, will the Minister elaborate a little on what she said about European Union collaboration in Burundi? For example, will she say whether the European Union is now reinforcing the deployment of OAU military observers on the ground? Will she tell the House precisely how many human rights experts the EU has now sent to Burundi? Finally, what assistance is being provided to improve the administration of justice and the police? Is the Minister satisfied that is adequate?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, perhaps I may answer the last question first. I am not yet satisfied that the measures are adequate. I believe that there are some 65 monitors in total in Burundi, some of whom were supplied by the European Union. But it is quite clear from the discussions at the Foreign Minister's meeting at Carcassone on 19th March and from the debate in the Foreign Affairs Council on 10th April that all our partners are as concerned as we are to see a resolution.
It is critical that we must help to provide both the Governments of Burundi and Rwanda, because the two really go together, with human rights experts to give them support for the administration of justice and the police. The noble Baroness will remember that Britain was the first country to provide support to the Government of Rwanda after the tragedies of last year to get the justice system started again.
Judge Goldstone will lead the investigations but more justices will be needed in both countries. Getting the system back in operation is very difficult and needs to be done on the ground. We are working at that. I hope to write to the noble Baroness shortly with more information.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, bearing in mind the very unfortunate incident which took place last Saturday and to which reference has been made, is the Minister satisfied that adequate military forces are present in both Rwanda and Burundi to prevent a recurrence of conflict between the peoples of those countries? Further, what steps have been taken to

915
accept or to consider the offer that has been made by the OAU countries to provide additional forces, provided that the United Nations is willing to pay for them?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I can only tell the noble Lord that I believe the incident was much more than unfortunate; indeed, I think it was a tragedy that took place in Rwanda last Saturday. However, we must keep it in perspective. We certainly do not believe that anything like some of the numbers quoted have been killed—perhaps the number is somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500. Still, every one is one too many.
However, to stop the conflict in an area full of arms, we know that one needs many people to calm down such a situation. UNAMIR has a limited mandate which falls due for renewal this June and it will be for all the members of the Security Council to consider not just having a resolution but also actually putting numbers behind it. We have already given a considerable amount of help both to the OAU and, indeed, to the UN operation in the area. We have spent nearly £91 million since April of last year to try to bring about peace, to keep people alive and to plot the way forward. But there is a great deal more to be done. I shall keep your Lordships well informed about developments.
The Lord Bishop of Lichfield: My Lords, as the Minister referred to the deep need for national reconciliation, is she satisfied that, within the Commonwealth, the neighbouring territory of Uganda (which has experienced massacre and loss of life for more than 20 years) is sufficiently pro-actively involved to bring healing to its neighbour?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, the right reverend Prelate knows that there is a problem in that respect. The Ugandans are seen by some in Rwanda and Burundi to be on one side rather than totally in favour, as I know them to be, of national reconciliation in the region. Therefore, it is most important that all the countries in the region, especially Tanzania and Zaire which have received so many refugees, are also involved alongside Uganda in promoting national reconciliation.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, the problems of Burundi and Rwanda are closely related. Can the Minister now say whether a chargé d'affaires will continue to be based in Kigali, Rwanda, for the foreseeable future? In asking that question I should declare an interest as I am heavily involved in an NGO in Rwanda.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I am glad to be able to tell the noble Earl that we do indeed hope to keep the chargé d'affaires in Kigali and also to have a mission in Bujumbura so that we are working on the ground as well as through the first-class, British non-governmental organisations which are already very active in both countries.

Local Authorities: Debts
2.54 p.m.
Lord Orr-Ewing Lord Orr-Ewing asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is the total debt per head of the local authorities in Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield and Leeds.
The Earl of Lindsay: My Lords, the total debt per head of population at 31st March 1994, the latest date for which figures are available, was as follows: Manchester, £2,955; Birmingham, £1,192; Sheffield, £1,409; and Leeds, £988.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, is my noble friend the Minister aware that those are very large sums of money? Are we sure that the ratepayers of those great cities are getting good value for money? Moreover, are we sure that equal effort is being made to collect debts which already exist because both tasks are necessary at the same time; in other words, economy in spending and perspicacity in collecting debts with the greatest rapidity?
The Earl of Lindsay: My Lords, the level of debt in those four cities is extremely large and is of concern to the Government. Their total debts come to nearly £4 billion. To put that in perspective, it represents just over 10 per cent, of total local authority debt in England, which stands at £37 billion. Servicing that debt costs us something like £4 billion per annum across England.
The Government are extremely keen that all local authorities reduce and pay off their debts wherever possible; indeed, the lower their debts, the greater the proportion of their revenues and grants that will be available for goods and services. Therefore, we encourage local authorities both to abide by the rules that we have set for debt redemption and to take up the incentives that we have put in place to encourage debt repayment. We also encourage local authorities to collect all moneys owing in an efficient manner.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, is the Minister aware that, in the case of Manchester, if it had received from Mr. Heath the money for the forced sale of its waterworks by the Government—indeed, the former Secretary of State the noble Lord, Lord Rippon, suggested that that money ought to be returned to the people to whom it belonged; namely, the ratepayers of Manchester—the figure that the noble Earl quoted could probably be wiped out completely? Why do not the Government give that money back to the people of Manchester?
The Earl of Lindsay: My Lords, notwithstanding what the noble Lord implies, Manchester's record in making efforts to redeem debt is not commendable. Large authorities such as Manchester are sitting on potentially saleable assets of great value. But, despite government incentives to encourage the sale of those assets in order to redeem their debts, such authorities are reluctant to do so.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, the noble Earl has been most frank in his answers to his noble friend

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Lord Orr-Ewing. However, will he give us an undertaking that he will be equally frank as regards questions that come from this side of the House in relation, possibly, to different local authorities; or, for example, questioning the mathematics which have been used by the noble Earl in his answers? Moreover, if pertinent questions on the matter are put by Members of this side of the House, will the noble Earl confirm that the Government will not plead that the information could be provided only at a disproportionate expense?
The Earl of Lindsay: My Lords, the mathematics are very straightforward and, possibly, somewhat embarrassing to some Members of the House.
Lord Elton: My Lords, will my noble friend the Minister clarify both the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, and his answer thereto? Is not the situation to which both apply that Manchester has received capital receipts for the sale of property which is was required to sell under government legislation and that it has declined to use them in the redemption of debt because it wishes to hang on to such money for other purposes? If that is not the case, what other reason is there for Manchester not paying off the debt when it is in a position to pay some of it?
The Earl of Lindsay: My Lords, it is hard to know why cities such as Manchester do not use all their set aside funds to redeem debt. There is no other purpose to which they can put those funds. Therefore, such moneys are simply sitting there, frozen and earning interest; but they are not being used to reduce the local authority debt.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My Lords, is it not a fact that all the borrowing of local authorities, including that of Birmingham which I know better than most, has all been authorised under government-allowed borrowing costs? In other words, the Government have said, "Yes, you can borrow the money". Therefore, the responsibility is equal. Does the noble Earl know that the transport Minister was in Birmingham yesterday and said that, these days, it has become just about the most attractive city in the country? Indeed, it is a credit to the people involved and 10 years of Labour control.
The Earl of Lindsay: My Lords, it is also 15 years of Conservative Government. I can also tell the House that it took the Birmingham Labour-controlled authority only eight years to increase its payroll by 10,000 jobs. However, I return to the main point. Local authority borrowing is, indeed, approved by central government. Central government approve that borrowing on the basis of need. The most important point behind my noble friend's question is the fact that the Government have introduced both rules and incentives to reduce debts which are costing the country nearly £4 billion a year.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, may I suggest to the noble Earl that other factors should be taken into account in discussing the success or failure of local authorities? I believe that Sheffield, for example—where I am much involved as chairman of a company which distributes heat from the city incinerator to heat that city—has
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contributed a great deal to environmental improvement and those factors should also be taken into account quite apart from indebtedness.
The Earl of Lindsay: My Lords, the Government certainly applaud all the CHP schemes which are currently being run in certain cities. I think this matter is a little wide of the Question but the record of the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, in the CHP field is much admired.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, would the noble Earl care to give the national figure for debt per head after 15 years of Tory rule compared with the first year of this Government?
The Earl of Lindsay: My Lords, I told the House that our total local authority debt in England is £37 billion and that the total cost of servicing that debt is £4 billion. That is equivalent to £110 in servicing debt for every adult in this country.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that Manchester's £1 billion of debt is still, after the sale of assets, covered by £6 billion of assets; that Birmingham's £1.2 billion of debt is covered by £3.5 billion of assets; and that, in the case of Sheffield and Leeds, £750 million of debt is covered by £3 billion of assets? Does not the Minister agree that any houseowner would, in these days of negative equity, be happy to have a debt—a mortgage—that is only one-third or one-sixth of the asset value of his house?
The Earl of Lindsay: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for pointing out the mathematics involved. When the service charges of local authority debts reach a figure of £4 billion a year and local authorities are sitting on assets of considerable value, it makes sense that those local authorities clear their debt by using their assets.

Education: Use of Resources
3.2 p.m.
Baroness Perry of South wark Baroness Perry of South wark asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they are confident that those responsible for the delivery of education are making the best possible use of the resources available to them to give good value in educational provision to pupils and their parents.
Lord Lucas: My Lords, our reforms have provided a framework in which power and responsibility have been devolved to those closest to service delivery, enabling them to secure maximum value from the resources available. We see great opportunities for the better use of resources in all aspects of the education system.
Baroness Perry of Southwark: My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for that reply, but does he not accept that it is extremely frustrating for the average taxpayer, who has seen the expenditure at national level on education increasing year by year in most generous terms over the past 15 years, still to have to listen daily to complaints at local school level that resources are

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being squeezed? I believe that the average taxpayer and the average parent would like some explanation of where things are going wrong.
Lord Lucas: My Lords, it obviously is important that schools are properly funded, but what is clear is that at the current level of funding there is a great deal that schools and indeed others involved in the education system could do to get better value for the money that is already being spent.
Baroness David: My Lords, would the Minister say that the cost of the national curriculum, which was nearly £500 million—that has been spent on an exercise that has had to be radically altered—showed the best use of resources and has given good value in educational provision?
Lord Lucas: Yes, my Lords.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that local education authorities hold back on average about one-third of their general schools budget and therefore only delegate about two-thirds to schools? In view of that, will my noble friend agree that some relatively small economies in LEA spending, and/or a shift of allocation of funding, could result in a quite significant increase of resources for local schools and the pupils in them?
Lord Lucas: My Lords, the situation differs very much from one LEA to another. I would quarrel slightly with the figures that my noble friend has produced. There is a lot of LEA education spending which is not available to be delegated because the Government have decided that it should continue to be disbursed centrally. Many authorities are now delegating better than 90 per cent. of the money that they have available to delegate; others are moving beyond that. We very much applaud what they have done and we believe that it results in the much more efficient use of the moneys involved. When one looks at the breakdown of what remains with local authorities, there are differences—for example, some authorities are spending 5 per cent. on administration while others are spending 1 per cent. on administration—which would lead us to think that there was some further scope for some authorities to do better than they are.
Lord Desai: My Lords, will the noble Lord confirm that, as a proportion of total budget, education's share has not risen over the past few years? Will he also confirm that in terms of spending in secondary schools per student, the figure has fallen?
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I am not quite clear what timescale the noble Lord is thinking of. I am sure he is as aware as I am—
Lord Desai: Fifteen years!
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I am sure he is as aware as I am that over the past 15 years the real term spending per student in secondary schools has risen very substantially by around 50 per cent. I do not have the figures with me on the share of the total budget, but I will write to the noble Lord on that.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, is my noble friend aware of the OECD report last week which found that we spend more per pupil than do either Japan or Germany and yet our standards of education for 16 year-olds are very much lower than theirs, particularly for children of average ability? Would my noble friend confirm that that means there must still be considerable waste in our system, no doubt particularly in our more pernicious local education authorities?
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I am not sure that I would characterise it as waste so much as an opportunity to do a great deal more with the money that we already spend.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, since the Question relates to the best possible use of resources, is the noble Lord aware that his right honourable friend the Prime Minister's claim that there are two education authority administrators for every three teachers has been widely challenged, especially by the Local Government Management Board, which asserts that the ratio is 1:15? As we attempt to reconcile these figures, can the Minister help us by explaining what categories of employee have to be included in the term "administrator" in order to justify his right honourable friend's claim, given that the Local Government Management Board includes curriculum development officers, education inspectors, education welfare officers, educational psychologists, nursery and classroom assistants, school library staff, youth and community workers, careers guidance officers, special needs support officers as well as clerical staff?
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I do not have the answer with me. I shall write to the noble Lord. My belief is that the figures refer to the total of local authority bureaucratic overhead rather than those particularly concerned in schools, but I may well be wrong on that and I shall write to the noble Lord.

Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) Bill [H.L.]
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Mackay of Clashfern): My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to consolidate Part V of the Transport Act 1968 and related provisions concerning the licensing of operators of certain goods vehicles. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Local Government
3.7 p.m.
Lord Williams of Elvel Lord Williams of Elvel rose to call attention to the state of local government in Great Britain; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, let me start by saying that my Motion refers particularly to the,
"state of local government in Great Britain".

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It does not refer to local government reorganisation. Other noble Lords may wish to speak on that matter but I will touch on it only in so far as it illustrates comments that I wish to make. I imagine that many of your Lordships will feel that we have debated reorganisation many times and I will be forgiven, at least on this occasion, if I give it a miss. Equally—and here I hope the reasons are obvious—my Motion does not attempt to confront the problems of local government in Northern Ireland; problems which are, as your Lordships will be aware, of quite a different order from those faced by Scotland, England and Wales.
The questions that I wish to ask your Lordships resolve themselves into three groups. First, what is the proper relationship between local government, central government and the electors? Have we got the relationship right? If we have not got it right—and after Question Time this afternoon I am confirmed in my opinion that we have not got it right—what is the effect on morale, efficiency and the credibility of local authorities, their councillors, their officials and their employees? Secondly, what do we think local authorities are really meant to do? If we can establish that, do they have the resources to do it? Thirdly, when all the answers come together, to what extent do we need to rethink our view of the role and position of local authorities, and how and in what direction do we start to move?
I doubt whether anybody would disagree that the relationship between local and central government has shifted fundamentally in the past decade and a half. The most obvious and overt example of that is the way in which financial responsibility has now largely been transferred from local authorities to the Treasury. Gone are the days when local authorities could set their own rate—domestic or business—and be judged on their performance by the way that was set and the way they spent the proceeds. We now have a system in which local government has to rely on Whitehall hand-outs for approximately four-fifths of its revenue. That system, a by-product of which is that the central government grant to local authorities is a major part of central government expenditure itself, allows Whitehall to determine where, in the whole constellation of public sector finance, the axe should fall. Unless the Secretaries of State for Scotland, Wales and the Environment respectively are tough negotiators, local government tends to be the loser.
That has happened. I give one example out of many. In the year 1995–96 general government expenditure and what is known as the control total will increase by 4.1 per cent. and 2.4 per cent. respectively; but local government will face a cash freeze. Central funding for the health programme, which is no doubt desirable, will increase by 4.1 per cent., but local authority personal social services will increase by only 0.3 per cent. I could go on, but I shall refrain from mentioning the proposed teachers' settlement which has resulted in the uproar with which your Lordships will by now be familiar.
It could be argued, and many noble Lords may argue, that that would not matter if local authorities were able to raise revenue from their own localities to cover the
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deficit, even though they would have to raise it on the one-fifth of their revenue for which they are responsible. However, even that is forbidden them by Whitehall. There is a system, initially introduced in the Rates Act 1984 and subsequently re-enacted, under which Whitehall specifically limits by law those local authority budgets which are "excessive" or which represent an "excessive" increase over the previous year. That system is known as "capping".
The upshot is that however much they try, and however willing their own electors may be, to raise extra money by way of council tax to pay for services which they and their electors consider necessary, local authorities can be prevented by Whitehall from doing so.
Your Lordships will then properly ask, what is the basis on which Whitehall determines the appropriate budget for each local authority, down to the nearest penny? The answer is the standard spending assessment. I try very hard—and I mean this sincerely—to understand how this is calculated. But for the life of me I find it very difficult to get my mind round the intricacies of the calculations. There are allowances for this and that; there are regional weightings for the other; there are estimates, based, I am sure, on the most reliable census data, of specific circumstances for each community from John o' Groats to Land's End. However, try as I might, I always end with the conclusion that this is like the Schleswig-Holstein problem of the last century—only two people ever understood it, but one was dead and the other had forgotten.
Many noble Lords opposite may think that that is a reasonable way to handle local government. If they do, I ask them to consider the effect on local councillors, their officials and employees. Who on earth would volunteer for such a sad and unrewarding business, particularly if their jobs are continually put at risk by compulsory competitive tendering? I have with me a sheaf of cuttings from provincial newspapers explaining the effects of the present system on their own communities. I shall not weary your Lordships by reading them all out, but they come from all parts of the country: the Manchester Evening News, the Birmingham Post, the Newcastle Journal, the Western Mail, the Scotsman—all newspapers of distinction, none of them, as far as I know, exactly dedicated to the Left-wing of politics.
Those newspapers, and others up and down the land, reflect local opinion, and they are not happy with Whitehall. Add to that, if you will, the sustained campaign of denigration to which local authorities and their employees have been subjected over the years, being told time and time again that town halls are staffed by bureaucrats with nothing better to do than to make life as difficult as possible for the citizen, and your Lordships will see why local authorities are in a state of near revolt.
My second question is, in one sense, more rewarding, because in asking what local authorities could and should do I can allow myself, and your Lordships, to consider the real potential that is at our disposal if only we have the courage to realise it. I am constantly

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surprised at the ingenuity and inventiveness which exists in local government if we want it. It is there, not only in local economic development, but in ideas on how to improve the local environment, how to improve social work when local social and economic conditions are deteriorating, or even how to make do when school governors are forced to trim budgets to meet a centrally dictated teachers' pay award.
So what should local authorities do? We have to start from what I regard as a very simple fact. Local authorities are what might be called "providers of last resort". It is they who have to run emergency services, environmental planning, rubbish collection, social services, housing, community care and so on. In other words, they look after the most vulnerable in our society. Furthermore, it is right that that should be so, not merely because nobody else can do it, although not even the finest quango in the land could do it, but because elected authorities are in the best position to appreciate local sensitivities. It must be a fundamental principle, and I shall state it frankly and openly as such, that decisions should be taken at the level which is nearest to those who are affected and which is also consistent with maximum efficiency in the provision of that service. I recognise that that is a difficult balance to strike. There is no pretence that it could be easy. However, the one thing that is absolutely certain is that the least sensible, least humane, least acceptable and, above all, least efficient place from which to try to run things is Whitehall.
But that is precisely what is happening. That is precisely the trend over the past decade and a half. Central government have progressively taken over more and more control; and the results have been very worrying.
First, the morale of those in local government has sunk to rock bottom. No one in his right mind—I was told this by a chief executive of a Conservative-run district council only the other day—would recommend a career in local government to his son or daughter. It would be sheer madness.
Secondly, there has been a dreadful waste of our money. I am told that, taken together, the introduction of the poll tax, the subsequent abolition of the poll tax, and the various pieces of local government reorganisation, have cost us in all some £3 billion. That is £3 billion of our money just to satisfy the vanity of those who think that they can do other people's jobs for them.
Thirdly, there is the electoral effect. We saw in Scotland this month, and I expect that we shall see in England and Wales next month, local elections being turned into what is little more than a referendum on the performance of the government in office. I do not mind particularly if Conservative councillors are so ashamed of their party that they prefer to describe themselves as "horticulturalist", or whatever other bizarre name they may choose. That is not my affair. The danger I see is that many competent and able councillors will no longer be serving their communities not because of their local record—it may be very good since there are good
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councillors in all parties—but because they are stuck with being associated with their party's perceived failure in central government.
So how can we retrieve the situation? How can we start on what may be a long process of improving morale and confidence in local government? We must look again at the proportion of their revenue that lies within the responsibility of local authorities to raise. That may mean looking again at the operation and mechanics of the business rate, of the council tax, and so on. We must also avoid laying burdens on local authorities without allowing them corresponding resources. We must send our tanks into quangoland to make sure that it is brought under democratic control. But, above all, we must recognise that decisions taken in Whitehall are not necessarily as wise as decisions taken in the town hall: that our country is by nature pluralistic rather than monolithic, complex rather than simple, and indeed now divided rather than united.
It would be absurd to think that all that will be easy. Too much damage has been done. But it would be wrong not to make the effort. For my part, I should like to believe that the party opposite is capable of changing its spots, of reversing 15 years of centralisation, of encouraging rather than sniping at local government. I should like to believe it, but it stretches the imagination. I suppose—I admit it with some gloom—that we shall have to wait until the Government recognise that enough is enough, or until the country recognises that for them. The sooner that time comes the healthier the state of local government will be. I beg to move for Papers.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: Answer that!
3.26 p.m.
Baroness Young: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, for introducing the debate. I heard someone say, "Answer that". I am very happy to do so. It is good that we are debating local government. I served in local government for 15 years. I found it enormously interesting and worth while. I am very glad to have the opportunity to take part in the debate today. From the list of speakers, I see that almost everyone has taken part in local government. I am not surprised at that because I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Williams, that local government is a subject which interests people in local government but, whether or not we like it, is not wildly interesting to most people outside local government. I am sorry about that fact, but I believe it to be true.
Taking part in local government involves getting to know the place where one lives, taking part in decisions and, perhaps most important of all, making friends with an enormous variety of people whom one might not normally meet in the course of one's life.
I am very pleased that we are having this debate today. I have consulted some of my colleagues in local government in preparation for the debate. I am glad to say they report that, despite what has been said, local government is alive and well, and the enormous number of people taking part in local government elections next week is indicative of that. It is distressing that we have low polls but that has always been a fact of local

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government life; it is not new. The truth of the matter is that local government is changing. It changed very considerably in the 15 years during which I took part. Local government is changing in the way that almost every institution is changing because we are in a world of great change.
Perhaps I may comment on one enormous change which took place when I was in local government. I refer to the abolition of the local police forces and the establishment of regional police forces. When I was first in local government the great thing was to be on the watch committee. When that committee was finally abolished, the event was marked by a great deal of sadness as though it was the end of everything. It was a very great change.
I turn to some of the points that the noble Lord raised. He may be surprised to hear me say this, but I believe that there is something to be said for considering the relationship between local and central government. I am particularly pleased to see that your Lordships' House will set up a Select Committee to do just that. I believe that that committee will be very valuable. I hope that an interesting debate will result.
I cannot follow the noble Lord down the same path regarding his other points. He raised the subject of quangos. I take it that he is referring to education. One needs to ask oneself why the Government have chosen the policies that they have through a succession of education Acts. The tragedy is that the average and below average child's education is not as good as it should be. We all want to see it improved.
The establishment of grant-maintained schools, city technology colleges, and the whole local management of schools devolves money down to schools. Far from taking away local responsibility, it has in fact devolved that responsibility to a much lower level where it is being effectively used. Now, for instance, we know that Mr. Blair is sending his son to a grant-maintained school, I hope that those on the Opposition Benches will abandon their hostility to those schools. I have talked to a member from one such school. The first thing that happened was that it received extra money from the Government. The school was able to be redecorated and put in order for the first time for years, quite apart from the many other benefits which flow from that status. We hear complaints on this subject. I never hear constructive suggestions as to how matters might be improved.
I make one other point regarding quangos. One of the most surprising statements made by the party opposite is that if it were to come to power—that is not something that I expect—it would prevent hereditary Peers sitting in your Lordships' House. I shall be all right; I am a Life Peer. However, what would the immediate consequence be? Who will be left? It will be the Life Peers, here by political patronage. By a stroke it will have created the biggest quango in the country. So I hardly think we need a lecture on quangos from the party opposite.
Lord Parry: What about 1066?
Baroness Young: Maybe 1066, but nevertheless it will be a big quango. We have no plans for anything like that. I turn to finance. There again, the noble Lord—
Baroness White: If the noble Baroness will allow me to intervene, I can assure her that the quangos in Wales will go much wider than anything she has mentioned.
Baroness Young: My Lords, the noble Baroness says that, but we are talking of local government and where quangos have been established. However, we are time-limited so perhaps I may turn to finance.
The noble Lord, Lord Williams, was again critical, but on local authority spending the truth is that no government—and no future Labour Government—would not put a limit on local authority expenditure. They would have to look at it in relation to the whole of government expenditure. It is true that four-fifths of the money comes from central government, but there will be a limit on the amount that can be raised locally, otherwise, public expenditure nationally will become completely out of control. That is what happened in many places in the past. The tragedy of local government is that it has got out of control in the past and we have been brought to the state that we are in now.
I do not believe that there has been any denigration of local government. However, there has been great anxiety in many Labour authorities which have implemented the most idiotic proposals. There are great numbers of absurd committees on equality of one kind or another. Someone once suggested to me, "Lesbians against fox hunting"! They do not go quite that far, but I am sorry to say that that kind of action has brought local government into disrepute.
The issue is serious, we could make jokes about it but time does not allow. So far as I can see, the only constructive comment which the Labour Party has made about local authorities is that, were Labour to be returned to power, there would be regional authorities. I should like to know how much would be taken from local government if we had regional authorities in England and Wales. What would be left of local government? What would be the cost? Where would be the future of what I still regard as an important service?
3.31 p.m.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, in the 10 years during which I have been a county councilor—a period which began with the destruction of the GLC and ended with local authorities having to pick up the pieces in the aftermath of the ill-conceived review of local government—local government has been under continuous stress.
The noble Lord, Lord Williams, covered the finance and taxation aspect of it in great detail and I do not propose to repeat what he said. However, there is no doubt that the transfer of the power of expenditure out of local hands and into the hands of central government has resulted in a loss of independence so that since 1979 Tory Administrations have been not less centrist than

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the Labour Administrations of the past, but—to the amazement of friend and foe alike—more centrist. I hope that in the debate to come we shall not hear arguments based on the data but it is one of the curious aspects that the level of taxation paid in any local authority area does not depend on the colour of the Government which controls that local authority. It depends almost entirely on the combination of government expenditure allowances, capping limits and grants which have been sent down from the Government to the local authority. Therefore I hope that we do not spend the next two hours or so discussing that.
The noble Lord, Lord Williams, also mentioned compulsory competitive tendering. That has undoubtedly brought some benefits. I do not oppose it when it is applied to certain aspects of local government, but I believe that it will be extremely destructive and I oppose it when it is applied, as it looks as though it will be, in the part of local government which offers advice to members in their client or purchaser role. The Minister looks amazed, he should know that local government is now divided into the client and contractor sides and that members are concerned with the client side. So are a good many of the officers.
If we reach the stage where, for example, we can no longer employ a sufficient body of engineers to advise county councillors and other local authority members on highways issues, then we shall be greatly weakened in our role in determining what highways policy should be and how it should be carried out. The Minister may feel that that would be an advantage, following the recent successes of Surrey County Council and others in defeating the Government's previous plans for the M.25. I shall not expand on that, undoubtedly the advice and expertise of the officer corps in Surrey County Council provided the intellectual and technical input which assisted in the defeat of the road plans. I promised the Minister that I would not talk about transport and that is the last comment that I shall make about it, so he does not need to reply.
In the period which we are discussing, over the past 10 or 15 years, local government has performed amazingly well, despite the pressures that have been put on it. Successive audit reports tend, on the whole, to be complimentary. They point to areas of unsatisfactory performance which are usually carefully considered by local authorities and attended to in subsequent years. But the Audit Commission has not been extremely critical of local government and its performance over the past few years. In well run authorities there have been extremely good working relations between officers and members. That has increased, despite the insecurity in career prospects to which those officers have been subjected, particularly in the past two or three years in the period up to and during the review of local government.
Increasing resourcefulness and inventiveness have been applied in satisfying local needs in the most cost-effective way. There has been a flexible response to new duties such as care in the community. That is despite the fact that the new money attached to new clients who are the responsibility of local governments as a result of Care in the Community has disguised the
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fact that little additional money has been put into social services over the past two or three years to satisfy the needs of those clients who were already the responsibility of local authorities.
Many local authorities under Liberal Democrat and other control have expanded their activities to include a wide range of what might be called "green initiatives". The council, which is headed by my noble friend Lord Tope, who sits on the Front Bench, has been distinguished in that respect. Others have also been distinguished in their approach to what one might call a local response to a global need. That is exactly the kind of thing with which local authorities should deal.
However, despite what I believe to have been a high level of success over recent years, local government cannot continue for ever in an atmosphere of apparent hostility on the part of central government. I do not know the source of the hostility. In the old days many Conservative Members in the other place started their political careers in local government. That is less so today, and perhaps it is the source of the hostility. But there is no doubt in the minds of people who have served in local government during the past 10 or 15 years that central government have been hostile to local government. I do not know which has been the most irritating or destructive: old Labour exercising poor control in certain parts of the country; or new Tory, using those deficiencies to criticise the whole of local government. What we need is independent, well-organised, responsive local authorities which are able, if necessary, to self-finance through local taxation a response to local people's needs, and so guarantee a plural society in which power is spread and not concentrated and which I am sure Members of this House defend and support.
3.40 p.m.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Williams, for giving us the opportunity today to debate local government. The pace and radical nature of the change that local government has faced over the past decade has been mesmerising. It is almost impossible to understand the whys and wherefores of what the Government have tried to do with local government.
Government initiatives have been driven by a common philosophy; namely, that private enterprise is better than public service. This philosophy of free market competition has been forced upon councils in relation to planning and the provision of services. We have seen a gradual erosion of the power of local authorities, achieved principally by a reduction in finance—a reduction in government grants of all descriptions. We have seen all the government competitions that local authorities must enter, whereby they are asked to put in bids and show what they can do, and then at the end somebody says, "Five out of 10 of you can have some money". We have seen the introduction of capping and we have an initiative called "deregulation". I do not know who thinks up all the nomenclatures that now relate to what we used to call local democracy.

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The majority of electors are worried, as are the councils themselves, that local democracy is being taken from them. It is a matter of grave importance, about which the Government should think seriously.
All the councillors on local authorities live in the local areas. They know the electors, the schools and all the facilities that can be provided by their local authority. I was about to mention travelling on the buses, but that is no longer a concern of local authorities. How we miss that in the city of Birmingham, which was the first local authority to have free bus passes for old age pensioners. That was a long, long time ago, when my friend Denis Howell—now my noble friend Lord Howell, who is in the Chamber—and I were on the Birmingham City Council. I think my noble friend will agree with what I have said. Those initiatives can no longer take place. Every local authority has to operate within a rut to meet the Government's philosophy of free enterprise.
As a result, we see a lessening of the powers of local authorities. Sometimes that leads to local councillors wanting to resort in a very active way to different measures to prove that the Government are on the wrong track. It is in this respect that local authority councillors feel that their importance is a lot less than that of a quango. They no longer have a direct voice in parliaments. Local authorities are seen as a mere side-effect of governing the country.
I was therefore interested when the Prime Minister put forward his new thinking on a drive to bring government nearer to the people. I thought that at last the Government—I was about to say "had seen the red light", but being a female speaker I do not think that that is a phrase I should use. It is welcome that the Prime Minister wants to do that. I was interested in the regional government idea that I thought he had in mind. I thought that he might be thinking along the same lines as Labour. I thought about it seriously because of the new integrated regional offices, as the Government call them, that have been set up in different parts of the country. There are now 10 such offices, the largest of which is in the West Midlands. I understand that between them those offices employ nearly 4,000 people and control spending programmes for local authorities totalling almost £4.5 billion a year. What is the need for those offices? Perhaps the Minister could explain why they were set up and what the benefits will be for local authorities. I shall be interested in his reply.
What worries me is that this could be the first step towards creating quangos. One wonders whether that is what will arise from the establishment of regional offices, or whether it means that at last the Government have said, "We'll move all these civil servants out of London where they are completely wasting their time and get them into the regions. We'll get them working with local authorities and in future local authorities will be smiling". That would be a very welcome reply from the Minister.
I turn to education. This is the area in which the Government want to get nearer to the people. Therefore, they involved parents and governors in the schools. As a result of being involved, those parents and governors
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began to understand how the money was spent in schools. For a long time they have realised that the Government have not been playing fair with them. Consequently, they began to agitate, to go on marches, and to write to Ministers saying, "Come, come, you can't blame local government any more; it's your responsibility". That was because they had seen the books. Once parents and governors are given that responsibility they cannot be hoodwinked any more. They know where the fault lies. They realise that it does not lie with the local authority; that is why they go on marches. So that is now laid at the Government's door.
My remarks may have been humourous and perhaps not very sensible, and they may not have added to the debate; but on these Benches political values differ fundamentally in relation to the role of local authorities from those of the Government Benches. With that remark I rest my case.
3.47 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, like my noble friend Lady Young, I am very glad that noble Lords have the opportunity to discuss this enormously important subject this afternoon, although I must confess that I am sorry that we do so on the basis that most of the speeches are limited to seven minutes. As has already been demonstrated, the effect is that it is not possible to give way to an intervention and therefore to get a live debate going. Within a seven-minute time limit it is not possible to give way. All you can do is quickly make one or two points. The points that I want to make relate to finance.
I choose that topic deliberately because finance is probably the weakest area in local government today. The local government tax is proving highly unsatisfactory. It is unsatisfactory in one particular way that has not been mentioned. Householders are placed in a band for the purposes of local government taxation. You are told that you have a right of appeal. But in fact, the right of appeal is very, very slow in being effective. In my own case, I was placed in a band 18 months ago. I appealed at once, and my appeal has not yet been dealt with. I suggest that to have an important tax provision such as this with a so-called right of appeal which is not in fact honoured and effective for 18 months is undoubtedly a weakness. The amounts of money involved are substantial. I understand that the appeal has been undertaken by the Inland Revenue who quite obviously are not very interested in the matter. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will indicate that the Inland Revenue will be told to get on with it.
There is also the very important question of the way in which the tax is raised and applied. Where single tier government has been accepted, I believe that the system is working fairly well. But where two tiers of government are operating, the system works very strangely indeed. Perhaps I may again quote from my own experience in Hampshire. On my own property, the local government tax is levied by the Borough of Basingstoke, which in fact is some 20 miles away. But when papers are received in respect of that tax, it

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appears that nearly 90 per cent. of the revenue so raised does not go to Basingstoke but goes to Hampshire County Council at Winchester.
I suggest to your Lordships that it is quite wrong to have a system of taxation in which the amount of tax is decided by a body that will take quite a small share of it. If there is to be an effective system of local government taxation people should be able to weigh the benefits of the services rendered against the amount of tax demanded. When, as we are told, 90 per cent. of the revenue raised goes to an authority which does not impose the tax, then the discipline which otherwise operates is lost—the good discipline of knowing that if one imposes a tax, one has to face the unpopularity of that tax in order to justify the services which will be rendered. That seems to me to be another very serious defect of the system. It is indeed wrong for one authority to collect most of the money which another authority spends.
That disadvantage is overcome when there are single tier authorities. But as my noble friend the Minister will have to admit, the changes effected to the structure of local government have not been very far-reaching. Far too many authorities still remain two-tier, with what is to my mind a very serious division between the responsibility of raising revenue and the decisions on how that revenue shall be spent.
Finally, as regards finance, my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing asked a very important Question earlier this afternoon. There are a number of major local authorities in this country which have incurred very heavy debts and have given the impression that they have not been particularly resolute in restraining the growth of debt. I do not wish to cast aspersions at the four local authorities mentioned in my noble friend's Question; but I ask your Lordships to have very much in mind the fact that those local authorities decided to incur very heavy debts indeed. That must be unsound finance. In the long run, it must work against their capacity to render proper services. It seems to me that it is thoroughly unsound.
I have referred to a number of points on finance, which is just one aspect—perhaps the most important one—of local government. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to answer those questions. All of us in the House desire to see local government working well and it is quite clear that in matters of finance local government is not working well at the moment.
3.55 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, subsidiarity, on which the Government are very keen in the EU, is forgotten when policies affecting central and local government are concerned. There has been a constant sapping of the powers of local government since 1979, which has accelerated since John Major succeeded Margaret Thatcher.
So far as concerns financing, the abolition of the poll tax was followed by a significant decrease in the local government share of revenue raising. In fact, it is now down to 14 per cent. The combination of SSA and the
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capping regime effectively means that central government sets the expenditure and taxation levels for local government, which is left with a mere prioritising role.
Local government has lost control of higher education, further education, grant-maintained schools, school inspection, aspects of housing, the police and the careers service—waste management is soon to go. People have probably forgotten that local authorities once dealt with health. In each case, local democratic control has been replaced by quangos; the funding agency for schools; FEFC; TECs and the new police authorities.
The CCT legislation, now extended to white-collar workers, removes any discretion or independence from local government in responding to local circumstances. Many local authorities have provided examples of innovation in private sector contracting, without the diktat of central government. For example, my own county of Cambridgeshire has externalised its education personnel service, its information technology facilities management, and recently its transportation engineering services, all in response to local circumstances. CCT is more likely to inhibit such local innovation than to stimulate it. The Audit Commission has shown that CCT adds to costs rather than reduces them. A new report from the Equal Opportunities Commission puts beyond doubt the damage that it has done and the enormous waste that it has caused.
The local government review has been bitterly fought within local government. It is seen as a kind of hostile colonialism in Wales and Scotland, where it was imposed without an independent commission. After four years of the review the Secretary of State has revived it in a new form. We do not yet know the terms of reference. That will inevitably lead to a period of more uncertainty and loss of morale. There can be no expectation of delivering savings; very much the reverse.
So far as concerns Cambridgeshire, the first suggestion was for three unitary authorities: Huntingdonshire, Peterborough with Fenland and Cambridge City with South and East Cambs. When the people of the county had a chance to express their views, support was weak. The greatest support—35 per cent. in an independent MORI poll—was for the status quo. That is what the commission finally recommended to the Secretary of State in October 1994. Over four months later he announced that he was not prepared to accept the no-change recommendation but was to set up a new commission with a new chairman—Sir John having been unceremoniously sacked—to examine the case for Peterborough, among others, becoming a unitary authority. Also, he was prepared to look at the case for Huntingdon. Can there be anything in the fact that the MPs for Peterborough and Huntingdon happen to sit in the Cabinet with the Secretary of State?
Should both those suggestions become realities, the rest of Cambridgeshire would not have the population to sustain a two-tier structure; and as the Peterborough proposal is for the City of Peterborough, one wonders how the neighbouring towns, such as Whittlesey and Yaxley, which look to Peterborough for work and recreation, would manage. I myself would have favoured two unitary authorities based on Peterborough and Cambridge, which was what Redcliffe-Maud proposed in his Royal Commission report in 1970. That would have

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made sense and each would have been large enough to sustain key services such as education, libraries, social services, environmental planning and conservation. If the new review procedure produces the results that I fear it may, nothing but harm can be done to those services and another slice of public money which could have gone on those services will have been wasted.
It is depressing to see the deteriorating relationship between central and local government, now in the 1990s as evident in the shire counties as in the metropolitan areas. There are a number of reasons for that. Financial constraints have bitten much deeper. Many rural areas do not have the opportunity to "bid" for supplementary government grant—for example, City Challenge. GM legislation has hit LEAs more fiercely. The Conservative Party's demise in large swathes of shire England—Buckinghamshire is the one remaining Conservative-controlled council—has plainly had an impact. No wonder Conservative councillors are deserting in droves. Some of the most derogatory and dismissive observations from the Secretary of State and his Ministers have been directed at shire local authorities—for example Suffolk, Nottinghamshire and Cornwall—yet from shire counties (and I proudly say, particularly my own) there are many examples of innovation and good practice.
In praise of local government I point to the way it has successfully implemented a wide range of government-inspired legislation—complex and contentious legislation at that; for example, the abolition of the rates, replacement by the poll tax and then the council tax, at immense cost; the implementation of the Government's continuous programme of education reforms; the new "special needs" legislation; the introduction of Community Care; the implementation of the Children Act, and publication of statutory performance indicators and league tables required by the Audit Commission. Public opinion polls show high and increasing levels of satisfaction with local authority-provided services.
A new partnership must be founded on mutual respect. We must have change. I mind about local government; I believe in its importance and I want it to succeed. But it is not surprising that local government feels under siege from the range of government reforms, most of which have two principles. The first is to remove major services from local government and the second is to minimise any remaining freedom and discretion exercised by local authorities.
There must be acknowledgment that the centralising tendency has gone too far. I am sure that there could be partnership and co-operation if the Government could be persuaded to change tack. Can the Minister give us some hope? The future of local democracy is an extremely important issue and one which has implications for democracy itself.
4.2 p.m.
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, in opening her speech the noble Baroness, Lady Young, referred to the question of when the change in local government first took place. All speakers will recognise that change has
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occurred. The powers that have been taken from local government are so obvious to everybody that there is no need for me to repeat them. But beneath that change we should understand what happened.
We can consider the police forces, to which the noble Baroness referred—the regional task forces. We should bear in mind how those task forces came into existence. One would assume that politicians had something to do with the formulation of regional task forces. No such thing. Regional task forces came into operation because the police services did not consider that they could do their job properly without a regional input. That sprang into regional task forces which were not answerable to a local authority. I doubt that they were answerable to the Government, though I suppose the Minister in charge of the Home Office may exert some influence on the regional police services. That is how they started.
I want to offer a challenge to the Minister. I was asked to explain to an audience in London (of all places!) the difference between the grants received by Greenwich and Westminster and how they were arrived at. My reply was that I did not know. However, it is simple to find out. All I had to do was write to the department, which would explain very carefully the difference between the two grants and all would be revealed. I did that and received back a folder about two inches thick. It was the SSA.
I found myself completely befuddled. The documents went into three, four and five decimal points about some part of the system on which they determined the grants. I sent the folder to a friend of mine who happened to be in the financial department of a local authority—and he shall be nameless. I asked whether he would mind persuading somebody in the authority to tell me the difference between Wandsworth and Greenwich in relation to grants. I received no reply. I am certain in my own mind that no politician in this Chamber can give us a reasonable and sensible explanation of the SSA. If my assumption is correct, can the Minister explain to this House, in terms that can be understood by everybody, how the SSA works? I have yet to find anybody in local government or in the local authority associations—perhaps we should ask them to explain how it works—who understands it.
That is the problem with local government. It is not political. I remember when I considered the change to be taking place; it was when a Labour Minister said, "The party is over". Up till then we had done well in Liverpool. We had all the usual procedures that go to launch a parliamentary Bill. We had a parliamentary Bill to govern the planning of Liverpool; we came to Parliament and had it approved, all with good consensus. Everybody agreed—there may have been party differences on some issues—that local government was one of the main essentials of our democratic system.
In my last three minutes I want to ask whether we still have local government. Can it be described as "local" when one of the services set up at great expense to ratepayers has been taken away. As was mentioned earlier, the Government should return some of the assets to local authorities. They should take them out of the hands of private enterprise and give them back. Such an undertaking was set up and now it is supposed to be a

935
local service, yet at any time it is at the behest of shareholders who have shares in the company to sell it to somebody in France. Is that democracy?
In relation to electricity we see similar examples. We hear about sovereignty and democracy; no such thing. Local government is not local; neither is it democratic and neither, to a large extent, is it government. The transport services on Merseyside are not controlled by the local authorities; they are controlled by an ad hoc body which instructed nominees to sit on a board which considers transport. The real power is in the hands of the officers. That is the battle. It is not between parties; it is whether or not we as politicians, as parliamentarians, are so jealous of our Parliament and our democracy that we will stand up to the officers, I can give the House a perfect example.
I attended a delegation of some people from Manchester, which has one large undertaking. I am informed that if the Government wanted to change that undertaking there would need to be a parliamentary Bill. The Minister told Manchester transport authority, with representatives on it of the political parties, that it was to be split. They did not want that. So those representatives came down here and consulted some politicians, of which I was one. Because it was the other place I thought that I had better not open my mouth too much; after all, I am an undemocratic Member of Parliament. I left them all to do the talking and they put their case that they wanted to oppose the Minister and did not want the undertaking split up under any circumstances.
At the end of the meeting I said, "Look, are you being honest? Are you really telling me—a Manchester politician—that you are determined to oppose the Minister and make him come to Parliament for a parliamentary Bill?" "Yes", was the reply; "We will fight, fight and fight again in order to ensure the worthiness of our cause". Did they fight? No. I forecast then that within 12 months they would agree to the scheme prepared by Ministers and accept it. What was the result? They accepted it because in fact our so-called local democracy has ceased to be.
I say this across parties because I am not beholden to one party on the question of local democracy. I am glad to see that our new Labour Party will commit itself to decisions that are taken and that it will in fact introduce methods of control for new organisations. However, there is only one way to do it, and that is through proper democracy. I put forward a suggestion. The first thing a Labour Government should do is to pass a Bill on all essential services that makes it compulsory for all those services such as gas, electricity and water to consult representatives of each local authority concerned. That will be a good start to restoring proper democracy.
4.10 p.m.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, an allocation of seven minutes to talk on this subject really is a joke. I just do not know even where to begin. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Williams, for bringing it forward but I had my reservations initially and I have to say that had I realised the limitations, frankly, I would not have taken part. All one can do is make a few observations very
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quickly, touch on a few subjects and then sit down and hope for the best. Perhaps I may say first of all—and I am using part of my precious seven minutes to do so—what a pleasure it is for me to listen to my old friends, even though I do not agree with most of what they say, such as Bill Sefton, Doris Fisher, and many others. It is a bit like old times for me.
As the song says, where do I begin? To touch quickly on just a few points, may I say to the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, yes, I absolutely do understand how the SSAs work. I was the Minister responsible for introducing block grant in 1981–82. I knew how that worked and I know how the SSAs work but I cannot cover the subject in seven minutes, to the exclusion of everything else. However, I should be glad to talk to my old friend, and any one else, about this subject later on. I know how it works. It is not that difficult. In actual fact there are many people who think it is the finest system that there is anywhere. Perhaps I may quote —I know I have got to speak very quickly—what others say of it. The Audit Commission said:
"A more sophisticated system for equalising needs than any overseas system examined in this study".
That is what the SSA system is. It is simply a means of measuring all the demographics within each authority, applying a formula to them to base need and then issuing grant. This is all intended to equalise. If that all sounds complicated, well, that is only until you start to look at it, and then it becomes something less. Anyway, I think it is a good system. Tony Travers of the London School of Economics—by no means a Conservative—and Rita Hale of CIPFA said of the SSA system:
"No overseas country appears to have a full grant system which goes so far in its attempt to achieve equalisation".
Regarding CCT, may I say to the noble Baroness, Lady David,—another old antagonist but a friend, I hope, nevertheless—that I could not disagree with her more. The facts show that CCT has led to an average saving of seven potential contract values, usually coupled with improvements in quality. Even David Blunkett—not a Conservative—said:
"It would be foolish to pretend that the jolt given to many local authorities has not had some beneficial effect in stimulating their own concentration on quality as well as improved managerial practice. CCT has resulted in poorly organised DSOs re-examining their role and efficiency."
It is actually common sense and I speak even today with lots of local authority leaders. Although they do not like some aspects of it they all agree that it must be right in many ways and they are all getting better value for money.
On the subject of quangos, I remind noble Lords opposite, just for the record, that there are now some 1,000 fewer quangos in the country than there were in 1979. There are 100,000 fewer people now working in quangos than there were in 1979. If anyone wants to question that with me later I shall be glad to give the source of that information.
I was sorry the noble Lord, Lord Williams, did not say anything—I presume others will later on—about the Labour Party's intentions regarding regional government. To use a Yorkshire saying, "It's just barmy". I am absolutely convinced that by the time the election comes

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the Labour Party will long have abandoned that one. It makes no sense whatsoever to talk about bringing local government closer to people when it will have precisely the opposite effect. It will simply add another tier at the most enormous cost, with committees, talking shops and all the rest of the things that go with it.
And what will it achieve? It will achieve the division of funds and resources at local levels. Fights will take place. I have yet to meet one Labour leader—and I have spoken to a number of them—who envisages the whole thing other than with some sort of horror. It is interesting that in a government survey of 1991 on local government structure one sees that of the 1,900 organisations which replied only 26—fewer than 2 per cent.—were in favour of regional government. That means that 98 per cent. were not in favour. I reckon that is a pretty fair margin by any criteria.
The noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, talked about the regional offices. It is not for me to answer on that, but I think it is a splendid idea, where there are four or five regional offices for each department in major areas, to take them all together and have them under one heading. All else apart, the saving is enormous and from what I have seen of it working in Leeds it is extremely good. I am all for it.
I should have liked very much to talk about certain things I should like to see in local government but one hardly has the chance to do that in seven minutes. However, I should like to say that there are some good things taking place. For instance, I like very much the way in which local government is now working much more closely with the private sector. They are doing things together, making land available and achieving all kinds of things. If you go round our cities you can see in nearly every one of them instances of the local authority working with the private sector; and that work is now producing all kinds of developments, to the benefit of the people. That has to be good, and I welcome it. I do not think anyone would do otherwise really.
Among other things that I had hoped to touch on but which I hope will be discussed by other speakers later, one was to discuss ways in which we can do it all better. For instance, ought there to be the same number of councillors per ward as there are now? Are our councils too big? Should they be smaller? Certainly I know things are done differently in other countries. Los Angeles has only 13 elected members, but they are all paid. Whether that is good or bad I do not know: you can argue about that. It probably is not good, but still it happens. There ought to be better ways of doing things and it is these things I hope the Select Committee will eventually be talking about.
There are other novel things we can do—better things—for which many of us have worked for such a large part of our lives and which we want to see better done. I am not happy when people are unhappy. It has got to be something we do together: otherwise it is all meaningless.
4.19 p.m.
Lord Parry: My Lords, despite the cheerful assurances of the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, these standard spending assessments remain a total mystery to me. However, I am sure he would agree with me that it is essential, however they are arrived at, that the new authorities should have an early indication as to what they will have for 1996 and 1997 in order to have a financial target at which to aim. Presently, existing councils have a rough idea of what will happen in the following financial year, based on previous spending performance, but in the case of the new unitary authorities there will be no such background of information on which to formulate their spending plans. It is therefore vitally important that details of the likely SSAs are provided as soon as possible. Can the noble Earl tell the House how soon the shadow authorities in Wales will be told their standard spending assessment?
On finance generally, it is essential that the SSAs, the capping levels, and so on, should be fixed at a realistic level and that the government funding should reflect each council's needs. The new authorities should not be financially squeezed in their first year of existence to an extent where they are unable to deliver services adequately. For example, there should be, as the noble Lord, Lord Williams, indicated, no repetition of the situation last year when the Government agreed to pay an award to teachers, but did not make provision to fund it in the revenue support grant settlement. The SSAs should represent reasonably the level of expenditure proved necessary by the former authority's record plus the disaggregated proportion of the former county authority's precept. Can the Minister confirm that that will in fact be the case?
I am told that most issues relating to the transfer of staff from the present to the new authorities have now become clearer. However, the problem remains of disaggregating county council staff. For example, in my own existing county of Dyfed, the staff will have to be split between three new unitary authorities. That will mean 240 people transferred to Pembrokeshire from Carmarthenshire and 160 to Cardiganshire from Carmarthenshire, which is 400 people in all. It has been agreed that that should be done on the basis of population.
That creates its own problems in deciding who goes where and how they can be fitted into the structure set up by the shadow councils. Almost inevitably there will be redundancies after 1st April 1996, as all staff now have the right to transfer, but do not have the guarantee of a job under the new structure. There will be contests and claims made against the new system. The Minister may agree with me that the Government should make adequate provision to cover redundancy costs rather than have them borne by the new authorities at the expense of other service provision.
I have received a letter from outside Wales and my own area of influence. It is from the chairman of the education committee for the Royal County of Berkshire. She asks me to add a question to the list which I am asking on behalf of my own area. Will the Minister answer her question? The question is: Why has Berkshire been singled out in this way so as to cause

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even greater difficulties, as she sees it, than those which appertain in Pembrokeshire? I simply add that question to my list. I know that the Minister is grateful to me for asking these detailed questions.
There is also the vexed question of "detriment". It applies to those staff who obtain posts with a new authority but at a salary lower than they presently earn. The Government have approved a detriment scheme which will enable such staff to retain their present salary for a period of three years. Apparently, most of the criticisms of the original draft scheme have been met and rectified. But again, the question arises as to where the money is coming from to cover the detrimental schemes. The local authorities in West Wales have expressed concern to the Staff Commission for Wales concerning the terms of the compensation for redundancy regulations. While accepting that there is little possibility of these being further amended, there is one matter that should be further considered, which is termed "clawback".
When an employee decides to leave under the compensation provisions, and additional service exceeds six-and-two-thirds years and there is entitlement to redundancy pay, compensation under the regulations is abated or clawed back. The retirement lump sum is reduced and sometimes the retirement pension. This effectively nullifies in whole or in part the value of a redundancy payment.
I hope that that can be accepted as a very real disincentive to retirement from that very group of staff that local government would expect to leave. The local authority for Pembrokeshire is a major employer and undoubtedly there will be eventually a reduction in jobs as a result of reorganisation. Current provisions that act as a very real disincentive to retirement for those who would consider leaving need to be dealt with, and I urge that for the local government period in Wales at least, which is up to 31st March 1997, it would be very helpful if these clawback arrangements could be set aside.
I had planned to speak about compulsory competitive tendering, but I shall simply ask a question. Will the Government consider deferring the requirements for 12 months? We can then perhaps return to the arguments.
I shall just introduce electoral arrangements. As regards the fire brigades of the new authorities, there will be some disintegration of all these services in Wales. In fact, two of the authorities have received commendations in the Government's own terms.
Perhaps I may conclude by underlining what one very senior Welsh local government officer said. He will be accepting redundancy because he is "disappointed and disillusioned by all the uncertainties". He told me yesterday, "The general view of senior officers and experienced councillors from all parties is that the underlying intention is not so much to reform local government as to disinvent it".
4.25 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I too welcome the opportunity to take part in this debate on local government. As most speakers have said, one cannot cover many of the areas of local government in seven
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minutes. First, I wish to deal with a Question asked earlier today during which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, intervened on the side of the Government. I believe that he made my case in what he said. He asked why local authorities do not spend more of their assets in order to help run the cities. That was my point. The assets that I was speaking about were probably the largest that they had and the easiest to filter through the legal process. The Government perpetrated an act of legalised brigandry on local authorities when they privatised the water industries and confiscated the money. It was a diabolical act and one of the worst actions that any government have taken against local authorities in this country. They were substantial sums of money which could have been used to keep debt charges down.
I wish to question some of the responsibilities which have now been placed on local government by the Government and which are seriously underfunded. When I was in local government I was opposed to the implementation of the Seebohm Act which gathered unto itself care from the cradle to the grave in one huge committee known as the social services committee. I believe that I was the first to make a plea in your Lordships' House about care for the aged which used to take place in the community through the old welfare services department before it was amalgamated into the new social services department, along with childcare. That body used to do a job for which it was well suited and better suited than any other agency. At last the Government saw sense and brought in community care, but grossly underfunded it.
It is not only me who is saying this. One has only to read the press at weekends to realise that elderly people are having to mortgage their homes or whatever assets they have, in order to obtain adequate nursing accommodation when they are on the downward trail and permanently ill. It is one of the disgraces of our community that in some cases we have allowed that to happen because those people belong to the generation which made the biggest input to the wealth of the country as a result of their hard work over a long period of time in order to get that money together. I understand that the Prime Minister himself has taken this matter on board and has asked a working party to report on it in order to resolve the problem. The sooner we get away from the problem the better. The sooner that local authorities are given finance to take care of the ageing population, the better it will be done to the satisfaction of most people concerned.
With the permission of your Lordships, I quote from today's Evening Standard in which Mr. Major, the Prime Minister, attacks the grey face of London. He speaks about the monstrosities that were built in the last housing drive by local government but force-fed by the governments of the day, both Conservative and Labour, which insisted on building properties which local authorities in the main did not want. He wants to change all that.
The Prime Minister spoke about the success of London Docklands. I do not begrudge that success. It is a marvellous achievement. However, I must tell your Lordships that of all the money that the Government have made available for inner-city development, 90 per

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cent. has been spent in London. I am not arguing that point, but surely only 10 per cent. for the rest of the country—for Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester—is an absolute pittance. If those cities had received similar financial support, they would not have needed urban development corporations. The local authorities could have done the job themselves—but only if they had been allowed the money.
If the Prime Minister really wants to rejuvenate the inner cities by providing affordable housing, the Government will have to put their money where their mouth is. Once again, the Prime Minister is falling back on the idea of partnership with the private sector. I am in favour of that. If the private sector can be persuaded to put in money pound for pound to help to provide low-cost housing for rent, that would be ideal. I have never been against that. I have never thought that everybody wants to live in council houses. There should be alternatives. I hope that the Prime Minister's words do not fall on deaf ears. I hope that private investment will come forward. But first the mould that the Government have been operating since 1979 must be broken. They have virtually banned local authorities building houses for rent. That is nonsense. It is nonsense to prevent local authorities embarking on building programmes which would also help the building industry.
Up to a few years ago I used to speak on housing pretty regularly at the Dispatch Box and I always pressed the Minister of the day to allow local authorities to get on with their historical job. All the reports from non-political groups, including the Duke of Edinburgh's Report and that entitled Faith in the City from the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, have come up with the figure of 100,000 extra houses a year being needed for rent if we are to get rid of the appalling homelessness that now faces us. I was constantly advised by the Minister of the day that the Government would do that—but through the Housing Corporation and with the help of housing associations.
But what has happened? About two years ago, I was told by the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, when she served at the Department of the Environment—it might have been another Minister, but I believe that my recollection is correct—that eventually the housing associations, through the auspices of the Housing Corporation, would achieve their target of building 68,000 houses a year. But what has happened this year? That figure has been cut drastically to, I believe, a total of about 30,000. Indeed, the figure has dipped because at one time it reached over 40,000.
On that basis, are we ever going to be able to tackle the housing problem in this country? Over the past 10 years, the number of registered homeless has increased by 50 per cent.—and that does not include the number of people who do not have a roof over their head but who do not register as homeless. If they are included in the calculation, the official figure trebles. As I said, seven minutes is not long to discuss all this, but I hope that I have
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given your Lordships some ideas of the direction that we should be taking if we are to deal with the current situation.
4.33 p.m.
Baroness Seccombe: My Lords, I also should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, for bringing this matter before the House today. It is timely that we should debate the state of local government just one week before going to the polls.
I was very tentative about speaking today as I have had only one four-year term on a local authority. Sadly, the electors decided that I should not continue—and then the same fate befell the West Midland County Council as four years later it too ceased to continue.
I am a great supporter of local government. I believe that people who live and work in their communities should have control over the cost and quality of the services they receive. They should also have the ability to shape the development of their local environment. Over the years, many distinguished people have given outstanding service, often without remuneration, so I should like to pay tribute to them, and of course to everyone who has made a devoted and unstinting contribution in his or her capacity as a councillor.
I pondered on whether I should concentrate on how Conservative councils give a better quality of service to their council tax payers—and always with a better value for money—but, as the Audit Commission has confirmed that, I decided not to do so. On reflection, I thought it would be useful to remind ourselves of where the Labour Party, old or new, stands on two issues: competitive tendering and regional government.
I am sure that we all remember that during the 1970s local government had become inefficient, bureaucratic and overstaffed. We can probably all recall an example of that. My own is the sight of the local refuse vehicle, with all the refuse collectors relaxing on it, parked at the cricket club from 12.30 to 3 p.m. as they were not allowed back in the depot until then.
Change obviously had to take place. In our personal lives, we shop around to find where we can get the best value for money. It therefore was sensible to take the same attitude with some of the services provided by local authorities. Legislation in the Local Government Act 1988 extended a whole range of services, such as refuse collection, street cleaning and catering services, to compulsory tendering. That followed the success of some Conservative councils which had pioneered the initiative of introducing competition into the provision of local services. The result has been an enormous success, and council tax payers across the country have benefited and received services giving real value for money. The legislation was fiercely contested by the Labour Party which, sadly, too often behaves as if local services should be run in the interests of those who provide them.
Labour's 1992 general election manifesto committed a future Labour Government to abolishing CCT. There then appeared to be a softening of attitude on the issue, but in recent weeks "New Labour", just like "Old

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Labour", appears to commit the party to abolishing CCT. As it says—I quote from Renewing Democracy, Rebuilding Communities:
"Labour believes it would be best for everyone to end compulsory competitive tendering".
That worries me—and it worries me even more when I read that the national secretary of the TGWU, Mr. Jack Dromey, Harriet Harman's husband, and hailed as the great moderniser referred to—again I quote:
"the detailed discussions between the unions and Labour's front bench prior to the publication of the document"—
that is, the document to which I referred a few moments ago. He said on another occasion:
"A local authority must include as many hurdles as it can in the tender specification it sends to private contractors. It must try every possible way to prevent services being taken over by private firms."
I find that very threatening and I cannot conceive how it could possibly be in the public interest. We want a quality service at the lowest cost. It certainly does not seem that that is a priority for the Labour Party of the 1990s.
The second issue which concerns me greatly is the confusion over regional government in England. My experience on the doorstep is that people are not the slightest bit interested in yet another layer of government. I believe that what they want is good government at Westminster and good administration in their local councils. I live in the Midlands and I have never heard anyone clamouring for a regional assembly. As a resident of Stratford-upon-Avon, I cannot believe that there is anyone there who would welcome that expensive bureaucratic tier, which would probably be based in Birmingham. What would it do? Would central government and local government give up powers to the new body? Perhaps I can follow my noble friend Lord Bellwin and say, "What a barmy idea!"
It is difficult to find out where the Labour Party stands on this issue. One day it is for it; the next it is not so sure. I can surmise only that it is the West Lothian issue that is at the bottom of it. Frightened of the SNP, the Labour Party has committed itself to a Scottish parliament and an assembly in Wales. Why they should be different I do not know. Therefore, it had to suggest regional assemblies for England in order to get around the difficulties of the West Lothian question.
I believe that regional assemblies would be resented by English people, cause friction within the Union of the United Kingdom, reduce our influence in the European Union and be a very expensive folly. I believe that it is right to be discussing these matters today as I believe that there is a very real threat to local government.
4.40 p.m.
Lord Desai: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said that all of us have some experience of local government. I rise to say that I have no active experience whatever of local government. However, I hope that being an academic I can still spend seven minutes saying something useful.
For a long time there have been attempts to reform local government. For the past 20 years we have heard of Royal Commissions, Green Papers, White Papers,
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reform and so on. There is a great superstition that local authorities spend too much money. Anyone who looked at the figures would know that for every £1 that local authorities could overspend—and they cannot—central government has overspent much more. Earlier today we discussed local authority debt. Compared to the national debt, local authority debt is puny.
We had grant-related expenditure assessments and now we have standard spending assessments. We had the poll tax and now we have the council tax. All those efforts have resulted only in the fact that local authority spending as a proportion of GDP was 12 per cent. in the 1970s and it is 12 per cent. today. That is flat as flat can be, Of course, one may argue that it took a great deal of effort to achieve that. But along the way there has been enormous waste. One could have built several hospitals for the amount of money that the poll tax cost the country.
One may ask why it is that there is a suspicion of local government. Why have considerable attempts been made by the present Government to turn British local government into the French model of centralised préfectures, which are run from the top with little local freedom? I argue that it is based on two aspects: ignorance and contempt. Whitehall is ignorant of townhall and has contempt for it. I do not make such an assertion lightly.
I wish to quote extensively from a research report which was published by the independent Commission for Local Democracy. It was written by two colleagues of mine at the London School of Economics, George Jones and Tony Travers. They interviewed many civil servants, former Ministers and Ministers. They prepared a paper called Attitudes to Local Government in Westminster and Whitehall. It makes chilling reading and is somewhat amusing too.
All the people must remain nameless, which was the condition under which they agreed to be interviewed. Therefore, the guilty shall remain nameless. A former Minister stated:
"Local government is a lower middle-class activity, of course with some exceptions. The lop mandarins of the civil service come from different social strata from those in local government. There are more graduates in Parliament than in local councils. These differences point to differences in quality … Local government people have limited vision. There are some good chief officers, but a lot are pretty ordinary. Mayors are chosen on Buggin's Turn: they have no ideas and cannot speak. Parties find it hard to get good candidates to stand for election".
That was summarised by a civil servant who said that civil servants possess:
"Rolls-Royce minds and local government officers have motor-cyclists' minds".
If people start with such an attitude, is it a surprise that we have what we have?
A former adviser at the Treasury and at the Department of the Environment stated:
"the Treasury sees local government as an unnecessary encumbrance the country can ill afford … a hole in cost control … a threat to macroeconomic policies".

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The Treasury, which spends several times what it allows local government to spend and has such little control over spending that lately we have seen some spectacular PSBR figures, blames the local authorities for what it presumes is overspending.
Of course, the truth is that local authorities have limited powers to spend. They are not allowed to raise revenues locally and that is a great denial of democracy. When this Government first came into power they had a great theory called "the theory of public choice", which is market oriented. The theory was that if there is accountability these people will not get away with over spending.
But local authorities are perfectly willing to state in an election campaign, "We will tax you more". When rate-capping was introduced I went around collecting signatures. Plenty of people in Islington were willing to sign a paper stating that they did not want rate-capping. They would rather pay rates and have decent services than have central government tell their local government how much to spend and how much to tax. We have neither local taxation nor local control on revenue.
The standard spending assessment comes from something called "a regression analysis". I know a great deal about regression analysis but I shall not bore your Lordships with that. The point about it is that it shows only that across all the authorities the average weekly cost of keeping a five year-old child is £35.20. That is an average figure and is an utterly useless device for settling local variations. I did not make that up; it is part of statistical theory. I would not mind making it up but I do not have to.
Rigid centralised formulae have been used to take away local government autonomy and, by and large, to have deteriorating local services in the Government's hope that the people will dislike their local authorities. What happens time and time again—and it will happen next week—is that more and more people are supporting the Labour party. Next week there will be no Conservative councils left in this country.
4.48 p.m.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, 1 wish to declare three interests. First, I have the honour to be vice-president of the Association of District Councils. Secondly, I am an adviser to UNISON. Thirdly, for 18 years I served as a member of the Reading County Borough Council, leading it for seven years. Of course, that was in the days when there was real local government, a proper partnership between central government and local government and when each organisation respected what the other did.
Now we have central government with all the power, having taken most of it away from local government. I believe that all noble Lords will agree that in this country we want independent, viable, well-governed local government that is organised in units near to the people and accountable to them. It should operate with the minimum of interference from government and with wide powers to provide, control and direct services within its area. That is essential to democratic government.
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The Victorians knew that and provided us with just such a democratic local government system. That is a Victorian value which the present government have failed to emulate. Indeed, they have gone out of their way to destroy what Victorian Conservatives and others built in local government.
One of the policies which illustrates just how centralising this Government are—and we have already heard about it—is that of compulsory competitive tendering, not only for manual services such as refuse collection and street cleaning but now for administrative services, including housing management. If ever there were a social service which needs sensitivity and continuity, it is housing management.
The noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, who unfortunately is not in her place, criticised local government and sought to join us all with that slanderous criticism. I now unjoin us from it because I believe that it was a slander on local government which will be very much resented by those decent people who give to local government their voluntary services now and who have done so for many years past.
Perhaps I may return to compulsory market-testing madness, because that is what it has become. It is now causing local government real problems and indeed, some of those problems were set out in an excellent article by Sonia Purnell in Monday's's Daily Telegraph. I should like to quote some passages from that article to show how CCT is indeed failing. The article states:
"The Government's drive to privatise council services is in crisis with increasing resistance from local authorities of all political colours.
Scores of contractors have gone bust or been sacked, costs are rising and local government auditors have given warning about the increasing risk of corruption with so many multi-million pound contracts at stake".
The article later continues:
"Some of the contractors have also expressed doubts about its efficacy, particularly when it compels councils to privatise, often against their will, and attracts over-agressive bidding with a resultant low priority on quality".
Those are not my words. That is an article in the Daily Telegraph, which I hope noble Lords opposite still read. I wish that they would do so because it would give them some very good advice which they may wish to take on occasion.
For local government to succeed and for it to be free, effective and accountable, it must be financed properly from sources over which it has control, not from handouts from central government who then seek to dictate which services should be provided and what should be the level of those services. As my noble friend pointed out, it is nonsensical that local authorities are now raising only 15 per cent. to 20 per cent. of their expenditure from one significant source; that is, domestic council taxpayers. It is even more nonsensical that the Government are permitting only a 0.4 per cent. increase in the standard spending assessments this year when their own limit for their own spending is six times that, with a 2.4 per cent. increase. Some government departments are spending even more than that.

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Local governments need far greater access to their own resources. I believe that they should have a share as of right and at a locally decided rate of some of the taxes which at present go to central government; for example, a locally determined local sales tax. But that is for the future and after much debate.
But one source of finance which could be returned immediately to local government is the business rate. That was removed from local government because businesses moaned constantly to the Government that they were being mulcted by local authorities. They have since learnt to their cost that central government are more predatory and less efficient than local government. I believe that many businesses would now return gladly to the local business rate, particularly if they were given an input into local government decision-making.
I say to my noble friends on the Front Bench that we need the Labour Party—because it will not happen with this Government—to return to local government the services that have been lost. Having returned those services, they must trust local government to do its job. Let the Labour Party remember that it built itself up on independent local government and it should never forget that. What is more, the Labour Party should remember that more power breeds a more rather than less responsible attitude. Let the Labour Party trust local government because the Conservatives never will.
4.56 p.m.
Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, I speak with some pride as a fairly recently-created vice-president of the Association of County Councils. I am doubly proud because I happen to know that one of my predecessors as chairman of that association is also to speak in the debate. It says something for the quality of local government that there are two of us here from opposite sides of the House.
Of course, it is not for anyone to impute a political motive for a debate on local government at a time such as this but we should all be grateful to the Labour Party because it has made possible a wider examination of some of the significant issues which face society today. That wider examination arises because local government is a part of government. It is not a separate estate which stands alone but is part of a whole. Thus, in examining the attitudes of one part of government, we must inevitably illuminate and throw light on attitudes relating to the remainder. When we do that, we begin to come up against some very difficult questions which I suspect those who promoted the debate would prefer not to have to answer.
I have listened with great care to what has been said today about local government and in particular about the problems of those government services for which it is responsible. Those are serious matters of vital interest to all members of the community and as such are portrayed by speakers with a careful eye on the impression that they wish to create in the minds of the public, even if that means paying more attention to difficulties and problems than to successes.
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But behind all the criticism and complaint, there is a common theme: everything would be better if only the Government would allow the odd extra million pounds here, the odd few hundred thousand pounds there, and so on. Money is the problem and always has been; and of course it is the Government's fault.
I should perhaps make it clear that I believe very strongly in local government. I spent 28 years working hard in it. I believe in the power of local, democratically-elected representatives to set priorities and to guide and develop their communities. Decisions affecting people's lives should be taken at the closest possible level to those people.
But we must remember all the time that it has long been the case in this country that authority for such powers of decision-making is given to the representatives of the community by Parliament, and Parliament always has had the right to define the limit of those powers. Thus it is that the relationship between the two levels of administration has always been tense. And so I edge slowly towards those difficult questions.
During my years as a councillor, I had the privilege and good fortune to work with many people who sought to serve their community. Whatever our political affiliation, we had a common interest that helped to bring us together even when the differences of political party seemed insuperable. However, even with that common interest, there was always a distinction within the political and administrative tussles which clearly defined the lines of debate and decision. That difference was over the subject of money. Is it correct strictly to manage resources so as to squeeze out the last drop of value from every pound spent that is taken from the pockets of the public, or is public expenditure inherently good, and therefore, by definition, more public expenditure inherently better?
And so I come to these difficult questions to which not just we as Members of this House should have clear answers, but which the public at large should seek to have clearly answered also. When I look at local government today, I see all my old colleagues, whose appetite to spend was greater than their capacity to manage, present in increasing numbers. Moreover, local government, which dispenses around 20 per cent. of national public expenditure, has lost none of its old appetites. Of course, it still retains its powers of resource allocation between the various services for which it has responsibility and so still has real power to influence the style and ambience of a community because central government funds are largely distributed through a general grant that does not seek to define the way that money is spent, whatever the method of calculation for the distribution of that grant between authorities might seem to imply. But, local government's power to raise its own funds independently is constrained by Parliament, as eventually it had to be because local government's appetite was too great for the national economy to bear.
In all of this we know the position of the Government and their determination to manage the nation's finances to the wider benefit of all the community, restraining inflation and creating scope for an enlarging economy through the increase of industry and commerce. We do

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not know the position of Her Majesty's loyal Opposition. Do they believe that 20 per cent. of public expenditure can be unfettered and run without government interest? I have read speeches about the possible removal of capping, which is always carefully qualified. If capping is to be removed, what constraint will be put in its place? Alternatively, might we have to consider the possibility of legislative recantation post facto? Will authorities be permitted to push local expenditure up to the point where economic migration takes place again within this country, as used to be the case?
We need answers to those questions because that will illumine the attitude of the Opposition to the national economy, Do they believe that the whole business of government should be tightly managed, or do they believe, as they appeared to do in the past—and as most of their members in local government still appear to do—that the business of government is service driven and that the costs of services must be met whatever the burden on the nation and whatever the burden such a course implies?
I understand all too well the great efforts that are made in another place to avoid anything that might look like a financial commitment and that could make it possible to begin to answer such questions. I understand why it is better to concentrate on window dressing, such as Clause 4 and the party constitution. But we need answers to those questions because, whatever the state of local government now, if we do not have such answers its fate in the future may be much worse.
5.4 p.m.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, I should also like to join other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend Lord Williams of Elvel for introducing the debate. My noble friend was exactly right when he said that what we had to look at was the relationship between central and local government and between the structures that we have and the involvement of electors.
One of the concepts that I should like to think of as my little theme in today's debate is respect for people. I was interested in the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, who said that local government always asks for more money. Well, everyone asks for more money. It is the responsible consideration of borrowing money, raising taxes and spending that money that is important when one thinks in terms of respect for people. The noble Lord said that it was Parliament's responsibility to set the limits and rules. But what right have parliamentarians to make decisions about the spending of our money—indeed, taxpayers' money—compared with the right of elected representatives at the local level? What makes them different? What makes Members of another place different from local councillors in terms of their capacity to raise revenue and spend it?
I had not intended to spend much time—and, indeed, there is not much time available—talking about the finances of local government. However, I should like to mention two elements. I shall refer, first, to the capital element which was discussed during Question Time today. I should like to give your Lordships an example of the problems that we were faced with in Manchester City Council. Because of government restrictions on our
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ability to raise and spend capital, we had the problem of disintegrating schools—that is, schools with leaking roofs which needed major capital repairs and schools that had in fact gone well beyond the end of their designed life which needed to be bulldozed and replaced with new schools.
A few years ago, while I was serving on Manchester City Council, we asked the Government for permission to borrow money. That is what one has to do in local government—one has to go to the Government and ask for permission to borrow money upon which one then has to pay interest. It is not a question of asking the Government for money; it is a question of asking the Government for permission to borrow and spend money. We wanted to spend £30 million on capital repairs and on rebuilding projects for our schools. I should point out to your Lordships that we could probably have spent £100 million and made still further improvements. However, we asked permission to borrow £30 million and we were given permission to borrow £3 million. Such local government problems cause a deterioration in capital stock. That is not the right way to go about it.
I have a question for the noble Earl to which I hope he will respond. I have in mind the problems, especially this year, with school budgets. In fact, the impact will, effectively, hit them next year in terms of funding. Because of the individual characteristics of schools and the formula funding of LMS, some schools will have a deficit while others may have a surplus. Moreover, there is a requirement that they balance the books on an annual basis. As regards next year and, possibly, the year after, will the Government permit local education authorities to retain the surpluses from those schools which have them and use them to go towards meeting the deficits of the schools concerned? Will the Government also allow the budgets to be rolled over across two or three years to enable some of the problems to be tackled?
In the remaining two minutes at my disposal, I should like to talk about the structure of local government. I suggest that what we should be about is enabling people to come together to do things that people want to do collectively. Some may want to produce better or different services than others. I suggest that we think of it in terms of a range of tiers and in terms of a community or a parish coming together to do things at that level or a district or a town coming together to do things at that level, or in terms of a county or an urban conurbation coming together to do things at that level, that will benefit those communities.
Should we not think in terms of (dare I say it?) our national Parliament bringing people together and enabling the nation as a whole to do things together? Unfortunately, over the past few years, we have been singularly bad at doing things at a national level. One thinks of the national economy and the way we respect people or the way we utilise people. Some 25 per cent. of our population is not properly utilised, harnessed and economically active. That is a major scandal that affects our national community. I hope that we can have some

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respect for all of our fellow citizens and enable them to build the structures, to work, to come together, to be supportive and to govern themselves.
5.11 p.m.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, I begin to wonder what place my particular contribution has in this afternoon's debate, having heard the rather heated speeches which have come from both sides. I do not propose to be heated because I am glad of this opportunity to speak about a subject in which I have a great interest. I am grateful to my noble friend for giving me the opportunity to do so.
I wish to concentrate on one local authority area of activity which seems to go unnoticed by most commentators, and has certainly gone unnoticed this afternoon. I do not think a single speaker has referred to it, and yet it is a subject which underpins all the activities of local authorities, and indeed all our activities too, and that is the creation and the implementation of Local Agenda 21. I am sure that there will be blank faces when I mention that because whenever I have mentioned to anyone in the past week that I wish to speak about Local Agenda 21, they have asked me what it is. Therefore, I had better explain.
During the Earth Summit conference on sustainable development in Rio in 1992, local authorities worldwide were challenged in the following terms, that,
"By 1996 most LAs in each country should have undertaken a consultative process with their populations, and achieved a consensus on a 'Local Agenda 21' for the community".
The purpose of the exercise is to support and take forward at local level the strategies needed to achieve the aims agreed at Rio. I remind your Lordships that those aims were fully supported by our Government, and therefore the work that is being done by local authorities should be, and I hope is, done in co-operation with national government and should be supported by them.
Despite the difficulties of which the noble Lord, Lord Williams, and others have spoken, local authorities have taken up the challenge in a commendable, all-party effort. I stress that it is an all-party effort. There has been no party division on this whatever. The local authority associations set up a Local Agenda 21 steering group which started work at the end of 1992. I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood, was the only speaker who agreed that green issues were a firm objective of local authorities. I am glad of that small bit of support on that matter; I have not heard any from anyone else! The efforts of the local authority associations have already been recognised by the United Nations commission on sustainable development—which has invited the chairman of Local Agenda 21 to address its next meeting—and indeed by His Royal Highness Prince Charles who has promised his support. They have produced guidance notes to assist local authorities to identify the need for integrating sustainable development criteria into all local authority policies and activities, and indeed to raise public awareness on the issue. Already there is an impressive list of subjects covered by these notes—I do not have time to read them out—and more are in preparation.
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The majority of local authorities in the United Kingdom are in the process of developing their plans and I wish to give the House some of the results up to last week. Thirty local authorities have appointed new staff to work on Local Agenda 21; 111 have organised seminars on Local Agenda 21; 187 authorities are seeking to adopt environmental management systems; 192 authorities have integrated sustainable development principles into their land use planning strategies, and 113 have done the same with their transport policies; 182 authorities have adapted or created new public consultation procedures to respond to Local Agenda 21. Some 198 authorities have embarked upon state of the environment reports and 134 are planning to develop local sustainability indicators. That is quite an impressive list in a relatively short time.
Local authorities are at the sharp end of so many policies. They provide the interface between the components which make up our communities. They are the front line in our efforts to remain a civilised society. Almost all their activities have implications for sustainable development aims. It should therefore be a high priority of national government to support and to encourage the work of this vital layer of democracy and not to engage in its destruction, which seems to be the current trend. If there had been more time I would very much have liked to engage in the defence of local authorities on other matters, but for now I shall leave in your Lordships' minds the question of how we can unite in pursuit of the aims of Local Agenda 21. I hope that politics can continue to be left out of it.
5.16 p.m.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I, too, wish to thank my noble friend Lord Williams for the way in which he introduced and opened this debate. I thought that I agreed with the noble Baroness, Lady Young, when she began to talk about what people were interested in. It is my view that few people outside local government are interested in the structure of local government. Their real concern is the services. People are passionately concerned about the quality and availability of nursery education, care in the community, the state of the environment, transport and other matters. The list is endless.
I begin by declaring two interests. First, I am an elected member of Lancashire County Council. Secondly, I declare an interest as someone who is a resident of the country, who believes in being not a subject but a citizen and who believes in a multi-layer democracy. I believe that "subsidiarity" is occasionally being misused by Government speakers when they imply that subsidiarity involves something less than universal suffrage, at whichever level.
I am also saddened when speakers make certain remarks. I believe it was the noble Baroness, Lady Young, who referred to schools opting out of local authorities into grant-maintained status and receiving extra money. As someone who is elected in my local area, I want every child to have access to an equal resource, whether he is in a church voluntary aided school or in a local authority county school or in a grant-maintained school. The resource available for

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children's education should be equally important for each child and should be of equal value because children are of equal importance.
I also believe, as a citizen of a member country of the European Union, that I want to live in a country where the imaginative, innovative and dynamic process of strategic partnership between the public and the private sectors can take place with the democratic voice of my colleagues from Wales, from Scotland and from different regions of the country. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, that we do have regional government in England; it is regional government determined in Westminster by a combination of national government decisions made at the political level and by civil servants.
I am saddened by the way the debate on local government in this country has been harmed ever since the former Prime Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, decided that it was for her, not the local democratically elected councils and ultimately the local voters, to decide how much it was appropriate to spend on a small village school in Cumbria and on a school in Lambeth, on the basis of a formula worked out by computer in Whitehall.
I was also saddened when, at the end of her contribution, the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, said that what she wanted was good government from Westminster and good administration at local level. I do not want that. I want good government at local level; I want good, democratically accountable government at regional level; I want good government at Westminster; and I want good government from Brussels.
That is where the problem has arisen. We have heard a plethora of conflicting arguments about what is wrong within local government regarding local government finance. Local government recognises, and should recognise, that the amount of government grant redistributed, and the formula resulting from consultation whereby that grant is distributed, is quite properly a matter for national government. However, I find it shocking for national government then to say, as they do, that hundreds of school governors, hundreds of head teachers and hundreds of parent governors are being bamboozled into keeping balances in school budgets wilfully to increase class sizes. A snapshot taken on one day—1st April last year—before the Government failed fully to fund last year's teachers' pay award, has been used and has then been thrown in the teeth of head teachers, parents and governors.
We need more integrity. It is impossible to go into detail, but when we speak about debt financing—and mortgages come to mind—and selling assets, I can tell the House that the local authority of which I am a member will sell assets and buy new assets in the interests of local people. However, I hope that it would never sell when the market was depressed and treat a public asset as less important in terms of obtaining a good return than if it belonged to any one of us privately. I would never vote for that. Such judgments must be made at local level. That is the only place where the knowledge exists and where the decision can have the support of the local community.
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There is much that must be said in a further debate which must take place about the need to protect the powers as well as the duties of local government. It is reported that the Secretary of State for Education suggested reducing nursery education in order to fund the teachers' pay award.
We now find ourselves in a sad situation. I, as an elected representative, cannot support a system of compulsory competitive tendering which, in the absence of protection, means that people I represent now work at poverty levels, below acceptable wage levels, to provide public services.
I cannot accept that I live in a country where decisions will be taken centrally about what is best for people within the local community. As the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, said, we have seen that ultimately the Government in Westminster can change the law and make it legal for no other tier of government to be democratic. I ask whether it is wise for us in your Lordships' House to sit back and watch that happen, as, inexorably, it is happening.
5.24 p.m.
Lord Tope: My Lords, I must begin by apologising on behalf of my noble friend Lady Hamwee. Unfortunately, pressing business matters prevent her from making the speech that she would have wished to make from this Bench. It is my fortunate privilege to do so in her place.
Speaking at the end of a debate such as this it is tempting to try to deal with all the points that have been made, whether they are the problems which the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, is having with his council tax banding appeals, despite the number of Questions that he has asked in your Lordships' House on the subject, or the very welcome speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, about Local Agenda 21, which is a very high priority for my own authority. We have just run a very successful two-day conference on the subject, attracting delegates not only from all over this country but also from Europe. The conference concentrated on practicalities. I believe that it was very successful. Perhaps one day we could have a debate devoted to that subject and do it justice.
I want to start from the same point as the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel—to whom, like other noble Lords, I am grateful for initiating the debate—namely, the state of local government. The noble Lord was right to say that morale in local government now is very low. It is low for a number of reasons. As others have said, local government is undergoing substantial change. Change is always unsettling and is always threatening to some. Local government has been subject to much denigration from central government and the media for many years. That inevitably has an effect on self-esteem. Above all, local government has suffered from year after year of expenditure cuts. Whatever fat there may have been in local government many years ago has now long since gone and those cuts are serious and damaging.
I want to bring a message from local government. It is not going to collapse tomorrow. Local government will continue. It will continue through the commitment

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and professionalism of the people involved with local government. The fact that local government will not collapse tomorrow does not mean, and should not be thought to mean, that everything is satisfactory and that everything that has been said was a lot of hot air. The situation becomes more serious every year. We should not assume that because people work increasingly hard, at increasing personal cost to their health, everything is therefore satisfactory. That is not the case.
Much of the debate has concerned finance and the system of finance. I have long believed that the UK Government should add their signature to the European Charter of Local Self Government. I regret very much that we are one of the few countries not to have done so. However, I am ashamed that our European partners now tell us that they believe that the UK is no longer eligible to sign the Charter of Local Self Government even if it wanted to. In the many years since the charter was drawn up the UK has been marching steadily in the opposite direction from virtually every other European country, regardless of the politics of their central governments.
One of the reasons we are not eligible to sign the Charter of Local Self Government is that local government in this country has virtually no control over its own finances. Our locally raised tax, the council tax, represents less than 20 per cent, of the net income of local authorities. Local authorities are dependent on central government for the rest. As others have said, and I endorse, that could be corrected significantly at a stroke by the denationalisation of the business rate. That is something which many businesses, certainly in my area, would very much welcome.
Still worse is the regime of spending limits imposed by central government on every local authority in the land. At a stroke that takes away one of the most fundamental democratic principles of local government: that locally elected people should have the right to determine priorities for the needs and services of their local areas, balanced by the level of local tax needed to pay for them; and, most importantly, that they should be properly and effectively accountable to local people for those decisions. None of that applies now.
Not only are centrally imposed spending limits wrong in principle, they are misguided in practice. They disguise the quite proper differences between local authorities and between political parties. They destroy what Conservatives in local government see as their strongest argument; namely, that they provide the cheapest local government. Spending limits imposed uniformly from central government destroy that argument.
The argument about different levels of council tax is entirely bogus. As my noble friend Lady Thomas of Walliswood said, the level of council tax owes virtually nothing to the spending priorities of a local authority or to its efficiency. In effect, to all intents and purposes it is set by central government. Quite simply, it is the money needed to bridge the gap between the money received from central government and the spending limits set by central government. The ability of local authorities to influence their council tax is at best marginal. It depends
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on what they can do by the use of balances, the efficiency with which they can collect their council tax, and so on.
I had thought that I would get through a local government debate without mentioning standard spending assessments. However, there have been so many references to SSAs that I wish to add a comment. SSAs were devised as a means of distributing central government grant. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, that as a means of distribution they are not a bad system and certainly better than many that we have had. The problem with SSAs is not the methodology of distribution but that the amount distributed is too great. Our dependence on them and the distortions which they create are too great. Above all, the spending limits are related to SSAs. SSAs are no longer just a means of distribution, but a means of determining a spending limit for local authorities. They are seen as a measure of a need to spend, in particular in the Department for Education and, increasingly, in the Department of Health.
SSAs bring uniformity to local government which Liberal Democrats strongly decry. That factor has been reinforced by the introduction of national performance indicators this year. For Liberal Democrat-controlled councils, spending priorities should be determined locally in consultation with local people. For Liberal Democrat-controlled councils locally determined performance indicators are vastly more important and more relevant than those imposed centrally.
These are not just words. For years, Liberal Democrat councils, including my own, have been consulting widely in their local areas on all those matters as an essential part of the decision-making process—not an add-on at the end as a sort of ratification of decisions which have already been taken.
Regional government has also been mentioned. That, too, is a subject on which we should have a separate debate, not least in order to help the Labour Party to clarify its own position for us all, including itself.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young, made a telling point when she spoke about regional government taking its power from local government. Those of us—I am one—who strongly advocate regional government envisage it taking its power not from local government but from central government. That is what regional government should be about.
I wonder what evidence there is to suggest that central government are in any way equipped to tell local government how to manage its own expenditure. Time does not permit me to dwell on that subject as much as I would wish, speaking as a local authority leader. However, it has just been admitted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has overshot his borrowing by £1.26 billion on the PSBR figure announced last November. I cannot help reflecting that if a similar situation had arisen in my local authority I would almost certainly be surcharged, probably disqualified from office, and quite possibly imprisoned by now. The Chancellor of the Exchequer sits there and carries on in his usual "gung-ho" way quite regardless. He does not even apologise to the taxpayers.

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Far from central government imposing financial disciplines on local government, it is high time that central government learned some important lessons from local government. In particular in recent years, perhaps because of what central government have been doing, councillors have learnt much about financial disciplines and real value for money. Those are lessons which would benefit some Government Ministers.
I wish to conclude with some comments about education. The elections next week have been described, rightly in my view, as a referendum on the Government's education spending cuts. As other noble Lords have said, the people have now seen through the Government. The Government's own policies have backfired on them. Their policy, which Liberal Democrats strongly welcome, of involving more parents and more people from the community in the governance of schools has backfired on them. Those people now understand the situation. They know that their local authority is not to blame for spending cuts in education. They know that those cuts come from central government. That is why we have seen parents and governors marching on the streets to protest.
The Government have been rumbled. Next week the elections will be a referendum on the Government's policies towards local government and in particular their policies on education. As a result, perhaps thousands of Conservative councillors, good as well as bad, will feel the force of the public's anger with this Conservative Government and their treatment of local government, and our schools in particular—not before time.
5.34 p.m.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, we are all indebted to my noble friend Lord Williams for a timely and interesting debate. Let me declare my interest as a former leader of Norwich City Council, a former Norfolk county councillor, and a Vice-President of the ADC.
Norfolk is traditionally Tory, but at present I have not seen a single Tory local election poster. Norwich has two MPs, Tory alongside Labour, admittedly on expanded boundaries. After the local elections, apart from the Lord Mayor there will probably not be a single Tory on the city council.
Let me refer, if I may, to King's Lynn, on the other side of the county. The deputy leader, a Conservative councillor of 20 years, refuses to stand as a Conservative, but stands as an independent, as does a quarter of the entire Tory group, including the mayor of King's Lynn, several committee chairmen, and even the Tory agent at the last general election. Many Tories across the country have refused to stand. Only two-thirds of shire seats are being contested by Tories. Those who are standing are distancing themselves, denying and denouncing the Tory party. When asked why, the deputy leader of the council said, "I was so angry. There was some sleazy thing that day. I have forgotten what, because there are so many. I am still
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angry with the policies of the Government". He insists that he is a Conservative; it is the Government whom he cannot stand.
The Tory Lord Mayor said it all. "I no longer feel I can defend the Conservative label. What irks me most"—and this is the Tory Lord Mayor speaking—"is the disdain with which the Government have treated local government over the past decade".
My noble friends have described that disdain. As my noble friends Lord Sefton and Lady Farrington stated so eloquently, since the early 1980s the Tory Government have refused to believe that local government should be either local or government. They insist that we should all deliver the same level of services irrespective of need. They do not recognise that local government is, above all, about local difference. Nor do they recognise that it is about local government. Central government under this Government have simply refused to recognise the mandate that local authorities receive from their electorate. In my city council of 48 members, only one person holds the majority vote in Norwich City Hall and that is the Secretary of State. How has that happened? It is because central government have privatised local authority services while nationalising local authority finance. They have privatised local authority services, as my noble friends, Lady Fisher and Lady David, pointed out, on the one hand, by a combination of compulsory competitive tendering, irrespective often of value for money, and, on the other, as my noble friend Lord Stoddart of Swindon, said, by stripping out the functions and giving them to undemocratic and unaccountable quangos. Those quangos now have more members and spend more money than the whole of local government put together. We do not know half of their members; and the names of most of the remainder are not even in the telephone book.
Government, too, while privatising local authority functions have nationalised local authority finance. They nationalised the business rate. They have also nationalised through standard spending assessments, about which many noble Lords have spoken including my noble friend Lord Parry. We now have a spending formula which says that Hove is more deprived than Hartlepool, that the City of London is more deprived than Liverpool and—surprise, surprise—that the City of Westminster is the fourth most deprived borough in the country. So Westminster obtains extra money because it has more people coming in by day; and it receives additional extra money because it has fewer people coming in by night than by day.
If Norwich had the same level of grant on the standard spending formula as Westminster, not only would it not have to levy any council tax at all this year, but it would give every household in Norwich a rebate of £816.58p. King's Lynn would not have had to levy any council tax. It could have given its residents a rebate of £809—not forgetting the 44p! Put together, there has been a warped standard spending assessment, a settlement which my noble friend Lord Williams mentioned of 0.5 per cent., which is well below inflation.
Put that with the total capping, together with growing community needs, and we see the consequences all around us. They have been spelt out by my noble friend

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tonight. In housing, we see the budgets of both local authorities and housing associations so slashed that they cannot meet the responsibility for homelessness which has increased by 50 per cent, in the past 10 years. That is all right, the Government will solve the problem for us next autumn by removing the right of the homeless to housing, given that local authorities can no longer provide housing for the homeless.
The noble Lord, Lord Tope, is absolutely right: as regards education we have seen school governors and parents of middle England in revolt. They are setting illegal budgets. Fourteen thousand teachers are due to lose their jobs next year. I believe that in Warwickshire it is one teacher in every school. Somerset has already sent out redundancy notices to over 100 teachers. That is all right, let the class sizes float upwards, we all know that it makes no difference until we come to choose our own school where, if we can, we go for the school with the smallest classes.
So far, we know about 42 libraries which are due to close. The inner city single regeneration budget tries to bring inner cities back into the mainstream of our communities so that they are no longer alienated, disadvantaged and deprived. That budget is being cut by a total of £300 million. Eighty per cent, of local authorities are cutting social services. Homes are being closed, charges are being increased, daycentres are being closed and meals on wheels are being cut back.
In Shropshire, cuts of £1 million are being made in spending on the elderly; cuts of £½ million in spending on people with learning difficulties; cuts of £½million are being made on children, including abused children. Is that what we as a society really want? Are we so poor that we cannot finance services for those with learning difficulties and abused children? Are we so poor that as a country we cannot afford them?
In my city of Norwich, we have to make cuts of £5 million in a budget of £20 million, having lost 40 per cent, of our jobs in the past five years. We cannot close the swimming pool, we did that last year; we cannot shut the municipal greenhouses, we did that the year before last. Instead, we will close the main community centre used by 112 clubs for the elderly and unemployed. Let them play on the streets. As for sheltered housing, we shall halve the number of wardens who keep frail and elderly people afloat in the community. We shall abandon the football pitches, the bowling greens and the tennis courts in our parks which were laid out in the 1930s under a Tory Government more enlightened than this one. That government rebuilt all those through public works programmes.
Our historic buildings crumble; our grants to voluntary organisations dry up; our maintenance work is cut. Those skilled people who provided the services will now draw benefit. It is not because the people of Norwich want it. It is not because the city council wants to do it. It is not because the business community is pressing us to do it. It is because the Secretary of State, who knows little and cares less about the needs of the city, has decreed it. We call it "local government". It comes from the arrogance and, as the Tory mayor of Kings Lynn said, the disdain of a government who have been in power too long. They no longer even pay lip
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service to the values on which local government was built of pluralism, participation, local responsibility and democratic citizenship. We know that; we suspect that noble Lords on the opposite Benches know it. We are confident that the citizens of this country will show that they too know it when next week they go to the polls.
5.45 p.m.
The Earl of Lindsay: My Lords, I welcome the opportunity afforded to us by the noble Lord, Lord Williams, to remind the House that in Great Britain we have an active and vibrant local government sector. That is an essential element of the democratic fabric of this country, of which we can be proud.
My noble friend Lady Young described local government as being alive and well. She is quite right. So alive and well is it that public authorities in the new democracies of central and eastern Europe have been eager to establish links with authorities here to learn from their experience.
We cannot accept, as some noble Lords such as the noble Lord, Lord Williams, and the noble Baroness, Lady David, suggested, that local democracy is under threat from what they called "quangoland". Many non-departmental public bodies—or NDPBs, as they are called—are neither new nor recent creations. Many bodies such as the Arts Council and the Legal Aid Board have not taken functions from local authorities, nor have they ever been directly elected. Indeed, the number of NDPBs has actually fallen by about one third since 1979, as my noble friend Lord Bellwin clearly stated.
NDPBs with a local dimension, such as urban development corporations and housing action trusts, have representatives from the local community and local councils on their boards, to ensure that local interests are properly reflected in the decision making process. The most important factor in selecting board members is to ensure that the correct balance of skills, experience and expertise is maintained to enable the organisation to carry out its functions. It would be wrong not to make use of people with valuable expertise within the community just because they were not elected members of local authorities. The Government would welcome more suggestions from local government for public appointments.
I also point out that some NDPBs play a part in the process of national government and therefore are accountable through their responsible Minister to Parliament.
The noble Baroness, Lady Fisher of Rednal, was uneasy about the government offices for the regions and wanted an explanation. The GORs meet a widespread demand for a single point of contact with government in the regions. Each office is headed by a single regional director who is accountable to the appropriate Secretary of State for each programme and each statutory function that the office administers. The offices work in partnership with local people to maximise the competitiveness, prosperity and quality of life in each region. The government offices can look at problems in the round and regional directors can take a balanced and pragmatic view of the issues that come before them.

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Working in harness with the key local players, they can identify the fundamental issues and balance departmental policy concerns before they provide considered advice to Ministers. I should also point out that it is part of devolving power away from Whitehall and sending decision making closer to local communities.
Our aim is quite clear. We wish to see effective local government throughout Great Britain. That requires action by central government. It requires action by local government itself. It also requires an effective partnership between the two and the importance of the partnership is something about which the noble Lord, Lord Williams, spoke at length. I believe that an increasingly sensible and constructive partnership has been developed over recent years, most recently demonstrated by the guidelines for the conduct of central and local relations agreed between the Prime Minister and the chairmen of the local authority associations last November.
For our part, central government have put in place a framework within which local authorities can develop quality services at a price which their residents can afford and which ensures that authorities are accountable for their performance.
The noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, was worried about the eroded powers of local authorities. Sometimes local authorities are best placed to provide a service and sometimes they are not. Our policy is to put the organisation of services as close as possible to the people who use them. For example, our educational reforms have greatly increased control by parents of schools and school governors over what happens in the schools which their children use. Likewise, our housing reforms have given tenants greater opportunities to manage their own homes.
Taking a power and giving 90 per cent, of it to the local community and only 10 per cent, to central government is not centralisation. I appreciate the anxiety on which the noble Lords, Lord Williams, Lord Monkswell and Lord Stoddart, and my noble friend Lord Dixon-Smith focused: the correct structure between central government and local government.
Functions have been given to and removed from local government throughout this century. Hospitals, gas, electricity and water were all once the responsibilities of local government. But who would seriously argue that they should all now go back, except possibly for the noble Lord, Lord Sefton?
Most recently, local authorities have been given responsibility for community care worth £565 million per annum, and for the administration of housing benefit. Local authorities remain big business, accounting for one-quarter of total public spending.
One new area has recently emerged for local government. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Tope, in recognising its importance. It was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol. Agenda 21 is a vital partnership to which local government is able to contribute, and to do so in a framework of partnership with central government. We very much welcome local government's involvement with the UK Round Table on Sustainable Development and the Going for Green
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initiative, and continuing work in the Central and Local Government Environment Forum, as well as local government's representation on the Environment Agency Advisory Committee.
A central element of the framework of local government is the local government map. The new structure reflects local circumstances and is one that will last. We should now focus on reaping the benefits that the new structure will provide. The noble Baroness, Lady David, and the noble Lord, Lord Parry, queried specific decisions that have emerged from the reorganisation. All I can do is stress that in every case we have carefully considered the Local Government Commission's report and the many representations which my right honourable friend and the commission received.
The underlying case for unitary authorities is that they offer an opportunity to bring all local government functions together in a way that is responsive to local needs. Unitary authorities can provide clear accountability by being the single provider of services.
I know that my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter has misgivings about the two-tier system. But the retention of the existing two-tier system will in some parts of England provide the best solution. In other areas the creation of unitary urban districts, with the rest of the county remaining two-tier, will be the best way of securing effective local government. My right honourable friend is currently considering which urban areas should be referred to the commission for further review. Above all, we have adopted a flexible approach.
This flexibility will strengthen local government. Where new unitary authorities are created, there will be the opportunity to review completely and improve old working methods. We hope that the new unitary authorities will now be better placed to provide cost-effective services.
But there is also scope for improvements in two-tier areas in England. Many told us during the commission's reviews that they were looking at ways to provide services more effectively within the two-tier system. The reviews have been useful in getting counties and districts to work together to reassess their working methods and to look for improvements. We shall be contacting those authorities and others to see what progress is being made.
The framework that government has provided consists of more than just the map. We have established mechanisms to improve local authorities' efficiency and local accountability. This will strengthen the quality of the services that they provide.
I noticed in today's debate that the approach adopted towards local government by many of the speakers paralleled the approach that they adopted towards compulsory competitive tendering. There were the cynics, the enthusiasts and the realists. Competition exposes the true costs of carrying out a service and leads to greater efficiency in the use of resources. My noble friend Lord Bellwin called it common sense, and he and my noble friend Baroness Seccombe stressed its creditable qualities. Indeed, independent research carried out by the University of Birmingham shows that CCT has not only led to average savings of 7 per cent.

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a year, but has also, and perhaps more significantly, led to better management of services, which in turn has led to more responsive and better quality services. I wonder why the Labour Party opposes CCT?
The process of competitive tendering has spurred local authorities into reviewing services and considering what is wanted in a systematic way. The new contracts set explicit standards and performance is monitored much more effectively. Productivity has been improved and inefficient work practices have been tackled. We also believe that the benefits already achieved through the tendering of blue collar services should be extended to local authority corporate and support services. The new white collar services subject to competitive tendering amount to over £6 billion of public money, and the opportunity for efficiency gains and improvements are there.
The noble Baroness, Lady David, posed a few other questions about CCT, as did other noble Lords. CCT applies only if authorities wish to carry out work in-house. If authorities contract services out, as Cambridgeshire has done, the formal processes of CCT do not have to be complied with. For professional services, only a proportion of each service will have to be subject to CCT. This will protect the client side and other services which have to be kept in-house. The Government have made it clear that when authorities contract services out, by whatever means, this will count towards the CCT percentage—
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, before the Minister—
The Earl of Lindsay: My Lords, I am sorry, because of the time limits I must continue. I should also like to point out to the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, that local authorities can vet the financial standing of potential contractors. Authorities are not obliged to accept the lowest tender. The Government's guidance makes it clear that the lowest tender can be rejected provided that authorities have specific well-founded reasons.
The private finance initiative is a further mechanism for improving local services. It is taking an expanding role in improving our country's infrastructure and public services. Contracts across the whole of the public sector for PFI projects worth £5 billion should be signed in 1995. We are actively encouraging local authorities to adopt the principles of the initiative to build on the impressive range of partnership arrangements already established by many local authorities with the private sector. New rules to encourage partnerships between local authorities and the private sector came into effect on 1st April. They streamline the controls on the transfer of assets to local authority companies, and on authorities' participation in private sector led companies; and they provide incentives for authorities to consider the disposal of specific categories of assets and the leasing of non-housing property. These changes significantly increase the local authorities' scope to harness the private sector's investment potential and management skills in delivering capital projects.
We see these changes as a start, not a finish. We aim to extend further the role of the private finance initiative in the local government sector, and we have asked the
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local authority associations for proposals for further measures to assist partnership initiatives with the private sector at the local level. Proposals have also been invited from private sector organisations and other interested bodies.
The dire predictions and dire statistics given by the noble Lord, Lord Dean, in relation to housing are misleading. The Government expect comfortably to exceed their commitment to 153,000 housing association homes in the first three years of this Parliament. We now estimate that around 60,000 lettings are being provided this year, bringing the total to over 180,000. So—
Lord Dean of Beswick: Will the Minister repeat that figure?
The Earl of Lindsay: My Lords, Hansard will record it and I shall write to the noble Lord in addition.
Lord Dean of Beswick: The figure might be wrong; I might wish to challenge it.
The Earl of Lindsay: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, took a somewhat "doomsday" look at the provisions for the homeless. We are not preventing local authorities from using their housing to meet the immediate needs of homeless families and vulnerable people. Authorities will be free to use their own housing stock on a non-secure basis, or that offered by other social landlords or good quality private rented accommodation, for the homeless.
To complement the PFI, we have launched the deregulating local government initiative. The Department of the Environment has discussed with representatives of local government the opportunities to remove unnecessary and irksome bureaucratic controls on local authorities to improve the delivery of services and to help local authorities to fulfil their full potential.
On 6th March we published a consultation paper entitled Deregulating Local Government—The First Steps. This reviews the progress across government which has been made to date, makes a number of new proposals for removing or amending certain specific controls, and invites further proposals.
The consultation paper is just a start. We have high aspirations for the future and hope that the paper will encourage local government to come up with more innovative and far-reaching proposals for taking forward the deregulation initiative.
To ensure public accountability, by 31st December last year for the first time local authorities were required to publish performance indicators in local newspapers. In addition, on 30th March, the Audit Commission published the first ever national publication of Local Authority Performance Indicators. This publication is an important step forward in our charter initiatives and one which I am pleased to say has been recognised as such by the local authority associations and their members.
The publication confirms that many local authorities are performing very well across the wide range of services that they provide. But there is no doubt that there is room for improvement. The performance of some authorities falls well short of the standards that

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have been seen in other councils. It is important that the performance of public services are opened up to scrutiny. I am sure that the availability of that type of information will encourage councils to look hard at ways of providing better services for their citizens.
Finally, our framework for effective local government necessarily involves arrangements for the provision of resources to local authorities in order for them to deliver services. I would wish to face head on any criticism of the control mechanisms for local authority spending. As my noble friend Baroness Young said, any government must face up to the fact that local government in Great Britain is big business, accounting for one quarter of total public expenditure. Therefore, local authorities cannot be free from the disciplines on the use of resources which apply throughout the public sector.
The noble Lord, Lord Williams, and other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Desai, felt very uneasy about capping. But capping remains necessary to ensure that all authorities play their part in the restraint of public expenditure and also to protect council tax payers from the high council taxes which are the result of excessive local authority budgets.
This year's local government finance settlement is demanding, but it is necessary as part of this Government's overall strategy of controlling public spending. We have been accused of unfairly victimising local authorities. In fact, provision for spending by local authorities is set to increase by 2.2 per cent, overall this year.
Local authorities, like other parts of the public sector, are faced with hard decisions about priorities. But in setting these, they are able to explore ways of making their existing resources go further. The Audit Commission has recently suggested that authorities could save over 5 per cent.—£500 million—on their paybill by better pay and performance management, and its recently published performance indicators show that the worst performing authorities have considerable scope for improvement before they achieve the level of the best. The challenges facing local authorities may not be easy but they are certainly not insurmountable.
There has been some suggestion that local authorities' actions have been severely restrained by central government. However, only a very small proportion of the resources made available to local authorities must be spent on specific services. Having due regard to their statutory duties, local authorities are able to decide how to spend something like 90 per cent. of their income. It is more than merely a prioritising role, as the noble Baroness, Lady David, commented.
My noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter raised points about council tax banding. I know that this matter is also to be discussed tomorrow. However, I stress that of the 21 million dwellings which had to be taxed, 96 per cent. of the tax banding decisions were accepted. Only 4 per cent. were not accepted. There has been some increase in the speed with which the balance of cases of disputed bandings has been tackled. Very few appeals still remain to be heard. But, overall, after a difficult start there has
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been a considerable improvement on that front. Banding has been widely accepted by many people as an acceptable way to raise local government taxes.
With regard to council tax in two tier areas, each tier sets it own council tax, which is then included in the one bill. It is important that in the information accompanying the bill each tier explains in clear and simple terms the decisions that it has made on the level of the council tax.
The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, was worried about the debt of local authorities. The Government is also very worried about such debt. I hope that the incentives and restrictions that central Government have put in place will ease that problem.
I shall have to leave one or two points for either correspondence or another time. I shall try to send to the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, the definition of the SSA and how it is arrived at. Other learned commentators on the SSA, such as the noble Lord, Lord Tope, and my noble friend Lord Bellwin, have already given him some comfort in that direction. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Parry, that the 20 specific questions on Wales will be answered by correspondence.
I have described the framework which central government have provided. There have been recent changes, such as reforming the map of local government; but the way forward is largely settled. It is now for local government to act. It must act on the promises made in relation to the benefits of unitary authorities and improved two-tier working. The Audit Commission reports on pay show them and us what further efficiency savings can be made. The national performance indicators show them areas where improvement is possible. The ball is now in their court. The opportunity exists for a renaissance of local government, with modem forward-looking leadership, providing better services, and giving people more responsibility over their own lives. I believe we can be confident that local government will rise to the challenge.
I repeat what my noble friend Lady Young said when she began her speech; namely, that local government in Great Britain is alive and well.
6.4 p.m.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Earl for his response. I understand that this is the first time that he has responded to a major debate of this nature. The whole House will congratulate him on what has been an extremely difficult task. I did not agree with anything that he said, but that is another matter.
I should like to thank those noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I agree very much with the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, when he said that seven minutes was not adequate time for a speech. I hope that we shall have other opportunities. Indeed, as I understand it, there is to be an ad hoc Select Committee of this House on the relationship between local government and central government. We shall all

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have our input to make on that. I am most grateful to noble Lords. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Football Industry: Regulation
6.6 p.m.
Lord Donoughue Lord Donoughue rose to call attention to the problems of the football industry and the need for more effective regulation; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I trust that your Lordships will agree that the subject of this debate is of concern to the House, to the Government and to the country at large. Association Football is our premier national team game, attracting the greatest support among the British people, and attendances have been rising in the past decade.
The Government are deeply involved, with considerable public finance concerned. Tax concessions to the Pools since 1990 have injected £121 million into the game via the Football Trust. Government money is going to help stage the 1996 European Championships. Local authorities provide the amateur game with most of its pitches; the Sports Council also assists to some extent the amateur side of the game. So football is not just a great national game; it is now a great industry. But several aspects of its conduct raise concern.
I should point out that not all of those concerns are new. I myself was a member of the Chester inquiry into the state of football which reported in 1968. The House may note that the cost of that 11-man three-year inquiry was £2,805.13s.1d. I think it was value for money, especially compared with some expenditures on various quangos in recent years. I have re-read that report and it stands up well. I recommend other noble Lords to read it. Much of it is still relevant. It reported a game that was flourishing with rising attendances but found that there was a:
"disturbing increase of cases of misconduct by players".
It concluded that:
"misconduct in football will not greatly improve until there is an improvement in the manners and attitudes of society as a whole".
Little has changed in that respect.
But elsewhere it is a different world. That committee was impressed by the unity of the game and the fair spread of resources from top to bottom. The average wage of players in the top division was £2,600 per annum—less than double that of the lowly Fourth Division players. The average First Division transfer fee was £29,000. Even allowing for inflation, that would not buy many Premier League strikers now.
The motivation behind our debate is the widespread belief that football is in some kind of crisis which its own authorities are not able to resolve. We have the opportunity to examine that issue. I shall raise some general points and my noble friend Lord Peston will deal with some regulatory details as well as other points that may come up.
I do not propose to deal with the quality of the game on the field, although our national team seems to perform relatively worse than at times in the past. But our game remains excitingly physical and competitive, and club fans are usually satisfied with their weekly matches. However, it is clearly deficient in basic skills, which is often why we fail internationally. In particular, we appear to be inferior in our "first touch" control of the ball. That may be beyond the influence of this House, despite the skills of first touch control which noble Lords periodically display in other areas.
Our main concerns lie with the conduct of the game, not with the play. Two aspects which must concern us today are the increasing allegations of financial irregularities and the violence and social misbehaviour close to football on and off the field. Reports of the bribing of players and "bungs" to managers fill the media, though the evidence is sometimes hard to establish. Massive tax evasion has been alleged. It is claimed that 15 clubs have already paid £16 million in tax penalties.
Much of the alleged irregularity appears to be related to the transfer system, where larger sums are said to have been paid than received by the clubs, sometimes involving hundreds of thousands of pounds, with the difference disappearing into the pockets of various intermediaries. The problem is that the football authorities seem a little dilatory in pursuing those allegations, which may in some cases involve them personally. I ask the Minister whether the Government are satisfied that those scandals are being investigated with proper diligence by the football authorities and whether the relevant public authorities—the Inland Revenue, Customs and Excise and the DTI—have been instructed to investigate.
Central to that is the new role of players' agents. They manipulate the serpentine transfer system that exists. They appear sometimes to be close to the dubious transactions. In my view, agents should be registered and closely regulated, and I believe the league is considering that. That is a matter mainly for the football authorities. Surely we need to ensure that there is a clean-up in our game, not a cover-up, before hosting the European championships next year. I ask whether we may in fact need another Chester-style inquiry into the game. That is not established convincingly, but I find attractive the idea of an independent monitoring unit to monitor breaches of integrity in the game.
On the social side, the most obvious area of concern is the violence and hooliganism manifested on and off the field. Such behaviour conducted abroad is a matter of national shame and we have seen tragedies in various stadia abroad, most recently Bruges, and the disgraceful behaviour at Landsdown Road, Dublin. At home there has been some improvement at club matches in recent years; arrests are down by 30 per cent. But it is still a weekly issue of law and order. Some games operate in an environment like Belfast during a civil war. There are mounted police, surveillance cameras, anti-riot squads and intelligence officers infiltrating gangs of supporters who themselves are "apartheided" into separate tribal camps.
We must ask why this violence appears to be unique to soccer. Rugby is a more physical sport, with more pain inflicted, yet the behaviour of the crowd is quite different. What is the cause of soccer's affliction of violence? It is certainly not helped by the violence on the field, but that is not a sufficient explanation. Nor is the social class of the supporter. A recent survey showed that on average a Premier League fan earns £20,000 a year and pays £24 a game to watch his team.
One certain problem is a fanatical political minority. What can the clubs do? Their approach has certainly improved, but they can probably do more. It is encouraging that some are introducing hotlines so that decent fans can report troublemakers, including their seat numbers. Clubs should then confiscate their season tickets and ban them. It should always be the case that clubs work closely with the supporters' clubs, which often do an excellent job, sometimes with too little club support.
The problem is that the worst hooligans, especially abroad in relation to England, are not members of the supporters' club. They are often political extremists, British Nazis; groups with the money and motivation to disrupt any match they choose. Of course, matches on the Continent are easier because those grounds do not have the kind of fortress defences which have sadly become common in England. They do not have them because they do not have our appalling hooligans.
The inquiry into the Dublin riot conducted by Mr. Thomas Finlay, former Chief Justice of Ireland, was most revealing. It concluded that some 50 to 80 English louts started it and more than 200 took part. It described the riot as "well-managed and organised" including the use of mobile telephones and hand signals to orchestrate violence. Large amounts of Nazi racist pamphlets were found at the scene and some groups wore Nazi insignia of the notorious Combat 18 group, the British National Party. The report concluded that the violence at Landsdown Road was "targeted, planned and intended"; it was not due to overcrowding or provocation on or off the pitch.
The actions of those fanatical louts bring shame to Britain and fear to thousands of peaceful football fans. I ask the Minister what further plans the Government have to curb them. There is already provision to require known troublemakers to report to police stations during games. That is said not to be rigorously applied. Can we have more rigorous application by the authorities? I am sure the Minister will not repeat criticism of the Irish or other police forces. The problem is ours. We must ensure that these louts do not go abroad and are locked up where they belong. If that requires more football regulation and legislation, we will give our support.
Returning to the game of football itself, I am worried by the progressive division of our game into the very rich and the very poor. Nearly three-quarters of all football revenues now go to the Premier League, and the league is dominated by a few elite teams. Self-perpetuating, they attract the top talent because only they can afford the transfer costs and the top wages, so they remain at the top and receive the bulk of the television coverage.
Television is accelerating that elitism. The latest reported Sky satellite deal for soccer offers £600 million for five years; that is £6 million per season to each top club but nothing to the rest of the game. We note that attendance for the Endsleigh Insurance League is down 7 per cent, since saturation television coverage of the Premier League began. This minority club coverage is for the minority who can afford satellite television. The BBC and ITV cannot hope to compete to provide national coverage at that cost. Here I should stress how crucial it is that major sporting events—not only soccer—remain available to all on national terrestrial television.
What a change there has been since the Chester Report, when every club received an average £11,000 per season from the whole of television and the pools. Now relegation from the Premier League can deprive a club of up to £6 million. Television is now shaping and determining the conduct of the game, the days on which matches are played and times of kick-off. The same problem arises in the Football League, which was debated today in another place. Television is a ruthless paymaster and is creating a game of financially dominated showbiz top-end clubs, with poverty below. I should point out that the lottery may accelerate that. For local clubs, their local lotteries and scratch cards are often their main financial line of support and the National Lottery is cutting some of that off. There is a squeeze on the football pools which through the Football Trust have provided so much for ground improvements. Those funds are under threat too.
In the Chester Report we proudly surveyed a unified game, a fabric stretching from village and schools teams up to the First Division. Our prime aim was to sustain that healthy national game with deep and thriving local roots. The fear is that these days that unity, with its fair spread of resources, has been disrupted. It is perhaps inevitable that money values have come to dominate the game; but must we really hand over our great national games to foreigners such as Rupert Murdoch? I really question whether that is good for the games.
Some of the problems I have raised could of course be approached by government, and I shall look forward to what the Minister has to say on that. Many are endemic in our modern society. Most lie at the door of the football authorities themselves, and surely we should look for improvements there. The Football Association, the senior authority in the game, was criticised by Chester 30 years ago as outdated. I must say that it still looks anachronistic and increasingly bewildered by the problems which face it. The FA Council seems archaic and its decision-making is cumbersome. It is constantly outmanoeuvred by the commercialism of the Football League. It often appears inert amid the growing sleaze around it.
We should never forget that professional football is only 1 per cent, of the whole of football. All the other participation is amateur. The Football Association is responsible for that.
Having made these criticisms, however, I must emphasise that I totally support the existence of the Football Association as the single senior body responsible for the whole game, amateur as well as professional. We

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cannot leave the conduct of football to a small group of league chairmen who are mainly motivated by money. I do want the FA to be more efficient and more effective. Equally, we want the management of league clubs to become more professional. The turnover for this season so far has meant that 47 managers have been sacked by 39 clubs. It seems to me that lack of continuity is really very destructive. It is important that football, as an industry, as we now describe it, should become managed with the full modern professionalism of industry.
In conclusion, I must emphasise that not all is gloom in British football. The commitment of our players, the excitement of the game and the welcoming of the family are all to be applauded. However, there are issues of major concern involved and I have raised some of them. I have deliberately not mentioned the delicate issue of inconsistent refereeing, since my noble friend Lord Howell, a former practitioner, is sitting, whistle in hand, behind me. My noble friend Lord Peston will have more to say in detail on the whole matter. I look forward to the contributions of other noble Lords, and especially to any answers and encouragement which the Minister may offer. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
6.23 p.m.
Lord Aberdare: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, for giving us the opportunity to debate football and some of its problems, and also for starting us off with a very interesting speech. I should also like to welcome back the noble Lord, Lord Howell, who I know has been seriously ill. We are delighted to see him back in our midst.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Lord Aberdare: My Lords, I was a little sad when I first read the terms of this Motion to see that football was termed an industry rather than a sport. I suppose it is inevitable, with the vast amounts of money that are now involved, that it should be considered an industry. However, I hope very much that we shall continue to look on it as much as we can as a sport and to maintain the sporting traditions associated with it.
No one can possibly deny that there are problems and the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, has mentioned quite a few of them: problems such as hooliganism, player misbehaviour, and financial impropriety. Those problems receive the full attention of the media, as bad news always does, and they overshadow many of the good things that have occurred in recent years. In the few minutes that I have at my disposal I should like to concentrate on the good things, which tend to receive so much less attention than the bad things.
In the first place, tremendous advances have been made as a result of the recommendations of the Taylor Report, especially in the provision of new, all-seated stadia throughout the country. As on previous occasions, I should like to declare my interest as chairman of the Football Trust. I must say that I am extremely proud of the contribution that the Football Trust has made in helping clubs to fulfil the requirements of the Taylor Report. We in our turn owe a debt of gratitude to the pools companies, who supply us with our ways and means, and in particular
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Littlewoods, who were our original sponsors and who have continued to put large sums of money at our disposal towards the safety of our football grounds. I would even like to express thanks to Her Majesty's Government who over the years have made a very significant reduction in pool betting duty, from 42½ per cent. in 1990 to 32½ per cent. as a result of the recent change made in this year's Finance Bill.
Since 1990 the trust has allocated over £132 million to new projects which themselves cost a total of over £420 million. In other words, we have contributed not far short of one-third of the total money required. The programme for the Premier League, the First Division of the Endsleigh League and the Scottish First Division is now almost complete and we are tackling the considerable problems that remain concerning the lower divisions of the league and the Vauxhall Conference.
The face of British football, in terms of ground facilities, has been transformed in the last five years and great credit for this achievement must go to the clubs themselves who have contributed towards it. They have shown great determination and commitment in seeing the job through. The host venues for Euro '96 are magnificent examples of what has been achieved. Following his inspection tour, the UEFA Stadia Committee Chairman, Ernie Walker, said that:
"the clubs, with major help from the Football Trust, had transformed their grounds and that there will be eight splendid venues for what will be the biggest and potentially the best ever European Championship Finals".
In the Football League alone, no fewer than seven brand-new stadia are now in place and a further seven are in the pipeline.
It is not always realised how much is being done by league clubs in their own local communities. Every two years or so the Football Trust has run a competition known as the Littlewoods Community Award Scheme, in which financial awards are made to the winners in the different divisions for what they have done in their local communities. This year, of the 92 league clubs 80 have competed and their submissions cover an enormous range of services for the old and the young, the disabled, the unemployed and ethnic minorities. They also include many imaginative ideas for making use of club facilities for community purposes. I believe that these initiatives are of great significance and an example of the acceptable face of football.
As the noble Lord said in his speech, the problem of hooliganism has been very largely eliminated within grounds, largely thanks to the installation of closed circuit television, for which the Football Trust was largely responsible. But, as he said, unfortunately it remains present in the context of international matches, but even then, most commonly outside the stadium and caused by a hardcore of thugs quite distinct from the fans who regularly attend their own club's games. I fully agree with what the noble Lord has said.
The Premier League has recently published an interesting survey of the views of genuine fans. It was carried out as a result of research done at the Sir Norman Chester Centre. The noble Lord mentioned that Sir Norman Chester was on an earlier inquiry. He was a remarkable man. With the setting up of the centre we

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thought it only appropriate that it should bear his name. It is at Leicester University and it is partly financed by the Football Trust.
The recent report contains further evidence of the progress made in implementing the Taylor Report. More than nine out of 10 fans believed that facilities at their club ground had improved; 84.6 per cent. were of the view that their club was now more attractive to families and 83 per cent. stated that they arc now more likely to take their school-aged children to watch a match than they were a few years ago. This shows a welcome improvement in behaviour at grounds and it is significant that more families are now coming to enjoy the game.
I have tried to give some account of why it is not all bad news in football. But there is one matter of which we must never lose sight, which was also mentioned by the noble Lord. I refer to the fact that the problems which arise are all confined to the professional game. We should never forget that there are innumerable amateur clubs, youth clubs, school teams and women's teams all over the country, some in leagues, some not, but all contributing to the sporting traditions of football. We have done our best in the Football Trust to try to help the game at grassroots level by developing pitches and facilities and by providing strip and equipment for schoolboy and schoolgirl teams. We hope to continue as much of this worthwhile work as we can in the light of the impact of the national lottery which has somewhat affected our income. We hope in the future to play our full part in ensuring that our national game fills its rightful place in the country's sporting future.
6.32 p.m.
Lord St John of Bletso: My Lords, as an avid sportsman, but not an enthusiastic football supporter, when I first saw the Motion for debate in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, calling attention to the problems in the football industry—or should I call it a sport?—I immediately thought that the debate would focus in the main on crowd violence and unruly spectators, much of which has already been dealt with in the Football Spectators Act.
On closer reflection, however, I soon realised that I was off track and that the debate would focus more on the commercialisation of the industry—on transfer fees, match fixing, pay-offs and even bribery. Hooliganism has plagued English football since the 1890s, but it is really the subtler problem these days which appears to be practised with pounds, deutschmarks and dollars.
It was Hunter-Davies writing in the Guardian on Tuesday, 4th April under the heading, "A New Set of Goals" who in my opinion admirably summed up the position when he wrote:
"Once upon a time football was about glory and loyalty and local identity. Not any more".
In an age when money dominates our national game, he, a life-long soccer fan, accused Manchester United and other top clubs of ignoring the community and abandoning sport for the relentless pursuit of profit.
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While I have a certain amount of sympathy for the need to remunerate sportsmen and sportswomen who entirely dedicate many of their prime years to achieving sporting excellence—in many cases having to support their families on their meagre earnings—I nevertheless feel that sport has become far too commercialised.
In my research into the commercialisation of the football industry, I was surprised to find that until the 1970s almost none of the major football clubs accepted advertisements on their grounds. Their club's name was sacred and their team shirts were sacrosanct. A team's shirt meant that the shirt could be worn only by the team. For example, only a Manchester United player could wear a Manchester United shirt. Sadly for many, those days are gone forever.
Last season Manchester United's turnover was in excess of £44 million with a profit in excess of £11 million. The club has now reached the stage where it earns most of its money from merchandising, television, catering and sponsorship revenues. Clearly, in the past 20 years money has taken over completely in the football industry, dominating all decisions and in many cases perverting traditional values.
I should like today to focus on one key issue in the football industry; namely, that of transfer fees. Over the past five years there has been a progressive, if subtle, change towards self-determination by players: that is to say, where 20 years ago players were largely lowly paid and "life members" of clubs, such as the great characters Billy Wright of Wolverhampton and Bobby Moore of West Ham, the scope for players being paid substantially more, and moving clubs, has arisen as a result of the increase in the commercialisation of the football industry.
As I understand the situation, most of the top players arc now signed up for a specified contractual period, normally three to five years, at the end of which, should the player not be able to reach contract renewal terms with his club, he is free to be transferred on the open market at a price which is decided by an independent tribunal appointed for this specific purpose.
Whereas players used to rely on their managers for advice, an unregulated agency system, similar to a head-hunting system, seems to have emerged where these agencies strive to obtain the best terms for the star players. The first noticeable case where a player without a contract was able to obtain far better terms by moving from his club rather than leaving his fate to his manager, was that of Gordon Strachan, a famous Scottish international footballer whose transfer from Glasgow Rangers to Leeds United resulted in the player getting almost 50 per cent. of the transfer fee.
Increasingly, the star players like Cantona and Klinsman, are moving from club to club on a season-by-season basis, obtaining their wages from the highest bidder. The detrimental effect, of course, is that the amount that these players are paid has not just severely depleted the coffers of many clubs, but has also resulted in an enormous disparity in salaries between the so-called "stars" and ordinary club players. At one south London Premiership club, for example, two of the first team players who have been promoted from the junior

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learn earn £400 per week, playing alongside the star players who have been transferred to the club and are earning upwards of £6,000 per week.
Of course, as the hold by the major clubs over the transfer of players has eroded, so too the players' loyalty to their clubs has in many cases fallen. The players who get hurt most appear to be the players who are most loyal to their clubs, as their reluctance to move clubs results in many cases in their having to forfeit far higher salaries. The Football Association has become much more like the American system, where players are like highly paid guns for hire. Many of the major clubs that have invested millions of pounds in building their teams—such as Blackburn, Manchester United and Spurs—fear that the introduction of legislation regulating the transfer system would substantially reduce the value of their top players.
The other major problem resulting from the high wages that are paid to the top players is that many of the 92 clubs in the professional league will, and have already, fallen into financial difficulties. The obvious result of the disappearance of many of the smaller clubs is that many of the up-and-coming young talented players may not have the opportunity to exhibit and enhance their talents in public. The English team would certainly be without Ian Wright if this system had prevailed in the past decade as his talents did not emerge until he was 26 years-old. There are many other late developers and players who have been developed and recognised through the lower leagues.
I feel that a committee or commission should be established, incorporating representatives from all of the clubs, including player representatives, to consider not only the commercial but also the legal implications of the current transition to self-determination, so that both players and their clubs can have a more secure future.
As your Lordships may be aware, the honourable Member for Vauxhall in another place recently called for a government inquiry into England's football industry. Fans, she argued, have to pay more because of, and I quote,
"dirty deals which cause money that should be in the game to be siphoned off in back-handers, bungs and fixes".—[0flieial Report, Commons, 30/1/95; col. 828.]
In conclusion, I firmly believe that football should not be run like a supermarket. Football is a team sport and not just about profit and loss. It is about sporting talents; the excitement of winning; about loyalty and legends; about local identity; about families and about history, none of which can be computed on balance sheets.
6.43 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I too am grateful to my colleague and noble friend Lord Donoughue for initiating this debate. He covered a wide spectrum of the problems and achievements of football, so there is no point in repeating them. I should also like to pay tribute to the detailed speech of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, who is chairman of the Football Trust, which has done a tremendous job in allocating funds and in ensuring that ground improvements have taken place.
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However, I find some football clubs lacking in terms of their public relations. One Monday it was announced that one of the richest clubs in the game, which was about to undertake a massive extension programme, had received about £2.5 million from the trust in grant. I am not arguing about that, but four days after the first announcement the chairman of that club announced that it was making £6 million available for the manager to buy new players. It does not look very good to the public if a club takes £2.5 million from the trust but says within four days that it will spend £6 million on players.
As Members of your Lordships' House probably know, I have been involved in deliberations on the last two Bills on football which have been considered by this House. I refer to the Football Spectators Bill and to the Bill on alcohol control. There is no question but that the crowd situation has improved tremendously. However, I am not sure that the Taylor Report was entirely right in specifying that all spectators should sit down. I still think that there was a case for leaving some areas where people could watch football in the traditional manner—standing on the steps. I am not suggesting that that should apply to large areas of grounds. However, it has become clear that some of the worst excesses at foreign cup ties have occurred in seated stands.
Turning to a point raised by my noble friend Lord Donoughue: what has really happened since the inception of the Premier League? I was present at a meeting of the all-party parliamentary group when the idea of such a league was first mooted. I do not know of one speaker at that meeting of any political persuasion, from your Lordships' House or from the other place, who spoke in favour of a Premier League. The people who were present included those who had been spectators all their lives, and some who had played the game or who had helped to run top clubs. All were of the same opinion, that such a league would damage the game because the seedcorn would not come through.
My noble friend Lord Donoughue made the legitimate point that we now appear to have two Premier Leagues. There are the top 10 clubs of the Premier League, and below them the others who will never quite make it to the top. Transfer fees are escalating so rapidly and their value is so totally false that a market is being created in which only eight to 10 clubs will be able to operate. That is not good for football.
I then have to ask myself whether the game on the pitch has improved. I have heard it argued today that the game has improved. I do not agree. I do not think that the skills are any better today. The game is harder, more competitive and dirtier, but it is not a better game of football. Some might accuse me of nostalgia, but I had the privilege of seeing the English team play at Main Road just after the war, scoring eight goals against Scotland. The forward line included Matthews, Carter, Lawton, Hagan and Denis Compton. What would they fetch if they were available today? It is no good saying that they would not have made the grade today because they would have. By way of a little aside, perhaps I may correct the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, who was a little wrong about Gordon Strachan. It was the

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noble Lord, Lord Taylor, who put me right. Strachan moved from Aberdeen to Manchester United and then to Leeds United.
I do not believe that the changes have benefited the ordinary spectator—and I am more interested in the spectators than in the football clubs. Football has become money-mad. I would not refer to "the football industry" because it is not an industry. If we have a debate on Wimbledon, are we then going to call tennis an industry? We cannot go along that route. We must try to keep football a sport. If we start to deviate from that and refer to the game as an "industry", the idea will start to sink in that football is an industry.
I turn now to a development in football that has frightened me. A few weeks ago, I attended a meeting of the all-party group which was attended by a man—I shall not use his name—who was described as prominent among the new breed of agents in the game. I listened to him for 20 minutes and thought, "This fella is nothing more than an East End spiv". That is all that he was. He said that he had been introduced to the game as an agent on the recommendation of Terry Venables. If that is the sort of man who recommends you, you would not get a job from me. But those are the men who have been let loose in football. Nobody has any control over the situation.
The agents tell the players what they are worth and how much to ask for. That is why I ask myself whether the introduction of such agents, who have a totally free rein, has been any good for the game. I do not believe that it has. However, it is one of the biggest factors in the explosion in transfer fees and the price that people have to pay to watch a game. Even Manchester United has to produce a new strip every few months in order to survive. That is the argument, although it is very poor.
I should like to go back to the days when I knew that Arsenal played in red and white, that Manchester United played in red and that they had an alternative strip. Today when I see some teams playing on television I have to ask, "Who is it?", because the colours are totally alien to anything I have ever known. It is the result of the commercial involvement. I hope that the football authorities will get together and try to get rid of the agents because they are of no benefit to the game.
Some noble Lords have referred to crowd behaviour, but I believe that there has been a sad deterioration in the behaviour of players on the pitch. Every era of football has had its hard men but I shudder when I see some of the activities of highly paid professional footballers whose main intention appears to be to get a member of the other team taken off on a stretcher. The worst recent act of violence was committed by a United player. We then heard a former international who plays for the same club defending such conduct.
Such incidents ruin all the good work that has been done by clubs to bring families back into the game. Manchester City, Manchester United and most of the other clubs are doing a wonderful job by encouraging children to go to the club. But it wants only one stupid act such as that to blow the whole thing out of the window. If children see their idol tread on a fellow they will say, "That's the game and that's the way to play
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it". It is about time that managers started disciplining people. I wish to mention Arsenal, the team supported by my noble friend Lord Peston. I understand that if in yesteryear an Arsenal player was sent off he did not play again until he had seen the board of directors. That was the system and it is about time some discipline was brought back.
As regards the incident involving Cantona, I was as surprised as anyone about some of the quick reaction. However, I was disappointed even more by the reaction of those at Crystal Palace to the lout who triggered it all off. They said, "We have suspended him for the rest of the season". That meant two whole matches. There may have been other matches but officially there were only two matches left on the fixture list and I thought, "That's some punishment!". I believe that such people should be dealt with severely and stopped from watching matches.
The FA has published a list of Manchester United supporters who have sold Cup Final tickets at excessive rates, and it has dealt with them. Manchester United has kicked those people out of its club membership and that is 10 years' punishment. However, a fellow who triggered off the worst act of violence on a football field will miss only four or six matches. Then he will be back mouthing his filth at somebody else. I make no excuses for Cantona; what he did was mad.
I turn to the issue of referees on the field. They must show a yellow card, which must be followed by the showing of a red card. The foul that prompted the yellow card may have been the dirtiest that the referee had seen for ages. I believe that a man who commits such a foul should be sitting with his manager and should be taken out of the game immediately. Certain teams are noted for causing the other side to have to bring on substitutes pretty quickly. A fellow can commit two terrible fouls in order to get rid of a star player from the other side and only then be dealt with. That is a situation in which we must become involved.
I appreciate that one cannot turn the clock back. There is no question about the fact that money now decides where the honours will go. A perfect example is rugby league, which is being debated in another place. Wigan became the first team to become totally professional and it wins everything in sight. The same thing has happened in football. While a few teams have all the money, competition will be false and the sooner that we can return to a reasonable situation the better for everyone concerned.
6.55 p.m.
Lord Brougham and Vaux: My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, but I hope he will not mind if I do not follow him down the same path. Although his speech was most amusing, I believe that if he repeated some of the comments outside the Chamber he might find himself in a little hot water.
I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, for tabling this Motion tonight. However, I have to admit that when I read its terms I was puzzled by what the noble Lord meant by,
"the need for more effective regulation".

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I thought, "Heaven forbid, does he want the Government to be involved in some way, however loosely, with the operational running of our national sport?". If that were to happen perhaps snooker would be in the newspapers next. All governments are accused of over-legislating; let us not get them involved with sport. Having said that, I agree with a lot of what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue.
I have no interest to declare—financially, that is—but like the noble Lord, Lord Peston, I am an avid Arsenal supporter. In the past I have enjoyed the club' s hospitality in the directors' box but, alas, not this season. However, I would like to thank the club and the FA for their help in preparing for tonight's debate. Although the Gunners have had a torrid time in the domestic game, as well as the bad publicity, and although they were on the brink of demotion for the first time, I congratulate them on their fine performance in Europe this season. I wish them every success in Paris on 10th May. For the second season running it is the only British club to make progress in Europe.
Regrettably, this season has had a turbulent period, provoking unwelcome publicity; namely, that concerning financial irregularities in the transfer market, match fixing, drug abuse and, regrettably, the old story of spectator violence as was seen in Dublin. The first two matters are under inquiry, one by the Hampshire police and the other by a commission set up by the FA with a leading QC as a member. Both those inquiries are still under review and as they are sub judice I shall not comment. However, I am led to believe that the George Graham case should be reported towards the end of May or in June.
With regard to drugs, the FA has stepped up its monitoring and testing procedures wherever usage has been established. Swift action has been taken to help players; not only the high profile players such as Paul Merson who, I am glad to see, has made a good recovery—and may it last.
I am told that new arrangements are being put into place to ensure that there is no repeat of the nasty events in Dublin. But I strongly believe that if the Irish authorities had accepted help from our police force the incident may not have happened. I believe that it was caused in the main by a minority of mainly Left-wing extremists or fascists, as has been said. Whoever this rent-a-mob are, they are about the worst kind of people in our society today and should be dealt with by the courts in no uncertain terms. They are hellbent on upsetting other people's enjoyment. I believe that they are known by the police and I hope that they will be brought to book very soon. Provided that the courts have the powers, and use them with tough punishments, this behaviour could I hope be stamped out.
Likewise, the transport police could be stronger. Why do not they stop the known troublemakers from travelling to the matches simply by stopping them from boarding the trains? Perhaps my noble friend could pass that suggestion to the appropriate department for consideration.
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I am told that soon members of the FA will be seeing my right honourable friend the Home Secretary to discuss the existing rules and possible amendments to them. I hope that he will listen with an open mind to their requests.
Another problem from which our national game suffers, which is nearly as bad as the last problem that I mentioned, is racism and intimidation, which causes a nasty atmosphere at many games. That must be dealt with severely. I am told that the FA is working with the Commission for Racial Equality and other bodies to tackle that problem. They are building on the "Kick Racism out of Football" campaign and will be launching a comprehensive campaign for the new season.
As regards taxation, I am told that the Premier League clubs have agreed voluntarily, at an aggregate cost of about £0.5 million, to commission independent accountants to prepare reports for the Inland Revenue so that clubs can put their houses in order. That has been agreed voluntarily with the Inland Revenue on the basis of voluntary disclosure. There is no truth in the reports that the clubs are being investigated.
Despite the damaging headlines this season, one should not lose sight of the achievements and success of the sport in recent times. If one casts one's mind back to the Taylor Report following the Hillsborough disaster, people up and down the country in this House and in another place were saying that all-seater stadiums would be a disaster and that clubs would lose support and money. Not many people like change but sometimes it can be good, as in the case of football. In the 1993–94 season, the total attendances at Premier League matches topped 10.6 million. For the first part of this season the likely attendance figure will be over 11 million. It will be only the second time in the past 11 years that the figure has exceeded 10 million.
In the past, fathers and sons went to watch football. Now more women and families are attending than ever before. The majority of fans prefer the new stadiums as they are more comfortable and have much better facilities. It may be that the old traditional supporter is staying away but those supporters are being replaced by new supporters who turn up week after week. One has only to look at the top clubs which have full houses every week. Arsenal consistently has gates in excess of 35,000 with a capacity of around 38,000. That is despite all-seater stadiums and an increase in price, although not in every case, all of which was frowned upon not so long ago.
The association is not complacent. It welcomes this debate about the future of our national sport. It knows that there are problems to be solved which are being properly investigated and which will be dealt with in the appropriate manner. If the sport were in such a turmoil, as some of the media suggest, how is it that UK Ltd. has been awarded the Euro-cup next year? As Bryon Butler of the Daily Telegraph said, English football is facing a new

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dawn; its health has never been ruder; its profile has never been higher. My Lords, let us keep governments out of sport.
7.2 p.m.
Lord Howell: My Lords, I thank my noble friends Lord Donoughue and Lord Peston for arranging this extremely timely debate. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, for his kind personal remarks.
I am extremely sad that the Minister has not found it possible to answer this debate. Perhaps I may say to the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, that my regret in relation to the Minister is in no way to be taken as any reflection upon her, for whom we all have great affection. I know that she will listen faithfully to the debate and transmit our views to Ministers.
My complaint is that Ministers should be here to listen to the debate and reply to the vital matters raised in this Chamber. The reason I say that is because there has been a succession of events recently about which the silence of the Minister for Sport has been the cause of the deepest regret. There is the threat of a television war, to which I shall return, which my noble friend Lord Donoughue mentioned. That will affect all sports and is a matter of the most serious concern. There has been not one word from Ministers on that. There has been the violence of criminal groups in Dublin and Bruges. Although the Home Secretary has spoken, there has been not one word from the Minister for Sport. There was the criminal activity at Walsall caused by alcohol, to which I shall return, which resulted in the death of an innocent supporter. There has not been one word from the Minister for Sport about that.
I was a Minister for 11 years and I was brought up in the belief that my first duty was to the House and to be present to respond in person to matters which were raised. Now one could be excused for thinking that the silence of Sports Ministers of this Government means that:
"Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest".
The truth of the matter is that they are mute and inglorious, which is a matter of concern to us all.
I wish to turn, first, to the question of television which is the matter of the greatest concern for all sports. There is a fight taking place between Murdoch and Packer, as we have seen in relation to rugby league. But it will not only be rugby league and soccer that will be affected. Cricket, tennis and boxing will also be affected. They will try to buy the whole gamut of sport for television. The Government must do something to regulate that. This debate makes the case for regulation. We must prevent those buy-outs and monopolies.
The governing bodies of sport have been inclined to take the money and run. One can understand why they have done that. They cherish their independence, but if those television moguls are allowed to buy up British sport in the way that they seek to do, the independence of governing bodies will count for nothing. Television will become the governing body of sport. A predatory Murdoch will run sport. Public service broadcasters, the BBC and ITV will be also-rans.
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The question to which we need an answer is what the Government intend to do about that. As Mr. Michael Grade said last night in a striking lecture, the new Channel 5 may well prove to be catastrophic if the decision goes in favour of handing it over to those people who already own so much.
The Premier League is to be congratulated on keeping a close watch on the effect of its arrangements with BSkyB Television. The research that it commissioned from Leicester University is first-class and some of that has been read out to us. Last Thursday, the Premier League clubs took two very enlightened decisions of which we should approve. First, they are requiring every club to provide an audited statement that the club has complied in every direction with the rules of the Football League. That will do a great deal to get rid of the sleaze and will help also to control the agents. I agree wholeheartedly with what my noble friend said about that. The activities of agents are a matter of concern to the Football Association, which needs our support to keep that matter under control.
The second decision of the league chairmen is to ensure that an appropriate portion of the funds of any TV deal is directed to the Football League for the benefit of the clubs in the lower leagues. That is absolutely essential. I can tell my noble friend Lord Donoughue that the Football League tells me that the reports in the press of a £600 million deal are totally erroneous. At least we can be grateful on that score.
I turn now to the second of the Government's responsibilities which they are not discharging adequately, if they are discharging them at all. I refer to the violence and crime which now attach to our football. There has been a total failure to stop criminals travelling abroad. Why on earth should we impose upon our European partners the havoc and destruction which those people create, for example, in Dublin and Bruges?
I had a great deal to do with the Football Spectators Act when it was in another place. We opposed the system of identity cards but we were unanimous in our support of Part II of that Act which provided that if the police bring an offender before an English court, the court can make an order requiring the offender to attend at a police station at any stated time; for example, when the England team is playing abroad.
I understand that the number of those criminals creating havoc in Europe who have been brought before the court under that Act is one. I repeat, one. That is a gross negligence of duty on the part of Ministers and of the Government who obviously have not been pursuing the matter. What are the Government doing about all those people involved in Dublin and in Bruges, (many of whose names are known), in terms of bringing them before the courts under the Football Spectators Act? That is a question that I should like to be answered. I do not expect the Minister to be able to do so this evening, although I would be delighted if she were able to do so. However, if she is not able to do so, could she please arrange for her answer to be given to the House and not sent to me in the post? It is a matter of great public importance and something which we need to pursue. I am sure that the Football Association and the police

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intelligence unit, especially as regards Chelsea Football Club in the Bruges case, have acted with great forethought and commendable precision.
I turn now to the Villa Park semi-final where two motor coaches—one from either side—spent two hours at a pub by arrangement which resulted ultimately in a punch-up and one death. I hope that noble Lords will excuse me for returning to my own experience, but when I was Minister for Sport we issued a code of conduct with the support of all the football authorities, the police and the coach operators. It stated that no coach would be allowed to stop at a public house anywhere during the journey going to or from the match and that no coach would be allowed to carry alcohol. Why have those regulations gone into disuse? Can the Minister tell us why such successful efforts have fallen by the wayside? I suspect that it is due to the fact that we no longer regulate coaches; indeed, it is all part of the evils of deregulation from which we are suffering. However, I am glad to say that the National Federation of Football Supporters' Clubs (of which I happen to be the patron) is reassessing and revamping its own guidelines in order to draw attention to the great dangers associated with alcohol consumption.
Then there is the question of racism and chanting which has been mentioned. The concern of the league is commendable. The Football Association has said:
"In the near future, we will be launching a new initiative to combat racism and intimidation in our grounds".
The National Federation of Football Supporters' Clubs has written to every league chairman pointing out that,
"the anger felt by [our supporters] who are now forced to sit in an environment polluted by the foul-mouthed, whose response to any personal appeal to tone down their excesses is met with a verbally or even physically intimidating response".
That is the evidence of people dealing with the problem. Again, one can only hope that the Government, in association with everyone else, will deal with the matter. I should tell the Minister that I can tell the time. Therefore, there is no need for her to keep pointing at the Clock. When I refereed, I always played extra time if I thought that it was necessary. However, I shall do my best not to do so on this occasion.
I should like to extend a word of commendation to the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, and his trustees. Because of the lack of time, I can only say that they have done a magnificent job and that they deserve the support of all of us as, indeed, do the football pools. However, we should take note of what the Football League has told me. Its income is down by 22 per cent. because of the National Lottery and that of the clubs is likely to be down by 24 per cent. Those of us who supported the lottery are entitled to express such concerns. We ask the Government to keep the matter well under control. The tax paid by the football pools is still well out of kilter with that paid by the National Lottery.
Finally, I should like to say—and I am still within my 11 minutes—that when I wrote a report on sport sponsorship a few years ago, I said on every page of it that, while welcoming sponsorship,
"the governing bodies at all times must govern their sports. They must not hand the control of their sport over to television or sponsorship".
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I wish to end by drawing attention to that great danger. If governing bodies governed and if the Government accepted their responsibilities—and, indeed, if we all encouraged both of them in that respect—football and sport would be much healthier than it is today. However, if we do not do so, then the dangers will stare us in the face and they are very real.
7.15 p.m.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, what a pleasure and privilege it is to be able to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Howell, on his first appearance. We are all delighted to see him back. We hope that he will be in fine training very soon. Perhaps I may begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, for giving us a chance to look at the football industry. I understand that there are some machinations with noble Lords opposite about the question of regulation.
My one thought on the regulation of football is as follows. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, who has just spoken and other noble Lords opposite, should think back to 1988 and remember the words, "No, don't". I recall the incredible scenes in your Lordships' House when my noble friend Lord Hesketh was taking criticism—much of it perhaps justified—from noble Lords opposite, and above all from the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, about the Government getting involved in areas, especially as regards sport, where it was thought much better not to do so or, indeed, to do so with considerable thought and to the minimum extent.
I believe that the Football Spectators Act 1989 was a prime example of fine rhetoric, followed by what I like to call "marking time" in a swamp with considerable difficulty. However, I should like to consider one or two thoughts on the football industry; in other words, on the sport and how it is run. Football for me, and for all young Scots—and, indeed, even older Scots such as I can see on the second row opposite—consists of dreams, romantic notions, emotions and, above all, money. That is because, until recently, the Premier League was stippled with Scots.
The people involved in the sport—and we have to be politically correct—are boys or young men. Your Lordships may remember an excellent movie released about 20 years which was called, "Gregory's Girl" in which a young Scottish girl demanded as of right to play in the school team; and, indeed, did so. I must say that the young lady was extremely attractive. Your Lordships may also like to consider what happens at World Cup matches. The cameras pay scant attention to what is happening on the football field, unless the Brazilian team is playing well. They pan the stands where, if one is lucky, hundreds of stunningly attractive Brazilian young ladies are to be found in national jerseys. That prospect will clear your Lordships' Chamber. Even the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, and myself, no matter what is being discussed, will head for the television in such circumstances. Perhaps when she responds, my noble friend the Minister will tell us about the time when she wore a rugby jersey on a fairly public occasion. If she has time, she can fill us in.

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The football industry is—and, again, we have to be politically correct—for young men and boys. However, I am reminded of meeting the late and much respected chairman of a very distinguished football club at a bus-stop in Oxford Street. I refer to the late Sir John Smith who was chairman of Liverpool. He told me that he was trying to conduct the business of a properly run football club. The last four words will predicate much of what I have to say. A "properly run football club"—such as many of those that we have heard about today—will have a development programme whereby it will take, if I may be politically incorrect, young boys. Those boys are taken to separate, dedicated premises from nine years of age upwards. They undergo a training session of one-and-a-quarter hours twice a week. I am sure that that would be very beneficial to the noble Lords, Lord Peston and Lord Donoughue. However, I shall excuse my noble friend the Minister in that respect because her managerial qualities are the highest.
Those young boys undergo a trial period of four weeks. If their commitment, talent and behaviour are reasonable, they are then invited to sign a commitment to the club on a yearly basis until they reach the age of 14. At that time, if they still wish to go on, they make a further two-year commitment, At the age of 16 the boys will almost certainly be offered something under the YTS scheme with the club. The process is taken step by step, once they are 16 and have left school, as part of their intellectual development.
The youth development officer of the club who has given me that information is a school master. He has up to 130 boys in the development programme aged from nine to 16 and six part-time coaches. Last week, the club played a reserve game. Ten out of the 14 players, who were either on the pitch or sitting on the substitute bench ready to go on, were what I call "home grown"; in other words, they had come through the system. Perhaps that is fairly typical of top Premier League clubs—the 10 or the 20 described by the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, for example. Certainly the club I am talking about is, I believe, unique in that one director takes personal responsibility—he reports to the chairman and to the board of directors—for the development programme. The director has returned with the under-16 team from Bludenz in Austria. He goes to Coleraine where there is an annual tournament to which the club, thanks to its conduct and behaviour, is invited most years. We have not yet heard about that side of things and it is the obverse side to the problems of money and transfer fees.
Four weeks from tonight many of your Lordships may be sitting in front of the television set watching the team of Milan—an Englishman founded Milan Athletic and Cricket Club—play Ajax of Amsterdam. If any of your Lordships raise one finger against Milan, he will be subjected to a starvation diet. Noble Lords will appreciate what I mean when they leave the Chamber. Twelve out of the 15 members in the Ajax team are home grown and that team is at the pinnacle of the European club system. That point should be considered as well as the large sums of money that have been mentioned in the debate.
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How should the idyllic system to which I have referred be regulated? I refer now to dull, boring accountancy which might be pertinent to the regulation of the game. I refer to my profession of accountancy and to simple, dull accountants and auditors. The Premier League has a working party which is considering how to regulate the money that clubs receive and handle. I learnt my first lesson in auditing on 2nd October 1962 in Glasgow—the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, will appreciate this—as a young apprentice. One must separate the cash from the traders. The kinsmen of the noble Lord, Lord Peston, may have seen the article in today's press entitled "Footloose traders". The subject matter of that article is relevant to many of the scandals of which we have heard.
We have heard about problems as regards transfer fees. I spoke to one former chairman of a leading club—in the top 10—who referred to what he called the Eight Commandments. He said that when a club wishes to buy a player, first, the manager responsible for the teamwork and the playing staff ought to say to the chairman, "I am interested in this player. I would like to bring him to the club". Secondly, the buying chairman speaks to the prospective selling chairman. Thirdly, if he is told he may contact the player, the manager, or the chief executive, and the director should travel to the selling club and arrange a professional and businesslike meeting. I am not talking about a motorway service station or other out-of-town area, but of a room where records can be kept and verified. Fourthly, if the transfer is agreed, the fee, the methods of payment, the contract, and what I might call odds and ends, should be agreed in writing. Fifthly, this matter should be settled between the two chairmen. Sixthly, the buying chairman should inform his board in writing that the player has been bought for a certain sum of money. Seventhly, the cheque should be signed by two directors of the buying club. Eighthly, the cheque should be paid club to club. Those seem fairly complicated steps but I believe they form at least a basis of such negotiations. That is what the Premier League wants. At least dull, boring auditors have a part to play in these matters.
I now refer to agents. They can cause an emotional reaction but of course they act entirely for the players. Some clubs are naive enough to think that they should pay the agents. However, the agents act for the players. It has already been said in this debate that agents should be registered. I understand that they must be registered under European or world—UEFA or FIFA—rules. I wonder whether that is enough.
I conclude by referring to the ever popular gospel of St. John, Chapter 8, verse 7. I recall asking the noble Lord, Lord Peston, to look at this last July. The gospel states,
"Let he that is without sin cast the first stone".
If clubs put as much effort and professionalism into their financial and auditing arrangements as they do with the playing arrangements, let alone the youth development programme, we would have properly run football clubs. We need to take advice from auditors. Then I believe the clubs would have the great motto of,
"Nil saris nisi optimum".

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That is not the motto of the club in which I must declare an interest as, last Saturday, I actually spent money in sponsoring my local club Forfar Athletic. There were 611 hardy souls present. The temperature was extremely low. I gave a prize to the man of the match who said, "Lord Lyell, let us get out of this. I am going to freeze". As we speak, the referee is attempting to calm the excitable Italians in Lithuania. I declare my interest and I look forward to hearing what my noble friend the Minister will say.
7.26 p.m.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, I, too, wish to congratulate my noble friend Lord Donoughue on tabling this Motion and for introducing it in the way that he did. It is with some trepidation that I stand to say a few words on this subject, particularly as there are so many noble Lords who are experts on football, and officials involved in the game of football, present in the Chamber. I refer, for example, to the noble Lords, Lord Howell, Lord Peston, Lord Aberdare and Lord Donoughue, and the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington. They are all experts in this field. My only reason for speaking in this debate is to express my feelings as a worried spectator. I have no higher claim to speak than that.
Like many thousands of others in this country, I was brought up in a small community where football was the major pastime. Football was our life. Saturday was the biggest day of the week, when we all trooped down to the local football ground, Douglas Park, to watch Hamilton Academical. We went there in our thousands, or perhaps in our hundreds! At least there were some of us. One week we watched what we called the "big" team—the first team—and the next week we watched what we called the "wee" team; that is, the reserves. We were fiercely loyal to our side because in those days the name of the game was loyalty to one's team and to the local community. One took pride in the achievements of one's local team. A win for Hamilton in those days was something to be proud of but if the team went any distance in the Cup the whole town became ecstatic. When the team reached the final of the Cup, people in the town went absolutely berserk. If it had not been for the referee, we would have won the Cup. One of his relatives is a Member of your Lordships' House and I have never spoken to him since.
However, just before the war I moved to London, to Tottenham, and I have been a Tottenham supporter ever since. I supported Tottenham during the war and up to this day. Even though Tottenham has been though a difficult period during the past two or three years, and that continues at the moment, I still support the team, and I am hopeful for its future.
Little changed in the game over a long period. It was a fairly steady game which involved loyalty, fervour and excitement. However, during the war I served an apprenticeship in an aircraft factory and many professional footballers entered that factory at that time. I noticed that they were restless as regards their conditions. They were beginning to feel that they were due more than they were getting—they were only receiving a pittance for playing—and that they ought to be better organised. I watched that development. That
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led shortly after the war to negotiations—for example, between Jimmy Hill and Fulham—and the introduction of individual contracts, and so on.
Those changes have been developing for a long time, but none of us could have foreseen what has happened since footballers first wanted great recognition for what they do on the football field and the situation that we have now. The emergence of the agent has been mentioned. The agent has almost taken the place of the union, the negotiating body and the management. The agent has become rather a sinister figure in this area. It is an issue which has to be dealt with before it gets much worse.
The signing of the new contracts was a good development. There were some changes to the game. There are still changes, some of which I cannot follow. They keep changing the offside rule. I rely on my noble friend Lord Howell to interpret some of those rules for me. The team positions also changed, I do not think for the better. I used to enjoy the formation of the two backs, two half-backs and five forwards. In my view that made for a far better game than some of the negative things we have now. However, those are minor points.
As the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, said, in the past 20 years the game has become so commercialised that it has almost destroyed itself. If we are not careful, that is exactly what will happen. It is all very well to say that there have been improvements. There have been major improvements in the grounds. No one can deny that. But there is a feeling among ordinary supporters that the improvements and additional revenue are not being fed back into the game on their behalf. It is being fed into the coffers of the clubs, for the benefit of the directors and shareholders. The supporters have not seen the benefit of the improvements.
The noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, also mentioned the article in the Guardian on 4th April. That was an excellent article, which dealt at length with the situation at Manchester United, which is typical of the five or six major clubs in the country. The article referred to Manchester United plc. That is a new development. The club is now quoted on the Stock Exchange. It is bound to be in it for profit. Sleaze comes into it. That is what has caused corruption and fraud, because we all know that that is rife in the Stock Exchange.
The article says:
"Last season, Manchester United plc, our leading club, turned over around £44 million and made a profit of £11 million. So well done, Man U. In their annual report, the actual football successes—winning the Premier League and the FA Cup—were almost dismissed, meriting only a couple of sentences, while 24 pages were devoted to how marvellously they had managed their finances and marketing. Merchandising their own brand name had earned them £14 million, an increase of 180 per cent on the previous year".
The club congratulated itself not on winning the FA Cup and the Premier League, but on managing its affairs to make massive profits.
It has also been mentioned that football clubs have discovered the new gimmick of the club strip. The strip was sacrosanct. A thrill went through you when you saw the lads come out on to the field in their colours. In

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those days they were the only colours. Nowadays, as the noble Lord, Lord Dean, said, when you watch a match on television it takes a few minutes before you know which team is which, because each club has a strip for home games, a strip for away games, a strip if another team has the same colours, and for black and white television or colour television. There are so many reasons and excuses for having more strips.
That is another constituency problem that I had to deal with. Parents are being blackmailed and bullied by their children, who have to be seen in the latest outfit. It costs a fortune. It is not just a shirt, but there are pants, socks, boots, badges, holdalls, scarves, hats— everything. That creates a problem for parents, who are placed in a difficult situation by youngsters. That does not seem to bother Manchester United and the rest of them; they are making a bomb.
The clubs have their own shops. Arsenal has its own shop. Tottenham has its own shop. They are like supermarkets. They started in tatty little premises, selling programmes or booking seats for coaches. Now they are getting bigger and bigger. The Arsenal shop at Finsbury Park is like a shopping precinct, selling everything.
Making money has become part of the industry. That is what bothers me. I know that the money is certainly not being fed back in the direction of the spectators. On the contrary, they are being priced out of the game. The people who were and should still be the backbone of the national game can no longer afford to go to football matches. I spoke the other day to the youngster who cut my hair. I said, "I suppose you will be going to Highbury on Wednesday night to see the match". He said, "No." I asked why. He said that it costs £15 to get into the ground. Then when you get in you may want to buy tea, a sandwich or a drink and may spend another £10 or £15. He said that you can spend £25 before you come out of the ground. He said, "Who can go there, unless I can fiddle my mate's ticket, because he's older than me and has a ticket? If he's not going he lends it to me". The clubs are encouraging that kind of behaviour.
Youngsters can no longer afford to go to football matches. That applies to other people. Who can afford to go to football matches if they are on income support, or the jobseeker's allowance? So who do the clubs rely on? They rely on hospitality suites, which are getting bigger and bigger. There are more and more of them. I understand that some companies are prepared to pay £100 or £200 for a seat in a hospitality suite. They get a bit of nosh with it and a few drinks, and they might meet a player to introduce to their customers. That is where the money is coming from. The clubs are inclined to forget the fellows who made the team what it is.
We ought to remind the clubs who those people are. I had a conversation with my noble friend Lord Merlyn-Rees, who had hoped to be here tonight to speak but had to attend a meeting. Leeds United has written to him outlining some of what the club had been doing to combat hooliganism, and so on. I congratulate Leeds. I hope that other clubs are doing the same. I do not have time to list the steps they are taking to tackle the problems facing them.
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We ought to take note of what the honourable Member, Kate Hoey, said in another place. She has raised the matter on a number of occasions. She is absolutely right. I do not agree with her on everything, but I agree with her in this instance. She is of the opinion that it is important that the authorities do not to look for an official scapegoat. She says that:
"The only way to counter that is for the Government to set up an inquiry along the lines of the Taylor report or other reports into football, independent of the cosy relationships in football and with the power to subpoena evidence, to examine accounts and make a full and impartial report. That is what the country wants and that is what is needed if we are going to get back that confidence in football—the national game."—[Official Report, Commons, 30/1/95; col. 831.]
Somebody once asked Bill Shankley whether it was true that some people look on football as a matter of life and death. Bill Shankley said, "No. It is far more important than that". So it is.
7.37 p.m.
Lord Carter: My Lords, we are all extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Donoughue for giving us an opportunity to have this important debate on the problems which face the football industry and the need for more effective regulation.
No one can disagree that our national game has suffered a bleak few years, with one scandal after another hitting the headlines. I do not think that any of us can recall a time when the game that we all love has suffered so many allegations and controversy involving chairmen, directors, managers, players and so-called supporters.
In today's debate it is essential to determine what kind of regulation the game requires. I do not think that any of us want a great national game run by government and wracked by litigation, but we should not forget that the taxpayer is putting up in the order of £20 million each year by way of tax relief on the football pools betting duty. Also, the Government have the ultimate responsibility for ground safety and for public order, both inside and outside football grounds.
We all hope that football will he a self regulating industry with decisions taken within the game. However, one of the main obstacles to efficient and effective decision making is the fact that the game is still governed by an outdated Victorian rule book whose relevance, if any, to today's game is purely incidental.
What are encouraging are proposals by the FA Premier League to introduce a package of measures next season which will bring in the new code of conduct for managers. There will also be rules which cover the inducements to young players to sign for a particular club as well as measures to license agents, and better financial accountability for directors and chairmen of the Premier League clubs. Proposals were announced only today for the FA to strengthen the finances of the Football League.
Perhaps I may say a word about agents. I heard the agent to whom my noble friend Lord Dean referred. I can use his name. It was Eric Hall. He said, "We say that footballers are entertainers. Entertainers have agents. So footballers should have agents". If a theatrical

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agent induced an actor or actress to leave the run of a successful play half way through its run to join another manager, he would soon be out of business. I know that the PFA is prepared to act for its members at a much lesser cost than other agents charge. Therefore I cannot understand why the players do not use their own organisation.
The picture is not all doom and gloom. We know that crowd attendances have continued to increase. The extra revenue generated by the Premier League clubs means that we can compete with the rest of Europe for the top players, although competition seems to have led to a number of side deals which have created some remarkable differences between the prices paid by the buyer and those received by the seller.
In passing, it is interesting to note that it was always said that those large transfer fees all stayed within the game. That was never an argument that I accepted. However, those fees are not staying within the game now; they are going overseas.
In a matter of five years we have transformed our stadia throughout the game thanks to the vital support of the Football Trust, which has been mentioned. The chairman of the UEFA Stadia Committee concluded recently,
"It is quite clear to me that city for city, England has the best football stadia in the world".
However, we have only reached half time in the projected 10 year programme of the Taylor Report. Future progress will depend on the impact of the National Lottery on football's income stream. We know that the turnover of the pools companies has suffered. That in turn has affected the amount paid to the Football Trust which is then used for ground improvement.
The trust is not the only body to be hit by the effects of the National Lottery. The football leagues are losing the income paid to them for their fixture copyright contracts as the payments are calculated as a royalty on the pools' turnover. According to figures released by the Football League, income on the current contract is running at 22 per cent. less than last year, although the situation will be remedied a little by the welcome reduction in the pool betting duty introduced earlier this month by the Government in another place.
Much more serious has been the impact on the game's own activities in fund-raising. According to recent figures for the Football League, the introduction of the lottery resulted in football clubs suffering an 18 per cent. downturn in net contributions to their own lottery and fund-raising schemes. On top of that, a midweek draw is to be introduced by Camelot and 15,000 more terminals are to be set up to sell tickets. All that will put tremendous pressure on the pools companies and the football clubs throughout the professional, and the extremely important non-professional, game as well as the thousands of grass root clubs for whom the local lottery competitions represent a vital source of income.
All noble Lords who have taken part in the debate are interested in football and recognise the importance of protecting those vital sources of income. I hope that the Government will see their way clear to addressing the
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fundamental concerns sooner rather than later, preventing any further loss of income to clubs throughout the game.
In today's post I received the report from the NCVO regarding the effect of the National Lottery on charities. I quote some figures. There was a fall in the numbers reporting a donation to charities in the previous month from 81 per cent. before the launch of the National Lottery to 67 per cent. in March of this year. The number of people buying charity raffle tickets is down by 15 per cent; and those giving to street collectors is down by 9 per cent. There is a projected loss of £212 million in charitable income over the first 12 months of the National Lottery. If that is what is happening to charities, one can see what will happen, too, to the fund-raising schemes of football clubs.
I return to the point I made about legitimate Government interest because Government represent the taxpayer. Every year the taxpayers put some £20 million into the game. There is also considerable parliamentary interest. We have today's debate. There is also the excellent book which I hope noble Lords have seen—if not, your Lordships should buy it—entitled Football and the Commons People. All the profits go to help the Child Poverty Action Group. In that book some 34 MPs, all fans, (as we all are) who love the game describe their football memories. As I say, all the funds from the sale of the book go to the Child Poverty Action Group.
The game is trying to put its house in order with one important and large area of omission to which I shall return. We have had from the Football League Managers Association some imaginative proposals regarding disciplinary procedures. Anyone who watches the game regularly must agree that the new FIFA mandatory instructions to referees have led to enormous inconsistencies, as individual referees interpret them differently. One can go to two games in successive weeks. The games are extremely similar in the speed of play and the amount of fouls. In one, one can see 11 bookings and in the next week one sees two. There is an interesting idea in France. All the penalty points that a player has are erased if the player goes through 10 consecutive matches without a caution.
A new code of conduct for Premier League managers is proposed dealing with the registration of managers' contracts and arbitration procedures in the event of a dispute. It is important that if that proposal is adopted by the Premier League but not by the Football League, it could lead to poaching of the Football League managers by the Premier League clubs because those clubs will be under the control of the code of conduct.
It is extraordinary what supporters expect football managers to do. I recall the wise words of Mr. Ted Bates who served Southampton Football Club as player, manager and director over many years. After a game he once said to me, "Always remember, Denis, there are 20,000 managers out there watching every game". In the case of Southampton, it used to be 20,000. We have just spent £1 million net to reduce our capacity to 15,000 because of the all-seating requirement.
Much has been said in the debate about money. What is so worrying is that it is now quite clear that it is possible to buy the championship. That is what is

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happening, with very rich men prepared to put enormous sums of money into their favourite clubs. That is a situation that we would never have thought possible.
The influence of television has been referred to already. About a million people watch matches on Sky compared with an average of 7.5 million to 8 million who watch on the terrestrial channels. We have Rupert Murdoch, Kerry Packer and the Rugby League saga. Exactly the same could happen to football and, I believe, is likely to happen to Rugby Union. It is extremely worrying, as my noble friend Lord Howell said.
The important area of omission to which I referred is corruption. I know that my noble friend Lord Peston will deal with that issue when he winds up. It is an area in which the Government have a tremendous responsibility and should pay considerable attention to it. There is a need and a duty for the Government to encourage and to advise—and, yes, if necessary to intervene and regulate to ensure that what Sir Stanley Rous once called "the beautiful game" is properly regulated and free from corruption. Football is not just "the beautiful game", it is also the "people's game". We must all hope that it can deal with the current problems, learn from them and emerge cleaner—both on and off the field—and much more like the game that we all grew up with.
7.48 p.m.
Lord Addington: My Lords, this debate has probably one of the most intriguing titles that we have ever had. It refers to the "football industry". What is becoming increasingly apparent as we listen to the debate is that two aspects are involved: we are mainly talking about football's decline from being a sport to a position where the entertainment industry is attempting to claim it as its own.
The debate revolves around those two components. The noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, expressed best the feeling that sport is about belonging, a sense of achievement, and an identification.
We must bear in mind that those who play professional football are professionals. Not many professions will willingly restrict their earning power. We then find that those two factors—the restriction of earning power and the ideals of sport—come into conflict. As more money is brought in, the conflict will become clearer. The only thing that will keep the balance is some idea of where the line will be drawn.
In the press we have heard much of late about corruption and allegations of bribery. None of the most recent salacious headlines has yet been proven, but one of the researchers in our office discovered for me a list of football scandals of the past. They start in 1900 when Burnley needed to win at Nottingham Forest to avoid relegation from the First Division. Jack Hillman, Burnley's captain and goalkeeper, asked the Forest players to "take it easy" and they would get £2 per head. At half time, the score was 2-0 to Forest and the offer was doubled. Forest won, 4-0.
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We move on to other events until a major series of allegations in 1960. They involved my own team, Norwich. I am not a dutiful supporter, my football affiliations go with the Rugby Union code and not the Football Association. I shall try to avoid using the term "soccer", which I imagine is as irritating to a football fan as I find the term "rugger" to one who prefers Rugby Union. There was a five-year investigation resulting in certain people being banned for life.
If we take into account that there are those pressures on us, we must try to guard against them. One way of doing that is to call on the Government to try to keep a firm but distant hand on the game's finances. That involves the attempt at corruption; and the abuse of money matters and monopoly powers.
It has already been mentioned that Rugby League faces obliteration in its current form with a series of super teams playing across the world. We do not know that the proposal is guaranteed success because people like to identify with whichever team they support. Teams generally need a regional basis for that support. If we have the global game, we may lose that support and destroy the structure that we have. Also, if we accept the idea of having a sports syndicate, I doubt whether any of the teams in any type of competition that is held will have true competition as regards facing relegation. If one buys something like that, as is shown in the United States, one does not wish to risk having the investment wiped out.
Guaranteed possession in the Premier League of any type of sport does not appeal to me. If there is one thing that football has given to us, it is the idea of promotion and relegation on the basis of achievement. That leaves us open to the idea of buying players, but at least we have real competition. Ultimately, real competition is what fans wish to see. They want to identify and they want to see it. Surely here the Government have the role of keeping an arm's length position on finance.
When we are dealing with football, we must remember that our nation is a footballing nation. Association football is the premier game. To be perfectly honest, I would prefer another code, but that is not possible. This is something in which national pride is invested and thus we have the problem that racist and extreme right wing groups hijack our nation's premier game for their own purposes.
Much has already been said about the failure to implement that part of the Football Spectators Bill which was universally welcomed. Something must be done. We have passed legislation which can give us a chance of controlling the ultimate outlet of an extremely obnoxious element in our society. We must take it. The FA talks about trying to crack down on racist abuse and chanting in its games. There is not much point in doing that at club and domestic level if it is not done on the international scene. Such groups are not interested in football; they are interested in publicity. Cut off publicity and we will stop them behaving like that. I do not know where they will go next; I hope it is not to my sport. However, we shall stop them at the most effective stage.

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Surely, the Government must take more action. The legislation which was passed gives the authorities the opportunity not to inform police abroad but to keep the problem at home. It is, after all, our problem and we have responsibility for it.
Most of the other points which I wished to make in the debate have been covered, so I shall conclude—to great smiles from the Government Front Bench. Unless we look after the game and guard the control of it by people with money and with monopoly competition, we shall deny access to many people to watch the game in anything other than a passive capacity on a TV set. Any sporting event watched on TV has nowhere near the level of involvement of actually being there. Unless we take some action to ensure that football is not strangled by commercial interests, regardless of the just aspirations of professional sportsmen, we are in danger of throwing away a game which is not only our premier game, but the world's premier game.
7.56 p.m.
Lord Peston: My Lords, we are indebted to my noble friend Lord Donoughue for introducing the debate. With one exception, to which I shall come later, I do not propose to devote my speech to football per se. I agree with nearly all of what other noble Lords said and so there is no need for me to repeat it. Instead, I shall concentrate on professional football as an industry and clubs as firms. The reason is that that is what they are. They are not clubs in any meaningful sense of the word. Fans and supporters are paying customers and not members. I say that not with any pleasure but with deep sadness.
The noble Lord, Lord Addington, used the word "identification". I and all other noble Lords interested in football identify. If any of my children ring me on a Saturday evening and ask: "How did we do today?", they do not mean: "How did we, the Pestons, do today?", they mean: "Did Arsenal win, lose or draw?" That is because in a sense we are silly and do not recognise the reality of what has happened to our great game.
My point of departure is the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906. The relevant part is Section 1(1):
"If any agent corruptly accepts or obtains, or agrees to accept or attempts to obtain, from any person, for himself or for any other person, any gift or consideration as an inducement or reward for doing or forbearing to do, or for having after the passing of this Act done or forborne to do, any act in relation to his principal's affairs or business, or for showing or forbearing to show favour or disfavour to any person in relation to his principal's affairs or business; … he shall be guilty of a misdemeanour".
That applies to all employees of a football club: the players, the manager and other staff. That means that if any of them accepts an inducement not to perform his duties or to perform them in a particular way, he is guilty of the offence specified. I look forward to the Minister's confirmation. I take that legislation to mean that a manager or any member of his staff who accepts an inducement or a reward to buy or sell a player is guilty of a misdemeanour. I go further. The offence occurs if the inducement leads to or encourages such
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buying or selling. I must also mention that serious penalties would then be involved. I emphasise the word "serious".
Now, it is alleged that this kind of thing is or was widespread in football. The Inland Revenue has taken an interest because it believed that payments were made and not declared as taxable income. Gathering in the revenue is its concern. I must ask whether the Inland Revenue has a legal duty in all such cases known to them to pass on the relevant information to the authorities; namely, who was paid what, by whom and for what. Since we are concerned here with the criminal law, I take it that the relevant authorities are the police.
One problem I have is that I have been advised that the Inland Revenue has no such duty. If that is so, it is most upsetting, since the information that it has would be the first hard evidence available prompting police action. In addition, I am puzzled that it is the FA Premier League and the FA itself which are taking the lead in looking into all that. They have a role to play, and I shall return to it in due course. But my question to the Minister concerns what part the legal authorities play, are playing and ought to play.
I turn next to the players themselves. What has made the news are allegations of match fixing. There has been some misunderstanding of what might be going on. To be profitable either to gamblers or to bookmakers match fixing does not necessarily mean fixing the precise result, which is hard to do. All that is required is to make sure that certain results are not possible. In that respect football is no different from racing or prize fighting. I must be careful not to get too close to any actual case. Let me point out purely logically, not with respect to any specific case, that a goalkeeper who lets in a goal ensures that all bets involving the other side being scoreless ipso facto lose. That is all he needs to do to rig the whole match.
On match fixing, my legal advice is that it may be covered by the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906 to which I referred. But I am also advised that it may involve conspiracy to defraud, which is a common law offence. I am advised that even if the gambling occurred abroad, English courts would accept jurisdiction on the grounds that the conspiracy was hatched in England. Can the Minister confirm all of that?
Can we also be told—I repeat a question that I have asked but now apply it to this particular case—who are the relevant people to pursue the matter? I hope that I am right in assuming yet again that the relevant people are the police.
I now come to the subject that other noble Lords raised; namely, the role of footballers' agents. I am bound to say, as someone who is not expert in the law, that their role needs clarification. If they are part of the process of inducement and reward to which I referred in connection with the Prevention of Corruption Act, it seems obvious to me that they, too, are guilty of a misdemeanour. I hope that the Minister is able to confirm that. In that case, am I right in saying that the police have a responsibility to pursue the matter and to investigate the role of agents in particular cases, or is it that the police can get involved only if there is a

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complaint from a specific club? That is one of my examples of why it is so difficult fully to understand all this.
That brings me to the question of footballers' contracts with their clubs, a point which my noble friend Lord Carter mentioned. This, too, is a murky area. My understanding is that footballers' contracts certainly are contracts. If then an agent persuades a player to act in such a way as to call the contract into question and breach it, a civil action for the tort of inducing a breach of contract arises. If this involves inducements and rewards for the player and his agent—and it certainly does; the player receives signing on fees and the agent receives a large fraction of the transfer fees—I must again ask: does the Prevention of Corruption Act apply to the behaviour of agents? We read about such matters in the newspapers every day. We are told almost every day that this or that player is to leave one club and join another even though his contract has several years to run. Is it then the police who have the responsibility to investigate? If the police do have that responsibility (I am fairly sure that they do) they will be pretty busy if what we read in the newspapers turns out to be anything like the truth.
An equally important point is this. Why do the major football clubs not look in some detail at the kind of contracts that they sign and at the penalties for breaching them? My fear is that they see what goes on every day as swings and roundabouts. But if they were to see that and not take action, it is not obvious to me that that would be in the public interest.
I have already referred to the role of the various football authorities. A central question is what is the statutory basis of what the football authorities do? Again, I gave the Minister notice that I would like her to answer that point definitively. As I understand it, to give an example (it is hard for these words to pass my lips) Tottenham Hotspur football club (I think it-is a football club) argued successfully that the FA did not have the power to deal with transfer irregularities in the way that it did. Unfortunately, it is not obvious whether the FA's procedure in that case was wrong or whether it did not have the powers that it thought it had anyway. I think we need to know precisely what are the FA's powers with respect to player and club behaviour, and how this relates to the law. Certainly, whether we are discussing Mr. Cantona, Mr. Merson, and now this new gentlemen Mr. Tait, to name just three among many, they seem to suffer double jeopardy from the courts and from the football authorities.
A final question relating to this area is violence on the field. Commentators of all sorts make idiotic judgments and statements about football being a man's game. I for one do not believe that violence is or ought to be intrinsic to football. There have been some celebrated court cases on that in recent years, the outcomes of which have left me deeply disturbed. Violence is violence whether it occurs on or off the field. Again, this not something which, when it occurs, can be left just to the football authorities, but there is a great deal that they can do to outlaw it.
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Let me return to my main theme of corruption, and say what has to be done. Concerning the past, what is required is the completion as a matter of urgency of the full investigation by the Premier League Commission of Inquiry. I hope that it will have examined every transfer, say, of more than £1 million that has occurred in the past five years. The clubs involved, buyer and seller, should demonstrate how much the former paid, how much the latter received, and what happened to every penny of the difference, if there was one. That information needs to be placed in the public domain.
For the future this very same policy needs to be extended so that every transfer of substance is monitored in exactly the same way and every penny accounted for. I was delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, used the word "accounting", because that is what is required here. Every penny should be accounted for, and in my judgment preferably publicly. If there is some objection to that, which I cannot see, then a certificate of legitimation should be issued by a fully independent body to say what happened to all the money and that it was all used legitimately. Only such an approach will be sufficient to stop the kind of experience that I had recently; namely, of people whom I normally regard as being of good sense and probity saying to me apropos of tonight's debate, "I see you are going to speak about football. You know it is the most corrupt industry in the country". I beg to differ, but I am profoundly disturbed when people make that kind of remark.
There is a public interest in football being conducted according to the highest standards. I should like to reassure noble Lords that I believe strongly in self-regulation in football—based on a proper statutory foundation. In other words, I want the FA to be the regulatory body. But that means, as in other cases of self-regulation, that it must do the job well and satisfy the public that it has done so. I do not exaggerate, and I echo other noble Lords when I say that at the moment the FA is on trial, and any suggestion that its commission of inquiry will brush things under the carpet will prove disastrous for the future of the game.
I said that I had one actual football point to make. In the last few moments of my time, I now make it. There has been only one English international team—only 11 men—which has won anything of importance internationally. That was the 1966 World Cup team. I happen to believe that the 1970 team was better and should have retained the World Cup. But, despite being a know-all football fan, I have no time tonight to go into the detail of why I believe that. I am extremely upset that while some members of that great team have been honoured, not all have. That is a cause for shame, especially when one sees the number of also-rans and failures in so many other sports who in traditional British fashion have been honoured. I shall not rest until this anomaly has been dealt with. I hope that all noble Lords who have spoken and the Minister will agree with me on that, if on nothing else.
8.9 p.m.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I know that the interest in football of the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, goes back a long way, and that he has a genuine concern

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for the game. My football knowledge has greatly increased since I was driven by a GCS driver, a girl who plays for the English women's football team. I welcome the opportunity that this debate has afforded the House to discuss the problems that football has undoubtedly suffered recently. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Peston, for giving me warning of his questions, and to my noble friends Lord Aberdare and Lord Lyell for allowing me the privilege of a preview of their speeches.
This has been a turbulent season, accentuated by the fact that anything which happens in football is certain to be caught and magnified by the media spotlight. That is not of course to suggest that the problems have not been real or that corrective action has not been needed. Football is our national game and is followed by millions who regularly go to watch their local team, and many millions more who watch the game on television. Although football is run by private clubs and administered by independent governing bodies, where issues of legitimate public interest are raised it is right for the Government to ensure that appropriate action is taken both to resolve the immediate problems and also to ensure, as far as possible, that there will be no repetition.
That is not to say that it is always the Government themselves who must take action. That is an important distinction. As your Lordships know, the Government's role in football is to encourage the development of, and participation in, the game through appropriate policies and expenditure programmes.
Responsibility for the day-to-day running of the game rests with its governing bodies, such as the Football Association, the FA Premier League and the Football League, which are self-regulating and entirely independent of government. The noble Lord, Lord Peston, will note that those bodies do not have any statutory basis, and their powers in relation to their members are purely contractual. It is to those bodies that we must, in the first instance, look to see what action is being taken in response to the problems which have been mentioned.
One of the main concerns—this point was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Peston—has surrounded the area of player transfers, with allegations of financial improprieties by clubs, managers and agents. In response to those concerns the FA Premier League set up a commission of inquiry, and appointed as a member of that commission an independent QC who is also a deputy High Court judge. That commission has a wide-ranging remit and is looking into all overseas transfers since the Premier League was established, together with a number of alleged irregularities in domestic transfers. I am confident that that inquiry is conducting a thorough investigation, and that any evidence of wrong-doing will be vigorously pursued. The commission's recent findings in the case of Mr. Graham, the former manager of Arsenal Football Club, who has been accused of taking bungs, demonstrate that the inquiry is proceeding speedily and that there is no reason to fear a cover-up of any of its findings. Mr. Graham now faces disciplinary procedures by the Football Association, so your Lordships will understand
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that I should not discuss this particular case. Whether any offence has been committed under the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906 is a matter for the police to consider. The question of whether to take action against a particular individual under our corruption legislation is not something in which it would be appropriate for the Government to intervene. It is a matter for the police and prosecuting authorities.
I am pleased to say that the Premier League has already taken a number of steps to improve its regulatory mechanisms, as a direct result of the inquiry. New rules covering the registration of managers' contracts and codes of conduct for clubs and managers are being introduced, as are new disciplinary procedures. New rules to regulate the activities of agents, who, as the noble Lords, Lord Peston, Lord St. John of Bletso, and other noble Lords have noticed, have been a major source of concern, are also being introduced. These new rules will require contracts between agents and principals to be registered; and for agents to comply with a new code of conduct. Agents are now also governed by FIFA regulation, and must be licensed. The rules under which agents must operate, which came into effect this year, clearly state that an agent shall never
"approach a player who is under contract with a club so as to persuade him to break his contract or not to adhere to the rights and duties contained in the contract".
Agents who breach that rule are subject to penalties by FIFA, which include the withdrawal of the agent's licence. The law in relation to contracts makes inducement of breach of contract a tort, and clubs have in the past claimed damages where a player has been induced to break his contract. The FA Premier League is looking to introduce even tighter controls over agents involved in domestic transfers.
Concern has also been expressed about financial irregularities by clubs. As your Lordships will know, the principal responsibility, within government, for such matters rests with the Inland Revenue. The Inland Revenue has, for some years, been looking at these issues. Football clubs are, of course, entitled to the same confidentiality in their tax affairs as any other private organisation or individual, but where offences come to light and merit prosecution then that will be done, as it has in the past. My noble friend, Lord Brougham and Vaux, will wish to know that the FA Premier League has also taken that concern seriously, and has voluntarily agreed to commission independent accountants to prepare reports for the Inland Revenue, which has agreed their scope and contents. The, aggregate cost of this exercise to football clubs is likely to be around £½ million. The Premier League is also considering the introduction of a new requirement for each club to have to satisfy its auditors each year that the club has complied with all the relevant Premier League rules. The football authorities have also set up a bank account through which money for transfer fees between English clubs must pass, thereby ensuring that it is clearly accounted for.
Another problem which has received much attention has been that of the behaviour of players and spectators. The disgraceful scenes in Dublin and in Bruges will

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have saddened all true football supporters, and it is essential that we ensure that such problems are not repeated. Good intelligence is the key to tackling hooliganism. The football unit of the National Criminal Intelligence Service was established as a centre for the collation of police intelligence on serious and persistent hooligans and has been fully operational since March 1990. The unit operates a confidential "hot-line" for the public to pass on information about the activities of hooligans. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Brougham and Vaux and the noble Lords, Lord Donoughue and Lord Howell, will be pleased, as I am, to learn that, following the disgraceful events in Dublin last February, the football unit received over 1,000 calls from members of the public providing information, including details about the identity of some of those involved.
It is, of course, a matter for the Irish authorities to consider whether to take criminal proceedings against those concerned. If they decide to do so, police officers here are ready to offer them every assistance, just as they did in the lead up to the game itself.
Over the past few years the Government have introduced a range of measures to counter the threat posed by football hooliganism both inside and outside the ground. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, your Lordships can be assured that the Government are considering carefully what further legislative or administrative measures may be necessary to deal effectively with the problem of football hooliganism. Those measures will, I am sure, take particular account of the findings of the various inquiries into the disorder in Dublin and will lead to tightening up on those intent on creating trouble at matches abroad. As someone who travels regularly on the train from London to Dover, and Dover to London, I have experienced at first hand the dreadful and shameful behaviour in which a small number of so-called supporters engage when they join the train on their return from a continental football match. Frankly, I wonder how they can afford to pay to go all that way and get drunk.
I am aware that the behaviour of players has also caused concern. It is, of course, extremely regrettable when players, who should be setting a good example to young supporters, become involved in loutish or criminal actions. Allegations of match-rigging made against a few players are being thoroughly investigated by the police and it would therefore not be right for me to comment further on this issue. When footballers break the law they will be dealt with by the courts like anybody else, on top of which they are also likely to be penalised by their clubs and the Football Association.
As the noble Lord, Lord Dean, said, several players have been banned from games this season as a result of their behaviour off the pitch, while on the field of play referees are now penalising fouls and dissent more severely. I am confident that the Football Association is aware of its responsibilities to ensure proper behaviour at all levels of the game. I appreciate that during a game emotions and adrenaline run high, and winning is
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important, but so are honesty, respect and fair play. Like the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, I want those to be the qualities that shine through to supporters young and old.
It would be wrong not to,
"Always look on the bright side of life";
and there are also several reasons to be optimistic about the future of our national game. Attendances at football matches have gone up every year since the 1986–87 season and arrests at league games have gone down by 30 per cent. over the past five years. A recent survey of Premier League spectators has shown that going to matches is increasingly becoming a family affair with a third of supporters going as part of a group of both men and women and almost a quarter taking children with them. Some other sports have long been more family friendly and this is a trend which I heartily welcome.
The vast majority of fans say that grounds have improved and are now more attractive to families and children. Although the Premier League's contract with BSkyB and the BBC was criticised by some people, the majority of fans believe that television coverage has improved. More than three-quarters of fans approve of recent changes to top stadia and only 18 per cent. disapprove the move to seats.
Returning to the question of television and television rights, the Government believe that the governing bodies are best placed to decide what is in the interests of their sport. My noble friend Lord Aberdare explained the sums of money that have been spent on major football ground development projects since the Taylor Report. He is right to be proud of the contribution of the Football Trust. The noble Lords, Lord Donoughue and Lord Howell, and my noble friend Lord Aberdare mentioned that the National Lottery had harmed the income of the pools companies and hence the football clubs themselves. The Government have already made changes to the rules affecting the pools companies and reduced the level of duty. I can assure your Lordships that the Government continue to watch the situation closely.
UEFA have demonstrated their confidence and faith in English football by inviting England to host the 1996 European Championship Finals, known as Euro 96. Both the Department of National Heritage and the Home Office are actively assisting the Football Association in its preparation for what promises to be a celebration of European football. My ministerial colleagues at the Department of National Heritage have held a number of meetings with football governing bodies and impressed upon them the need for football to be seen to be putting its house in order. It is clear that that is being done.
The noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, queried the need for a Chester-style inquiry or an independent monitoring unit. We are not convinced that that is necessary. Football governing bodies are taking action. I have listened carefully to your Lordships but do not believe that there is anything further which it would be appropriate for the Government to do at this stage, though we shall certainly continue to monitor events closely and in conjunction with the game's governing bodies. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Howell, that I shall ensure that all Ministers read his golden words and those of other noble Lords. Football has been one of our

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most important games for over 100 years and I have no doubt that as we approach a new century it will continue to receive the public's support long into the future.
8.23 p.m.
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for participating in what has been an excellent debate and I thank the noble Baroness for her full and helpful reply. She will note that some in the House regretted the absence of the Minister. I am sure she will pass to him the House's concern regarding the inadequate application of the law and of certain regulations in specific areas. I am sure also that the noble Baroness will note the anxiety in relation to the media dominance and the way football is media driven, and our regret that where Rupert Murdoch is concerned, the white flag appears to be flying permanently over Downing Street. However, I note that we must give way to dangerous dogs, which I assume refers to Millwall Football Club. I therefore beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Dangerous Dogs (Amendment) Bill [H.L.]
8.25 p.m.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby Lord Houghton of Sowerby My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Houghton of Sowerby.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Discretion of court to deal with dog other than by destruction order]:
On Question, Whether Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: I beg to move that Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill.
In doing so, I wish to remind the Committee that we have all been here before and we have studied this matter with great care over a considerable length of time. It may be that from the point of view of the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, these debates are becoming a little tedious; from my point of view they are becoming more dispiriting. This is a further attempt to ask the Government to look favourably upon some alleviation of the severity of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991.
We are now in the fourth year of the operation of the Act. The Government have no wish, or no intention, of tabling any amendments to the 1991 Act. Therefore the attempts that are made to make changes in the Bill are met with blank refusal to entertain anything that means legislation to alter the terms of the Act. The truth of the matter is that the Government are politically too weak to face the possible criticisms they would meet from the tabloid press if they weakened the Act in any way. They want to stick to the doctrine that the greater the severity
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of the punishment, the greater the deterrent. That philosophy has governed the policy of the Home Office on criminal law for some time.
There are two views on that. It is arguable whether in fact members of the public who are owners of dogs which may come within the terms of the 1991 Act are disposed to use stratagems and arguments and devices to escape their obligations, unless one takes into account that there is a definite sentence of death provided for for offences under the Act. I do not believe that that is a greater deterrent than if we were to seek a little more co-operation.
This clause proposes to do one thing and one thing only: to remove the mandatory sentence of death from the 1991 Act, to sweep it away entirely from the mandate given to magistrates in England and Wales and to sheriffs in Scotland. Clause 1 of the Bill deals with the abolition of the death penalty and in particular with the alternatives that are provided in Clause 1 to mandatory destruction in Section 1 of the 1991 Act. It would still be possible for the court to issue an order for destruction but it would be in its own judgment, not under mandate. It would not be required to do it, as it is under the present Act. The power would rest with them in suitable cases to order the destruction of a dog. I am dealing now with the pit bull terrier aspect of the problem. Equally, in their own judgment, they could decide that an option should be given to the owner of exemption under the conditions already involved for the exemption index, and on completion of all the treatment necessary to qualify for that.
In those circumstances, it seems that a suitable alternative is on offer to those on whom otherwise a mandatory death sentence would be imposed. There are difficulties of administration about this, but I do not see any reason why they should not be overcome. For example, it would require that the index of exemptions which already exists and which was closed on 31st August 1991 should be available to be reopened for particular dogs on particular occasions on an order of a court. That responsibility for opening the index would rest with the Home Secretary. It is important that the Home Secretary should have the power to admit late entry to the index in order that such cases can be provided for.
We believe that the powers exist. At any rate, the noble Baroness, Lady Wharton, will move an amendment to ensure that the power will rest in the hands of the Home Secretary to reopen the register to admit cases selected by the court for this treatment. This would be more humane and in particular it would be so appropriate to most of the cases that are coming to the courts at the present time. Those cases do not concern pit bull terriers: they are crosses. They are of the type provided for in the Act, and dogs of the type known as pit bull terriers face the same penalty under Section 1 of the Act as a pit bull terrier itself.
I think any expert will advise the Home Office that there is the greatest difficulty in many cases in deciding whether a dog is of the type of a pit bull terrier. If it is of the type, then at the present time an automatic issue of a destruction order is made. The courts, by a majority of magistrates at any time coming to the conclusion that

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a dog is of the type, are thereby obliged to issue a destruction order. That is the present position. The cases that are being fought in the courts at the present time are those where owners are disputing that their dogs qualify for the death sentence on the grounds of being of the type. It is in such cases where there may be actually a division of opinion in the court itself, and certainly in most cases a division of opinion between experts who believe they can identify dogs of the type and classify them with some confidence.
Some dogs are having destruction orders imposed upon them on the decision of a stipendiary magistrate sitting alone and hearing the case alone. It is a peculiar coincidence that on the occasion of the Second Reading of the Bill a message came from a court in Scotland which was making some very harsh criticisms of the Act. This morning in the Glasgow Herald we find another criticism of the Act by the sheriff court in a particularly difficult case where a young man pleaded guilty to being in possession of an unregistered pit bull terrier but later sought leave to change his plea, was granted leave by the High Court, went back to the sheriff court and has been acquitted of the charge made against him. It is an extraordinary situation which is arising and giving many grounds for criticism of the administration.
I think it is appropriate for me to add one word. If we do not get from the noble Baroness an indication of a more favourable approach to this matter, we shall have to seek other means of getting this issue brought before the public and before your Lordships' House. I refer in particular to the idea of a Select Committee of your Lordships to inquire whether this Bill should make progress. In the circumstances, we should then have evidence and we should be able to get information about the practical side of what has been going on for four years. In those circumstances, we should abandon the Bill later.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Baroness Wharton Baroness Wharton moved Amendment No. 1:
After Clause 1, insert the following new clause:
("Amendment of power to make exemption scheme
. After section 1(5) of the 1991 Act (which enables the Secretary of State to make a scheme exempting, subject to compliance with certain conditions, persons from the absolute prohibition against having possession or custody of pit bull terriers and other designated types of dogs) there shall be inserted—
"(5A) A scheme under subsection (5) above which specifies a time limit for the making of an application for exemption in respect of a dog shall make provision for an application to be made out of time in any case where a court has granted leave under section 4(1) (c) below for such a late application to be made." ").
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move Amendment No. 1. Clause 1, which we have just passed, cannot become effective if there is any doubt about the powers of the Home Secretary to reopen the list of exemptions in the case of particular dogs in certain cases which could be spared mandatory destruction by the provisions of this Bill. This amendment removes any doubt as to the powers of the Home Secretary to accept late entries to the list of exemptions—that is, dogs which comply with the conditions of Clause 1 and are ordered by the
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courts to do so. I should like to make it clear that dogs will only be given late entry to the exemption list by the courts from whom this Bill removes mandatory sentencing under the principal Act and returns to the courts their historic right to exercise some discretion within this area of their jurisdiction.
No dog dealt with under this Bill will be returned home without satisfying all the conditions which apply to all other dogs granted exemption under the 1991 Act. Only neutered dogs given the full treatment for exemption will be returned to their owners. The dogs concerned will be given late entry to the exemption list under this Bill. This amendment makes sure that the Home Secretary has the necessary power to enable that to be done when he receives an order from the court to that effect. For the removal of any doubt about that, I beg to move this amendment.
Lord Hayter: In supporting the noble Baroness, Lady Wharton, in a way my thoughts go back to an earlier part of this evening when we had a debate on the relationship between local government and the national government. In the context of this Bill we are really debating the relationship of local magistrates with that of the national government once again. It has been made clear that we are trying to do the best we possibly can to make sure that there will be no repetition of appalling accidents which sometimes happen in the context of dangerous dogs. That is why we have gone out of our way—I am told, perhaps unnecessarily, legally—to make sure that the Secretary of State has a position in relation to this Bill. I am glad to support the amendment.
Lord Leigh: Speaking as an owner of a Staffordshire bull terrier, occasionally mistaken as a pit bull terrier, the whole point of not giving discretion against the mandatory death sentence is that it penalises the good owner as well as the bad. No breed of dog can be classified as bad. More often than not it is the owner who should be put down, not the dog.
Pit bull terriers are in fact an outcross of Staffordshire bull terriers who are reared and kept by the Staffordshire miners—who are now few and far between—especially for fighting. It is how the dog is brought up that determines how its character is going to develop. My "Staffy" is called Sir Caspar Weinberger, who I got as a four-month old puppy from Grantham, so perhaps I should have called him, "Thatcher". But with all due respect to the noble Baroness, I thought at that time it was too obvious and so I called him "Caspar Weinberger" after the American senator who was very popular then and in all the news bulletins.
A fellow American who claims to be a cousin of mine, alleged that he knew the real Caspar Weinberger and took back a photograph of my dog to show his namesake. I did not then hear from my cousin, who had previously been a regular correspondent, for nearly three years; but out of the blue he sent me a card last Christmas. There must be a lesson in that somewhere. I am trying to reply to him and other overseas friends, with a general letter to cover Christmas, etcetera, but I admit that I have not managed it yet. Perhaps this speech will prod me into action.

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Be that as it may, my Caspar Weinberger has the sweetest nature and in Putney, where I am now domiciled, it is not me or my health who the locals enquire after, it is always Caspar, which makes his owner feel quite jealous. In fact, many of the locals call out his name at distances up to 100 yards or so when they see him approaching with me, provided he is loose on the common. I try—I do not always succeed —to greet everybody I see on a regular basis. Sometimes strangers approach me and ask, "Is he dangerous?" or similar words, to which I always reply, "He will not hurt you, but he might kill you with kindness". He has a fearfully long tongue, but all he wants to do is lick you.
Caspar has been police guard dog, trained by a top professional dog trainer who has won the Grand National of dog training on several occasions. He had never trained a Stafford before, but he told me that Caspar had the hardest grip of any dog he had ever trained. The dog trainer reckoned that if anyone attacked me, or any member of my family, they would be dead in a minute-and-a-half if Caspar got a grip on them.
I have met two pit bull terriers and their owners on separate occasions. One was nasty and vicious, and his owner appeared the same. The other pit bull was a lovely dog and the owner, on brief acquaintance, appeared a nice chap, too. Some dogs have a blemish or a quirk in their character. I also had a Rottweiler called Argos B. Eagleburger—I was heavily into the American Senate at that time—which I brought up from a puppy with Caspar and they were inseparable. They were both full dogs and they used to spend most of their time buggering each other.
Unfortunately, although he was like a great cuddly bear most of the time, he had a quirk which is common to that breed—so I was told by my vet—which meant that he occasionally went berserk. After he had attacked a third blameless dog in the park in the space of two years, I had to have him dispatched to his forefathers as I feared that it might be a child next.
There must be an escape clause in this Bill to protect the innocent owner. I hope that I have shown by my action in the case of my Rottweiler that responsible owners should be given discretion from the wholesale slaughter of their friends and pets. After all, dogs are said to be man's best friend and Caspar Weinberger vies with my wife as mine.
8.45 p.m.
The Viscount of Falkland: From these Benches I support the main drift of this clause which is that the Act should have, by common consent throughout the country among people who have any interest and care about dogs, a discretion given to the courts in order to decide whether dogs, in both Part I and III of the Act, should be destroyed.
What the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, just said is very useful because when this legislation came about—prompted, quite rightly, by an enormous outcry in the popular press because of unfortunate incidents involving very serious injury to people, and in particular children—there was a general feeling that all was not well in the dog world and that legislation was required.
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Personally, I do not argue with the motivation behind the Government's legislation in this area and neither do I disagree with the RSPCA which has expressed publicly the view that they wish that pit bull terriers did not exist. Understandably, the Government were much moved by the fact that many of the pit bull terriers were brought here expressly for fighting and were often used by criminal and irresponsible elements in quite improper ways, such as a form of protection against police raids in search of drug dealing.
As has been shown, the reality is that there are responsible owners like the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, who own pit bull terriers and who are responsible owners. They have little or no trouble with them, particularly as they are now subject to the provisions of the Act, which are very rigorous and, some may say, draconian.
I would only disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, when he says that the Government must be concerned about the reaction of the popular press if they accept the new clause. I do not agree with that because most of the popular newspapers which previously urged the Government to act are now carrying stories expressing great concern about cases where dogs have been taken into custody and given the mandatory sentence for infringements where there has been evidence that certain special situations arose, such as a muzzle being removed or a dog not being registered according to the Act. In the view of most people, that is where discretion should have been allowed to apply. That is what the new clause is all about. I support it, and I hope that the Government will do likewise.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: The procedures of this House allow for debate between Second Reading and the Motion that the Bill do now pass only on specific issues: amendments before the House and, at Committee stage, the Motion that the clause stand part of the Bill. Therefore, I must ask for the indulgence of the Committee if I take the opportunity of this amendment to refer back to something that my noble friend Lord Houghton said on the Motion that Clause 1 stand part of the Bill because I think that it is important and raises an issue that has arisen since Second Reading. Specifically, my noble friend said that he thought that the issue behind the Bill ought to be referred to a Select Committee of the House in order to enable the issues to be considered in a way that is not easy to achieve through Public Bill procedures.
I am advised that on page 95 of the Companion is the provision that Public Bills may be committed to Select Committees other than Public Bill Committees at any stage between Second and Third Reading. There is no Motion of that kind before the House, but I thought that it would be as well for me to put on the record the fact that my noble friend would be entirely within his rights if he sought at any stage between now and Third Reading to move that the Bill be committed to a Select Committee. That would be entirely in order.
Following that, I think it would be helpful if that were the case because I have had the benefit of an enormously helpful letter from the Minister, dated 20th March, following Second Reading and my request that there should be better statistics about the practical workings of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. I express my gratitude now to the noble Baroness—I have not done so in the form

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of a written reply—for the care that she and her officials have taken in seeking to provide such evidence as is available. However, at the end of that exercise, the evidence is not conclusive. It indicates to me that, on the whole, the Act is working well and that the provisions—the "draconian" provisions, as they have been described—may well have proved necessary. However, there is enough room for doubt and enough room for discussion of the evidence to make me say that if my noble friend were to move at any time that the Bill should be committed to a Select Committee other than a Public Bill Committee, I personally, speaking from this Dispatch Box, would support him.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Blatch): Perhaps I may respond briefly to the helpful point which has just been made by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh. It would be wrong of me to pre-empt the response of the House to such a Motion and, in the absence of such a Motion, I do not wish to do that at this stage. The noble Lord is absolutely right—it would be for the House to make a determination. As is the convention in your Lordships' House, on behalf of Her Majesty's Government I shall not oppose the amendment.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: I think that we are getting into a bit of a tangle in terms of order. The Question before the Committee at present is, as far as I can gather, that relating to the new clause which is to follow Clause 1 and which was moved by my noble friend Lady Wharton. The Question that the new clause be added to the Bill has not yet been put, so we are diverting from the mainstream of the discussion on that new clause to deal with other matters—and I am bound to take responsibility for having raised them myself. The new clause that we are considering at the moment is intended to give the Home Secretary the power to reopen the index of exemptions which was closed on 31st August 1991 by opening it on an order of a court given to him for particular cases brought forward under the new Clause 1 of the Bill—
Baroness Blatch: I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. As I made it clear that I shall not oppose the amendment, it is my understanding that the Committee will probably accept it. But, again, it would be presumptuous of me to pre-empt the outcome of the decision.
Baroness Wharton: Finally, perhaps I may thank the Minister for her response and all noble Lords who have spoken. I commend the amendment to the Committee.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 2 agreed to.
The Viscount of Falkland The Viscount of Falkland moved Amendment No. 2:
After Clause 2, insert the following new clause:
("Transitional provisions
.—(1) This Act shall apply in relation to cases where proceedings have been instituted before, as well as after, the passing of this Act.
(2) In a case where, before the passing of this Act—

(a) the court has ordered the destruction of a dog in respect of which an offence under section 1, or an aggravated offence under section 3(1) or (3), of the 1991 Act has been committed, but

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(b) the dog has not been destroyed,

that destruction order shall not have effect but the case shall be remitted to the court for reconsideration and the court shall make any order in respect of that dog (including an order for its destruction) that it has power to make under section 4 of the 1991 Act, as amended by section 1 above.").
The noble Viscount said This new clause follows logically on the new clause that we have just debated. It gives the owners of dogs who have already been sentenced by the courts at the time when the amended Act comes into force the right to seek the discretion of the court under the terms of the amended Act. That will achieve a total absence of mandatory destruction—not only for new cases, but for cases which are already going through the courts. I beg to move.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: The new clause deals with the transitional arrangements. They are new to this Bill, but they were included in the Bill that was passed by the House last Session. The reason why the transitional arrangements were left out of this Bill was that we decided to shorten the Bill in the hope that in the ballot for Private Member's Bills in the House of Commons an honourable Member would take up the Bill and ventilate its provisions in that House. We thought that it might help if the complications of the transitional arrangements were not included in the Bill originally, but introduced at Committee stage. Therefore, we have to introduce into this Bill the transitional arrangements that were in last year's Bill. They are set out in the new clause which we seek to insert after Clause 2.
We must have transitional arrangements otherwise we shall not be able to deal with the dogs which are already in police custody or going through the courts. The transitional arrangements provide that all dogs which are in police custody, which have been tried and upon which a verdict has been given shall not undergo the sentence of death whatever stage their case has reached. They shall have the right to return to the court for consideration of applying to them the option that Clause 1 proposes to give to all future cases involving pit bull terriers.
Under the transitional provisions, no further mandatory destruction orders shall be carried out. Any destruction orders that are issued will be dealt with by the courts to which reference was made in deciding whether the mandatory destruction order should be confirmed in the independent judgment of the court or whether the option of being granted exemption under Clause 1 should be applied to them.
The process sounds more complicated than it is, but it amounts to the following. Anyone on whose dog a mandatory death sentence has been pronounced should be able to appeal against that and seek the option that is given to all new cases that the courts decide. That is a simple act of justice and not of retrospective action under the conditions of the old law.
My noble friend Lord Falkland, who moved the amendment, provides for that and there is no need to vary the measure as provision is provided for all cases. Nothing is automatic. The decision of the court would be needed to decide the future of dogs already waiting on death row and so bring to an end some of the most

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tiresome and grievous cases that have been before the courts for many years. Tomorrow a case will come before the court involving the dog, Dempsey, who has been in police custody since the end of 1991. The case is not finished yet.
If the Bill had been passed and were available for action we could have asked for such a case to be referred back to the court to decide whether the death penalty should be reimposed or whether the option of being made a registered dog should be applied. I hope that the Committee will support Amendment No. 2, which contains the transitional provisions.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 3 agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with amendments.

Proceeds of Crime Bill
9.4 p.m.
Lord Chesham: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
When I was asked whether I would take this Bill through your Lordships' House I thought that it would have some humourous reflection on my Antipodean past. I am not certain that that was not so. However, crime, and organised crime in particular, is one of the greatest menaces facing this country and the international community generally. Therefore, I am proud to have this opportunity to take forward a Bill which impacts so directly on all forms of serious crime.
This House is justifiably most grateful to the honourable Member for Exeter, who was lucky enough to be successful in the Private Member's Ballot, for bringing forward the Bill in another place and for piloting it so skilfully and successfully through that place. If a real impact is to be made in the war against crime there must be determined action on many fronts. The enforcement agencies must have the investigatory powers that they need to bring offenders to justice. The courts must be able to impose tough prison sentences where appropriate and, equally importantly, strong powers of confiscation must be available to deprive criminals of the proceeds of their crimes.
The Bill addresses the investigatory and confiscatory elements of the problem. There is the clear moral imperative that crime must not pay and must be seen not to pay. There is also the deterrent effect of confiscation. Criminals will not relish the prospect of a long prison sentence if they have no nest-egg to look forward to on their release.
Additionally, there is an increasingly and worryingly important practical element to confiscation: the need to stop professional and organised criminals from reinvesting their profits in ever more lucrative criminal operations and activities.
The Bill amends Part VI of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, which already provides the courts with the power to confiscate the proceeds of all serious offences, other than drug trafficking and certain terrorist offences which are dealt with in separate legislation. The necessity for
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such amendment is that Part VI of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 has not worked effectively to deprive criminals of their proceeds. All too often we read reports in the media about criminals who have flouted the law and managed to retain large sums of money accumulated from crime. The same depressing picture is painted by the Government's own statistics which show that in the financial year 1993–94, only £265,600 was realised by confiscation orders under Part VI of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. By way of comparison, some £5.3 million was realised from drug trafficking confiscation orders for the same period.
The amount confiscated barely scratches the surface of the profits which are being made from crime, other than drug trafficking; for example, from crimes such as the trade in pornography, fraud, corruption and from forms of theft, such as car rigging, from which we know millions of pounds are being made. Something must be done to reassure the public that criminals are not being allowed to get away with the proceeds of their crimes.
I stress that the fundamental principle of confiscation orders under the 1988 Act, as amended by this Bill, remains intact. An order can be made only following a conviction. Broadly speaking, the Bill extends to crime generally the more effective confiscation scheme currently applicable to drug trafficking, subject to a number of important safeguards to which I shall turn in due course. It provides more effective powers from the start to the finish of the confiscation process, from specialised powers for the police and Customs at the investigative stage to more effective confiscation procedures in the courts and improved enforcement of confiscation orders once they have been made.
I should like now to deal with the main provisions in some detail. The first of the two key provisions of the Bill is contained in Clause 1. I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to the changes effected by the clause to the Criminal Justice Act 1988. It contains two very important changes to that Act. First, the courts are obliged to make a confiscation order in the full amount of the defendant's benefit or the amount of realisable property available for confiscation, where that is less.
I am afraid that there is some evidence, referred to in the Home Office report on which this Bill is based, that the courts have not always made a confiscation order even in cases where one was clearly merited or has made an order in an amount lower than the defendant's benefit from crime. I do not believe that it is acceptable for the legislation to permit a defendant to retain any of the proceeds of crime.
The obligation on the courts as to the amount of the confiscation order would be reduced only in the circumstances in which the court is satisfied that a victim of any relevant criminal conduct has instituted or intends to institute civil proceedings against the defendant in respect of any loss, injury or damage sustained in connection with that conduct.
The second important change is that it will now be possible for the courts to make a confiscation order under Part VI of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 for less than £10,000. Until now, criminals have known themselves to be secure from such an order if it appears that they have benefited from crime to the tune of less than £10,000 or

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have retained less than £10,000 worth of their ill-gotten gains. That was always an artificial threshold. I am sure that your Lordships will welcome this change. There will undoubtedly be cases where a confiscation order in an amount lower than £10,000 is appropriate.
At present, Part VI of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 enables the courts to confiscate only the proceeds of any offences of which a person has been convicted, thus including the proceeds of any offences taken into consideration by the court in the same proceedings. That is the root cause of the weakness of the confiscatory powers in the 1988 Act and explains why so little has been confiscated since the Act came into effect in 1989.
The difficulty is that in many cases the offences charged and for which there are convictions represent only a minute proportion of those actually committed by the offender. For example, it is an offence to produce one pornographic video. A pornographer may be producing thousands of videos per month but when he is arrested, he will probably be charged with only a few offences by way of specimen counts. The consequence is that the court can confiscate only the proceeds of the specimen offences which represent only a very small proportion of the criminal's true profits. That is wrong and the fundamental purpose of the Bill is to correct that situation.
The drug trafficking legislation overcomes the difficulty of multiple offences by enabling the court to assume that the property which a defendant holds or which has passed through a defendant's hands in the previous six years is the proceeds of crime. The defendant is then required to account for its lawful origin, otherwise an amount equal to the assumed proceeds may be confiscated.
Those provisions were regarded as quite radical when they were first proposed a decade ago. But they have since worked well, and fairly, in practice in relation to the drug trafficking legislation. I am convinced that those provisions should be extended so that they can be used against crime generally. The relevant provisions are to be found in Clause 2.
Because the Bill bites on acquisitive crime generally, Clause 2 takes a slightly different approach from that to be found in the drug trafficking and terrorism legislation. Clearly one would not wish the strong powers encompassed in Clause 2 to be brought to bear in trivial cases and the Bill incorporates a number of safeguards to prevent that from happening. First, under drug trafficking legislation, the court has no option but to make all the assumptions set out in that legislation in respect of a defendant's property. Under the Bill, the court will have the discretion as to whether it makes one or more assumptions—or, indeed, any at all—in a particular case.
A second important safeguard is that the court will only be able to make the assumptions where the prosecutor tenders written notice that the case is an appropriate one for them to be made. The third safeguard is that offenders appearing before the courts for the first time and convicted of a single offence are explicitly excluded from the powers. The assumptions will arise under the Bill where the defendant has a previous conviction of an acquisitive offence, or is convicted of two or more acquisitive offences in the present proceedings.
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Those vital provisions were examined in detail in Committee in the other place. I have to say that the general feeling was that the Bill as originally drafted was over-cautious. For example, it was suggested in Committee that the courts should be required to make the assumptions as in the drug trafficking legislation. In the event, that particular proposal was not taken forward, but Clause 2 was amended.
In its original form, Clause 2 enabled the assumptions to be made if the defendant had been convicted of four or more acquisitive offences in the same proceedings— a figure reflecting the number of sample charges which frequently appears on the indictment. That threshold was felt to be too high and the number of offences for which a person must be convicted has been reduced from four to two.
That is the heart of the Bill. I have spoken at some length to the first two clauses and so I shall address the remaining clauses more briefly, which I am sure will be to everyone's relief, although they contain some very interesting and useful measures.
As I mentioned, the Bill provides more effective powers from the beginning to the end of the confiscation process; that is to say, from the initial investigation into the proceeds of crime to the enforcement of the confiscation orders. Although the new investigative powers are to be found towards the end of the Bill, it may be convenient for your Lordships if I deal with them before the other important provisions as, in practice, the investigative process obviously precedes confiscation.
The police and Customs will, in most cases, wish to carry out a financial investigation into whether a person has benefited from crime, or into the extent of any proceeds of crime and their whereabouts. Clause 11 enables them to obtain by means of a production order issued by a circuit judge any relevant material, such as bank records, to assist them in such an investigation. That power is already available in the drug trafficking legislation. Until now, the enforcement authorities have had to rely on powers provided by Schedule 1 to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. From the point of view of asset tracing, the new clause represents a considerable improvement on the powers in the 1984 Act because it will enable material to be collected at a very early stage of a financial investigation.
Clause 12 also emulates the drug trafficking legislation in enabling our enforcement agencies to obtain a search warrant at an early stage of a financial investigation. Clause 13 will enable materials to be obtained from government departments under circumstances where it is currently only possible to do so in the case of drug trafficking. Taken together, those new powers represent a very useful package. I know that they will find strong favour with financial investigators in particular.
I have already spoken about the confiscation process itself, so I shall move on to the effect of the Bill on the enforcement of confiscation orders made under Part VI of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. At present, the service of a term of imprisonment in default of payment of a confiscation order expunges the order and the defendant is no longer required to pay the order. In effect, the defendant is provided with a choice between paying the order or serving a term of imprisonment. In many cases,

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that term would be served by a person who is already serving a substantial term of imprisonment anyway. That defeats the whole purpose of confiscation: there should not be any option between paying or not paying.
Therefore, Clause 8 of the Bill allows the confiscation order to be enforced regardless of the fact that the defendant has served a term in default of payment. Clause 9 also tightens up confiscation order enforcement by preventing criminals from benefiting from delaying payment and thus drawing interest on their ill-gotten gains. Clauses 6 and 7 allow the prosecutor to return to the court within six years of the defendant's conviction to obtain a revaluation of the confiscation order where new evidence comes to light to show that the defendant's benefit was greater than previously thought.
Clause 14 was added to the Bill in another place. It remedies a defect in the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1989 and the Criminal Justice (International Co-operation) Act 1990 by making it quite clear that a restraint order may be obtained from the High Court in this country in advance of a restraint or forfeiture order being made in a country overseas. It is clearly very important that in terms of international co-operation swift action should be available in this country to prevent a criminal from dissipating his ill-gotten gains.
In conclusion, this Bill narrows the gap between measures currently available to confiscate the proceeds of drug trafficking and the much more limited powers available in respect of other, equally lucrative, crimes. So wide a gap is not defensible, and that was certainly the view of honourable Members on all sides in the other place. As some noble Lords will be aware, the reception accorded there to this Bill was particularly warm, and I firmly hope that your Lordships will see it in a similar light. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.— (Lord Chesham.)
9.20 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, we support this Bill. I do so without a great deal of difficulty because I was involved in the earlier debates which we had in this House on the measure to empower the courts to confiscate the assets of convicted drug smugglers. Indeed on that occasion, like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, I did not think that that measure went far enough. Subsequently there have been some improvements to that legislation which I welcome.
Since then we have also had the 1988 Criminal Justice Act which enables the courts to seize the proceeds of criminal activities of people convicted of other indictable offences. As the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, has said, this Bill goes significantly further than the 1988 Act. It imposes a duty on the court, on the application of the Crown Prosecution Service, to determine whether a defendant has benefited from a course of criminal conduct, and if so, to decide whether it is appropriate to make a confiscation order. This can be done only—as the noble Lord reminded us a few minutes ago—where there have been convictions for previous relevant offences, or where the defendant has
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been convicted of at least two in the current proceedings. That is fine as far as we are concerned. But having said that, I want to ask two questions of the noble Baroness because, with great respect to Sir John Hannam and the noble Lord, this is a Home Office Bill, drafted by Home Office lawyers and the parliamentary draftsmen. I welcome that because I would certainly not necessarily be quite so enthusiastic about a genuine Private Member's Bill dealing with issues as complex as those which are set out in this measure.
The questions which I want to put to the noble Baroness concern two particular areas. First, there is the issue of monitoring and the guidelines. The colleague of the noble Baroness in the House of Commons, Mr. Maclean, told the House of Commons on 31st March that the Home Office intended to be closely involved with the CPS in the formulation of the guidelines. Apparently, the prosecution authorities are to be asked to monitor the kind of cases that are to be dealt with under Clause 2 of this Bill. I welcome that, as I do Mr. Maclean's statement of 31st March, when he said in another place that the Government do not want the powers to be used in trivial cases.
It would clearly be foolish in the extreme to spend an immense amount of public money on CPS fees and those of other lawyers and accountants in order to secure the seizure of a few hundred pounds' worth of a defendant's assets. But if we are to ensure that ill-judged decisions are not taken by, say, a rather junior and inexperienced prosecutor, what undertaking can the noble Baroness give us about the manner in which these decisions will be taken within the Crown Prosecution Service? As the noble Baroness may be aware, we were given clear assurances on this question when we discussed this precise issue, in reality, on the Bail (Amendment) Act which was a Private Member's Bill which came from the House of Commons and to which we devoted quite a significant amount of time. We had to dispose of a number of formidable difficulties while discussing the Bill.
That particular Act gives a prosecutor the power to require a defendant to be held in custody for a limited period until a judge has determined the prosecutor's appeal against a magistrates' court decision to grant bail. On the instance of the prosecutor, a person can, in those circumstances, be held in custody, notwithstanding the provisional decision of the magistrates' court to give him bail.
On that occasion assurances were given on behalf of the CPS that such decisions would not be made by a prosecutor who was not adequately experienced. If we are to avoid misjudgments being made as a result of this legislation, can a similar undertaking be given today? In other words, can we be sure that the people who make the decision to make an application of this character have substantial prosecutorial experience behind them?
On the general question of monitoring, how precisely is this to be done? Will it simply be a review by senior management, or is it intended to have a limited research programme? Perhaps the noble Baroness will deal with that matter when she replies to the debate in a few moments.

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Secondly, I want to turn to the last sentence of the Bill's explanatory memorandum. Here it is stated:
"The Bill is not expected to have any effect on public service manpower".
That is a remarkable statement. In my view, it does not happen to be an accurate statement. The term "public service manpower" must include the police. The noble Lord, Lord Chesham, gave an indication of the way in which the police would approach the matter as a result of the Bill and the substantial inquiries that would take place. As I indicated, I am not opposed to the Bill; I am in favour of it. However, to say that it will have no effect on public service manpower is manifestly nonsensical, unless it is argued that public service manpower does not include the police.
On a number of occasions there will have to be significant police inquiries, just as there have been in relation to drug trafficking offences. I have had an opportunity to talk to a number of police officers who have been involved in following up cases where drug traffickers have been convicted. I am aware of the immense amount of work which has to be done in order to recover some of those assets. It is quite obvious that the burden of work in these cases can be substantial.
That being so, how can we be told that there is no effect on public service manpower? It would be better to say bluntly that there is an effect, because I regret to say that when many police officers see this Bill there will be derisive laughter at the suggestion that it will have no effect on their resources. Therefore, I very much hope that the noble Baroness will deal with this question, because, as I indicated, having seen the amount of work that is involved in tracking down the assets of drug traffickers, I am clear that there will have to be a significant amount of work in relation to following up the people who have been convicted and where applications have been made as laid down by the Bill.
On this particular point, I fear that there is a temptation for all governments of all political persuasions to minimise the additional calls on resources when they discuss legislation which they favour. I very much hope that that experience will not be repeated in relation to this piece of legislation.
I have made it clear that I am firmly in favour of the Bill. I believe that it is highly desirable, but I should like answers to the points that I have made.
9.30 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the Opposition are totally in favour of the Bill and so I do not need to detain your Lordships long. We are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, for introducing it in this House. I can confirm that the only interventions made from Opposition Benches in another place were in support of the Bill and the principles underlying it. There was one exception. There was considerable irritation on the Opposition Front Bench about the filibustering tactics of three Conservative Back-Benchers who were not particularly opposed to the Bill but were determined to see off another Private Member's Bill which was to follow. They therefore took up Committee sessions for
1018
two-and-a-half hours with utterly irrelevant amendments which were a complete waste of parliamentary time. I do not say that simply in criticism of behaviour in another place. That would be improper. I say it simply in the hope that a comparable experience will not befall your Lordships.
The only point that I have to make about the Bill is in confirmation of what the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said. It is a Home Office Bill. It follows a Home Office report. It has been drafted by the Home Office and parliamentary draftsmen. It seems to me an abuse of the procedures of this House that the very scarce parliamentary time available for Private Members' Bills in another place— there is less restriction in this House—should be taken up by Bills for which the Government themselves should be taking responsibility. I regret that it was necessary for the Bill to come to us in this way rather than as a government Bill, as it should be.
Nevertheless, the intentions underlying the Bill, and I am sure the drafting of it, are an advance on the Criminal Justice Act 1988. I hope that the provisions will achieve real benefits, although we must remember that only 2 per cent. of crimes result in convictions before the courts. Therefore the potential scope of the Bill is significantly limited. However, in so far as it will serve a useful purpose, as I believe it will, we support the Bill.
9.31 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, this has been a short but interesting debate and I wish to put on record at the outset that the Government are strongly supportive of the Bill. As has already been said, it is a Government-backed Bill. I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Chesham for taking us so clearly and painstakingly through the details of the Bill. That has relieved me of the duty of repeating what he said.
The Bill takes forward proposals contained in a Home Office report published in 1992. The report in question was the second report of the Home Office Working Group on Confiscation, an interdepartmental working group established in the wake of the 1989 Home Affairs Committee's inquiry into drug trafficking. The working group's first report, published in May 1991, reviewed the operation of the Drug Trafficking Offences Act 1986 and made a number of recommendations for improvements. Those were taken forward in the Criminal Justice Act 1993 and ultimately consolidated in the Drug Trafficking Act 1994, which came into force earlier this year.
The working group's second report examined Part VI of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 and made a series of recommendations and proposals for amending that legislation, many of which are now being taken forward in this Bill.
As your Lordships will see, the Bill is the product of long and methodical preparation. First, the drug trafficking confiscation legislation was reviewed and amended. Then the all crime confiscation legislation in Part VI of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 was reviewed, and a similar process of amendment is under way in this Bill. In this sense, the present Bill rounds off, and provides the culmination to a legislative process that goes back a decade.

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The Government are grateful to my noble friend Lord Chesham for agreeing to take forward this important measure. From the outset, the confiscation legislation has received wide support on all sides of the House. As my noble friend mentioned, this latest Bill was well received in another place, and I am grateful to noble Lords who have similarly given their support to the Bill this evening.
In his opening remarks, my noble friend expounded the main provisions of the Bill in some detail and I shall not detain your Lordships with a repetition of them. I would, however, pick up briefly his reference to the universal threat posed by organised crime. The provisions in the Bill which provide the enforcement agencies with new investigative powers have been drawn up specifically, like their predecessors in the drug trafficking legislation, so that they can be used here on behalf of agencies carrying out financial investigations outside this country. In this way, though it is not immediately obvious, the Bill will make its contribution to international co-operation against crime. I hope, more generally, that authorities overseas will study the Bill very carefully. Many of its provisions might provide a model for others.
It has been mentioned that this is a Private Member's Bill and it is important for me again to put on record that the Government brought forward a number of major criminal justice initiatives in recent years, not least the Criminal Justice Acts of 1991 and 1993 and last year's Criminal Justice and Public Order Act. The latter was rightly regarded as a measure of somewhat gargantuan proportions and the Government took the view, as a result, that a further criminal justice Bill in the present Session of Parliament should be avoided, if at all possible. It so happened that the provisions which now form the basis of the Bill were finalised in readiness for a criminal justice Bill this year, had there been one. The choice was between bringing them forward at a later date and thus delaying them, or finding some other way of enacting them. The Private Member's ballot offered a way forward and we must all be grateful to Sir John Hannam for choosing the Bill over and above the many other competing measures which he will no doubt have considered. I make absolutely no comment about his speech in another place.
I emphasise that the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 have not acted so as to deprive criminals of their ill-gotten gains as effectively as the Government had hoped. That point was made by my noble friend Lord Chesham. The Bill contains powerful measures to rectify the shortcomings in that Act. The criminals will find it much more difficult to accumulate and enjoy ill-gotten gains once the Bill comes into force. That is something which will be welcomed, not just by your Lordships but also by the public.
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The noble Lord, Lord Harris, referred to manpower. The Drug Trafficking Act 1994 which came into force on 3rd February 1995 no longer obliges the court to make a confiscation order, unless the prosecutor asks for one to be made. Fines will be imposed which will have a substantial effect on the police and court costs. Those savings will be used to operate the new confiscation hearings. If the noble Lord wishes to ask anything further on that, perhaps we can correspond later.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, of course I accept what the noble Baroness said. She is entirely right. The point I was making referred to the last sentence of the explanatory memorandum. We are not talking about costs in the normal sense but about manpower resources. The memorandum states that there will be no effect on manpower resources but, as I said a few moments ago, manifestly that cannot be true. The police will have to carry out inquiries and investigations. If they did not, there would be no purpose in having the legislation.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I happily agree with the distinction between whether there will be increased activity and whether the activity is a neutral cost when it comes to paying for it.
As to the guidelines, my understanding is that the guidelines are being drawn up by the CPS in consultation with other prosecuting authorities. They have not yet been completed and I understand that the cost for considering confiscation is around £10,000. It is expected that the guidelines will state that a confiscation order should not generally be sought when it is likely to realise less than £10,000. That point was well made by the noble Lord. It is anticipated that such a judgment will be made by a suitable senior official in the Crown Prosecution Service. I hope that the Bill will be given a Second Reading.
9.34 p.m.
Lord Chesham: My Lords, this has been a brief but interesting debate which has achieved a certain amount of clarification. I thank your Lordships warmly for the support which the Bill has received this evening. I commend the Bill and very much hope that the House will grant it a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Statute Law (Repeals) Bill [H.L.]
Reported from the Joint Committee with amendments, and re-committed to a Committee of the whole House; it was ordered that the Bill be printed as amended.
House adjourned at twenty-one minutes before ten o'clock.

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