Sitting of 4 December 1995

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

    Campbell Soups
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what approaches he has received from the Campbell Soups company about location in Wales. [1856]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Gwilym Jones): None.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: May I suggest to the Minister that, if Campbell Soups does knock on his door, he should avoid the company like the plague? Will he reflect on the fact that it paid £58.6 million for a highly profitable top-class company that was making an excellent product in my constituency and, within 11 weeks, announced the closure of the factory? Will he join me in calling on the people of Wales to boycott the products of the company, and in particular Campbell's soups? When they walk into a supermarket and see the product on the shelf, they must turn away and say, "That product is not for me." Customers should. boycott it until the decision affecting Maryport in my constituency is reviewed.
    Mr. Jones: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that if Campbell Soups was to make an application for financial assistance to the Welsh Office, we would look carefully at it, as we do any such application.

    Government Support
    Mr. Harry Greenway: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what level of per capita support is paid to Wales from central Government; what were the figures in May 1979 in current prices; and if he will make a statement.[1857]
    The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. William Hague): In 1993-94, the latest year for which figures are available, identifiable general Government expenditure in Wales was estimated to be £3,913 per head. Directly comparable figures are not available for 1979 because of changes in the .definition and coverage of identifiable territorial public expenditure. However, on the basis of the best available data, the figure for 1979-80 is estimated to be £2,791 per head at 1993-94 prices.
    Mr. Greenway: Does my right hon. Friend agree that those figures are remarkable? The Conservative Government have brought not only great material benefit to the people of Wales, but political and spiritual benefit. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the people of Wales would be very unwise to overturn this Conservative Government?
    Mr. Hague: My hon. Friend is as perceptive and right as ever. On the best available data, which I gave a few moments ago, spending per head in Wales is 40 per cent. higher in real terms than it was in 1979 and 13 per cent. higher per head than in England. Opposition Members sometimes call for still higher expenditure, but they had better think about how such calls fit with the lop tax rate called for by the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown).
    Mr. Ray Powell: Will the Secretary of State tell the House and the nation whether the figures he has just given to the House include the £2.5 billion that would come to Wales from the Treasury in normal circumstances—under the Barnett rules introduced in 1970?
    Mr. Hague: Yes. The figures include the money provided under the long-established formula that has most

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    recently been called the Barnett formula. The amount of money dealt with by the formula stands at 6.02 per cent. of spending elsewhere in the United Kingdom, and that continues to be the case.
    Mr. Sweeney: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the figures he has given today fully justify Wales having a Secretary of State at Westminster battling in the interests of Wales, rather than a useless assembly based in Cardiff?
    Mr. Hague: Yes. My hon. Friend underlines the importance of strong representation for Wales in this House and within the Government. It would certainly be undermined by the roomful of hot air that Opposition Members want to establish in Cardiff.
    Mr. Ron Davies: We would love to have a Secretary of State battling for Wales in Westminster—the trouble is that we do not.
    Will the Secretary of State confirm the figures in last week's Welsh Office press release that said that spending on his programmes in Wales for the coming financial year is to be cut by £100 million in real terms? Is it not also the case that the problems caused by the cuts are compounded by the inability of the Welsh Office to maximise support from the European Union? Is he aware that there is a massive backlog of applications to the objective 2 and objective 5b programmes and that millions of pounds of investment is being prejudiced by delays in his Department? Instead of wandering about Wales looking for photo opportunities, should not the Secretary of State spend more time sorting out the deficiencies in his Department?
    Mr. Hague: To deal with the point about objective 5b first, the coverage in the press today is misleading. There is no question of Wales losing in terms of resources provided through the European Community and there are no unnecessary delays within my Department. Next year, public expenditure in Wales overall will reach its highest level ever. There will not be a real cut of £100 million, because the proceeds from Housing for Wales will be £65 million, as the hon. Gentleman is aware. If he is dissatisfied with the proposed level of expenditure, it is incumbent on him to say what he thinks the level of expenditure should be. He is reticent on that, which would be understandable if it were not so unusual. It is time for him to tell the House how much he thinks should be spent in Wales next year.

    Inward Investment
    Mr. Wigley: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what plans he has to meet the chief executive of Invest in Britain to discuss his policy towards attracting inward investment into Wales.[1858]
    Mr. Hague: None at present, but my officials and the Welsh Development Agency are in regular contact with the Invest in Britain Bureau. I have been assured by the bureau that it does all it can to attract inward investment to Wales.
    Mr. Wigley: Is the Secretary of State aware that the number of new jobs provided, and existing jobs safeguarded, by inward investment in Wales dropped from 11.8 per cent. of the United Kingdom figure in 1992 to 5.6 per cent. in the last year for which figures are available? In those circumstances, does it not appear that
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    something is going wrong with the miracle that was happening in inward investment in Wales? Those working at the coal face, if I may use that term, feed back that Invest in Britain is increasingly becoming invest in England. Will he take a hard line with that body to ensure that we are not missing out by virtue of our successful propaganda 10 years ago?
    Mr. Hague: I am certainly aware that the figures for the past year or two have not been as good as those in previous years, although the figure that the hon. Gentleman quoted is the lowest possible figure that could be obtained by calculating the number of jobs safeguarded or created in different statistical ways. There is a more competitive environment in inward investment. That makes it all the more important for us to renew our efforts. I have been doing that during the past few months. I acknowledge the efforts that the hon. Gentleman made during his recent trip to the United States. I shall do my utmost to ensure that the Invest in Britain Bureau works for the whole of Britain, but I have no reason at the moment to think that it does not.
    Sir Wyn Roberts: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government's record on inward investment in Wales since 1979 is absolutely first class, thanks to the Invest in Britain Bureau, Welsh Development International and others? Will he give us an assurance that he will continue to give top priority to inward investment rather than to any distractions caused by the devolutionary diversions of the Labour party?
    Mr. Hague: Yes, I can give my right hon. Friend that assurance. Those devolutionary distractions would be damaging to the prospects for inward investment were they to be brought to fruition. As my right hon. Friend says, the bureau has done a great deal to encourage inward investment in the past—as has he, as have my predecessors and as has the position of the United Kingdom as an 'economy with lower taxes on companies and employment and less regulation than other European economies.
    Mr. Alan Williams: Will the Secretary of State bear it in mind that the imbalance is not only between England and Wales but within Wales? Will he talk to the Welsh Development Agency about the gross failure to bring much of the inward investment beyond Bridgend? Does he recognise that there is an astonishing imbalance in the amount of money and resources that come into my part of Wales, which can be rectified only by structural changes? Will he now consider reintroducing development area status for parts of south-west Wales?
    Mr. Hague: I understand the right hon. Gentleman's question. The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) is smiling about the success of Bridgend, but I should like to encourage the WDA and others to ensure that development takes place wherever we can encourage it—away from the M4 and A55 corridors as well as in those areas, where it has already been well established. That is one of our stated policies. We shall continue to try to attract inward investment to all parts of Wales, but I cannot give a commitment that the Government will review assisted area status generally in the foreseeable future.
    Mr. Jacques Arnold: Bearing it in mind that inward investment into the United Kingdom as a proportion of

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    that into the European Union is way ahead of what it should be in view of our population, is it not significant that, within the United Kingdom, Wales is way ahead? In both cases, is not that due to the conditions laid down by the Conservative Government?
    Mr. Hague: Yes. My hon. Friend is right. Since 1980, more than –7 billion of inward investment has come to Wales. The United Kingdom as a whole continues to be an international magnet for investment—because of the policies that the Government have pursued, and they are precisely the policies on tax, regulation and other matters which Opposition Members would be likely to change.
    Mr. Ron Davies: In reply to my previous supplementary question, the Secretary of State referred to a report in this morning's Western Mail about the delay in processing European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund—FEOGA—applications. That was not the question that I asked, although I am grateful for the answer. If the Secretary of State shares my concern about the need to get inward investment to rural Wales and to improve the economy of rural Wales, will he undertake to examine the further delays in his Department's processing of FEOGA applications? Will he confirm that Wales has been denied some £56 million of expenditure from the programme because of his personal failure to make available matching funding? Given that the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food makes the payments in England, and that the right hon. Gentleman's constituents in Richmond are therefore eligible for them, what justification does he have for denying them to my constituents in Wales?
    Mr. Hague: As I mentioned earlier, press coverage on the point is misleading. There is no question of Wales losing out on these resources. The overwhelming majority of applications in the first round, which were spoken of in the press, have secured the necessary public sector funding. I recognise, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, that the programme is a valuable opportunity for Wales and I am aware of the arrangements that operate elsewhere in the UK. If I think that any additional action is necessary to ensure that the most can be made of the resources, I shall make an announcement on Wednesday.

    Civil Service
    Mr. Flynn: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what new proposals he has to increase the number of civil service jobs in Wales.[1859]
    Mr. Gwilym Jones: The number of civil service jobs in Wales, as elsewhere in the United Kingdom, will be that necessary for the effective and efficient discharge of the relevant functions.
    Mr. Flynn: Why do Welsh Office Ministers constantly chant the comforting mantra, "inward investment" but never mention the taboo words, "outward divestment of jobs", which is a daily threat to the 30,000 civil service jobs that are being market tested and contractorised at the moment? The Welsh Office does not even measure outward divestment of jobs. What sense is there in allowing jobs that cost tens of millions of pounds to be brought to Wales as a result of regional aid to be put up for grabs so that they can be exported to elsewhere in the United Kingdom, to Dusseldorf or to Taiwan, to make
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    cheese-paring savings? Will the Minister give a guarantee that the turmoil of market testing in the civil service will not result in the loss of a single job to Wales?
    Mr. Jones: I just do not see why we should not be, as the hon. Gentleman suggests, proud of what we have achieved in securing inward investment for Wales. Year after year, we continue to punch above our weight—as my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) said—just as the United Kingdom outranks its competitors in Europe. I would take the hon. Gentleman's concerns on the subject more seriously if he did not so blindly adhere to job-destroying policies such as the European social chapter, to which he would quickly sign up.
    Mr. Robert G. Hughes: Did my hon. Friend slightly mishear the question of the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn)? Was not the hon. Gentleman trying to say that he congratulates the Government on the 10 per cent. fall in unemployment in his constituency in the past year?
    Mr. Jones: My hon. Friend is even more perceptive than I am. The hon. Gentleman was trying to point out that, in the past year, unemployment in the Newport travel-to-work area has fallen at a greater rate than it has the United Kingdom as a whole.
    Mr. Donald Anderson: The de-concentration of Whitehall jobs, such as happened with the creation of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in my constituency, is one of the few instruments that the Government have at their direct disposal. Have we not reached the point where the privatisation proposals have as their only certain feature—as with Welsh Water and South Wales Electricity—the destruction of jobs, just as there has been a swathe of destruction through civil service jobs in Wales?
    Mr. Jones: I stand by my comment earlier that I would take the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues rather more seriously if they were not such blind adherents to the European social chapter and to a Welsh Assembly that would impose extra taxation on the people of Wales and put up a no-entry sign to more welcome inward investment. How many present inward investors would start to change their minds about being in Wales because of those policies?

    Hill Livestock Compensatory Allowance
    Mr. Llwyd: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement about the proposed level of hill livestock compensatory allowance payments to farmers in Wales.[1860]
    Mr. Gwilym Jones: Against the background of the need to restrain public expenditure, which is of course paid for by the taxpayer, our decision to maintain the HLCA payments at their present rates demonstrates very firmly the Government's dedication to and support for the continuation of extensive farming in the hills and uplands of Wales.
    Mr. Llwyd: I thank the Minister for that—I suppose it was an answer. Does not the Minister realise that there was an 18 per cent. cut last year in the HLCA payments? Bearing in mind the dramatic increase in fodder prices and wintering, does he not realise that, on the

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    Government's own methodology, there is a clear case for an increase in this financial year? Will the Government reconsider the matter and, more importantly, stop treating the people of rural Wales with such contempt?
    Mr. Jones: I could point out to the hon. Gentleman that it is agreed that net farm income is expected to increase by 13 per cent. in the less-favoured areas during the current financial year. The issue that he will never have to face is the fact that, if one increases spending in any other area, one has to put up taxes or cut spending elsewhere. Which taxes would he increase and which services would he cut—the health service or other services?
    Mr. Alex Carlile: Bearing in mind the depth of disappointment over the reduction in real terms in HLCAs and also the concern about the future of livestock quotas, will the Minister remind the House of the most recent initiative taken by the Welsh Office specifically to assist the industry in hill farming areas?
    Mr. Jones: Perhaps I should remind the hon. and learned Gentleman about my right hon. Friend's decision to publish a rural White Paper about which we have been consulting extensively in Wales. We hope to come forward shortly with something that the hon. and learned Gentleman will welcome.

    Neath Hospital
    Mr. Hain: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what representations he has about obstetric services at Neath hospital.[1861]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Rod Richards): In addition to the meeting he and his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberavon( Mr. Morris) had with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and myself, eight.
    Mr. Hain: Is the Minister aware that people in Neath are desperately worried and angry about the way in which our hospital is being run down? We have lost the accident and emergency department, and now maternity is under threat. Can he reassure us all by giving a public commitment that he will back the health authority's recent decision to maintain fully fledged maternity and obstetric facilities at Neath? Why should mothers who, for generations, have been able to have their babies in Neath be forced to travel—in some cases over 20 miles—to Singleton hospital, itself at bursting point, as are all the hospitals in south-west Wales?
    Mr. Richards: I understand that no decision has yet been made on the development of maternity services at Neath general hospital. The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong in what he said about the hospital being run down. Very recently, seven new consultants have been appointed, five of whom are anaesthetists.

    Unemployment
    Mr. Roy Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the figure for male unemployment in Wales at the latest available date; and what is this figure expressed in percentage terms. [1862]
    Mr. Hague: In 0ctober 1995, the seasonally adjusted number of males on the claimant unemployment count in Wales was 82,700; or 11.1 per cent. of the male work force.
    Mr. Hughes: Do the Government recognise the damage that their policies are doing to Newport and
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    Gwent? For instance, the Secretary of State has recently vetoed the Newport barrage scheme, which could have done so much good for Newport and the surrounding area. At the same time as he has the audacity to talk about accountability, I understand that he is mindful to grant a licence to the obnoxious Browning Ferris waste disposal plant. If he did, he would be flying in the face of the wishes of the people of Newport. That is not accountability at all; it is totalitarianism.
    Mr. Hague: Unemployment in the hon. Gentleman's constituency has decreased by 12.7 per cent. in the past year; unemployment in Gwent has decreased by 2,000, or 11 per cent., in the past year and unemployment in Wales has decreased by 7,300, or 6.6 per cent., in the past year. I would therefore differ from the hon. Gentleman in his belief that policies that the Government have pursued are destroying jobs.
    Mr. John Marshall: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the level of unemployment in Wales is affected by the level of inward investment? Does he believe that the level of inward investment would be encouraged by a tax-raising Welsh assembly or by the adoption of a national minimum wage?
    Mr. Hague: No, I do not. We have succeeded in reducing unemployment in recent years because we have encouraged investment, because we have had lower taxes on employment than other countries in Europe and because we have had no truck with job-destroying measures such as a minimum wage or the social chapter.
    Mr. Rowlands: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his predecessor volunteered a specific initiative on male unemployment, especially in view of the serious amount of male economic inactivity? The initiative never came into being. Does the right hon. Gentleman intend to make a specific set of proposals to cope with that very serious problem in our communities?
    Mr. Hague: My predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), initiated the programme for the valleys, which has been followed by substantial reductions in unemployment in the valleys area. I am always very willing to discuss additional initiatives that might reduce unemployment, provided that they fit the overall framework that has been so successful in reducing unemployment recently.
    Mr. Dafis: Has the Secretary of State considered what the effect would be on unemployment in Wales if the rumours that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury proposes to close certain Welsh quangos and merge them with English ones were ever to come to fruition? Does he accept that, if there were any such proposals in relation to Tai Cymru, the Higher and Further Education Funding Council for Wales or the Countryside Council for Wales, there would be a furious reaction in Wales? Will he give us an assurance that he will ensure that any such move is blocked?
    Mr. Hague: I have no proposals to make at the moment about the future of any of the organisations that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, and I am not aware of any intentions on the part of my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary.
    Mr. Morgan: Has the Secretary of State read the Press Association report of this morning's press conference by

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    Welsh Water, following its takeover of Swalec, that 1,000 jobs are at risk from the merger? Will the Secretary of State therefore give the House an assurance that, in order to pay back the £700 million cash that Welsh Water will borrow to finance the takeover of Swalec, it will not resort to mass sackings of 1,000 of its own staff and electricity staff, or rape the Welsh environment by cutting its capital expenditure on new sewerage works or on meeting its legal statutory requirements to give Wales 50 European blue flag beaches by 2000, as previously agreed? Will the Secretary of State agree to ask the President of the Board of Trade to refer that bid to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission?
    Mr. Hague: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Director General of Fair Trading will consider that matter with the Director General of Electricity Supply and the Director General of Water Services, and will then give advice to my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade as to whether the bid should be referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. I shall ensure that all the opinions that are given to me are passed on to the Director General of Fair Trading.

    CD-ROM Technology
    Mr. Simon Coombs: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what progress is being made in the development of CD-ROM technology in Wales.[1863]
    Mr. Richards: As was evident at the recent multi-media conference in Cardiff, Wales has the potential to develop a very significant multi-media industry and I am sure that that will include CD-ROM technology.
    Mr. Coombs: Is my hon. Friend aware that Nimbus Technology and Engineering, whose plant at Cwmbran the Secretary of State for Wales recently visited, is one of the leading developers of CD-ROM technology in Europe? To what extent does he believe that his office can help the development of CD-ROM technology by the sponsorship of CD-ROM in schools in Wales?
    Mr. Richards: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State takes a close interest in multi-media and was impressed by what he saw, particularly the new hologram technology that prevents the copying of CDs. My hon. Friend is right: the Department offered£3 million for all primary schools in Wales to be kitted out with multi-media equipment. I am pleased to say that there has been a 100 per cent. take-up.

    Regional Affairs
    Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he next intends to represent his Department in the European Union's Council of Ministers to discuss regional affairs.[1864]
    Mr. Hague: When I consider that it is appropriate to do so.
    Mr. Jones: Is it true that no Secretary of State for Wales has ever visited the Council of Ministers to discuss regional funds for Wales? We have lost out to the tune of about £1 billion owing to our failure to achieve objective 1 status for parts of Wales when such matters were last discussed. Why does the Secretary of State—like
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    successive Secretaries of State—allow the Department of Trade and Industry to take the lead on such issues? Why does he not stand up for Wales's interests rather than allow the DTI to ride roughshod over our interests every time such matters are discussed?
    Next time such issues are discussed, will he insist that he, not the President of the Board of Trade, sits at the top table in Brussels—or will we have to wait until there is a Welsh Parliament to be properly represented in Europe?
    Mr. Hague: I shall, of course, consider attending meetings where there is a topic of special or exclusive interest to Wales. Ministers at Council meetings represent the whole of the United Kingdom, including Wales. The hon. Gentleman can see that I am not reluctant to go to Brussels and argue the Welsh position or the United Kingdom position. When there was a recent difficulty with the European Commission and £15 million of funds were blocked, I went to Brussels and discussed the matter. Two weeks later, the funds were unblocked. The hon. Gentleman will not find me backward in going to Brussels and arguing our case.

    National Health Service (Administrators)
    Lady Olga Maitland: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what further proposals he has for reducing the number of administrators in the NHS in Wales.[1865]
    Mr. Richards: There are measures already in place to reduce management costs, and the number of administrators in authorities, hospitals and community health services has stopped increasing. There will be a reduction of about one third in the number of core staff, who are mainly administrators, in the new health authorities over the next three years. The Government aim to reduce paperwork generally in the NHS, and expect that there will be a continuing decline in the number of administrators in health authorities and trusts.
    Lady Olga Maitland: I thank my hon. Friend for his helpful and encouraging reply, which shows his commitment to reducing administration and red tape. Will he also confirm that the health authorities have taken the hint and reduced their staffing levels by 11 per cent.—120 people? That is good news for patients because it means that there is more money for front-line hospital use.
    Mr. Richards: My hon. Friend is correct. The figures that she gave relate to a relatively short period—between 31 January 1994 and 31 October 1995. Those improvements have come about because, in 1994, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) introduced a programme to produce savings of £12.5 million over three years£6 million in the first year, £3.25 million in the second year and £3.25 million in the third year. In addition, the reorganisation of the health authorities in Wales will lead to recurring savings of £8 million or £9 million.
    Mr. Llew Smith: Will the Minister consider not just the number of administrators in the national health service, but Health Promotions in Wales and the misleading advice that it is giving parents regarding the possible health problems to children of the measles/rubella vaccination, which was given in November last year? That advice has caused considerable problems for children and parents such as my constituents, Mr. and Mrs. Gregory.
    Mr. Richards: I am sorry to hear about Mr. and Mrs. Gregory's case, but the Government are satisfied with the advice that we have been given based on extensive research. Such a vaccination programme has the potential to save tens of thousands of children from becoming very unwell.
    Rev. Martin Smyth: We appreciate the reduction in the number of administrators in Wales. Can the Minister confirm that under Government policy for the national health service we can look forward to that reduction spreading throughout the nation and that the money saved will definitely go towards patient care?
    Mr. Richards: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health, during his brilliant speech at the party conference in Blackpool, said that savings would be made in the rest of the national health service.

    Breast Cancer
    Mrs. Clwyd: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the incidence of breast cancer in Wales.[1866]
    Mr. Richards: Breast cancer rates in Wales have for many years been higher than those in England, though I am pleased to say that overall mortality from the disease fell by nearly 10 per cent. in Wales between 1988 and 1994. International studies suggest that differences in the rates between countries and regions are due to a combination of social, environmental and genetic factors.
    Mrs. Clwyd: That is not a sufficiently good explanation for the women in Wales who will die of breast cancer. We want to know why more women are dying of breast cancer in Wales than in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and why the disease is on the increase in Wales and on the decrease in the other parts of the United Kingdom. Does not the Minister realise that women are angry about the lottery of care and the quality of care, and because the Government appear not to care?
    Mr. Richards: Considerable research has been undertaken into the causes of the disease. It is unlikely that its increased incidence in Wales is being influenced by a new factor, undetected in previous studies. For that reason, we do not consider that research into incidence in particular areas would be of benefit. I remind the hon. Lady that the Government spent £3.8 million on breast cancer research in 1993-94. I am appalled that she should complain about the quality of care in our hospitals. That is an outrageous accusation.
    Mr. Merchant: While I accept that the increased incidence of breast cancer in Wales is a serious problem that needs addressing, will my hon. Friend nevertheless confirm that it is recognised in the higher spending on health per capita in Wales, which also takes into account other additional health problems in Wales.
    Mr. Richards: My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. We spend some 9 per cent. of GDP in Wales on health care. In addition to the £3:8 million that I quoted a moment ago, United Kingdom health departments are currently funding four studies into screening costing £5 million over five years. In 1992-93, health departments and the Government-funded Medical Research Council spent £21.5 million on cancer research.

    Fire Service
    Mr. Murphy: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what representations have been made to him concerning the reorganisation of the fire service in Wales.[1867]
    Mr. Gwilym Jones: Various.
    Mr. Murphy: Does the Minister agree that he deludes himself if he considers that the proposals are acceptable either to the people who work in the fire services in Wales or to those who run them. Will he reconsider his proposals, even at this late stage? If they do not carry the confidence of the vast majority of Welsh people, they are surely doomed.
    Mr. Jones: The matter has been very long and fully considered by my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be reassured to learn that the final decision was not made until all the professional advice had been secured that it was the best way forward. In particular, we received advice from the president of the Chief and Assistant Chief Fire Officers' Association.

    Opt-out Schools
    Mr. Touhig: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what consultations he has had with local education authorities and the Churches concerning the proposed fast track for schools opting out.[1868]
    Mr. Richards: A bilingual consultation paper on grant-maintained status for voluntary aided schools was published on 31 October. Responses are currently being considered.
    Mr. Touhig: I heartily congratulate the Minister, and do so genuinely, on an achievement of some significance. His proposal that a fast track should be established for Church schools wishing to go grant-maintained has united the Christian Churches in Wales in a way that has not happened since the Reformation. The Minister knows full well that the Churches are united in opposition to his proposals. Having said that, and bearing in mind that the word "choice" drips daily from the lips of Conservative Members, can the Minister assure the House that no school in Wales will go grant-maintained without a ballot in which parents can exercise their right to choose?
    Mr. Richards: It is interesting that, according to the hon. Gentleman, the Churches are united against grant-maintained status. Is the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) opposed to a fast track for schools opting out? The right hon. Member for Sedgefield ensured a fast track out of Islington, for his own son to attend a grant-maintained school, yet the same right hon. Gentleman pursues policies that would replace Essex man with Islington luvvies.
    Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman should answer the question, rather than make attacks on another Member of Parliament.
    Mr. Duncan: Disgraceful. Since when were attacks forbidden?
    Madam Speaker: Order. Does the hon. Gentleman have anything to say? If so, he should say it now.
    Mr. Richards: As I said in my original reply, the matter is out for consultation and currently being considered.
    Mr. Win Griffiths: Will the Minister confirm that, given the Government's decision not to mention the fast

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    track process for voluntary aided schools in the Queen's Speech, he has no intention of allowing any school of any description in Wales to opt out before parents have a chance to ballot?
    Mr. Richards: As I have twice made clear, the matter went out for consultation and we are considering the responses. The hon. Gentleman will have to wait because we have not decided precisely what we intend to do. As to the announcement, if the hon. Gentleman had heard the magnificent speech by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister at our party conference, he would have heard my right hon. Friend commit the Government to further legislation on grant-maintained schools.

    Welsh Farmers
    Sir Wyn Roberts: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what action has been taken to improve standards of service to Welsh farmers with the processing of grants and subsidy claims.[1869]
    Mr. Gwilym Jones: Earlier this year the charter standard for farmers in Wales was published. That document sets out how the Welsh Office intends to continue to help farmers in Wales.
    Sir Wyn Roberts: I welcome the publication of the charter. Will my hon. Friend confirm that the target time for dealing with grants and subsidies are the same for Wales as for England? Will he try to reduce the number of forms to which farmers are subjected and ensure that whatever forms remain are published in Welsh and English?
    Mr. Jones: I can reassure my right hon. Friend on all the points he raised. Our targets under the charter standard for Wales are the same as for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in England. This is the first year of the scheme, and we will publish all the figures at the end of it. My great hope is that we will be able to hold our heads up high in any comparison. If not, we will carefully learn how to make further improvements.

    Nursery Voucher Scheme
    Mr. Ainger: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many representations he has received from local authorities in Wales supporting the proposed nursery voucher scheme.[1870]
    Mr. Hague: None, but parents will see the considerable benefit of expanded provision and choice. I have received a large number of constructive suggestions on the options for implementation, which I am now considering.
    Mr. Ainger: The Secretary of State is honourable enough to accept that nobody in Wales supports him on that issue. Does he also accept that every new unitary authority that has looked at the case for vouchers has rejected it, as has every existing local education authority in Wales and every parents association? If the Secretary of State is really interested in the opinion of Wales, why does he not accept it and withdraw that ludicrous scheme?
    Mr. Hague: I believe in extending choice as well as in putting more money into the system. The purpose of the consultation is to seek views on the scheme's detailed implementation. I am grateful to everyone who has responded—even those who say that they are against the
    14
    scheme—because we are now able to take account of useful suggestions. I do not understand why Opposition Members are frightened of vouchers. They will bring choice and more money into the system. Is it that Opposition Members are more hostile to choice than they recently tried to pretend?

    Tir Cymen Scheme
    Mr. Dafis: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what are his intentions in relation to the expansion of the Tir Cymen scheme.[1871]
    Mr. Gwilym Jones: Tir Cymen is a five-year experimental scheme which started in 1992. A review of the scheme will be undertaken towards the end of the experimental period, and decisions on its future will be made in the light of that review.
    Mr. Dafis: I am grateful for that answer. Does the Minister accept that the work of the Development Board for Rural Wales is acknowledged to be far less effective west of the hills, especially in Ceredigion, in attracting manufacturing industry? It is also now well established that Tir Cymen generates significant employment opportunities in the truly rural areas; so will the Minister consider extending the scheme to Ceredigion, whose position is anomalous—with Meirionnydd to the north and Dynevor to the east? Does the Minister see this as a useful first step towards an integrated agri-environmental scheme for the whole of Wales?
    Mr. Jones: As I have said, there will be a review at the end of the period. We are already planning to take into account in the review all the socio-economic conditions that the hon. Gentleman has outlined. Meanwhile I believe that the Countryside Council for Wales can carry forward the work. During the current financial year, it has been given about £1,150,000 to assist its activities.

  ATTORNEY-GENERAL

    Departmental Work
    Mr. Flynn: To ask the Attorney-General what new proposals he has to improve the work of his Department.[1886]
    The Attorney-General (Sir Nicholas Lyell): Current initiatives in my Department include the implementation of team work in the Crown Prosecution Service and the introduction of an information technology system, known as SCOPE, for CPS case management.
    Mr. Flynn: Does the work of the Department currently include the study of three documents published by district auditor John Magill, proving that, in March 1987, Westminster council was well aware that flats on the Elgin estate were unfit for habitation? What action will the Department take to protect these and future families? Will the Attorney-General and the Department act to prosecute the people involved, including the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Mr. Legg)? Will action be taken to strip Lady Porter of the honours bestowed on her?
    The Attorney-General: To the best of my knowledge, the answer to that is no. If I discover that the answer is in any way different, I shall write to the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Allason: Has my right hon. and learned Friend taken any initiatives with respect to public interest immunity

    15
    certificates? Is he aware that there is widespread concern about how such certificates are presented to Ministers, and about the arguments made to Ministers before they sign? Is he going to wait for Lord Justice Scott, or is he already taking some initiatives in this area?
    The Attorney-General: If my hon. Friend has followed the case law in the matter, he will appreciate that public interest immunity certificates play an important role in the administration of justice, in civil cases and—where necessary—criminal cases. Guidance on the matter was given by the House of Lords about 18 months ago in ex parte Wiley. If my hon. Friend reads the case he will find it profitable and see that such certificates have a real role to play.
    Mr. Alex Carlile: Will the Attorney-General consider introducing a set of national standards to ensure that in appropriate cases the present condition and views of victims of crime are brought to the attention of the sentencing judge in every circumstance?
    The Attorney-General: No, I cannot promise the hon. and learned Gentleman that, but I can tell him that the CPS makes a great deal of effort, with the assistance of the police, to know the views of victims, to understand their position and to try to cherish them so that they understand the nature of the proceedings. Moreover, when their views are relevant to the proper presentation of a case, they are looked at objectively to ensure that they are brought before the court.
    Mr. Jacques Arnold: Would it perhaps represent an improvement if the CPS considered cases such as that of a constituent of mine who is in deadly fear of an attacker who has been charged with grievous bodily harm, yet who has been released on bail? Under the Bail (Amendment) Act 1993, is not the Crown Prosecution Service able to help constituents like mine to overcome their real personal fear?
    The Attorney-General: I shall certainly ask the director to have someone look at the case my hon. Friend mentions. He is right to say that, under the Bail (Amendment) Act, there are in certain circumstances—they are not very common—opportunities for the CPS to reopen the question of bail.
    Mr. John Morris: May I welcome the Attorney-General's recent statement that he will have discussions with colleagues following the case of Regina v. West at Winchester about the considerable disquiet expressed about pre-trial agreements between witnesses and newspapers? Will he give us some idea of how long the discussions will take and whether he is contemplating legislation, if necessary? Will he widen the discussions to ensure that they cover circumstances in which trials are aborted because of newspaper publicity, thereby making it impossible to have a fair trial, as in a recent case at Harrow?
    The Attorney-General: I shall take first the second part of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's question. If a trial is aborted because of publicity, I shall almost certainly consider the matter under the Contempt of Court Act 1981 to ascertain whether any publicity has given rise to a substantial risk of serious prejudice within the time when the proceedings are active. If I so consider, having given the newspaper an opportunity to comment, I normally bring criminal proceedings for contempt.
    I welcome what the right hon. and learned Gentleman has said about cheque-book journalism. I can assure him that we are examining the matter most carefully. I shall be
    16
    examining it with colleagues. I have already received a report from counsel in the case of West. I cannot speak for the Government now, but I see no reason why the matter should not be dealt with expeditiously. When we have considered it carefully, we can come to a conclusion, including a decision on whether legislation is appropriate.

    Serious Fraud Office (Convictions)
    Mr. Rowe: To ask the Attorney-General in what proportion of cases in the past 12 months the Serious Fraud Office achieved the conviction of the principal offender named in the indictment.[1888]
    The Solicitor-General (Sir Derek Spencer): The principal offender named in the indictment was convicted in 89 per cent. of the cases prosecuted by the Serious Fraud Office in the past 12 months.
    Mr. Rowe: That is something of a reassuring surprise given the media coverage of the Serious Fraud Office. Will my hon. and learned Friend consider passing on congratulations to the SFO on the outcome of the latest Guinness appeal? Will he tell the House what more can be done to give the SFO a more justified reputation in the media?
    The Solicitor-General: The answer to my hon. Friend's second question is that that will happen only if people tell the truth about the SFO's record instead of spreading half truths and selective truths. The SFO has an extremely good record. Since it started its work, it has obtained convictions in 62 per cent. of all cases that by definition were serious and complex. In at least 75 per cent. of the trials in which it has been involved, one defendant—usually the principal defendant—has been convicted.
    Mr. MacShane: The Serious Fraud Office can now rest easy that Nick Leeson will spend six-and-a-half years in some rat-infested malaria hole in Changi prison. Is the Solicitor-General able to assure us that, if the Singapore authorities applied for the extradition of Mr. Peter Norris and others who were responsible for the Barings cover-up in London, the Government would put no obstacles in the path of such an application?
    The Solicitor-General: I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman seems to be carrying a brief for Mr. Leeson. Most people would compliment the SFO's director in the attitude he took, which enabled Mr. Leeson to be brought to justice in the most appropriate jurisdiction.
    The investigation of the position of senior Barings executives continues. It is an operational matter for the SFO. It is not in the interests of justice that I say anything more about it in public now.

    Crown Prosecution Service (Liaison)
    Mr. Congdon: To ask the Attorney-General what measures the Crown Prosecution Service is taking to ensure good liaison between it and the police.[1889]
    The Attorney-General: The Crown Prosecution Service and the police are working closely together on a number of initiatives, including reducing the volume of paper in prosecution files, greater use of information technology and co-ordinated training.
    Mr. Congdon: May I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's answer, especially the part which referred

    17
    to reducing paperwork? Perhaps my right hon. and learned Friend will say to what extent he sees the new SCOPE system having an effect on reducing paperwork and improving communications between the Crown Prosecution Service and the police?
    The Attorney-General: SCOPE will be extremely effective in improving case tracking and case management. I look forward to the time—one is looking ahead now—when SCOPE will be able to work in harmony with police and court IT systems. It is extremely important that all sections of the criminal justice system, while they each have their independent functions, should be able to work closely and effectively together, and IT has an important part to play in that.
    Mrs. Dunwoody: I hope that the Minister will understand nevertheless that for many people involved in cases as witnesses there is a real gap between their understanding of the attitude of the Crown Prosecution Service, which may have a sensible legal basis, and their reaction to being approached by the police to act as a witness in a difficult case. If people involved in very fraught cases are given insufficient information from the CPS and the police, there will be a real misunderstanding of the workings of the justice system.
    The Attorney-General: I entirely agree with what the hon. Lady says, and think that every police officer and Crown prosecutor would also agree. Close working relationships between the police and the Crown Prosecution Service are the essence of the fair and efficient prosecution of cases and are essential in order that a witness and a victim may know what is going on, understand the reasons for it and thus have greater confidence in the administration of justice.
    Mr. Sykes: In view of what my right hon. and learned Friend has just said, might it possibly improve things if certain CPS lawyers were relocated to police stations?
    The Attorney-General: My hon. Friend raises an interesting and important point. The idea of placing Crown prosecutors in police stations or what are known as admin support units—the crime support units of police stations—so that they can work closely with the police in the preparation of cases is something that we are thinking about very seriously indeed. We have not reached full agreement but we hope to conduct pilot schemes to explore that possibility. I think that that would do good to both services.

    Serious Fraud Office (Actions)
    Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Attorney-General if he will make a statement on the success rate resulting from actions taken by the Serious Fraud Office.[1891]
    The Solicitor-General: Since its inception, more than three quarters of the cases prosecuted by the Serious Fraud Office have resulted in the conviction of at least one defendant, usually the principal offender. The conviction rate for all defendants over that period is 62 per cent.
    18
    If that sounds very familiar, it is merely what I said a few minutes ago, and it bears repetition.
    Mr. Cunningham: Yes, but does the Minister not accept that there may well be a case, and so what proposals does he have for it, for better co-ordination between the regulatory bodies of the City and the SFO?
    The Solicitor-General: The Director of the SFO has negotiated guidelines that govern the conduct of cases between himself and the regulators. If cases are of high-level public concern and display serious dishonesty on the part of individuals, they will be prosecuted, make no mistake about that. Regulatory action may be appropriate if the offences are technical or where urgent action is needed and it can best be taken by the regulator.
    Mr. John Marshall: Impressive as those figures are, does my hon. and learned Friend agree that in his 62 per cent. he should include Mr. Levitt, who got off with a rather light sentence? Does he not agree that some of the cases have shown that serious fraud is too serious, too complex and too complicated to be dealt with by juries, and that the Government should follow the recommendations of the Roskill inquiry?
    The Solicitor-General: I believe that there is still much to be done to perfect our systems of trial, with new and improved information technology, which is currently being used in some cases, before we are driven to the stage of saying that such cases cannot be tried by jury and that they must be tried, as Roskill recommended, by some other tribunal. So far as the Levitt case is concerned, without dealing with any particular case, my right hon. and learned Friend now has power in appropriate cases to refer unduly lenient sentences in serious or complex frauds to the Court of Appeal for review.

    Establishment
    Mr. Mackinlay: To ask the Attorney-General what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the establishment of his office for the efficient conduct of its business.[1892]
    The Attorney-General: The establishment of my office is kept under review. I am satisfied that it is adequate.
    Mr. Mackinlay: In view of the Attorney-General's reply, can he explain why there is an inordinate delay in his considering whether there should be contempt proceedings against those involved in the Harrow case, which was referred to by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) a few moments ago? Is it because the Attorney-General is not on top of his brief or is it that his Department is inadequately resourced? On 30 October, he told the House that he was considering contempt proceedings and he has said the same thing today. When will he get round to making a decision?
    The Attorney-General: The hon. Gentleman is wrong; there is not inordinate delay. The matter is under close consideration. As I have explained to the House before and as bears repetition, before I bring such proceedings, I give newspaper editors and journalists the opportunity to make representations about points that they think I should take into account before taking my decision. I have given them that opportunity and most of them have made representations. I am now considering my decision and I shall make it once I am ready.

Points of Order
3.30 pm
Madam Speaker: The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) has, on several occasions, raised the issue of the transfer of questions tabled to the Deputy Prime Minister. I say to him and to the whole House that, however frustrating for hon. Members it is when questions are transferred, it is the long established principle, as "Erskine May" states on page 286 and as my predecessors and I have said many times, that
"decisions on the transfer of questions rest with Ministers and it is not a matter in which the Chair seeks to intervene."
I make it clear now that I have no authority to change that principle, nor do I intend to do so, although I fully recognise how disappointing it can be to secure a high place for oral questions, only to find that the question is then transferred.
The hon. Member for Workington also invited me on 27 November to consider intervening during Question Time to stop a Minister replying in a way that took him beyond his ministerial responsibility. The House would not, I believe, expect its Speaker to interfere with Ministers' freedom to interpret their ministerial responsibilities in their own way. I make it clear now that I have no intention of intervening at Question Time in the way that the hon. Gentleman suggested I should.
Mr. John Butterfill: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. As you will be aware, I have been fortunate enough to secure the first place in the ballot for private Members' Bills. I have said that my intention is to introduce a Bill dealing with British summer time. That proposal has generated a huge amount of correspondence; it is arriving at my Commons office by the sackload. I am pleased to say that the correspondents are about 5:1 in favour, but that is not the point that I wish to raise with you.
My difficulty is that I am so inundated by this correspondence that it is beyond the normal resources of my office to deal with it. That would not normally be a problem, because, as you may be aware, Madam Speaker, 130 organisations are backing the campaign for daylight extra—organisations as diverse as Age Concern and the Police Federation—and they would be happy to provide me with secretarial assistance. Under normal circumstances, I would be happy to accept that assistance, and to declare it in the Register of Members' Interests.
The difficulty on which I seek your guidance is that, if I accepted that assistance, having accepted money's worth, I could then be seen as advocating a cause, in which case I would be caught by the Nolan rules. I have been to see Sir Gordon Downey on the issue. Until he gets further guidance from the Select Committee on Standards in Public Life, he is unable to advise me what I can do. If I stood up to promote my Bill, would you, Madam Speaker, feel able to call me, or would I be caught under the new advocacy rules?
Madam Speaker: I have listened with some interest to what the hon. Gentleman has said, and I have a great deal of sympathy with what appears to be his dilemma. However, there is little, as Speaker, that I can do to help him in the matter.
Any change in the amount available to an hon. Member for obtaining assistance in drafting a private Member's Bill would be a matter, in the first instance, for the Leader
20
of the House. Secondly, the potential conflict of interest is one of the many matters that seem certain to be considered by the new Select Committee on Standards and Privileges when it eventually gets down to its work. Therefore, it would be wrong of me in any way to appear to pre-empt that Committee's consideration of the problem.
Mr. Butterfill: Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker. Of course I appreciate that the House voted funds for the drafting of a Bill some years ago—in 1971. The sum, I think, was £200, which has not been changed since that date. In any event, that would not assist me in my predicament, because it is purely for the narrow purpose of drafting a Bill, and that does not present a problem. I gather that, if I receive external assistance with that sum, so long as I declare it, it does not affect the rule of advocacy because it cannot be deemed to be of personal benefit to me in any way. It is the question of secretarial assistance on which I need some guidance.
Madam Speaker: I have just answered the hon. Gentleman's point. Regretfully, it is a matter for the new Committee when it is established. The matter must be referred to it. Meanwhile, he must attempt in every way possible to proceed with his private Member's Bill, as he has every right to do, and I shall ensure as best as I can that he is safeguarded.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Your ruling was perfectly clear, and obviously I would accept it. You have made the position absolutely clear: you are not in a position to intervene where the Deputy Prime Minister answers questions that go wider than the remit set in the Table Office.
In so far as the Chairman of the Select Committee on Procedure has made it absolutely clear, in a letter that I understand you have seen, that he believes that the Deputy Prime Minister is going beyond that remit, how can we proceed if you and the Chairman of the Procedure Committee cannot deal with the matter? It is clear that we are dealing with a precedent—Deputy Prime Minister is, I understand, a position that we have never had before. How are we to proceed to deal with this especially important difficulty?
Madam Speaker: As the hon. Gentleman said at the beginning of his comments, I have made the position absolutely clear. I have no authority, and there is no way in which I would seek to reinterpret or interfere with ministerial responses to questions. It is Ministers' responsibility to interpret those questions as they think fit, and to reply to the House accordingly.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. There is a simple way for the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) to resolve his problems. If he cannot find time to answer all those letters he is getting, he should pack up those moonlighting jobs he has got.
Madam Speaker: I hardly think that that is a solution to a serious problem.
Mrs. Ann Clwyd: Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker. I completely accept what you said in your earlier ruling, but, at the same time, I have been here 11 years and, in the past few months, I have

21
noticed a growing practice by Ministers, once questions have appeared on the Order Paper, to transfer them somewhere else.
Originally, I was No. 2 on the Order Paper for questions to the Attorney-General today. It was a question that in my view—I have argued with the Clerks and with the Table Office over it—was a perfectly legitimate question for him to answer. However, he transferred it to the Secretary of State for Scotland.
A few weeks ago, I tabled a question to the Deputy Prime Minister asking how he intended to promote equal treatment for men and women in the Departments for which he is responsible—again, a perfectly legitimate question to him. That was transferred to the Department for Education and Employment. It is therefore a growing practice and someone, somewhere, should be able to do something about it.
Madam Speaker: I fully recognise the real annoyance of the hon. Lady, who I know secured a high place on the Order Paper for questions to the Attorney-General today. I believe that she also recognises that, had her question perhaps been framed a little differently, it would not have been open to the Attorney-General to transfer it. Despite that, I understand her real annoyance and that of other hon. Members when questions that are high on the Order Paper are transferred.
I hope that those on the Government Front Bench will pay serious attention to the exchanges that have taken place today. When Members secure a high place on the Order Paper, it is disappointing that their questions are transferred to other Departments, so that they often do not have an opportunity for a supplementary question, which is the all-important question on many occasions.
Mr. John Marshall: On a point of order, Madam Speaker.
Madam Speaker: I hope that it is a genuine point of order.
Mr. Marshall: Yes, Madam Speaker—it is a genuine one. At Question Time, the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) used his question to the Attorney-General to mount an attack upon my hon. Friend
22
the Member for Milton, Keynes South-West (Mr. Legg). Did the hon. Gentleman inform my hon. Friend in advance?
Mr. Paul Flynn rose—
Madam Speaker: I am not at all clear. Would the hon. Member like to say yes or no, and then I shall respond?
Mr. Flynn: I wrote to the hon. Member, and there was a phone call from my office to his before the start of Question Time.
Madam Speaker: There we have the answer. But let me be quite clear about these matters. Of course it is important that, when Members are to be mentioned, notice should be given. However, I daily attend many public functions and many functions at weekends at which there are hundreds of people. Many people tell me how disappointed they are with our legislators who find little better to do than mention individual names, often abusively, and attack personalities on all sides across the Floor of the House.
The people of this country are looking for exchanges on policy and on the governance of this country and not for attacks on the 650 Members of the House. I hope that my thoughts will go home with all hon. Members, and not just with those who are in the Chamber. People are sick and tired of personal attacks in the House, and I hope that in future we shall concentrate on policies, not personalities.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITY DOCUMENTS
Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 102(9) (European Standing Committees).
EUROPEAN COMMUNITY DOCUMENTS

  EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES
  That this House takes note of European Community Document No. 8273/95, relating to the implementation of the Third Medium-Term Action Programme on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men 1991-95; endorses the Government view that any Community action in this field should have clear priorities and well-defined activities which can be evaluated effectively; takes note of European Community Document No. 9284/95, relating to the Fourth Medium-Term Action Programme on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men 1996-2000; shares the Government view that the programme should conform to the principles of subsidiarity; agrees with the Government that the legislative framework to ensure the principle of equality between women and men in the Community is now in place and further legislation is not justified at this time; and agrees with the Government that Member States should have an active role in the management of the programme.—[Mr. Knapman.]
  Question agreed to.

Orders of the Day
  WAYS AND MEANS
  Order read for resuming debate on Question [28 November].

  AMENDMENT OF THE LAW
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That it is expedient to amend the law with respect to the National Debt and the public revenue and to make further provision in connection with finance; but this Resolution does not extend to the making of any amendment with respect to value added tax so as to provide—

  (a) for zero-rating or exempting any supply, acquisition or importation otherwise than by—

  (i) zero-rating or exempting supplies of goods which are, or are to be, subjected to a fiscal or other warehousing regime; or

  (ii) zero-rating or exempting supplies of services on or in relation to such goods;

  (b) for refunding any amount of tax otherwise than to persons constructing or converting buildings in cases where the construction or conversion is not in the course or furtherance of a business;

  (c) for varying any rate at which that tax is at any time chargeable; or

  (d) for relief other than relief applying to goods of whatever description or services of whatever description.[Mr. Kenneth Clarke.]

  Question again proposed.

  Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
  3.41 pm
  The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Stephen Dorrell): The year 1996 will be an important milestone for the national health service. It will be the 20th anniversary of the last occasion on which a Government presented spending plans that delivered a sharp, real-terms reduction in the national health service budget. I am pleased to tell the House that this year I do not need to make a similar announcement. Indeed, we are able to continue the real-terms growth of the NHS that has gone on in every year since that announcement in 1976 for the year 1977-78.
  Last week, I was able to set out plans for the continued growth of the health service. First, I was able to report that, overall, real-terms growth in patient care in the NHS next year will be 1.6 per cent. In real pounds, after correcting for inflation, that is £500 million of growth in patient care—£f1.3 billion of cash growth for patient care as a result of the Budget that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor announced last week. That is a substantial continued investment, and it allows us to develop a number of different and important priorities within the health service.
  First, it allows us to provide for the continued and fast real-terms growth of primary care in the NHS. Within that total of 1.6 per cent. real-terms growth, I am allocating 3.9 per cent. real-terms growth to support the continued development of family health services, and particularly the family doctor service and GP-provided health care. That is building on a substantial record of success within the health service that was built up over a long time, and particularly reinforced over the past few years by the fundholding scheme. We still look forward to hearing from the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) whether Labour supports that scheme.
  The continued development of family health services is an important element of this year's Budget settlement for the NHS. The second important element is continued real-terms growth of services that are secured by health authorities.
  The average real-terms growth of health authority budgets next year will be 1.1 per cent. Virtually every health authority gets 0.5 per cent. real-terms growth, the rest being directed at those health authorities in which funding is below target, measured on the weighted capitation formula. The Government have repeatedly reasserted their commitment to bringing all health authorities into line on that weighted capitation formula, and I am pleased to say that the allocations to health authorities which I announced on Thursday Teflect considerable progress towards that objective.
  That is good news for the people of South Essex, who will see a 4.2 per cent. growth in real terms in their health authority spending next year, and for the people of North Essex, who will see a 3.5 per cent. real-terms growth in expenditure. In Bedfordshire, the figure is 3.2 per cent., and Oxfordshire, East Sussex, West Kent and Bromley will all receive more than 2.5 per cent. real-terms growth in their health authority expenditure next year as a result of the Government's commitment to equitable funding within the NHS, as demonstrated by our commitment to the weighted capitation formula. Those two priorities have been safeguarded within this year's settlement.

  25
  The third priority is our commitment to continue to develop the future of the health service, through investment both in training and in research. I have been able to allocate a total of £68 million of new money to develop the education and training commitment of the NHS. We are investing in the most precious resource of all within the NHS—the skilled and professional work force who deliver health care.
  Ms Angela Eagle: Will the Secretary of State say a little about the 17 per cent. cut in capital investment for the NHS? Some of us are extremely worried that the private finance initiative will not fill that gap, and that we may face a quite severe problem with capital investment in the future.
  Mr. Dorrell: If the hon. Lady will contain herself and be patient, I shall certainly come to the private finance initiative and its role in the future of the NHS, and I shall be reflecting upon the sharp change in position that the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) has undertaken in the past week. It appears that the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) has not quite caught up with her hon. Friend's change of position, and I can understand that.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: If I am called to speak later, I shall challenge some of the Secretary of State's macro-economic figures on spend. According to a press release from the right hon. Gentleman's Department, the net increase in Government spending next year is 0.6 per cent, not 1.6 per cent. Thereafter, the figures are 0.1 per cent. for the two subsequent years. The Government's manifesto commitment to real-terms increases every year is just being achieved in the two years following the coming year, but only by 0.1 per cent. in each of those years.
  Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Gentleman reads out the figures correctly, but overlooks the fact that the restructuring of the health budget allows me to deliver more than 1.5 per cent. growth in patient care in the NHS next year on those figures. There will be an increase in the real resources available for patient care next year. Labour's Front-Bench Members have argued—spasmodically, uncertainly, but reasonably consistently—-for public-private partnerships to expand the resources available to the health service for the past 12 months. I am delivering that, and I am able to increase the volume of money committed to current patient care within the health service.
  Not only are we spending money on expanding today's services: we are also ensuring that we are committing money to support tomorrow's services through the development of education and training programmes, and through the development of the research programme of the health service. When my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary was doing my job, he quite rightly committed the health service to develop that programme.
  It is extraordinary that it took 40 years for a science-based service—as the health service should be—to appoint its first director of research and development. We now have that function, and we are committing real resources to making certain that we have available to the health service a proper research function to ensure that clinical practice within the NHS reflects the latest understanding of the people operating at the leading edge of clinical services. That is why I am committing an extra £27 million of new money to the research function of the
  26
  health service next year—an amount which represents a real-terms growth rate in the commitment to research of nearly 4 per cent.
  Mr. Sam Galbraith: The Secretary of State referred to a director of science and research. On a point of information, is that science and research based on clinical, scientific analysis of treatment, or on the management and structure of the national health service?
  Mr. Dorrell: I hope that the hon. Gentleman, as someone who has previously been interested in the health service, would want me to answer to that question, "Both." That is what it is. Those who are interested in the development of efficient health care within the health service should surely consider every aspect of the functioning of the health service to ensure that the care that is delivered reflects an efficient use of resources within the health service. That is what we have committed resources to doing.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: I do not dissent from what the Secretary of State has said, but I want everyone to be absolutely clear. In the years after next year, the resources that come from the public purse will be increased by 0.1 per cent. The increase in other resources will come entirely from the private sector, which the Secretary of State will deal with. The substantial increase will come from the private sector, not the public purse.
  Mr. Dorrell: I have already answered the hon. Gentleman's question. He reads out numbers which he says are from the press release. If he wants to look for a more learned version of the same numbers, he can look in the Red Book. We are using public money as efficiently as possible to deliver growing services to patients. That is why I am placing stress on the real resource that is available to support the activities of health authorities in different parts of the country.
  I have referred so far to the development of primary care, research and development and education and training. The next priority that I want to talk about for a moment is the mental health services of the NHS.
  Everyone who follows the health debate knows that mental health services have been a subject of concern both inside the House and outside it for some time. I am able to announce in the context of this year's Budget settlement a real commitment to an improved delivery of mental health services throughout the country.
  I believe that there is now a broad measure of agreement about what a modern mental health service should look like. It is often characterised as care in the community. In the sense that it is no longer a model of care that relies solely on the old-fashioned hospitals, that is true. However, it is not true to suggest that a modern mental health service should be based only on community-based provision. There is now broad agreement that it should deliver a spectrum of care, including acute hospital care for those who need acute mental illness services and sheltered accommodation for those whose dependency needs are greater as well as a properly developed range of community services.
  That is the spectrum of care that people expect to see in a modern mental health service. People expect, furthermore, to see such a service reinforced by properly developed links between the NHS and social services departments.

  27
  The debate about mental health services is less about precisely what the model of care should be, and more about the effectiveness of delivery of that service in different parts of the country. That is why my hon. Friend the Minister for Health wrote to each health authority in August asking them to deliver a quick assessment of their progress in the delivery of that type of mental health service. The replies were due in on 30 November. I inform the House this afternoon that I intend to publish the conclusions of that process early in the new year.
  I also draw it to the attention of the House that the Budget carries forward the process that I have described by allowing us in two important respects to provide growing resources for the development of mental health services within the NHS. First, within the central budgets of the health service, I have set aside £10 million which will be available to above-target health authorities to allow them to develop their mental health services. I shall expect any health authority which bids for that money at least to match from its own resources the money that it claims from that central budget. I expect that to deliver at least £20 million of extra resources committed to mental health services within the NHS.
  The second element of the programme for the development of mental health services reflects the growth of the resources that I have set aside for the mental illness specific grant for local authorities.
  There will be £11 million of extra money next year, followed by a further £9 million the following year, to continue to operate the scheme that was established when I was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health, under my right hon. and learned Friend the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, for the development of mental illness services in local authorities. Those rules provide that the mental- illness specific grant finances a maximum of 70 per cent. of an individual local authority's spending programme, so the extra money that I am announcing today will deliver a total of £30 million of new money for the development of mental health services through local authorities.
  There is £20 million from the NHS and £30 million through social services departments—a £50 million total enhancement of new money available for the development of mental health services. I hope and believe that that will be well received, both in the House and outside, as reflecting the serious commitment of the Government to seeing mental health services continue to develop.
  Dr. Jeremy Bray: The Secretary of State is aware that any additional resources for community care for the mentally ill will be extremely welcome. He is aware that the problem is not only with the budget of the Department of Health but with the treatment of the policies of the Department of Social Security and the Department for Education and Employment. Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether there will be matching developments in those fields?
  Mr. Dorrell: I am not going to speak for my right hon. Friends who are in charge of other Departments. I am speaking for the two programmes for which I am directly responsible in different ways: the national health service central Government budget, and the social service departments for which I am the sponsoring Minister.
  28
  Those two elements of the welfare state will provide improving provision for mental health services, based both on better management and on the extra resources that I have announced following the Budget of my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor.
  Social services departments have a key part to play in the development of mental health services, as I have described. They are also increasingly important in delivering services for the elderly. That is why I was pleased to be able to announce last week a total of 4 per cent. real-terms growth in the provision for personal social services by local authorities. That reflects the continuing growth of the commitment of social service departments to delivering community care for elderly people. It is important to recognise the rate at which that programme has been expanding over the past 15 years.
  The hon. Member for Peckham is prone on occasion to draw attention to the fact that there has been a small reduction in the number of beds available for elderly.
  Ms Harriet Harman: Small?
  Mr. Dorrell: The figure is small. There has been a total reduction of beds available for the elderly of 18,000.
  The hon. Lady always overlooks the fact that, at the same time, in the private sector there has been a growth of 130,000 residential care beds, and a further 130,000 nursing home beds—a total increase of 260,000 beds in the residential and nursing home sector, which rather more than offsets the 18,000 reduction to which the hon. Lady is so fond of drawing attention. That service has developed dramatically over the past 15 years. I am pleased to say that the 4 per cent. real-terms growth that we are voting to social service departments this year will allow that continuing and developing service to continue to grow.
  Mrs. Alice Mahon: I am sure that the Secretary of State will accept that the growth in the private sector has meant that thousands of elderly people have been institutionalised when they might not have been had the money been spent somewhere else.
  While we are on topic of long-term care, has the right hon. Gentleman studied carefully the first report of the Health Select Committee, in which witness after witness, including a Minister, expressed concern that too many long-term care beds had been closed in the NHS? Will he please put a moratorium on any more closures? Is he aware that, in my constituency, a purpose-built, long-stay hospital for the mentally ill and elderly is closing with the loss of 300 beds? We cannot afford to lose any more beds in the NHS. Will he admit that the beds in the private sector are often means-tested?
  Mr. Dorrell: I wonder whether the hon. Lady visited the same NHS continuing care beds in geriatric hospitals that I visited at the beginning of the 1980s. The reality is—
  Mrs. Mahon: I worked for the NHS.
  Mr. Dorrell: I know that the hon. Lady has taken a consistent interest in the subject, but NHS geriatric beds—
  Ms Eagle: My hon. Friend used to work in the NHS.
  Mr. Dorrell: In that case, she knows this better than I.
  NHS geriatric beds too often fell far short of the standards that any of us would want, either for ourselves or for our elderly and dependent relatives.

  29
  I agree with the hon. Lady that there has too often been a tendency to put elderly people into residential care when they and their families would have preferred domiciliary support so that they could continue to live in the community. Residential care homes may be convenient, but they may not be the best way of meeting elderly people's needs; that is why the Government introduced the community care reforms. We introduced the reforms in the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 to allow services to be delivered more flexibly to meet the needs of dependent elderly people.
  Mrs. Mahon: The Secretary of State is right to say that I worked for a long time in long-term care in the NHS. The care provided by the NHS for people who desperately needed hospitalisation was considerably better than much of the care that I have seen in the private sector. If the Secretary of State wants to stop institutionalisation, why does he not allow local authorities to spend money as they want, instead of making them spend 85 per cent. of the transitional grant in the private sector? If local authorities did not have to do that, perhaps some good packages of domiciliary care could be provided.
  Mr. Dorrell: The 85 per cent. figure does not apply to the core expenditure from social services departments' own resources. I encourage every social services department to consider the value for money it gets from its homes compared to that from private sector homes, and to operate a level playing field between the two sectors. When I am convinced that that is the position in every social services department, I might agree with the hon. Lady about withdrawing the rule. Until I am convinced that there is a level playing field, I shall remain a strong supporter of the principles that have hitherto operated.
  Ms Eagle: Will the Secretary of State admit that, because of the movement into the private sector, local authority homes tend to have been left with the most dependent, and therefore the most expensive, patients, who require the most care? Does he therefore agree that it is often not meaningful to compare costs of the sectors, because of the kind of patients they now look after?
  Mr. Dorrell: I do not agree with the hon. Member. Local authority homes are often more expensive, but I do not accept the assertion that that is because people in them are more dependent. The equation is more complex than that.
  My right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor not only provided extra real-terms growth for personal social services departments, but confirmed that the Government do not believe that the social care of the elderly is solely a matter for the state. That is why I welcome the steps that he announced in the Budget to encourage individuals to provide for their own social care needs in the longer term.
  We must ensure that we provide domiciliary support, in the way that the hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) mentioned, to allow carers to look after elderly people before they need to go into residential care. The Government will also encourage individuals to set aside resources to meet their own long-term care needs.
  My right and learned hon. Friend announced a consultation on partnership schemes, which will be an important incentive for improved provision by each of us
  30
  for our own old age. He also announced a change in the tax rules on long-term care insurance, and an important change in the rules governing the assets that are disregarded for the assessment of means-tested benefits.
  Those are all important steps towards encouraging people to set aside resources to meet their own social care needs, and they are part of a total package, including real-terms increases in public expenditure, to ensure that we provide a proper deal for care of the elderly.
  Mr. Andrew Rowe: Will my right hon. Friend take credit for the measures that he has taken to enable a number of people with disabilities to use public finance at their discretion to make arrangements for their own care? That is cost-effective, as has been shown in a number of experiments, and gives the freedom of choice that I believe the Government are all about.
  Mr. Dorrell: I agree with my hon. Friend. He is drawing attention to the Community Care (Direct Payments) Bill, which was announced in the Queen's Speech. That will be an important step forward in making the system more flexible so that it can respond to the wishes of individual recipients of care, and it will also ensure that the money spent delivers better value.
  Therefore, an important theme of the Budget is the Government's commitment to continue to deliver on public expenditure priorities—more than 1.5 per cent. real-terms growth in NHS current expenditure and 4 per cent. real-terms growth in personal social service expenditure.
  The hon. Member for Wallasey has already drawn attention to another key theme in my right hon. and learned Friend's Budget—the improvement in the management of the Government's capital programme through the private finance initiative.
  The principle of the private finance initiative is extremely straightforward. In the national health service, it means that NHS trusts continue to deliver free health care to NHS patients, and they continue, in the overwhelming majority of cases, to employ the clinicians and the clinical support workers who deliver that care. That has been made absolutely clear in all the support documentation about the private finance initiative.
  We are also encouraging NHS trusts to form public-private partnerships to ensure that those dedicated professional people who work in the national health service, delivering free NHS care, will have available to them better, more modern facilities than have ever been available in the history of the NHS.
  Access by the NHS to private sector capital always used to be governed—
  I am tempted to say "obstructed"—by what used to be called the Ryrie rules. They were an especially abstruse bit of Treasury orthodoxy. I am pleased to say that, under the enlightened chancellorship of my right hon. and learned Friend, those rules have been abolished.
  There is a certain irony about hearing the Ryrie rules Voted with approval by some members of the Labour party, because Labour Members used to hold barely printable opinions about Sir William Ryrie and his rules before they were changed. We have abolished rules that, in their lifetime, found no support outside a narrow group of Treasury theologians, and we have encouraged the development of a public-private partnership between the NHS and the private sector.

  31
  That causes problems for the hon. Member for Peckham. I shall take the House through the problems in their most recent manifestations.
  I appeared on the "Today" radio programme on 28 November, in which the hon. Lady and I were interviewed by Sue MacGregor. Sue MacGregor interviewed me first, and I said exactly what I have just said to the House, whereupon she turned to the hon. Lady and said:
  "You heard Stephen Dorrell say this is a new way of building hospitals—it's not a new way of providing health care. You can't object to that, can you?"—
  to which the hon. Lady replied:
  "We certainly do, because, under this Government, this is a new trick to privatise the health service."
  That was the hon. Lady—[Interruption.] That was the hon. Lady's answer. The problem was that she was slapped down very soon after that from the Dispatch Box by her right hon. Friend the leader of the Labour party. Less than 12 hours after the hon. Lady had addressed the nation with those words, he came to the Dispatch Box and said:
  "The PFI is right in principle. We have supported it, and in many ways we have been advocating it"—
  whereupon Hansard, I am sure accurately, reports the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) as saying:
  "We initiated it."—[Official Report, 28 November 1995; Vol. 267, c. 1077.]
  There may be a few paternity disputes about that claim, but the division between the hon. Lady on the radio programme at 7 o'clock in the morning and her leader in the House at 5 o'clock in the afternoon could not have been starker and clearer.
  However, no one has ever accused the hon. Lady of not being quick on her feet. In less than a week, she has issued a press release, saying that the accusation against me is no longer that I am doing too much about the PFI or that I am in danger of privatising the health service; now, the accusation is that I am doing too little about the PFI. Having stood accused of introducing a dangerous new theory that would change the nature of health care, I am now accused of not doing enough, and building, in the words of the title of her press release, "castles in the air."
  The hon. Lady does not have a particularly good record on forecasts in the health service. She is the same health spokesperson who, when we introduced general practice fundholding, said that there was no support for it in the health service.
  Ms Harman indicated assent.
  Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Lady indicates that she was right; but she was not quite right, because more than half the doctors in the health service have now applied for fundholding status. If she is concerned to see the quick, successful and effective development of the private finance initiative—I believe that her leader is, and I sincerely hope that she is—we can make common cause. But in terms of her forecast, I say, "Watch this space."
  Mr. Eric Martlew: Two years ago in my constituency, we were about to set forth on the new stage of
  32
  Cumberland infirmary, which was stopped because of the PFI. That is a reflection of what has happened throughout the country: hospital building has come to a standstill because of the PFI. Now, only one company is interested in that contract. Does there have to he competition, or will the contract be given to that one company?
  Mr. Dorrell: I shall give the House the response that I always give to such questions in the House: any spending programme that I approve must first pass the value-for-money test. I shall be anxious to ensure that the hospital mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, and any other projects that come up under the PFI, pass the value-for-money test.
  On the subject of delay, I invite the hon. Gentleman to look at the programme that we approved under the PFI last week at Amersham hospital. It was a replacement programme for a succession of single-storey, corrugated iron huts that were erected in 1940 as a temporary measure to deliver health care to the victims of the blitz. Those huts are still delivering health care today.
  That is not something of which any Government, Conservative or Labour—they have both been in power while those temporary buildings have continued to deliver health care—should be particularly proud. I am proud to have been the Secretary of State for Health responsible for changing the rules that imposed that sort off delay, not just on Amersham hospital but on hospitals all around the country.
  Anyone who has looked at the history of the health service knows that it is littered with capital projects that have been stopped by the short-term actions of Chancellors of all political persuasions because of Treasury capital planning processes. We have abolished that policy, and ensured that viable projects for which there is a need within their communities can be financed and built on time. That is an important, fundamental change, which I hope the hon. Gentleman will endorse and support.
  Mr. Martlew: The hospital that the right hon. Gentleman has just mentioned was built in the 1940s; the hospital that I mentioned was to replace a Victorian workhouse. Will the Secretary of State give an assurance to the House that, if the PFI fails, public money will be made available immediately to build the Cumberland infirmary?
  Mr. Dorrell: I have made it clear that there remains a public capital programme as well. I hope and believe that viable projects for the development of the capital stock in the health service can be carried out in the context of public-private partnerships, which are an important source of new capital as well as new expertise in the development of the health service.
  One of the key issues—indeed, the key issue—that underlies every Budget involves the choices that every society has to make about taxation and expenditure. Some people have been tempted to suggest that the present structure of our public services is insupportable. I am regularly told that the pressures on the NHS are irreconcilable—that has been a continuing story in the history of the NHS since the day it was founded. The first royal commission into the irreconcilable pressures on the NHS was set up in the early 1950s, and the theme has recurred through the history of the health service.
  We have also been told that our welfare state provision—our social security expenditure provision—is too generous and, as a result, public finances are

  33
  unsustainable. I am pleased to be able to tell the House that the subject has been examined, not by a Government spokesman or a friendly force that can be relied on to produce a convenient set of statistics for us, but by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
  In its report of June this year, the OECD examined exactly that issue—the services most often held responsible for the instability of public finances. Its finding was not that public finances in Britain were unstable, but quite the contrary. It reached a clear, decisive conclusion that the United Kingdom was alone among G7 countries in running a consistent financial surplus beyond 1995.
  Over the period that it examined—up to 2030, a third of the way through the next century—it found that the United Kingdom and Canada were the only two G7 countries that would not only be paying off public debt, but would have paid off their entire national debts by 2030 if the continuing trends of taxation policies were followed through. Those who argue that the present balance of public expenditure is unstable and insupportable have to explain why the OECD—an independent body examining precisely that proposition—reached precisely the opposite conclusion.
  That analysis is extremely good news for Britain, for two reasons. First, it gives us the assurance that the public expenditure plan set out in the Red Book this year can be followed through without a funding crisis, which was so often the experience of Labour Governments. Secondly, and more importantly, it allows to us continue doing what we did this year—making choices at the margin about how much we want to tax and how much we want to spend.
  There is, of course, a precise and inevitable connection between taxation and expenditure, and this year my right hon. and learned Friend showed that, by reducing the Government's spending plans by £3 billion, he was able to take £3 billion off our tax burden. That emphasises another important conclusion that can be drawn from the Budget: stable public finances are essential, but they are not the complete answer to the questions that politicians are asked about public finance.
  People are interested first to ensure that our public finances are stable, then they want to know what level of taxation, and therefore expenditure, we choose to operate. That is an important political issue, as it affects the society in which we live, but it is a more important economic issue, as high public spending means high taxes, and high taxes, even in a closed economy, blunt incentives.
  It is simply wrong to look at the total share of national income accounted for by taxation and say that it does not matter that, over the past 15 years, we have cut the marginal rates of income tax from 98 per cent. to 40 per cent. and the marginal rates of corporation tax from 52 per cent. to 33 per cent.
  There is no more eloquent commentary of the change in Britain in the past 15 years than the fact that when the Government came to power in 1979, a 15 per cent. additional rate of tax was imposed on savings income. This year, for the first time, my right hon. and learned Friend has introduced a special low rate of tax for savings
  34
  income, reflecting the importance that we place on encouraging people to provide for themselves and invest in their own and society's future.
  Mr. Chris Mullin: At the bottom end of the scale, people on benefit lose £1 in benefit for every £1 they earn. That is a marginal tax rate of 100 per cent. Do the Government have any plans for addressing that?
  Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Gentleman is wrong. Since the reforms introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) in the late 1980s, the replacement ratio no longer exceeds 100 per cent., although it is still quite high.
  I am focusing on the incentive to save. It is interesting that the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) is not interested in the incentive to save as an important part of free and functioning democracy and economy. I welcome the fact that my right hon. and learned Friend has able to substitute a lower rate of tax on savings income, whereas, under Labour, savings income used to be called "unearned income", and attracted a special rate of tax.
  That is only to look at the effect of marginal tax rates in a closed economy. Our economy is not closed. I am pleased to say that it is one of the most open economies in the world. The tax rates charged by the British Government are part of the burden that any business bears if it chooses to establish or remain in the United Kingdom. It has been of significant advantage to this country that, through the end of the 1980s and in the 1990s, we maintained the lowest corporation tax rate of any industrialised nation—a key factor in attracting foreign investment to this country.
  The Government are committed to applying that precedent across the whole tax system—not simply to corporation tax—to seek to lead the tax burden imposed by market economies down, to attract investment and activity to this country. That is the significance of the declining trend in terms of the share of national income taken by public expenditure that is set out in the Red Book.
  Page 142 presents one of the most dramatic tables included in a Red Book for many a year—five years of public expenditure freeze while at the same time safeguarding the Government's key spending priorities, to allow us to ensure that tax rates in Britain are among the most competitive in the world. The Labour party fails to understand that proposition.
  The hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) has made himself a laughing stock. On one day, he promises lower tax on investment in business through capital allowances. The next day, he promises lower tax on small businesses through value added tax relief. The day after, he promises a personal tax rate of 10 or 15 per cent. He comes in exactly on cue, but cannot quite work out which it will be. Nevertheless, there will be a personal rate of 10 or 15 per cent. at the same time as capital allowances and VAT relief.
  The one thing that the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East does seem set on is a special new tax on enterprises that have had a profitable experience. The hon. Gentleman has made himself a laughing stock, particularly as he has been doing that at the same time as Labour's health
  spokesman, the hon. Member for Peckham, and education

  35
  spokesman are hinting at more spending, and the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith)—making his first appearance on the Front Bench last week to respond to a social security statement—opposed the measures being taken by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security to control social security spending.
  If Labour is remotely serious about the interest it affects to show in controlling the growth of the tax burden and bringing it down, it cannot conceivably follow through the commitment announced by its party leader to abstain on this Budget, which starts to show how controlling public expenditure delivers control of the tax burden.
  Mr. Robert Sheldon: Before the right hon. Gentleman goes so far in condemning incentives in taxation, he should remember that there are certain disincentives. I refer particularly to capital allowances, which are not an incentive but a disincentive. One pays more as a result of capital taxation of allowances than one would with the actual depreciation of the product itself. If one examines the matter sensibly, one sees that the figure is 25 per cent., but that the depreciation is more than that. There is a capital disincentive, and that is a serious matter.
  Mr. Dorrell: The right hon. Gentleman appears to be arguing a case with which I entirely agree—that there is a choice to be made between tax shelters for specific activities and high marginal tax rates, and no tax shelters and low marginal tax rates. The Government choose no tax shelters and low marginal tax rates. Labour Front Benchers consistently choose specific tax allowances that must mean high tax rates. The right hon. Gentleman appears to be taking the Government side, and I warmly welcome him in this argument.
  The Budget clearly sets out the Government's priorities. We have safeguarded priorities that are important not just to the Government but to the people of this country. We have set aside growth money for health and education, and to allow us to provide a proper but maintainable welfare safety net. We have set aside growth money for the police, and for proper development of our defence forces.
  It addresses all these priorities within a public expenditure total which is frozen for five years. It does so at the same time as delivering tax cuts to the hard pressed taxpayers among the British people. The question for the Labour party is whether its members are for or against that strategy. The people of Britain will be watching.
  4.24 pm
  Ms Harriet Harman: As the practical operation of the rules recently endorsed by the House is still being defined, I think it right to say that I get some help with research costs from Unison.
  This Budget fails to deal with the fundamental problems of the British economy. It fails to ensure the investment, the jobs and the fairness that the British people want and the economy needs. The Budget continues the failure and deception that the British people have come to expect from the Tories on health. We believe that the national health service is the best, the most cost-effective and the fairest way for this nation to
  36
  provide health care for its people. We have set out in our policy document "Renewing the NHS" how this should be done.
  The background to this debate are the arguments of the right-wing ideologues, now increasingly setting the pace in the Tory party, who believe that the NHS is a problem that should be got rid of. In his article in the Sunday Times a couple of weeks ago, Roy Lilley called the NHS
  "the problem child of the public sector—the rump of the remaining nationalised industries and an overburdened bureaucracy."
  But most of those who want to get rid of the NHS are not prepared to speak in such clear terms, because they know what enormous public support the health service commands. Although there are some who will openly argue against the NHS, most of the arguments against it come in code.
  The anti-NHS tendency has spawned its own language for this coded message, and no doubt we shall hear some of it from Conservative Members today. We hear it continually from the Government, who talk about the bottomless pit, the infinite demand for health care, the impossible burden of the growing number of elderly people and the greedy demands of new technological developments.
  The argument that there is a bottomless pit of demand for health care aims to create a self-fulfilling prophecy, so that people will come to believe that the NHS cannot cope and will thus begin to accept the inevitability of a shrinking national health service and a growing private sector. The anti-NHS brigade want the service cut back to a safety net service, used only by people who cannot afford to go private.
  Mr. Dorrell: I should not like the hon. Lady to miss this opportunity to answer the arguments that have been made in this debate. I have answered all her arguments and I agree with her that they are all wrong. What I am interested to know is what she thinks about a Budget which demonstrates that the Government believe those arguments to be wrong and believe in developing the health service within a frozen public expenditure total. That is the question with which she should be dealing—not the views of Mr. Roy Lilley, who, so far as I know, has never sat on the Government Bench.
  Ms Harman: The point that the Secretary of State is missing is that there are those who will argue out in the open against the NHS, and there are others, including the right hon. Gentleman, who will implement policies which undermine the NHS. That is what the Secretary of State is doing.
  There is no evidence to back up the apocalyptic pronouncements that the NHS cannot cope. It has always worked against a background of steadily rising numbers of elderly people. There has been a 75 per cent. increase in the number of over-75s since 1948. Over the next 20 years, however, the number of elderly will increase by only half the rate of the past 20 years' increase. While some medical advances cost more, some cost less. New techniques can get cheaper over time. We therefore wholly reject the assumption that the NHS is doomed and cannot cope into the next century with the health care needs of the nation.
  The Government are pursuing their attack on the NHS in two ways. First, they are privatising its services and blurring the distinction between the NHS and the private

  37
  sector. On the other hand, they are reducing the scope of the NHS so that more people are forced to go private for more care.
  I turn first to the privatisation of the supply side. The latest tool that the Government are using is the privatisation initiative—what they call the NHS private finance initiative. As with so much that they do with the NHS, the Government's position is a web of deception.
  Last Tuesday—on the morning of Budget day—the Secretary of State was tearing to television and radio studios to announce the good news of huge new hospital building programmes, to be paid for with private money. During the same day, however, it became clear that that was a smokescreen to obscure the fact that there would be not more hospital building but less. Last year, the Government predicted a 1.4 per cent. cut in the NHS capital programme, but last Tuesday they announced a devastating 17 per cent. cut, with more cuts the following year and the year after that.
  Mr. Dorrell indicated dissent.
  Ms Harman: The Secretary of State shakes his head. I am sure that he is not disagreeing about a 17 per cent. cut. In effect, the Secretary of State said, "Don't worry—private money will fill the gap."
  Mr. Dorrell: I disagree with the hon. Lady's characterisation of what has been happening. She asserts that there will be a 17 per cent. cut in the hospital building programme. There is certainly a reallocation of NHS money to patient care, but I do not accept that there will be a cut in the building programme. I believe that the effect of the private finance initiative—I understand that the Leader of the Opposition also believes this—will be to deliver growth in the hospital capital programme.
  Ms Harman: We shall come on to what the Secretary of State believes might possibly happen—I am talking about what has actually happened. In the Budget, the NHS capital building programme—our vital hospital building programme—was cut in just one year by 17 per cent. There will be more cuts in the following year and there will be more cuts during the year after that. Those are the practical facts, which the Secretary of State cannot deny.
  The Secretary of State says, "Don't worry—everything will be all right because private money will come rushing in to fill the gap." Even if we see the fantastic 242 per cent. increase in private money that the Government are predicting will be available in just one year, it will amount to less than half of NHS capital cuts. We were told last year that private money would top up the NHS capital budget. We find now that that money is to replace public investment, not supplement it. The NHS capital budget is to be stripped out and replaced by private finance.
  How real is the prospect of a 242 per cent. increase in private capital for the NHS in just one year? I have read the private finance panel's list of NHS initiatives, which was published by the Treasury last week. It tells a different story from what the Secretary of State would have us believe. Of the 53 NHS projects listed by the panel, only one has reached the financial close stage. The list makes it clear that 80 per cent. have not yet even reached bids in or negotiation stages. Six projects have not been formally announced to the private sector as partnership projects.
  38
  The Secretary of State is able to make announcements that he is not about to produce money to compensate for the cuts that the Government have made. If the previous so-called success rate of NHS PFI projects is maintained, we shall see not a 242 per cent. increase in private finance but one of 15 per cent. That means that the announcements made last Tuesday will spell a £303 million cut in the hospital building programme in just one year.
  The Tory promises of new building are merely castles in the air. They will not lead to the building of hospitals. Indeed, the private finance panel has revealed that there is an A list of projects and a B list. The B list includes projects such as an extension at the Royal Brompton hospital. Also in the B list is a new hospital for the Hereford NHS trust. Also on the B list is a new hospital at Dartford and Gravesham. That is not a prioritisation which reflects the projects that the Government think are most important or most needed in the public interest.
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: Will the hon. Lady give way on that point?
  Ms Harman: It is simply the private finance panel putting on the A list the projects to which it will devote most attention because they are more likely to attract private capital. It is quite wrong for the Government, who seem unable to say what their priorities are for capital building in the NHS—they are unable to answer that question—to abdicate their responsibility for deciding priorities in the private sector. That is what has happened, and all the hospitals which desperately need capital work but are on the B list will want to know why.
  Mr. Arnold rose—
  Ms Harman: That highlights another problem for the NHS, because, with the capital budget slashed, the only place to which hospitals can turn for money is the private sector, and the private sector will be able to dictate the terms. We have always argued that, where private capital can serve the public interest in public services, it should do so, but we have always made it clear that the NHS must not be privatised. It is totally unacceptable that the Government are going down the path whereby not only will the private sector own the land and the buildings but it will run the hospital and employ the staff.
  The Secretary of State has said—he makes this conditional, of course—that in the overwhelming majority of cases he will stop short of privatising clinical services, but that is all code and a smokescreen because he refuses to say what he means by "clinical services". It is a moving boundary. He has already made it clear that he does not think that anaesthesia, radiography, chiropody and pathology are clinical services, because he is already putting them out to market testing. In Scotland, the Stonehaven hospital contract is to include the private sector running the hospital and employing the staff.
  Mr. Arnold: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Ms Harman: Those who work in our hospitals know, as we do, that the health care team needs to work together as a team. When a patient arriving at hospital finds that the receptionist, admissions officer, radiographer and blood-testing pathologist are all employed by, for example, a Swiss company and not the NHS, the Secretary of State

  39
  will have destroyed the ethos of the NHS. Even where the doctor and nurse are still employed by the NHS, they will be like strangers in a private hospital.
  Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Lady said that I did not define what I meant by clinical and clinical support services. I happily concede that all the services that she describes are clinical and clinical support services. I have made that clear many times before. I hope that the hon. Lady will also make it clear that the documents on market testing underline the fact that those services can be secured other than from NHS employees only where there is clinical support for such a change. That was set out clearly in the market testing documents and it is set out equally clearly in all the documents surrounding the private finance initiative.
  Ms Harman: When patients arrive at the hospital and find that the receptionist, the admissions clerk and the pathologist are all employed by a private company, they will know that this is not the NHS as they want it to be or as it used to be, and that it will have been privatised. The Secretary of State constantly tries to define conditions that he can then meet so as to justify his creeping privatisation, but people in this country know precisely what he is up to, and they are not in the least fooled by it. They know that with this fragmentation, the NHS health care team will be destroyed.
  Mr. Arnold: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Ms Harman: Let me make it absolutely clear that there is no difference in the position that I am taking and the one taken by my hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor or my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition. Under the Tories, private finance is intended not to top up the public purse but to replace it. It is not a public-private partnership but a private takeover. It is not a private finance initiative, but a privatisation initiative. The Tories are not only privatising the supply side of the NHS—
  Mr. Arnold: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Order. The hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) may find it frustrating, but it is clear that the hon. Lady is not giving way to him.
  Ms Harman: I would have expected the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) to intervene during the speech by the Secretary of State and to ask why his hospital's private finance project was on the B list. He probably did not even know about it. The B list is secret and the hon. Gentleman will have some explaining to do.
  Mr. Arnold: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Ms Harman: Not only are the Tories privatising the supply side of the NHS—
  Mr. Arnold: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Lady referred earlier to my hospital and she has now referred to it again, yet she does not have the courage to give way.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a point of order for the Chair.
  Ms Harman: If the hon. Member for Gravesham catches your eye later in the debate, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so that
  40
  he can stick up for his hospital and for the patients in his constituency, his constituents will be delighted and astonished. It would certainly make a change.
  The Tories are not only privatising the supply side of the NHS but pushing more and more people out of the NHS into the private sector. We have already seen what happened to NHS dentistry. First, charges were pushed up so high that one could not tell whether one was on the NHS or going private; secondly, there were fewer and fewer dentists doing NHS work so one had to go private. It has been the same story with long-term care.
  Mr. Arnold: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Ms Harman: If the hon. Gentleman wants to intervene to ask me about his hospital, I will give way and then tell him about it.
  Mr. Arnold: The hon. Lady referred to the replacement hospital for the Dartford and Gravesham area which is on the list for the PFI. Is she aware that four major consortiums are bidding to build that hospital? Does she support the PFI for that purpose? If not, does she have a commitment from the shadow Chancellor to put up £100 million to build the hospital in one phase, which is what all the consortiums want to do? What is more, they would build the hospital in the correct place—Darenth park—which the NHS would not have done.
  Ms Harman: The hon. Gentleman does not seem to have understood what has happened in the Budget. He talks about his hopes for his hospital, but I can tell him two things today. First, the chances of any hospital getting capital work done on it are reduced as a result of the Budget and the cuts in NHS capital funding. Secondly, although the hon. Gentleman's hospital is on the private finance panel's list of NHS-PFI projects, it is not on the A list but on the B list, which means lower priority. The hon. Gentleman should complain to the Secretary of State about the fact that his hospital is on the B list in the endless search for private finance.
  It has been the same story with long-term care, as my hon. Friends the Members for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) and for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) mentioned. The Budget announcement on long-term care is an inadequate response which is designed to hide the Government's betrayal of a generation of elderly people. The Budget announcement will not stop elderly people having to sell their homes to pay for long-term residential care. Even the Secretary of State has not been able to claim that. The announcement is a quick short-term reaction to a long-term problem which the Government have helped to create and which they have failed to address.
  With the average house worth £67,000, the new £16,000 capital disregard will not safeguard the homes of elderly people who believed that they had been promised care from the cradle to the grave. It will not remove elderly people's fear of losing almost everything that they have worked for a lifetime to build up and which the Prime Minister told them they could pass on to their children.
  Ms Eagle: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for a Back Bencher, the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold), to consult the civil servants' Box, presumably about his hospital?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: The Chair has no knowledge of what any hon. Member is consulting anybody about. Such consultation is, however, unusual.
  Ms Harman: The hon. Member for Gravesham is trying to find out why his hospital is on the B list and why he was

  41
  never told about that. I will tell him why his hospital is on the B list. The priorities are dictated not by the Government in the public interest, but by the private finance panel according to where it can most quickly find private sector money. The hon. Gentleman can save himself asking the civil servants in the Box about the Government; he should go to the private finance panel and ask it. That panel is, of course, not here.
  Without clear national guidelines—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Gravesham is clearly in some difficulty; he does not know what is going on and his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has not told him. I undertake to talk to the hon. Gentleman afterwards and to explain fully what the private finance panel is doing with his hospital. I realise that he is a desperate man, and rightly so, but he is not so desperate as his constituents, who see him supporting a Government who have let them down.
  Without clear national guidelines—
  Mr. Arnold: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Ms Harman: I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman would desist.
  Without clear national guidelines, people with assets above the new threshold will still pay for care which may be free in other parts of the country. Under the Conservatives, where one lives determines the care that one gets and the price that one pays.
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Kenneth Clarke): The hon. Lady has just said that the doubling of the disregard for contributions to residential care is inadequate. To what level would the Opposition raise the disregard and how much would that cost?
  Ms Harman: I am grateful that the Chancellor is asking me for advice; he has at least learnt something. The question on his Budget that he has to answer is how many of the elderly people who fear that the lifetime savings that they have accumulated and invested in their homes will disappear because they have to go into residential care will no longer have to worry about that. The answer is that his Budget at least recognised that there was a problem, but it failed to address it and that is what we charge the Chancellor with today. If he is asking us to produce a Budget, let him call a general election, after which we shall sit on the other side of the House and my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) will deliver our Budget.
  Mr. Clarke: I have made it clear what we would do; it is what we have done. We have doubled the disregard at considerable public expense. I stand condemned by the hon. Lady, who says that the disregard is not good enough and does not satisfy her or elderly people. It follows perfectly logically that if we had a credible Opposition the hon. Lady would say what the disregard should be. She would have calculated how much it would cost and she would have got the permission of the shadow Chancellor, who is sitting alongside her, to say how much it would cost. It is clear that the hon. Lady has no more idea than the shadow Chancellor as to what the Opposition's policy is on this or on anything else.
  Ms Harman: The Chancellor is trying to make—
  Mrs. Jane Kennedy: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. With reference to the
  42
  previous point of order, the House should note that the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) has received a paper from the civil servants' Box. Surely that is an abuse of the House.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Fortunately, this Deputy Speaker does not have eyes in the back of his head.
  Ms Harman: The Chancellor has recognised that there is anger and concern throughout the country about elderly people who would previously have got long-term residential care without having to sell their homes to pay for it. The Prime Minister promised that there would be a cascade of wealth down the generations, but that promise has been broken. The Chancellor said that he would address that problem in his Budget. I am here at the Dispatch Box today to say that he has not done so and that the Government have failed to keep their promise to address the problems that they helped to create.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: I understand the hon. Lady's point about seeking more resources for community care and for hospital building, but in that case why will she and her colleagues not vote tomorrow against the Government's proposal to cut the rate of basic tax by a penny in the pound?
  Ms Harman: We shall vote against the Budget because it has no vision, no direction and no strategy. We have tabled an amendment, and the hon. Gentleman is welcome to vote for it. Our proposals would deliver investment, jobs and fairness. On the cut of one penny in the pound, we are saying that people have suffered enough. One of the things that they have suffered is broken promises.
  The next great engine of privatisation is rationing in the national health service. When people cannot obtain what they need on the NHS, they have to go without that treatment or they are forced to pay for it and go private. It is no good protesting, as many Conservatives do, about the word "rationing", because some local health authorities are calling it that. Rationing varies from authority to authority. That is why Sandy Macara, chairman of the British Medical Association, has said that access to treatment is becoming a national lottery.
  What one can get on the NHS increasingly depends on where one lives. Rationing—that is, excluding treatment under the NHS—is taking hold at local level so that one now has to be careful where one gets ill. Do not get the menopause in west Kent, as there are to be no specialist menopause services there. Do not get brittle bones in west Dorset, as there is to be no osteoporosis screening there. Do not get infected wisdom teeth in Hertfordshire or Kingston and Richmond. Do not get glue ear in the Isle of Wight, because it has declared itself a grommet-free zone.
  The NHS is becoming a lottery, but there is a pattern. Rationing starts with those operations which are the most controversial, such as gender transformation, sterilisation reversal and abortion, but that is just the thin end of the wedge. The Government seek to establish the rationing process with the less popular procedures. Having gained acceptability for the inevitability of the rationing process, they can then swiftly move on to other treatments. Yesterday it was grommets and fertility treatment; today it is varicose veins and osteoporosis screening; tomorrow it will be hernias and hip replacements.
  Mr. Rowe: I have often heard the hon. Lady say that what treatment one receives depends on where one lives, but most of the other members of her party's Front Bench

  43
  team are hell bent on achieving local government reorganisation and devolution in varying ways, which presupposes that the various units will be allowed to choose their priorities. Therefore, in almost every other element of service, whether it be social services or whatever, the hon. Lady supports a policy that will lead to differences of provision depending on where one lives.
  Ms Harman: The hon. Gentleman is muddling two distinct things. We are saying that it is wrong for managers, area by area, to issue edicts which simply chop different national health service treatments off the list of what they provide locally. When the Secretary of State defends rationing, he often tries to imply, as he did again in the House today, that the removal of treatments from the NHS is part of the drive for clinical effectiveness. It is nothing of the sort.
  Of course medical practice changes and the pace of change is accelerating. That means that we must have evaluation of treatments and dissemination of information, agreeing best practice, ensuring that clinicians are properly trained and kept up to date using new technology, and monitoring practice, doctor by doctor and hospital by hospital. But the prime reason for ensuring best practice is because it is in the interests of the patients.
  That is the key issue. We are arguing for best practice in the interests of patients; the Government are using the argument of clinical effectiveness as a smokescreen behind which they allow managers at local level to chop services altogether.
  Sir David Mitchell: Is the hon. Lady not aware that fundholding doctors can choose where to send their patients, so if certain services are restricted in one region and available in another, fundholding doctors can make use of that to send their patients to such regions for their benefit?
  Ms Harman: Before the Government introduced the internal market, all general practitioners were able to refer their patients to whichever hospital they thought was most convenient or would provide the treatment best suited to the patient's condition. Since the Government introduced the internal market and contract system, only GP fundholders have that freedom for referral.
  On bureaucracy, it is ironic that rationing and assertions about what the national health service can no longer afford to do should come at a time when there seems to be a bottomless pit, an infinite demand for spending on bureaucracy. Earlier, the Secretary of State took some time talking about extra resources, but look where the money is going: it is going into the bottomless pit of NHS bureaucracy that the Government have created.
  Three more things are driving the engine of bureaucracy into the national health service. First, if more GPs become fundholders, that is an extra £80,000 per practice on administration and every hospital will have to do more administration to deal with dozens of different purchases. Secondly, if local pay bargaining becomes a reality, as the Government wish, there will have to be new and enlarged personnel departments in every NHS trust to deal with that. Thirdly, having been told that there is no longer any money left in the NHS capital budget, NHS
  44
  managers will have to spend thousands of hours trooping around different private consortia trying to obtain private money for capital projects.
  The cost of the internal market is already an extra £1.5 billion per year on administration. When people see the Government pouring billions of pounds into national health service bureaucracy, why should anyone accept that the NHS cannot afford to give them the treatment that their doctor says they need?
  The Secretary of State's recent conversion to what he describes as bureau-scepticism is a sham. I understand that he has announced a new efficiency scrutiny team, which I believe is a sort of quangoette. Even if he were to achieve cuts of 5 per cent. in bureaucracy, that would not even take bureaucracy spending back to where it was in 1992-93. There are more people to count the cost of treatment and fewer people to provide it. That is one of the reasons why we opposed the introduction of the internal market and why we remain committed to ending it.
  Any discussion of what the NHS can or cannot afford must not proceed without being accompanied by discussion of the social and economic costs of the alternatives to the NHS.
  Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Lady just said that she was committed to ending the internal market. The document that her party issued in June made it abundantly clear, first, that the purchaser-provider split would be maintained and, secondly, that purchasers would be free to choose where their supply arrangements were placed. Those are the key characteristics of the internal market. If the hon. Lady is throwing that policy document over, she had better announce what she intends to put in its place.
  Ms Harman: The Secretary of State is being entirely misleading. Before the internal market was introduced, it was always the case that people had freedom of referral. We have said that there needs to be autonomy for local hospitals and a planning process, but he fails to understand that we are against the internal market not only because of its unfairness, with one purchaser having advantage over another, but because of the huge transaction costs.
  Mr. Dorrell: This is an important point. That document says that we should maintain separate purchasers and providers and leave in the hands of purchasers the freedom to place their supply arrangements where they think the advantage of their local communities lies. That is what an internal market is. Is the hon. Lady for or against that?
  Ms Harman: That document makes it clear—the right hon. Gentleman can buy another copy as he has not read the first one sensibly—that different roles are necessary. One is the planning role; another is running the hospital and prioritising need, patient by patient, as it arises. We are in no confusion about what we are proposing and neither are the British people, who have always been against the commercialisation and fragmentation of the NHS as they have dealt with it. Those people want us to renew it according to our plans.
  The Secretary of State is having difficulty understanding our plans. Let me tell him that the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing and a host of other organisations not only understand what is in

  45
  those plans, but see completely the difference between the position now and our proposals. They welcome our proposals.
  On the alternative to the NHS, many Tory right-wing ideologues propose that we cannot afford the NHS and that we must have more and more going into the private sector, but we are not saying that we cannot afford the NHS. On the contrary, we cannot afford to let the NHS dwindle. That would impose a massive burden on business as the demand for private health care gave rise to a demand on employers for private health insurance. If the engine of exclusion of treatments and limiting of the NHS goes ahead, employers will have to provide private health insurance and bit by bit responsibility for health care provision will pass from the state not to individuals but to employers.
  Mr. Kenneth Clarke: That is why we are providing more money.
  Ms Harman: The Chancellor is heckling again. He says that that is why the Government are providing more money, but that money is going straight into a bottomless pit because the Government's internal market has created an incessant and infinite demand for bureaucracy, which they are feeding.
  There has been a significant increase in private provision. Over the past 15 years the number of private hospital beds has increased by 66 per cent. while over the same period the number of NHS acute hospital beds has fallen by 28 per cent. The Secretary of State has a simple defence to our charge of privatisation: he buries his head in the sand and when there is anything dreadful happening he says that he does not know about it. I am compiling a list of things that the Secretary of State does not know and I invite my hon. Friends to mention those that I have missed.
  I asked the Secretary of State what clinical services he plans to protect from privatisation under the private finance initiative. He does not know, although he coined the dividing line for the PFI in the NHS. He does not know, or will not say, what is or is not a clinical service. I asked him how many NHS chief executives earn more than £100,000. He does not know, although he has said that he intends to cut spending on bureaucracy. I asked him why people waiting for hip replacements in the constituency of his Minister of State have to wait longer if their GP is not a fundholder, but he did not know that that was the case. Apparently it came to him as a complete surprise.
  I asked the Secretary of State what NHS services are being rationed in each area, but he did not know anything about that either. He says that he does not know what the NHS is or is not providing. That will continue in future as the relentless engine of privatisation and cuts rolls on and as the Tory right bays for the blood of the NHS. The Secretary of State has a perfect defence: he does not know—he sees no evil and he hears no evil. But all the while the language is being groomed. I have a secret Department of Health memo from the London briefing unit which says that, in the context of Bart's hospital, some "presentational nuances" need to be addressed. It reminds everyone in the Department of Health:
  "The Minister of Health does not wish to see references to the closure of Bart's … maintaining that Ministers have never said that Bart's will close."
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  It is the site that is to close. It turns out that there is a Government plan to close Bart's but that no one is to refer to it.
  The Minister refuses to answer questions and to deal honestly with the issues because he fears to face the British people and admit what he is up to. We must never forget where the British people stand on these issues. The Government's agenda for change has failed because it lacks the legitimacy afforded by public support. People support the drive for clinical effectiveness, for prioritising urgent cases on waiting lists, and for planning to anticipate local demand for health care, but they do not like what the Tories are up to in the NHS and they do not trust them.
  A Gallup poll in The Daily Telegraph last month showed that 84 per cent. of voters are concerned that under the Government the NHS might no longer be a good service freely available to all. A British Medical Journal survey of patients said that, when patients were asked to rank treatments in order of priority:
  "No interviewee was fully persuaded that the process of rationing … should happen at all."
  Put simply, that means that people believe that the argument about rationing is a trap. They do not want to collude in an exercise that will result in health care need not being met.
  The BMJ survey also states:
  "In general, interviewees were more comfortable justifying their opinions on the basis of the needs of others."
  That highlights one of the most important aspects of the NHS in our society. It is one of the few things in this divided Tory Britain that we all still share. After a decade and a half of Tory rule, there is precious little in our society representing our shared values and concerns for one another. The NHS is a unique and extraordinary institution. Over the past 16 years the Tories have plotted to undermine it. It has not been safe in Tory hands, but it has been safe in the hands of the British people and it will remain so until Labour gets into government to renew it.
  5.5 pm
  Sir David Mitchell: The hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) appears to be unable to see the benefits of the Government's reforms of the national health service. For patients these have meant that the average waiting time for non-urgent operations has come down from nine months to five months. There have been substantial benefits for my constituents and those of other hon. Members.
  Front-Bench spokesmen have dealt with the health aspects of the Budget, but the Budget's provisions go much wider than that and I wish to address those wider issues. The House will know that my family includes my hon. and filial Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Andrew Mitchell). But this is not the first father and son sequence in Parliament in my family. My twice great grandfather represented South Northumberland from 1837 to 1841 and his son represented Newcastle from 1852 to 1856. On 25 April 1853 he spoke in the Budget debate, which at that time was sensibly held in the spring. The Hansard record states:
  "His constituents also regretted the postponement of the period when they might look forward to an abatement of the income tax, and especially for some alleviation of the severity with which that tax pressed upon precarious incomes."

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  At that time, income tax was 7p in the pound for those with incomes of more than £150. If my predecessor were here today he would join me in thanking my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor for doing just what he asked—bringing relief to those on low incomes. That brings me to my first major point in the debate—the Budget's effect on motivation.
  I calculate that about 200,000 more people will now not pay income tax as a result of the Budget. That is important to an enormous number of people who are hesitating between drawing benefit and taking employment. I am grateful to the Chancellor for taking a decisive step that will make it worth while for people to seek employment. How much will a married man with no children be able to earn before he pays income tax?
  In the context of motivation, 6 million people will now pay income tax at only 20 per cent. According to my calculations that is a quarter of all taxpayers. That is a substantial achievement for which the country is greatly indebted to the Chancellor. Of course all taxpayers are also better off by 1p in the pound.
  According to the media, some of my hon. Friends have fallen for leading questions asking for bigger cuts. The Chancellor was absolutely right not to go for large and startling decreases in income tax because of the effect that such cuts would have on sterling. Sterling is important for its effect on the cost of our imports. An increase in import prices is inflationary. Imports of semi-finished goods, which are completed in this country and then re-exported, are affected by a fall in sterling, making our exports less competitive.
  Had my right hon. and learned Friend gone along that road of dramatic tax reductions, the weakness of sterling would have inhibited him from being able to make reductions in interest rates. Nothing is more important for small businesses at present than the Chancellor having the scope and opportunity to ease interest rates in the coming months. A reduction of 1 per cent. in interest rates would mean that a house owner with a £60,000 mortgage would save £600 a year, but that is not the point that I want to make. I wish to refer instead to small businesses.
  Small and new businesses are the greatest job creators of the decade. In the past four years, some 500,000 new jobs have been created in this country. Those jobs have been created overwhelmingly by small and new businesses, not by existing large companies. More of our people in this country are in work than in any other major EC country. That is partly due to our small businesses, and I wish to cover three points of importance to such businesses.
  First, the motivation for someone to start a business is that he wants to be able to a make success of it. When he has made a success of the business, he will be concerned with whether the Government are going to take away in tax an inordinate amount of his profits, and thus reduce his motivation.
  Secondly, one cannot expand a business without internal finance, and I therefore welcome the reductions in corporation tax as it applies to small businesses. The
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  reductions bring us to a point where we have the lowest corporation tax on small firms of any country in the EC.
  Even more important is that we have low inflation, a point which many hon. Members have not fully appreciated. High inflation erodes the resources within a business, and I shall give one example to my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. If inflation is at 20 per cent., a modest-sized engineering factory with £100,000-worth of work in progress has to pay the first £20,000 of its profits at the end of the year simply and solely to provide for the same volume of work in progress in the ensuing year. What are the company's competitors doing in countries with lower rates of inflation? They are putting that money into research, development, modernisation, expansion and investment in business and growth.
  It is very important for the small business community—indeed, for the whole business community—that inflation levels do not pre-empt the money that a business has available for the useless purpose of simply providing for the same volume of stock. Low inflation enables firms to expand, and we are now seeing the effect of the best run for 50 years in terms of keeping inflation down to reasonable levels.
  We should recognise the debilitating effect of inflation, which reached 26.9 per cent. during the period in office of the previous Government. The effect on the business community of that was horrific, and firms were unable to expand. We are now seeing the growth of firms, and an increase in employment which follows from that. After motivation, the second vital need for small businesses is the available resources within a business for expansion. Hence, I welcome the reduction in corporation tax.
  The third thing that small businesses need is a reduction in the cost of complying with regulations. I welcome the announcement in the Budget that tax law is to be rewritten in plain English, and I look forward to seeing the benefits of that. I wish my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor good fortune in seeking to carry out that task. It would certainly be a valuable move. There are far too many burdens on small businesses and far too many regulations with which businesses must comply. Far too much is also churned out by Brussels, and the compliance costs for small businesses have been under-recognised.
  I welcome the fact that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport has been able to permit the Newbury bypass to go ahead unscathed on the edge of my constituency. I am sure that, if the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) were in the Chamber, he would join me in welcoming that decision.
  I welcome the measures on police expenditure, which will provide for 5,000 extra officers, and I was delighted that the Chancellor referred to closed circuit television in terms of security. The House may be interested to know that in the City of London—which has a significant number of closed circuit television surveillance cameras—there has been a 37 per cent. fall in the level of crime. I was particularly delighted that the Chancellor announced that the number of closed circuit television surveillance cameras elsewhere would be increased by 10,000 in the coming year.
  I note with pleasure that some 50 per cent. more in real terms over and above the level of inflation has been spent

  49
  on education per child since the Conservative Government came to office. Hampshire county council ought to be well pleased with the Budget in that respect, since it is to receive a £22 million increase in its standard spending assessment for education during the coming year. I notice that the council will get some £30 million extra from the business rate and from the revenue support grant. That should go a long way towards finding the £22 million for education that it needs.
  On health, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health referred this afternoon to the £1 billion more funding available. However, I have a serious point that I want to put to my right hon. Friend about the effects of the national lottery. The Chancellor has recognised that the lottery has some side effects, and he made some concessions to those in the gambling industry who have been adversely affected. But my right hon. and learned Friend has not recognised the effect that the lottery is having on people-caring charities, whose income has been reduced—according to a recent survey—by one third since the lottery was introduced.
  The survey reports that, although there are about 800 people-caring charities, only four grants have been made by the national lottery to such charities. That leaves some 796 charities worse off. That is a very important factor in terms of health care, and I urge my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to interest himself in the matter, which has serious implications. The voluntary aspect of NHS activities—including mental health services and a range of other activities—is backed, sustained and supported by charities, particularly smaller people-caring charities. I urge my right hon. Friend to take a close interest in the matter. When the Finance Bill is brought forward, my right hon. and learned Friend might perhaps consider an amendment to try to deal with the problem in a practical way.
  Finally, I wish to refer to the help to be provided in the Bills dealing with residential and nursing homes. I understand that everyone with less than £10,000 of savings will be cared for by the state, but we have an aging population and we must ask ourselves how long we can afford to do that. There is also a problem that those who have savings of just over £10,000 may seek to blow their savings before they get to the age at which they need nursing care. I was delighted to see the proposal to exempt from tax benefits on insurance policies for long-term care. I ask my right hon. and learned Friend to consider more generous state provision for those who have undertaken insurance cover to look after themselves with nursing care for three years.
  If people who have undertaken that provision happen to live longer, it might be appropriate for the Government to come in with support. Such people have demonstrated by paying into an insurance policy their determination to do something for themselves. The Government could support them for the balance of their lifetime.
  I support the Budget because it improves motivation throughout the economy, helps the birth and growth of small businesses and new businesses, holds inflation down with the prospect of some cuts in interest rates, and gives the right priorities to spending on education, health and the police.
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  May I whimsically quote my forebear from Hansard in 1853. The record says:
  "Taking the Budget as a whole, he had no hesitation in saying that it was beneficial and satisfactory … and with regard to his own constituents, he believed they were almost prepared to say"—
  as I am—
  "The Budget, the whole Budget, and nothing but the Budget."'
  5.20 pm
  Dr. Jeremy Bray: I cannot greet the Budget with quite the enthusiasm that the hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir D. Mitchell) expressed. Before the Secretary of State leaves, I should like, as chairman of the all-party mental health group, to thank him for what he said about community care for the mentally ill. Obviously, the publication of the report on the health authorities is awaited with great interest. The Secretary of State will be aware that the Government will be examined, first, for the realism with which they describe the present situation, which is still inadequate, and, secondly, for the adequacy of the actions that they propose to take. It is against those factors that his announcement of increased resources will be judged.
  As the Secretary of State said in response to my intervention, many other problems affecting the mentally ill do not fall within his departmental responsibility. I hope that we can rely on the co-operation of the Department of Health, with other Departments, to determine what overall developments are needed in the service.
  I should like to examine two tasks at the extremes of the Budget debate. The first is coping with structural changes in employment, and the supply, of and demand for skills. The current levels of unemployment are intolerable. A test of any Budget is what it does about jobs. The second task is keeping the economy stable on a path of sustainable growth. Party rhetoric from both Government and Opposition suggests that doing so, is merely a matter of will, but it is a difficult task. The success that we have achieved and that is achievable is limited. Avoidable mistakes have undoubtedly been made. I should like to suggest how the likelihood of such mistakes could be reduced.
  On jobs, it is not possible to shift from a situation in which only 3 per cent. of the population go to university to one in which 30 per cent. do so without a huge change in the nature of the work done by people with different types of qualifications. If the skilled operator of a most sophisticated new piece of equipment—say, a computerised DNA sequencing machine in a pharmaceutical industrial research department or a local authority public health department—requires only a four-week training course, the pattern of training for the future will not recognise the old-fashioned segmentation into craft, technician and professional grades.
  It is a cop-out simply to say that those huge changes in the labour market can be taken care of by market mechanisms. We are all in the job market. Perhaps some hon. Members will return to it sooner than they would wish. As market operators, we want to know what to do. Union bashing is irrelevant—indeed, counter-productive. The unions can be and have been at times most helpful agents in assisting their members to find the information they need to become qualified and the jobs for which they are suited.

  51
  It is equally a cop-out simply to say that public money should be made available to provide the resources needed to meet palpable needs, without seeing whether that strategy and the particular measures proposed take us into still more acute imbalances in local economies, in particular skills or in the wider economy. My plea is that we should look at the labour market to determine the actual demands and the resources needed to meet them.
  One can take almost any source. The job advertisement section of the New Scientist this week discussed
  "the structural changes which are taking place—flatter organisations, the need to manage one's own career and perhaps pay for one's own training."
  The lead-in article says:
  "The certainty that a career will not be spent with one single employer or even in a single area of work, makes it essential for employees to adapt continuously to change throughout their careers. There is an increasing probability that people will be self-employed at some time. Self reliance is the key which will enable people to cope with such situations. Skills which will be paramount in the future include self-confidence and self-promotion, action planning, networking, negotiation, political awareness and coping with uncertainty. The top five skills listed by employers as in short supply among graduates were business awareness, communication skills, leadership, teamwork and problem solving. These were followed by conceptual ability, knowledge and competence in an academic discipline, foreign languages and numeracy."
  That is scarcely the order in which the trainers and educators of the world would rank their priorities. Perhaps that quotation is just so much management consultants' waffle, but versions of it appear in, for example, the recent observations of the Select Committee on Science and Technology when looking into human genetics and its immense impact on the future of the health service and many other matters. We noticed that the difference in the speed with which services would develop in biotechnology depended on the speed of start-up of new enterprises. That in turn is influenced by the different attitudes to entrepreneurship among biotechnologists in California and Britain.
  The organisation of actual work on the ground in the construction is rapidly changing. The skills listed in the New Scientist are needed not only in supervisors but in a high proportion of labour-only contracting craftsmen, who nowadays have to manage their activity on the building site.
  All that the Budget has done is adjust some of the parameters around the edges of the labour market. It has not taken the point that if the main body of the labour market functioned better, there would be fewer problems around the edge. The Chancellor proposes 100 per cent. inheritance tax relief for unquoted shares in trading companies—good for the family firm, no doubt—more favourable treatment of employee share schemes, private insurance of health and mortgage protection and workfare schemes.
  Mr. Nigel Forman: The hon. Gentleman is a fair-minded and thoughtful Member. Does he accept that he perhaps seeks to attach to any Budget more weight than it can bear—that the answers to some of the important questions that he asks about the labour market require supply-side policy changes at the micro-economic level?
  Dr. Bray: Indeed they do. They require supply-side changes, but in a wider sense than is customarily used
  52
  by the Government and their supporters. The Government identify the supply side merely with paying more to the wealthy and less to the poor. Income distribution is not the end of supply-side measures. We see the supply side as practical investment in education and training, plant and machinery, the physical infrastructure, and so on. That is the supply side, and it certainly needs attention. A great deal of the Government's budgetary argument was directed at that. There was practically nothing about the macro-economy.
  I was about to welcome the limited measures acting on the labour market in general that the Chancellor announced. On the main body of the Budget, however, the reduction in employer's national insurance contributions and tax relief for vocational training for trainees over 30 are welcome but do not begin to tackle the wider problem.
  A coherent labour market strategy would consider the transitions and frictions of job and skill changes and find where the tax, benefit and grants systems need to be adjusted at points before people lose their jobs. Neither the Government nor the Opposition are opposed to such an approach in principle, but it has to be tackled more systemically if unemployment is to be reduced from its present intolerable levels and the overall productivity and competitiveness of the economy are to be raised.
  I put first the argument for supply-side measures, indeed, for structural measures, to make the point that I do not believe that simply pulling the macro-economic levers of fiscal and monetary policy is sufficient as an economic policy. Nevertheless, the levers are important, and the quality of debate in the House on macro-economic policy has become quite abysmal. We heard virtually nothing of it from the Chancellor. In his Budget statement, he had nothing to say about the exchange rate. The words were not even mentioned in his statement— I checked that carefully this morning. He had nothing to say about the relationships between borrowing, debt, income and inflation, about which we used to hear so much in the 1980s from successive Conservative Chancellors.
  If I may try to repair some of the omissions from the Chancellor's speech, I observe that we may or may not enter the economic and monetary union in 1999, 2002 or whenever. That is probably the most important economic question that the Government will face in the next year. The Chancellor had nothing at all to say about it, and we can guess why—because it would be acutely embarrassing to his hon. Friends on the Back Benches and to the Prime Minister. Whatever happens, and whatever are the views of hon. Members about the appropriate policy to adopt at the intergovernmental conference, we have to conduct our own monetary and fiscal policy in an international context. We have to pursue objectives on inflation, borrowing and debt and we cannot ignore the exchange rate.
  As for the EMU, satisfactory convergence is not simply a matter of hitting the targets by a qualifying date or even of-establishing satisfactory progress on convergence in the real economy; it is a matter of demonstrating that we can prosper under a set of rules by which policy will respond to shocks coming from within the European economy or from outside. Whether we enter the EMU or not, we have to formulate some such rules. The Chancellor is operating with a transitional set of rules which were adopted the day after black Wednesday, and they have not been

  53
  significantly developed or explained since. We remain totally vulnerable to the next major crisis and need a system to warn of the onset of such a crisis.
  The recent first report of the European Monetary Institute focuses attention on the issue. On page 72, in discussing the lines of a monetary policy strategy for stage 3 of economic and monetary union, it states:
  "An inflation targeting strategy has been adopted by a number of EU countries in recent years … the approach is to focus directly on expected future inflation. This involves the use of a wide range of available indicators to arrive at a projection of inflation in the future. Monetary policy is then set so as to be consistent with the achievement of price stability as defined by the target."
  That statement clearly bears the mark of a UK draftsman, because there is a similar passage on page 16 of the "Financial Statement and Budget Report" describing the Government's inflation targeting policy. Whether one asks the Government or the European Monetary Institute, one has to ask how those projections of the expected rate of inflation are to be made and how they are to be responded to. One then gets into rather difficult territory.
  When people talk about numbers, they use models of some sort. Of course, the full range of argument will be used, from chicken livers, through the backs of envelopes and the learned writings of the economic pundits in the press, to the full-blown national economy models supported by the Economic and Social Research Council. One fairly firm conclusion that emerges from the most careful studies of the latter is that there is a high degree of uncertainty and unpredictability about the process, and that the limits of the extent to which it is possible to stabilise economies are rather wide. Within those limits, severe mistakes have been made in the past which could have been avoided by better analysis and by paying more attention to the analyses that were made.
  Perhaps the most important mistake made in recent years was the response of Government policy to the stock exchange crash in 1987, from which the Government and the country are still suffering—they are suffering not from the crash but from the Government's mistaken response in over-inflating the economy in the run-up to the general election.
  At present, inside or outside the Treasury and the Bank of England, there is no systematic, sustained representation of fiscal or monetary policy strategies or regimes. I repeat: there is no sustained picture anywhere in the country of the monetary strategy that is pursued, yet such a description is well within the capacity of the current state of the art and of current technology. Even the exploration of possible regimes is intermittent, episodic, ad hoc, haphazard and either superficial or laborious to carry out, so the month-to-month briefings required, whether for the Chancellor's meeting with the Governor of the Bank of England, for meetings of the European Council of Ministers or for meetings elsewhere, cannot have the support of up-to-date, comprehensive analysis.
  This is true in respect of UK policy instruments on their own and still more so in respect of the international game, with objectives differing between different agents, such as between central banks and Finance Ministries or between Government and the labour market—even within a country, never mind between countries.
  Of all the countries in the European Union, the UK is the best equipped technically to carry such work, because of its long tradition of economic research, going back
  54
  hundreds of years in Britain, which has been kept up to date by the continuing efforts of British economists. Despite the much-maligned work of those economists in their attempts to design and monitor strategies, their work has not been organised by the consortium of the ESRC, the Treasury and the Bank of England in such a way as to come up with coherent answers.
  Despite the recent funding round 4 of the consortium, under which the Economic and Social Research Council, with the support of the Treasury and the Bank of England, renewed its support for the national economy models, the work is still not organised to produce coherent economic strategies of the sort needed to design and appraise—let alone implement and monitor—the policies needed as we explore the next stages of development of the European Union. That work is well within the capacity of the state of the art and the scope of available technology using the resources that the Government have already committed to the consortium directly from the Treasury and the Bank and indirectly from the ESRC.
  There is an a urgent need to review the programme. That is made easier by the fact that there has been a large departure of staff from the forecasting teams. Staff are having to reappraise their work and their priorities. That turnover is not necessarily bad in itself, because that kind of economic research is a young person's game. It is hard work and technically very demanding, so a high turnover is only natural. The ESRC should be examined and organised, so that the urgent priorities of policy that underlie our economic strategies can be better addressed.
  We have not made things easier by the way in which, as political workmen, we have blamed our tools. We would do better to put some effort into understanding the arguments and into debating them in the House. We should realise that uncertain forecasts are the beginning, and not the end, of an intelligent design of economic strategy. Under a good strategy, policy evolves with the passage of time in response to changing needs and circumstances. This theme is not new for me in Budget debates, nor is it one on which there has been no movement in the past, but the benefits of further movement would be great.
  5.40 pm
  Mr. Nigel Forman: I shall begin as I think will become customary in such debates—by declaring my interests as they appear in the Register of Members' Interests. For the avoidance of doubt, they are the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Salomon Brothers International plc and HFC Bank plc.
  The debate has been notable, apart from the opening speeches, for how low-key it has become. It is becoming so low-key that it is almost off the keyboard. I wondered whether to start with a joke, as my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth) did recently, before his elevation to the Front Bench, to liven things up. I heard a joke the other day that I shall share with the House; it might amuse the Gallery.
  Mr. Roy Hughes: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is the hon. Gentleman allowed to refer to the Strangers' Gallery?
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Technically, probably not, but if that is the worst crime that is committed in the Chamber, I shall not be unhappy.
  Mr. Forman: I am grateful for your generous protection, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thought that my

  55
  joke might amuse the hon. Member for Newport, East (Mr. Hughes). The riddle is this—what is the difference between 0 J Simpson, Rosemary West and the Leader of the Opposition? The answer is that only Rosemary West has convictions.[Interruption.] It was worth a try.
  The hon. Member for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray) essentially made several points in his interesting speech. He felt that the Budget did not have sufficient leverage over the labour market, and he wished to see unemployment falling further and faster to the levels that we were used to in the 1950s and 1960s. I understood that point, but the labour market is becoming more competitive and flexible, and more open to global market forces. It is important, therefore, for any Government to concentrate on a wide definition of supply side policies.
  I agree with the hon. Member for Motherwell, South that, in order for those policies to be properly and successfully implemented, they have to be defined broadly to include many of the elements that he mentioned. He was rather scathing about the lack of light that was thrown on monetary policy in the Budget statement and elsewhere. I merely refer him to paragraphs 2.05 to 2.11 of the Red Book, which, though succinct, set out the Government's monetary policy clearly.
  The hon. Member will know that the arrangements on monetary policy are now far more transparent than ever before. The minutes of the monthly meetings between the Governor of the Bank of England and the Chancellor are published six weeks later. The hon. Member and others who take an intelligent and close interest in those matters are now much better served with useful information to make a sensible analysis of the progress of Government monetary policy.
  Dr. Bray: The hon. Member is fair in saying that I would like greater transparency, but one consequence of that greater transparency is that we see the holes in the argument. There are some very big holes that could quite easily be filled.
  Mr. Forman: If the hon. Gentleman catches your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, in a subsequent economic debate, he will want to develop those thoughts. I shall not follow that line now.
  I regret slightly that the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) has left the Chamber. I sought to intervene in her speech, but I was unsuccessful. She made some remarkably prejudiced and old-fashioned statements about the health service. The House will be aware that the Government have had a commitment, which they have meticulously honoured, to increase NHS spending in real terms year on year.
  Will the hon. Member for Bristol, South (Ms Primarolo), who used to shadow health matters, give a similar commitment on behalf of the Opposition? If she is not prepared to do so, many of the Opposition's criticisms of our attitude to and behaviour on the health service remain rather hollow. Would she like to clarify the matter?
  Ms Dawn Primarolo: Get on with it.
  Mr. Forman: The Opposition are not prepared to put their money where their mouth is.
  56
  There was something very dated about what the hon. Member for Peckham said about the health service when she tried to argue that it was being eroded at the edges, disintegrating and collapsing—whatever her verb was. She seemed to base her whole view on the assumption that public services must be provided by public sector employees in order to be real public services. That is clearly not true, in this country or any other.
  The hon. Lady also seemed to feel that capital expenditure projects in the public sector should always be magically provided by public sector employees and firms. That is obviously not true, because for years private sector firms have been responsible for tendering for public sector projects, and have done a very good job. The private finance initiative is merely a logical and sensible outgrowth of that, and is nothing more sinister.
  Ms Eagle: My hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) meant that' she was worried that the private finance initiative would not fill the gap caused by the huge cuts in public investment announced in the Budget. Is the hon. Member confident that the private finance initiative will not only fulfil all the capital programmes that would have been initiated without the cuts, but will do better? That is how we will judge the success of the PFI.
  Mr. Forman: One never knows—this is true of all public expenditure planning—whether projects pencilled in for years two and three in any public expenditure planning exercise will actually materialise. If the hon. Lady cares to look at chart 6.5 in the Red Book, she will see that the private finance initiative has delivered rising sums of money for capital projects in the health service; £170 million in 1996-97; £200 million in 1997-98; and £300 million in 1998-99. The projections are best estimates, but they are made on the basis of commitments and indications already given. I believe that they will probably turn out to be an underestimate rather than an overestimate of what is achieved.
  Mr. Kevin Hughes: The hon. Gentleman has made the point that those figures are just estimates. Does he not agree that the Government are using the private finance initiative scheme as a form of deferred payments? They are cutting capital expenditure because they know that it takes a couple of years for the hospitals or other buildings to be built. Only then will the public purse have to pay for the rents of those buildings. The PFI is a deferred payment scheme to get the Government through to the next general election.
  Mr. Forman: I do not agree.
  I was just about to mention something that is relevant to what the hon. Gentleman said. If he cares to look at table 6.4 of the Red Book, which he may have in front of him, he will see that the outturn figures for total public sector capital expenditure have increased—that is in the past tense—from £17.6 billion to £20.9 billion. The Government's record over the latest period for which we have figures shows that such expenditure has increased and that the Government are committed to public sector capital expenditure. The Government merely want to supplement it, and they want the private finance initiative to play a new and growing role.
  I have allowed myself to be slightly distracted by some interventions, Madam Deputy Speaker, partly in the hope of enlivening the debate for you and other people so that

  57
  we may have a more interesting time. However, I wanted to focus my remarks on an important quotation from the Chancellor's Budget statement, which sets the tone for the whole of his speech and his approach to budgetary policy. He said:
  "In the rapidly changing world of technological advance and a more flexible labour market"—
  already mentioned by the hon. Member for Motherwell, South—
  "the British people need to be prepared and equipped to embrace change in a flexible way. They will be more willing to do that if they know that high-quality schools, health care and a safety net for the unemployed, the disabled and the old are there if and when they need them."—[Official Report, 28 November 1995; Vol. 267, c.1058.]
  That quotation accurately sums up the attitude of my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor. In my opinion, he struck a good balance between the need to cut taxes when it is prudent and sensible to do so and to increase public expenditure on the priority sectors—the sectors about which the public really care, such as education, health and the police.
  I fondly hope, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir D. Mitchell), who spoke earlier, that the responsibility of the Budget will make possible further interest rate cuts in the not too distant future, especially if growth next year turns out to be as subdued as many independent forecasters believe that it will be—in other words, if, as is likely, the official Red Book forecast of 3 per cent. growth does not materialise.
  The Chancellor is to be commended for what he did not do in the Budget as well as for what he did. Chancellors are always lobbied, and sometimes it is sensible for them to learn the gentle art of saying no. My right hon. and learned Friend did not give in to the cry for a windfall tax on utilities, which would have been all wrong and would have penalised success and profit.
  My right hon. and learned Friend did not give in to hard lobbying for a package to help the housing and construction market. As he rightly said, a great deal more good can be done for that market by a low-interest-rate, low-inflation policy than can be done by any special package of measures, which is usually distorting and ends up in the price of the assets concerned. I commend him for that.
  It is worth the House recalling, if it does not already know, that half a point off base rates is worth the equivalent of a five-point increase in mortgage tax relief to home owners, so half a point off base rates—which I confidently believe may be possible, perhaps in the first quarter of next year—will do every bit as much good for the housing sector as five points more on mortgage interest tax relief and, furthermore, will help the rest of the economy. If all business people are confident that interest rates are low and are likely to get even slightly lower, it is healthy for investment and helps to breed confidence.
  My right hon. and learned Friend chose the right major objectives. I remind the House—I know that last Tuesday seems a long time ago—what they were.
  The first objective was security for the elderly, especially in relation to long-term care. The second objective was a boost to capital ownership. I am especially pleased about the measures taken in the Budget on
  58
  employee share ownership. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary for his considerable efforts in that regard. I know that he is sympathetic to that good cause.
  The third objective was the encouragement of enterprise and especially of small businesses, which are vital creators of seedcorn in our economy. Finally, there was a return to our long-run objective of a tax-cutting policy, taking 1p off the standard rate as something on account—something in earnest of our intentions and something that differentiates us from both Opposition parties.
  One Opposition party, in the shape of the hon. Member for Bristol, South, dare not say yes and dare not say no, it appears, to any specific tax-cutting proposition, and it does not appear to know its own mind. The other party is the minor Liberal party, to which I pay at least the tribute that it is prepared to come clean and say exactly where it stands and to go in for a bit more honest financing. I wish that Liberal Democrat Members would apply the same principle to other sectors of public expenditure as they apply to education, because, if I remember rightly, they have often made favourable nods in the direction of different categories of public expenditure, but I understand that they have given a specific tax pledge only to cover education spending.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: If I am called to speak later, I shall discuss that matter, but I will send the hon. Gentleman a full and costed alternative Budget, which, unlike the Labour party, we have prepared this year, as previously.
  Mr. Forman: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that. I look forward to reading it.
  I wish to devote the rest of my remarks to two aspects of the Budget that are especially significant and which I especially liked.
  The first aspect is the range of measures that will help the elderly. I like the idea of a new, lower tax rate of 20p in the pound on savings income. That is long overdue and an excellent idea, especially bearing in mind the fact that an increasing number of people come into the category who would benefit from that measure.
  I like the idea of widening the 20 per cent. lower rate band by £700, with the result that one quarter of all income tax payers will pay income tax only at 20 per cent. and no other level in 1996-97. Linked to that, I like the improved personal allowances for those over 65 and over 75. I do not yet have to declare an interest in this matter because I am still just on the right side of those numbers, but this is a good thing, because it is important that people who are living longer should retain more of the income that they have painstakingly built up as a result of their efforts over the years.
  The result of all these measures in the sphere of savings and helping the elderly is that 14 million taxpayers will pay less income tax on their savings, and that will be worth on average about £75 a year to the over-65s. Nine out of 10 taxpayers will have a marginal rate of only 20p in the pound on their savings. That is all to the good.
  My only caveat about this aspect of my right hon. and learned Friend's Budget is that about one third of all households pay no income tax, as Opposition Members know. I should have liked—I make an early Budget representation for next year to my hon. Friend the

  59
  Financial Secretary—the Chancellor to afford a well-focused boost to the state pension for those over 75. Those over 75 have some of the greatest financial commitments, as we all know with the natural forces of longevity, and are least likely to have the benefit of occupational pensions or personal pensions or any other add-ons that younger pensioners have.
  I argued strongly for that this year. I was unlucky this year, but I very much hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor will recognise the strength of the argument for next year and will consider a focused relief which, if included in a Budget in November 1996, would give a special boost to all those born before 28 November 1921, if my arithmetic is correct, to ensure that we help the cohort of people who would be 75 and over at that time.
  Aside from that, the measures to help the elderly, including measures to help the financing of long-term residential care, are excellent and go a long way to giving people greater security in their old age.
  The second aspect that I wanted to discuss is support for businesses—especially for small businesses. I am sure that in your constituency, Madam Deputy Speaker, as in mine, small businesses play a vital wealth-creating and job-creating role. It is especially important, therefore, that the Chancellor should help that sector of the economy in every Budget.
  It is excellent that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor has cut the rate of corporation tax for small businesses from 25p in the pound to 24p in the pound, which, as I understand it, will help more than 300,000 companies—indeed, more than 85 per cent. of companies that pay the tax. It is also good that the cut in the basic rate of income tax to 24p in the pound will reduce the tax burden on unincorporated businesses.
  The small business men in my constituency will be pleased by the proposed cut in employers' national insurance contributions from April 1997, which will reduce their costs and make it a little easier to take on new workers. I have asked the question before: why must we wait until April 1997 for the introduction of that worthy and worthwhile change? I imagine that it has something to do with computerisation. I was always told that computerisation was supposed to speed things up, but I have an awful feeling that in this case it may slow them down.
  I welcome the new, tighter limit on the growth of business rates, which will alleviate the rate bills on 870,000 smaller business properties. There are a number of such properties in my constituency and I know that the business men involved will be pleased.
  I join my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire in welcoming the aspiration of introducing plainer English into the tax legislation, in which the Institute of Chartered Accountants—to which I have already declared my paid connection—has a strong interest and for which it has lobbied over some time.
  The package of measures for small businesses is excellent, as is the new lower qualifying age for capital gains tax retirement relief, which has been dropped from 55 to 50. I would not, however, give that measure the prominence that some of the other provisions deserve, not
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  least because I want successful small business men to stay in business, not simply retire and enjoy their well-earned gains elsewhere. All those measures come on top of provisions in previous Budgets that testify to the Government's determination to ensure that the small business sector is nurtured and helped to grow.
  I end as I began in my intervention on the hon. Member for Motherwell, South—on the subject of the diminishing role of any national Budget in the modern global economy, of which hon. Members from both sides of the House are perhaps more aware now than they used to be. The fiscal adjustment in the Budget is the equivalent of 1 per cent. of total public expenditure and less than 0.5 per cent. of GDP. It is hard to see how one can move mountains with fiscal adjustments of that size.
  I know that it was done in order to deliver the responsible Budget of which I have spoken, but the monetary adjustment for which the Budget may have paved the way is arguably more significant to the health of the economy, the working of the labour market and the creation of jobs. If the introduction of a cautious and responsible Budget has made that aim achievable, the Budget will have done an excellent job.
  As I said to the hon. Member for Motherwell, South, the most important aspects of all modern economic policy are supply-side measures to enhance competitiveness and improve the flexibility of the economy. If we cannot achieve those ends, the other aspects are marginal by comparison. I commend the Government for the efforts that they have made under the general heading of competitiveness, and I urge them to do more, as that in itself will probably achieve more than any national Budget in a global economy.
  6.2 pm
  Mr. Simon Hughes: The hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin), who sits behind me, and I were agreeing that the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman) had made a thoughtful contribution that tackled relevant issues, which cannot always be said about contributions to this or any other debate.
  I shall pray in aid his arguments when I next meet the Secretary of State for Social Security. When I suggested considering increasing resources for the older pensioner, the Secretary of State told me that the Government were not minded to do so, as, unlike the Liberal Democrats, they had no wish to throw money around like confetti. There is a strong case for looking again at the gradation of state help for the older citizen, for the very reasons given by the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington. The token 25p for those over 80 years old is insulting to them, and they think so—it is nonsense.
  I have another introductory comment which I do not make as a joke, although it is slightly amusing. When the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington mentioned the difference between the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats on Budget matters, I undertook to give him a copy of our costed Budget, which I shall do. The hon. Member for Sunderland, South suggested that it was important that my civil servant, sitting under the Gallery, should take a note of my commitment for future reference.
  Unfortunately, when I last looked, the position was unchanged from that of five minutes earlier, when I received a pager message from the aforesaid researcher

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  telling me that he needed to go home to let in the plumber, and hoped to be back for my speech. My researcher was therefore not present to hear my undertaking. However, I have given my pledge on the record, and can assure the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington that we are committed to it—and also before the next general election.
  I wish to comment on the place of the NHS budget in the Budget as a whole. I am sorry that the Secretary of State for Health is not present, as the debate began last week, continued on lunchtime television with the "Jonathan Dimbleby programme" yesterday, and the right hon. Gentleman sought to tackle the subject in his speech today.
  There is now a strong body of argument, not just from party political opponents of the Government, that the Government's Budget claims, particularly in relation to the police, education and the health service, are little short of a con. The Government are certainly playing with mirrors. On closer examination, the Budget figures do not bear out the claims made for them.
  If one takes a careful look, one sees that money being directed to the Home Office for anti-crime measures and the police is less, not more. The money being put towards education, which is allegedly additional money, is in fact only the money that is needed if the Government want to ensure that next year's allocation is the same as this year's—the money makes up what was projected and allocated as the reduction. The additional money will have to come from local authorities, whose allocated money, as confirmed last Thursday, has been cut, not increased. The health service budget from public finances is effectively being frozen, not increased.
  On examination, we find that a large amount of the £3 billion, which is allegedly the tax cut that is to be handed back in one form or another—primarily by the 1p reduction in income tax, which amounts to £2 billion—is being clawed back by the Chancellor. Some £1 billion of that money will be clawed back next year, when the tax increases on petrol and tobacco that he announced last year have worked through. Nearly £1 billion—£900 million—will be added to people's bills by the council tax addition which was suggested in Thursday's announcement. Other factors, such as the reduction of £150 million to the amount directed to the Post Office, will no doubt be clawed back by extra charges on stamps.
  It is not a giveaway Budget, as people will come to realise. Next year, few people will have benefited from it. As the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington said, there will doubtless have to be considerably more giveaways before people notice the giveaway factor at all—or think they do. The cycle of the past decade shows that that is not the case for most people.
  Mr. Forman: That is not quite the point that I was making. I was saying that, in a responsible Budget, the degree of fiscal adjustment will necessarily be small. I was putting that in context. As I have the Floor, does the hon. Gentleman regard as a reality the fact that the Liberal-controlled .London borough of Sutton has gained the provision of an extra 5.2 per cent. in education for 1996–97 compared with 1995–96? I should have thought that that was a generous increase.
  Mr. Hughes: I do not know, because I do not hold the figures for every authority in my head, but, if the hon.
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  Gentleman is right, the figure is welcome. The Liberal Democrat-run borough of Sutton has been shown to have the highest satisfaction rate in opinion polls conducted independently for any local authority in the country. I pay tribute to the authority for that, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) are glad that they have such a well-run Liberal Democrat local council.
  On the subject of health service figures, the hon. Gentleman said—the Secretary of State made the same point in answer to a question from me—that the Conservative party manifesto commitment in 1992 was explicit. It stated:
  "We will, year by year, increase the level of real resources committed to the NHS."
  That has happened. For the second and third years of the figures projected by the Chancellor, it will be true by the thinnest of margins statistically possible: 0.1 of 1 per cent. in each of the two years. The commitment exists, but the figures have clearly been arranged so that they are just the right side of the line. I hope to show that it is, however, a delusion for other reasons, which relate to the method of calculating real increases in spending and inflation in the health service.
  In his Budget statement last week, the Chancellor made another extremely partial and illusory statement. He said:
  "since 1979 spending on the NHS has increased by more than 70 per cent. in real terms".
  That is extremely questionable, and the proper indicators demonstrate that it is far from the truth. He continued:
  "We are continuing to deliver our commitment to increase spending on the NHS in real terms… Public spending on the national health service will increase by over £1 billion pounds next year."—[Official Report, 28 November 1995; Vol. 267, c. 1058.]
  The press release from the Department of Health and the Red Book show that that is only partially true.
  The press release, which is a summary of the key issues, includes three tables. The first relates to the NHS current net spending total for England. It shows an increase of 1.6 per cent., or £1 billion, on the revised figure for 1995–96 to the projected figure for 1996–97. However, capital spending should also be taken into account, and that is set out in the second table. As mentioned earlier in the debate, the revised total for this year is £2,120 million, so the planned figure of £2,038 million for 1996–97 represents a reduction of 6.5 per cent. in real terms. Although the total estimated outturn for 1995-96 and the spending plans for 1996-97 reveal a cash increase of £1 billion, which the Department of Health press release describes as a real-terms increase at 1994–95 prices of £190 million, that represents growth of only 0.6 per cent. in real terms. The table shows the projected increase for the following two years as 0.1 per cent., giving the lie to the Government's claim that there is a £1 billion extra money. There is £1 billion extra spending in next year's budget, but it is matched by a reduction in capital spending, so the net increase is very small. Anyone who looks at the Red Book will accept what the Secretary of State for Health implied—he is more honest in that respect than other commentators—that a fixed and frozen amount of public money has been allocated for next year and every year for the foreseeable future.
  The figures are clear. Table 6A on page 142 of the Red Book shows estimated outturn in the health service this year to be £32 billion, of which the NHS has £31.1 billion,

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  and estimated health outturn for the coming year as £32 billion—the same figure—with the NHS proportion rising by only £2 million to £31.3 billion. Thereafter, the figure drops to £31.6 billion, with the NHS figure frozen at 31.3 billion for the first year and £31.4 billion for the following year.
  In terms of growth, expansion and development, that means that the NHS will begin a period of greater squeeze, greater pressure and greater relative contraction than at any time in its history, excluding only the years 1975–76 and 1979–80, when there was a world oil crisis. In the next three years, the NHS is about to experience a more significant reduction in Government funding than ever before. That is unusual. Normally, in the run-up to general elections, even under Tory Governments, more money goes into the health service.
  Members who take part in health service debates know that the real costs of the health service are measured not only by the GDP deflator but by two other figures that the Government accept, recognise and publish. The Government produce a specific NHS deflator figure as well as estimates of hospital and community health services inflation. When those are taken into account, the picture is extremely different and much more alarming.
  If the NHS deflator is applied to the other published figures for the NHS, it is clear that, since 1979, the increase of 57 per cent. that the Government claim is actually only 27 per cent. in real terms. I would argue that that is a more accurate reflection of what people feel than any belief that there has been a massive increase of more than 50 per cent. in spending on the NHS.
  If those figures are applied to the years covered by the Budget, they show that there will be a cut in resources of 2.2 per cent. over the next three years.
  Mr. Forman: Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that the debate in which he is indulging is conducted in input figures, chiefly cash? I was guilty of that too, but surely it is just as important—probably more important, these days—to consider outputs, which include waiting times.
  Mr. Hughes: Of course I accept that, but there are always two sides to such debates—how much we raise and how much we spend.
  We should also consider the percentage of our national wealth that we spend on the health service, and the global pattern of expenditure. If the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington recollects the figures, which are attested to be true, he will agree with me that our expenditure is increasing as a percentage of GDP, and has reached about 7 per cent. That is still significantly below the European Union average, and the figure is considerably higher in other countries.
  I accept that the balance includes private as well as public expenditure, but health expenditure is increasing as a proportion of total national budgets. That appears to be the trend, for the obvious reason that there are more elderly people living longer, and older people, however fit they are, consume more resources in the health service. The real tests are not simply how much money is put in, but also how much the service is improved at the receiving end.
  I have three more important and relevant statistics. I welcome the projected reduction in administrative costs in years to come. That is certainly necessary, because the
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  NHS administration budget grew by more than 50 per cent. between 1979–80 and 1993–94. The number of administrative and clerical staff rose from about 110,000 to about 132,000 betweem 1986 and 1993–an increase of 20 per cent.
  In the same period, the number of nursing staff was slashed from about 402,000 to 366,000—a decrease of 9 per cent.—and the number of maintenance and work staff has dropped from about 25,000 to about 17,000—a reduction of a third. The almost incredible figure is that the number of general and senior managers has gone up from 500 in 1986 to 20,000 in 1993. Just for the record, that represents a increase of 3,900 per cent. which must beat all other records.
  I know that the caveat is that certain jobs have been redesignated, but experience on the ground in the health service is that many more people are pen pushing, because the health service is a more complex, split operation.
  The Chancellor said in his Budget statement that 70 per cent. more has been committed to the health service since 1979. That is not the case when one takes into account the aging population and the real increased costs of the health service.
  I calculated that figure. More accurately, people who work with me did so, but I went through that calculation with them carefully and have the tables, which I willingly offer the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington and others who take an interest. The real increase since 1979 is 10.3 per cent.—about 0.5 per cent. a year. A figure of 10.3 per cent. is hugely different from 70 per cent., and the public know it.
  As to the private finance initiative, neither I nor my party is opposed to using the private sector and private wealth to improve public services, because that is clearly sensible. If the private sector is willing to put money in the kitty, let us use it. However, the Government's action this year is not only unwise but unjustified.
  It is unwise because the Government appear to he putting all their faith in the PFI. Although the percentage of the capital budget that is PFI is not yet equal to the public capital budget, it is intended to go in that direction fast. Paragraph 6.57 of the Red Book makes it clear that there had been £100 million of private finance by April 1995 and that there are schemes in the pipeline worth £250 million for the current year. By the end of next year
  "it is expected that projects worth £1 billion will have come forward for approval."
  Ms Eagle: They will never do it.
  Mr. Hughes: I agree. The hon. Lady makes a point that I was just about to argue, based on a case that I know full well from my constituency.
  In the 1980s, the then Secretary of State for Education and Science established the city technology colleges programme. It was boldly proclaimed that 80 per cent. of the money would come from the private sector, and 20 per cent. from the public sector. There were to be hundreds of CTCs. But the programme ran into the ground after about 20 had been established. The figures are clear, including for my constituency. Eighty per cent. of the money came

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  from the public sector and 20 per cent. from the private sector, because it did not think that was the best way to spend its money.
  Ms Eagle: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Confederation of British Industry is on record as being extremely sceptical that the Government's optimistic forecasts have even a remote chance of being met?
  Mr. Hughes: That is completely correct.
  The most objective test of all is in the Library research paper 95/113 on investment, which the hon. Lady may have seen. It includes a section on the private finance initiative, and in its summary of criticisms quotes the Financial Times of 10 November:
  "Critics of PFI—and they are everywhere—fall into two broad groups."
  The Treasury was not persuaded of the merits earlier this year, and there is strong evidence against the PFI, for obvious reasons.
  It is clearly the case that capital expenditure not met by the public purse now is being avoided in return for payments over years to come. To the risk of an uncertain outcome—the NHS, for example, may not inherit a hospital—the PFI adds the costs over 50 years. There is no guarantee that those costs will be less for those of us who pay than capital funding now.
  We are not stupid. The reason for the private finance initiative—apart from the Government's belief in such a partnership, which we share—is so that the Budget can show a holding down of public expenditure and there can be tax cuts. That is not an illusion—it is obvious—but the Chancellor ought to be honest.
  There has never been a manifesto commitment that the NHS hospital building programme will be put out to the private sector. The British people have never endorsed such a proposal, and it has never been formally endorsed even by the House. That policy has never been tested by the British people. If it were tested and the public agreed, that would be one thing—but effectively putting the hospital building programme entirely in the private sector, which looks like happening, is something to which I and my colleagues cannot subscribe without qualification.
  That proposition has never been put to the nation, and I am sure that the public would have all sorts of doubts, quite apart from those of the CBI and the Financial Times. We would want convincing evidence that the risks of the PFI are not considerably greater than the benefits.
  As to community care, the Secretary of State, referring to Thursday's announcement, said that there will be a 4 per cent. increase in special transitional grant for community care funding, which is the additional cost to local authorities of funding the threshold of £16,000, instead of £8,000, before which people pay a contribution. I welcome that increase, and ask the Secretary of State to confirm that the figure required by local authorities is £60 million, and that it will be met in full.
  The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington was accurate and generous enough to say that we are at least being straightforward with people. We have said that we will vote against the tax reduction tomorrow night—unlike Labour, which apparently will abstain. We believe that the additional money being put into the health service should be used in a different way. We are committed to restoring free eyesight tests and dental checks, and to
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  freezing prescription charges for those people who pay them. Labour should commit itself to the same. The public want those changes, but the Government did nothing to respond.
  If we favour a national health service from the cradle to the grave, and if the Chancellor is making a great point about putting additional money into the NHS, I cannot understand why the Government continue with policies that prevent people taking their own preventive health care steps, by charging for eyesight and dental checks and increasing prescription charges whatever the individual's ability to pay.
  That policy is unnecessary. The Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Health should have changed it. That policy indicates again that the public's real concerns about the NHS have not been addressed by the Budget. The Budget is an illusion and a con. There is not a great deal more public money. Health service expenditure will be reduced in real terms, and the public will not be deceived.
  6.27 pm
  Mrs. Jacqui Lait: I am pleased to take part in the debate, which has been dominated by the national health service—but not one that I recognise. I was a health authority chairman before entering the House, and the vision of today's health service offered by Opposition Members is very much that of the NHS as it was before 1991, when it was inefficient and incapable of making decisions. Patients were treated as lumps of meat and not as people. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Patients were required to turn up en masse for bulk appointments instead of being given specific times. They were pushed from pillar to post and not given information. [HON. MEMBERS: "Not true. Believe me—I was a health authority chairman and I had specific and clear evidence of that happening in the east end of London.
  Even in those days, we were debating priorities and the need to ration services. One area that we felt we could begin by approaching was whether the NHS should provide cosmetic operations for varicose veins and tattoo removal. That clearly shows how priorities and requirements have changed to meet the needs of the patient. The NHS today is a patient-oriented service and no longer a producer-oriented service.
  My constituency has a brand new hospital—a hospital that was cancelled under the 1976 cuts and which was only built because of Conservative investment in health. The turf was turned for phase 2 of the hospital by the Minister for Health in the summer. Moreover, my right hon. Friend has allocated extra money to East Sussex so that our much-needed mental health strategy can go ahead. So as we move into phase 3 in Hastings and Rye, a comprehensive pattern of health care which has been missing until now is emerging. Hitherto the system had always been ad hoc; doctors and nurses worked under extreme pressure and were unable to deliver the health services that my constituents deserve. All of that has now changed and we are approaching a health service, provided by the taxpayer, of the highest quality.
  I for one do not disagree with the need to increase the number of managers in the health service. To deliver the service that people require we need to manage it more efficiently and effectively. The lack of such management was the fundamental flaw before we brought in the purchaser-provider split. Some of the managers, however,

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  are still not of the quality needed to develop the service further. I therefore look forward to more reform of the management of the service, to bring in many more highly skilled people. I should also like medical schools and nursing schools to train doctors and nurses in management techniques so that they, too, can bring those techniques to the treatment of patients.
  Today we have also been discussing the Budget in broader terms. Like all other Members, I am sure, I spent the past weekend in my constituency being apprised of the views of my constituents, going around Christmas fairs run by charities and other worthy organisations—and thank goodness I did, as it was the only way I could have done my Christmas shopping this year. The message from my constituents is that, once the changes come into effect in April, they will feel considerably better off and more in control of their own spending. The cumulative effect of the increased allowances, the widening of the 20p band, the reduction in tax on savings to 20p in the pound, and the 1p cut in the basic rate of income tax, will give them more money in their pockets which they can choose how to spend. That is a basic tenet of Conservative party policy, which I should not need to repeat here.
  On Friday I also met some local industrialists and found them appreciative of the tax changes and the changes in the uniform business rate. Like many others, they commend the idea of introducing plain English to taxation law. I look forward to the first legislation to be written in plain English.
  I consulted many local businesses before the Budget to find out what their owners wanted included in it. Broadly speaking, the Chancellor delivered what they were looking for. They are still hoping for a further reduction in interest rates, because, like most home owners, they will enjoy a distinct improvement in their cash flows when interest rates come down. I believe that the Chancellor's Budget was geared to such a reduction even if he could not say so at the time.
  There has been some debate about the private finance initiative. At the risk of boring hon. Members again on the subject of our road communications, I should point out that it gives me pleasure to welcome the inclusion in the PFI of a number of crucial sections of the A21. Unlike Opposition Members who are deeply sceptical about the PFI, I am enthusiastic about it. It provides one way for the construction industry to invest, to help it out of its current difficulties, which have to do with the long-term changes in the housing market. Right across the construction industry, the PFI will come as a tremendous fillip. I look forward to speedy applications by a number of companies to build sections of the A21.
  Like one of my colleagues last week, I also urge on the Government the idea that the PFI panel should include as many private sector members as possible, with minimal civil service influence. Civil servants' writing of specifications and contracts often seems more geared to ensuring that those contracts are not met or tendered for, rather than encouraging people to tender for them. I note that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury appears to agree with me, and I hope to hear confirmation of that later.
  My travels around my constituency at the weekend brought me into contact with a number of farmers. This time last year they were warning me about possible
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  changes to vehicle excise duty for tractors. I am glad that that problem has been solved, but farmers are becoming increasingly worried about large increases in the duty on gasoil. Last year's Budget and, I am told, this year's both increased the duty. I should be most grateful if the Treasury would stop increasing the duty on gasoil excessively. Such increases constitute a deterrent to farming and an additional cost for an industry which, although recovering, is still not so profitable as it might be.
  A constituency such as mine contains a large number of pensioners, many in straitened circumstances. In the context of long-term care, they therefore welcome the increase in the allowance ceiling from £3,000 to £10,000. I am worried, however, that the floodgates will be opened to applications for services provided and paid for by social services departments. I still entertain strong doubts about the ability of social services departments, not just in East Sussex but in other areas, effectively to deliver services at competitive cost.
  I have long complained, for instance, that East Sussex pays itself £100 per week more for rest home and nursing home care than it pays the private sector, even though the latter provides similar if not better care. That is a waste of about £4 million a year. I am also conscious that some of the assessment and reassessment services are, to say the least, extremely slow. Sometimes doctors need to admit emergency cases but social services will not speed up their processes, and poor souls in deep distress find themselves caught between medical requirements and social services bureaucracy.
  An enormous amount still needs to be done, and it will be done only when we introduce the purchaser-provider split to social services as well. At present, social services are judge, jury and prosecutor. Until we allow them either only to provide or only to purchase we shall not be able to introduce to the provision of long-term care for the elderly the sensible services that people need and pay for through their taxes.
  I am pleased that longer-term changes will be introduced to ensure that the increasing number of retired people with substantial occupational pensions and savings will be able themselves to provide for any care that they may need in their later years, while at the same time retaining capital to pass from one generation to the next.
  I welcome the increased provision that will be made available to the counties for education, including the one in which my constituency is placed. I am sure that many of my right hon. and hon. Friends would join me in deploring the campaign that was waged to terrify parents, governors and teachers. Threats of cuts were based on the economics of the madhouse as opposed to those of reality. We must ensure that the increased moneys pass straight to the schools. I believe that the campaign of misinformation may backfire. So many people were distressed by it. I would not be surprised if parents did not start to demand ballots for schools to go grant-maintained to ensure that they never again have to face such an appallingly political and distressing campaign.
  It would not be a speech on the Budget from me if I did not mention smuggling. I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Paymaster General is on the Government Front Bench because one of his responsibilities is excise duty. I never believed that in the Budget we would see, in effect

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  a freeze on excise duty on most forms of tobacco and alcohol. I thought that if we were lucky we might see a minor increase. Instead, we have seen a reduction in the duty on whisky, while excise duties on beer and wine remain the same. The freezing of the duty on hand-rolling tobacco is a bonus for small businesses, breweries, tobacconists, restaurants and cafes, which have all suffered dramatically from bootlegging.
  I am concerned that the increase in tax in the Budget will make it more profitable to smuggle cigarettes. It is a fact, however, that the most profitable area of bootlegging is still hand-rolling tobacco. There is a potential profit of about £5 for a 50g bag. I understand that the small-time smuggler who would bring in seven to 10 kg of cannabis now finds it more profitable to bring in a car boot full of hand-rolling tobacco. The Treasury must take more seriously yet the difficulties that businesses find as a result of the differentials in excise duty rates between those in the United Kingdom and those elsewhere in Europe.
  We must take seriously the threat to health faced by youngsters who have access to cheap tobacco. More and more young people will be encouraged to take up the pernicious weed. Our high-tax policy has deterred them from doing so for so long, but as access to cheap tobacco becomes easier, our policy is no longer a deterrent.
  I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to give us an idea of what happened in Lisbon on 13 and 14 November. I understand that the meeting was to discuss excise duties throughout the European Union. It would be useful to know whether any progress has been made.
  Deterrence is costly, which I suspect is causing concern to excise officials. Given the low cost of tobacco and alcohol throughout the rest of the Community, bootlegging is not something with which excise officials should be concerned. We are a single market. At the same time, huge hauls of cannabis, cocaine and other drugs are coming into the United Kingdom. Excise officials should be concentrating on that area.
  Finally, I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer for producing a Budget which will, in the long run, be successful. It has kept the City in good heart and at the same time has ensured that businesses in my constituency feel confident that they can invest and go forward, and I and my constituents support it.
  6.45 pm
  Mr. Sam Galbraith: I was rather saddened by the nasty little introduction of the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Mrs. Lait). She attacked those who are working within the national health service and their professional standards. She seemed to imply that everyone in the NHS is in it for themselves.
  That never struck me when, after operating all day—I would probably finish at 7 or 8 o'clock and nip home for a bite to eat—I would return at about midnight to check on the folk on whom I had operated. I would be back on during the middle of the night and then in again next morning for another large clinic. The idea that it was great personal fun is the opposite of the truth.
  All my colleagues had the appointments system for out-patients. We had diaries, and patients were given a date for their operations if that was the treatment they needed. Never a day passed without my spending a
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  considerable time talking to patients and relatives. I hope that the hon. Lady will reflect on what she said, and perhaps consider not making the same attack again.
  Mrs. Lait: I would never impugn the work that is undertaken by doctors and nurses. I merely said that, in the past, they were not working as efficiently as they could have been if they had been properly managed.
  Mr. Galbraith: I think that the hon. Lady is having second thoughts and backtracking. She is qualifying her response by using the term "properly managed". All that she has said about arrangements for appointment times and other provisions were in place, or were being introduced, long before the Government's reforms. The problem was that a great deal of time had to be used to deal with other matters. The introduction of the Government's reforms was delayed. That is the reality.
  Whenever I have spoken in debates on Budgets or on health service funding, I have made the speech which we heard today from the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes). I would explain how the increase was not what it seemed to be, once account had been taken of various factors and deflators. I would explain that there would be no increase in funding, or only a slight increase.
  Since 1979, the real increase in health care has been only 1 per cent. That increase is lower than that achieved by any other Government since the inception of the NHS. I shall not make the same speech again. First, it has been well made by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey. Secondly, I shall refrain from doing so, because, as the hon. Gentleman said, the public do not recognise what the Government say as reality. They trust their senses. They realise that funding is a problem that has further to be considered, and that it is not as the Government suggest.
  I shall refer to some of the issues that are related to funding in the light of the private finance initiative. It should not be necessary to say too much about rationing within the health service. When I last spoke in the Chamber about the health service, I discussed the issue at great length, and analysed it in some depth. I hope that it is not something to which we shall have to return.
  The debate about these matters continues in a somewhat confused manner. We find that we talk at cross purposes. I shall make just a few short but important points.
  The first thing to get right in the debate is the definition of rationing. It is the denial of care to a patient when he or she wants it, when the doctor wants to give it, and when it is beneficial to the patient's physical and mental health, other than by placebo effect. We should be clear about that.
  That does not, of course, include the provision of ineffective treatments. Stopping ineffective treatment is not rationing; it is good clinical practice, and we must learn to separate one from the other.
  The commonest example of ineffective treatment that people know about is the use of antibiotics in upper respiratory tract infections, the majority of which are viral. As long as one does not put a blanket ban on their use but realises that, in most cases, they are ineffective in stopping such infections, that is not rationing but good clinical practice. In that way, one can fund the health

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  service, because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) says, it means that there is no bottomless pit. The bottomless pit does not exist. It is a myth, and any justification for basing the health service on it is false. There may be other reasons why one does want to fund it.
  When responding to funding, it is important to separate need and demand. That, again, is another area that gets confused in the debate. Demand can be generated by many areas and by many individuals—drug companies, Government policy, doctors and so on—but we should respond not to demand, only to need. We can work out what the need is. We know the number of people who require hip replacements or cholecystectomies. We know the number of people who will get carcinoma of the bronchus and require an operation. It is not endless. It is not a bottomless pit.
  As long as we respond simply to the need, and providing we have the political will, we can indeed fulfil all the necessary expenditure. That requires some tough decisions, of that there is no doubt, to which some people might object, but as long as we ensure that we base those decisions on the clinical necessity and effectiveness of the treatment, we should be strong, and take them.
  The other phrase that creeps up nowadays when talking about rationing is "priority setting", which I am sure the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye knows about. I always worry when we move to other phrases, because we generally think that there is a bit of sophistry going on. I admit, however, that there is a system of priority setting within the NHS. There always has been.
  I take as an example renal dialysis, which was not always available to everyone. In effect, it was rationed. Heart transplantation was also not available to everyone. Priorities were set, but it was a different type of priority setting, because the decision was taken that it would be necessary in the future and that we would work to fund it. Indeed, it was delivered, as in the case of renal dialysis and heart transplantation.
  The trouble is that priority setting is now defined as stopping funding for a procedure, and never funding it again with money from the NHS. That is the difference. That is why priority setting as defined by the Government is just the same as rationing.
  I was recently talking to a manager about priority setting, and he mentioned a case in which a treatment might be beneficial to someone but not everyone, and said that therefore it could be stopped—for example, patients with head injury or coma.
  For patients with a head injury, one can predict with reasonable certainty that, in certain comas, 95 per cent. will die and 2 or 3 per cent. will survive but be severely disabled. Some 2 or 3 per cent. will do well. He said, "We waste all this money in saving a small percentage, so we should stop doing it." That case can be argued. I would not disagree that decisions are made on that, but no absolutes can be drawn from it. It has to be left to the judgment
  of the individuals concerned.
  The decision relates, of course, to the age, the clinical practice, who they are, and various other issues. It is not a matter that is simply open to the statistical analysis that is available and on which one can then make a judgment.
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  It is a very difficult one, as anyone who followed the recent case of a young girl who had a leukaemic disease will know. Someone said, "Well, the chances of recovery are small, so we won't fund it." Beware anyone who denies that treatment. Even in a small number of cases, it would be beneficial.
  The manager also told me that the great advantage was that they could use evidence-based medicine. When I first heard the phrase "evidence-based medicine", I thought, "Splendid—here's a new tool for me to use." But I wonder what it is. I always thought that I had been using evidence-based medicine, reading five or six journals a week, as I still do. All my colleagues were doing the same—studying what they were doing, analysing the statistical analysis. We thought that we were using evidence-based medicine, but here was a new tool.
  I looked at it and, after a while, came to the conclusion that there was nothing new. It was just a new phrase that some people had discovered. They found that medicine was a science, and that they could use that phrase to make such decisions. The decisions are quite difficult, but they had found the answer.
  The Government have spoken a lot recently about evidence-based medicine, but it is not easy or simple. Sometimes the evidence is poor. Sometimes it is almost impossible to collect. I have often thought about how we could set up studies to find some absolute statistically significant result in the end that did not prove their case, but even when one has the evidence, sometimes it is such that one has to make a judgment, and one cannot escape the political, social and medical judgments.
  Again I am reminded of a case. If the evidence were that treatment X resulted in death in the majority—let us say that 5 per cent. survive but are disabled and 5 per cent. do well—what does the evidence tell us about what we should do? That is the evidence of the outcome, but one has to make a political, medical and social judgment about what to do in such cases. So beware of the glib phrase "evidence-based medicine".
  I now come briefly to the private finance initiative, because we have some experience of it in Scotland. I realise that the Secretary of State has no responsibility for the Scottish health service, but I shall use these examples, so that everyone appreciates some of the problems.
  With the PFI, one loses flexibility in the health service, because one is locked into long-term contracts, from which it is impossible to get out. In Glasgow, some of the care of the elderly was taken over by a private company, Takare. Contracts were signed and systems were set up. Now we discover that that model is not the most appropriate model and we would like to move to a different one. The problem is that we are locked- into a long-term contract with that company, and we cannot change it. Medicine changes—it moves with the times. One requires that flexibility. In Glasgow, we have lost that, particularly in the case of the demented elderly. That is one of its problems.
  The other problem is simply the cost. The Greater Glasgow health board took out a lease on an office building for its headquarters under the PFI—use now, pay later, no need for the capital spend. It has discovered that its needs have changed, and it has moved to other offices. But it is left with the building on a huge lease, which it cannot get rid of, despite the fact that it has tried time and again.

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  The real aim of the PFI is that it is privatising the health service. It is not as though it is the thin end of the wedge. The wedge is rammed in tight, and it will be difficult to get it out.
  The Secretary of State spoke at great length today, as he has done in the past, about how the PFI does not apply to clinical services, and how it applies only to buildings. That is not the case in Scotland. As has been mentioned, at Stonehaven hospital, every aspect comes under the PFI, including the provision and delivery of clinical services. Every part of that hospital comes under the private finance initiative. I dare say that the Secretary of State does not wish that to be the case, but his Government are actively involved in the programme. I have given three examples from my own area, which give us grave concern about the private finance initiative.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham said, the NHS is a fine example of the community in action. We believe that the only way in which individuals can realise their full potential is by working together. That is one of the reasons why we favour the NHS so strongly, and that is why we shall continue to defend it.
  7 pm
  Mr. Piers Merchant: This year, the hype and hot air that are part of the build-up to the Budget reached record proportions. Alongside that, there has been the increased drama that has accompanied Budget statements in recent years as a result of simultaneous television and radio transmissions and the almost neurotic scramble of the various media organisations to be the first to judge and to comment on the Budget, even before my right hon. and learned Friend has sat down. It is, perhaps, not surprising that the initial analysis of the Budget is hardly balanced, fair or logical; indeed, that has been the case this year.
  Nearly a week after the Budget statement, we are in a much better position to judge the Budget's real impact on ordinary people. While the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) no doubt spent the weekend feverishly working out her great fictional piece on the health service, to which she treated us this afternoon, I, like most of my hon. Friends, was in my constituency meeting and talking to ordinary constituents to see what they felt about the Budget and what impact it had on them.
  I started my weekend by attending a meeting of the Abbeyfield Society which looks after older people. Most of the people there were pensioners and I talked to them at some length. There was universal praise for the Budget among those people and some real enthusiasm. They will gain from tax cuts, and their standard of living and their security will improve. The Opposition may be surprised to know that those people were talking not about the national health service deflator or about macro-economic policy but about how they would be affected by the Budget.
  I talked to one elderly lady who was a retired teacher—not a fat cat or a person who had huge inherited wealth but someone who was past the age at which she felt she could live on her 'own in her home and who had sold it and moved into residential care. That lady had invested the proceeds from her house sale in a building society and was using the interest to pay for her care. She told me that she had calculated that she would be £550 a year better off as a result of the Budget.
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  The Budget had made a great deal of difference to her, because it had made it possible for her not only to pay for her residential care but to have money left over to enable her to have a relaxed style of life. It also enabled her to know that she would have the security of such a life as long as she wished. She knew that, when she eventually passed on, she would be able to leave money to her next of kin, which made her happy.
  Ms Eagle: Does the hon. Gentleman think that his constituent will be happy when interest rates go down in the next few days? There are always checks and balances in these issues.
  Mr. Merchant: I am glad that the hon. Lady is so confident that interest rates will come down; I hope they will, because that will benefit the economy. However, my constituent's tax savings will outstrip the likely reduction in interest rates, so the hon. Lady's point is a bogus diversion from the real benefits that people will have.
  I also talked to an elderly couple who were still living in their own home. They were benefiting by more than£1,000 a year from the Budget and they, too, were very pleased. However, they were concerned about what might happen if one of them had the misfortune to fall ill and to require long-term nursing care, a problem that affects many elderly people. It is as much the worry of that possibility, with its financial consequences, as the actuality that upsets people. That possibility worries not just elderly people but younger people who see it as a possibility for their later years, and those who have elderly relatives and who are concerned about their future care.
  The people to whom I talked were pleased and optimistic about the changes that have come from the Budget, such as the tripling of the basic threshold below which they will face no charge for their long-term care, however long it is, and the doubling to £16,000 of the figure under which they will have to contribute only a small amount. People with average savings of £14,000 would previously have had to pay some charge for an average-priced nursing home and would have expected their capital to be reduced by £280 or £290 a week. Now their capital will not be reduced, which means a great deal to them. The Opposition, far from rubbishing the changes, should recognise that they will help many people, and should welcome them for that reason.
  Elderly people will also welcome the raising of the age allowance by £280 and the reduction in the basic rate of tax by 1 per cent. They will welcome the extension of the inheritance tax threshold to £200,000, which will benefit many who hold property. All those measures will help elderly people, so I was not surprised to hear so many people expressing pleasure at the Budget and its implications for them.
  People's concern about moving into residential care is exaggerated by many. There is a myth that, if one has to move into long-term nursing care, one automatically loses one's house. It is often said that people will lose their house even if they have a spouse living there. That is entirely incorrect, because as long as a spouse remains in the family home, it cannot be treated as an asset in the calculation. There are other cases in which the house will not be lost even if only one person lives in it and then moves into nursing home care. It is advisable for people in that situation, their relatives or their advisers to take good financial advice in advance. They will then find that the impact of the charges is far less than many mischievously suggest

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  Another group of my constituents who are concerned about the impact of the Budget are those at the Wellcome research laboratories in Beckenham who, unfortunately, are facing redundancy following the takeover of Wellcome by Glaxo. They were extremely concerned in the run-up to the Budget because it was suggested that those receiving redundancy pay would have to pay tax on the first £30,000 of it, which had not previously been the case. I was sure that that would not happen and my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor made it perfectly clear in his Budget statement not only that it would not happen but that it had never been contemplated. In other words, those people were quite unnecessarily alarmed by a rumour that had no basis.
  I understand, however, that a small matter affecting redundancy pay is still being considered. It does not, I believe, affect any of my constituents, but it has affected some people in other parts of country. It involves a redundancy payment being made and the person concerned signing an agreement either to do or not to do something—for example, not to work for a rival company—as part of the redundancy deal. Some tax inspectors in some parts of the country who have narrowly interpreted the law have suggested that, in those cases, the whole of the £30,000 that is, at present, tax-free would be taxed. I understand that that matter is being examined by the Treasury, but I would be grateful if my hon. Friend the Minister would refer to it when he sums up, so that further reassurance can be given.
  Those constituents who are facing redundancy are also intimately concerned with the region's future economic health and with other possibilities that might come their way, so the Budget measures affecting small businesses are of particular interest both to them and to me. My constituency is perhaps unusual in that, other than the Wellcome research laboratories, it has no major employer, but it has an extraordinary number of small employers. There are literally hundreds of retail outlets on dozens of streets and in small shopping areas. Alongside those, there are many small businesses running service industries and some small manufacturing and engineering companies. They will all benefit from the reduction in small companies tax to 24 per cent., down from 42 per cent. in 1979.
  Those companies will benefit too from the reduction to 10 per cent. in employers' national insurance contributions. As an added incentive to those people, who often work extremely long hours and hard in the early part of their lives, they have the prospect of retiring at the lower age of 50 and of obtaining capital gains tax exemption when they pass their business on to others. Some will be able to benefit from the extension of inheritance tax relief to non-quoted shares.
  Business, especially small business, will therefore benefit considerably from the Budget, which will do all those firms in my constituency—employers and employees— a great deal of good, but the effects of Budget will also flow through to people who wish to set up in business, who will be encouraged by the extra incentives that are included.
  Over the weekend, I met a group of my constituents who are vintage car enthusiasts. That is a surprisingly widespread hobby and an attractive one. In the past, I have
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  attended vintage car rallies. Those people were not only extremely delighted that the original Green Paper proposals for continuous licensing had been effectively withdrawn as a result of the Government's listening to their representations—and to my representations as well, as I had strongly supported them—but delighted and surprised that continuous licensing would be operated in a way that produced no charge for those who were not using their cars on the road. For anyone owning a car that was more than 20 years old, there was also the added and surprising bonanza that no vehicle excise duty had to be paid.
  I am on the verge of declaring an interest in that matter, as the car that I own and run is more than 20 years old and I may benefit from that measure in three or four years, if my car lasts that long. I sincerely hope that it will. If it does not, I intend to show my appreciation for that Budget measure by buying a car that is even older. Some of my constituents will benefit, however, and are genuinely pleased about that Budget measure, which I welcome.
  I should like to move on to four sectors of expenditure that affect my constituency. Much has been said today about the health service. Much of it, however, has been theoretical and a great deal of it has been fictional or fantastic. The truth is that real resources for my constituents who need the health service will increase by more than 2.5 per cent. as some £3 million extra money flows to Bromley health authority. That will trickle down to the vital facilities that are offered to my constituents.
  I expect Bromley health authority to make good use of that money to reduce waiting lists still further, on top of its great successes in the past 12 to 18 months. I also expect that that will work through to a further improvement in accident and emergency services locally. The casualty service at Bromley hospital needs improving, but a great deal has already been done, to which I pay tribute. That money will enable more to be done, and I look to forward to that happening.
  I, too, welcome the private finance initiative. It will especially benefit my region, as Bromley Hospitals NHS, trust has advanced plans to build a new district general hospital that is needed in the region. For historic reasons, the present structure is haphazard and inefficient. Doctors and clinicians working in the hospitals, Bromley health authority and local people want a new district general hospital to provide a better, more efficient and more up-to-date service. I look forward to that materialising with the help of the measures announced in the Budget.
  Another concern of my constituents is the fight against crime. It is encouraging that the Metropolitan police will receive an enhanced budget that will enable the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis to employ a further 180 policemen in the coming year in the region. That will help to reduce the crime level still further. The number of recorded crimes dropped by 60,000 in the year to June 1995. It is important that that is continued. The extra police that the Commissioner promised will now be able to be put on station. We will do that, along with extending the innovative closed circuit television schemes.

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  The CCTV scheme in the centre of Bromley has been a great success. It has been up and running for a few months and has already resulted in a reduction—
  Mr. Simon Hughes: Why did you get the funding for that?
  Mr. Merchant: Because we lobbied so effectively. It has resulted in a reduction in the number of crimes committed in that region. I should like that scheme. however, to be extended to Beckenham town centre and to the other town centres in my constituency. The large extension of some 10,000 schemes will enable us to have a fair share of new CCTV schemes.
  All those measures will enable the security that people need to feel in the region to be extended in the face of what, in the past, have been serious crime levels. I regularly attend local police community liaison meetings. It is interesting to note that attitudes have changed in the past six months as the crime level has fallen considerably, across the country, in the Greater London area and specifically in my constituency. People are aware of that, and they are pleased to see it. They want the successful measures that have been used to bring the crime level down to be continued. The Budget will enable that to happen.
  There will be an increase in the local education standard spending assessment of some £4.2 million—an increase of 4.3 per cent. That, too, will feed through to the benefit of local people, as will the local government settlement. Calculated through its SSA of £203 million, this year Bromley will receive a distinct increase. Its SSA is up by some 2.7 per cent., or £5.4 million, and it is considerably more than was predicted even by optimists in the borough. The pessimists were talking about £196 million, the optimists of £199 million. The figure of £203 million is considerably in excess of that.
  It should enable the borough not only to continue providing a high level of good basic services, for which in any case it receives much praise, but to keep the council tax low. Bromley has one of the lowest council tax rates in London. After the rhetoric and fiction and the reinterpretation of reality, ordinary people will see how the Budget affects them and their locality and will appreciate its success. It is wise and well measured and will allow extra spending on things that people want, while allowing them to keep more of what they save and earn.
  7.20 pm
  Mr. Roy Hughes: The focus of the debate is the national health service. I have always appreciated the importance of that great service, but I shall concentrate on the need to build a successful economy that can provide the resources for an expanding and efficient health service. That would certainly have been the aim of Aneurin Bevan, who founded the NHS. He, too, would have deplored the creeping privatisation of the service.
  The Budget was not a giveaway at all. The most that can be said about it is that it amply meets the charge that is often made by the shadow Chancellor: that the Chancellor is giving with one hand and taking with the other. Whatever our political persuasion, none of us likes paying tax. I welcome the 1p off income tax, but I emphasise that it will be paid for in many ways.
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  There is already considerable worry in Wales about the Government's plans to increase council tax. The Secretary of State for Wales has confirmed that there will be increases. The revealing fact is that it is widely anticipated that the rise will be 11 per cent. on current tax levels in Wales, whereas in England the corresponding rise will be 5 per cent. and in Scotland it will be 8 per cent. I can safely predict that when the suggested 11 per cent. increase in council tax is added to the 14p increase on petrol and the £5 increase in the road fund licence, the people of Newport, of Gwent and, indeed, of Wales will hardly be better off.
  On Sunday nights over recent weeks, BBC Wales has been running a series of programmes about the state of Wales after 16 years of Conservative government. It is known as the "Kane" programme, because that is the name of its distinguished presenter, Mr. Vincent Kane, who has not exactly made a reputation for himself as a Labour supporter. A fortnight ago, the programme dealt with poverty and made a convincing case for Wales to be described as the most poverty stricken area in western Europe, certainly on a par with some of western Europe's most devastated areas such as are found in Greece, Portugal, southern Spain, Sardinia and the former East Germany.
  Once vibrant communities in Wales have been totally decimated. In addition to massive unemployment, officially registered and otherwise, wages are deplorably low. If ever there was a case for a minimum wage, it could certainly he made for Wales.
  From time to time, the Government boast about overseas investment in Wales. I do not wish to detract from the Government's efforts in that respect, but I am bound to say that local authorities have also given considerable help. However, such investment has much to do with the low wages in Wales and confirms the belief that Wales can be classified as equivalent to a third-world country. We certainly need more investment, both public and private, and it is abundantly clear that a massive increase in industrial training is called for. Successful UK companies should be told that charity begins at home and that they should invest here.
  What are the investment percentages among our principal competitors? Japan invests 28 per cent. of its gross domestic product, Germany invests 23 per cent. and France invests 19 per cent. However, the United Kingdom is down to 15 per cent. No wonder we have dropped from 13th to 18th in the world prosperity league.
  At a dinner that I attended last week organised by a major trade organisation, I sat next to a leading figure in a company that once had strong links with south Wales. He talked about his company's plans in Germany, Belgium and India, in countries of the Pacific rim and in Brazil in south America. When I asked what was left of his company in south Wales, he shook his head, because the answer was nothing. Surely our Government should be exhorting our major companies and giving them financial incentives to invest here so that our people can get back to work.
  I applaud the shadow Chancellor's plans to put the £1 billion collected from a windfall tax into ending unemployment for the 600,000 young people who are out of work. The only alternative is for them to continue to turn to drugs and crime, because they have no stake in society. They are merely adding to the gigantic social

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  security bill that is doing so much harm to our economy. Unemployment is a scourge that must be eliminated. That is why I support Labour's plan for a £75 a week tax rebate for employers who take on people from among the 800,000 long-term jobless.
  Mr. Llew Smith: Over the weekend the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mr. Merchant) met a considerable number of people. Unfortunately, he did not seem to bump into anyone who was unemployed. My hon. Friend also met a considerable number of people. Were the unemployed dancing in the streets of Newport after the Budget?
  Mr. Hughes: They were not exactly enthused.
  It is not only the unemployed but those in work who feel uneasy in these difficult times. The President of the Board of Trade has described job insecurity as an attitude of mind. He can say that again. A job is basic and a person's whole future depends on it. People who have been made redundant often have their homes repossessed. Many thousands regularly suffer that fate, and in such a climate there can be no feel-good factor.
  A boost for the housing industry could do much for the economy as a whole, and local authority assets from the sale of council houses should certainly be released. The construction industry is in a parlous condition at present. A recent survey by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors showed that 21 per cent. more firms were expecting their work load to decline in the next three months. Many firms are moving out of housebuilding altogether. What a sad situation that is.
  The construction industry working flat out could have such a good effect on employment, as the industry embraces the professional classes—architects, quantity surveyors and accountants—and unskilled labourers. In addition to the people involved, there is the multiplier effect in other areas of industry.
  My final point is that I deplore the cynical attitude of the Government to road transport. The Budget will impose a massive increase in fuel duty of approximately 14p a gallon, with a further £5 going on vehicle excise duty. The roads programme has been drastically slashed, and the green lobby is clapping its hands. But surely even those dedicated warriors-slim in number though they may be-realise that they are being conned by the Government. None of the expenditure saved will be spent on long-overdue improvements in our rail, bus, tram, cycling and walking networks.
  Some 22 bypasses have been deleted from the Government's programme and that will cause a lot of heartache, and certainly pollution, in the years ahead. I pity all the people in Witney, which is simply snarled up at present. In addition, two bypasses on the borders of mid-Wales have been deleted from the Government's programme. Those bypasses could have done so much for the environment, besides reducing travel times and improving overall efficiency.
  I support the principle of getting more freight and passengers on to rail, but for the foreseeable future we shall be essentially a road-based economy. What is more, when one puts up the price of transport-as the Government have-one puts up the price of just about
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  everything. As a result, our goods and services becomes less competitive in the marketplace, and ultimately jobs are threatened. What a shortsighted policy that is.
  In conclusion, the Budget has done little to bring down the high unemployment that has persisted for so long. Bringing down the burgeoning social security bill to get our young people into work would have helped to curb the drug-related crime and muggings that have become such a feature of our society. The impoverished of Wales will be further hit by savage increases in council tax. Our transport infrastructure will be allowed to continue to deteriorate. It is obvious that the time has come for change. Britain needs an early general election, so that this worn-out Government can be replaced by a Labour Government who will put our people back to work and restore our economic fortunes.
  7.33 pm
  Lady Olga Maitland: I am not sure whether it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Newport, East (Mr. Hughes) or not, because I cannot believe that a single man or woman in his constituency or in Wales would thank him for describing their home as equivalent to a third-world country. I cannot believe that they would thank the hon. Gentleman for describing them as living in an impoverished state and equating them with some grossly chaotic country overseas. I would be furious to be put into such a category, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will later apologise to the people whom he represents. The hon. Gentleman does not represent those people in a way worthy of them.
  Mr. Roy Hughes rose—
  Mr. Gordon Prentice rose—
  Lady Olga Maitland: I am not going to give way. It might be helpful to the House if I pointed out one or two facts relating to unemployment which seem to have escaped the attention of the hon. Member for Newport, East.
  The latest published figures show that, since 1992, unemployment in the hon. Gentleman's constituency alone is down by 23 per cent. Since 1994, unemployment in Newport, East has fallen by 12.7 per cent. That is a success story, and is an example of the Government's commitment to bringing increased prosperity to our country and giving dignity back to our people so that they can provide themselves with homes and jobs. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will apologise to the House for having exaggerated the situation in his constituency.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Lady Olga Maitland: Opposition Members will have plenty of time later to make their own remarks.
  I wish to welcome my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor's Budget, which has something in it for all my constituents. I was out in the streets the other day, and I asked an elderly man what he thought of the Budget. He replied that it meant he was able to pass on more to his sons when he dies. He was delighted by the lifting of the threshold on inheritance tax from £160,000 to £200,000, as more of his life savings will now go to the next generation. That will fulfil the Government's commitment to allowing the rewards for a man's life's work to cascade down through the generations.

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  There are those for whom it is important to be able to keep as much of their life savings as possible. I welcome the Government's recognition of that. The amount of personal wealth that people can now keep after they have provided for residential care has been raised from £8,000 to £16,000. Those figures are important, and that is a significant measure for the people concerned.
  I wish to speak on a subject that is close to my heart—health. I welcome the fact that the Government have made a commitment to spend an extra £1.3 billion on health. Health is an emotional topic that has been tossed around like a political football, and sometimes the very people we are trying to help become anxious, concerned and distressed as they wonder whether they are getting the care that they deserve. The truth is that they have been getting that care. Health spending today stands at £41 billion—twice the amount that we spend on the defence of our country. Nobody can ever say that the Government do not have a total commitment to health.
  The sum spent represents £697 for every man, woman and child in the United Kingdom. It is interesting to compare what is spent in real terms now with what was spent in 1978 when this country had a Labour Government. In those days, the Government spent £433 per person on health, at today's prices. So the increase in spending on health has been dramatic and the results are there for us all to see.
  However, I have a word of caution. I should like to make sure that every penny of that £1.3 billion goes to patient care and is not siphoned off into administration. I welcome the fact that the Government are working extremely hard in urging all the health authorities and health trusts to look into the money that they spend on red tape and bureaucrats to make sure that we get it down and the money goes to the areas where it is most needed.
  We have a record of which we should be proud. We do not have to be defensive one jot about our health programme. At times it gets forgotten that on average a multi-million pound project is completed for the health service almost every week. The number of people working in our health care services has increased by a tremendous number. Between 1983 and 1993 the number of hospital doctors and dentists rose by 8,000. The number of qualified nurses and midwives has risen by a colossal 18,000. That is on top of the fact that we now have more GPs than ever before and that today they number 29,000. All this is funded by the health service.
  Of course, as a result of the increase in staff, more patients are treated than ever before. In the debate on the health service, it is right that sometimes we should reflect back to the days when the health service was first instituted after the war and look at the changes in our demands and expectations. In the late 1940s, the level of sophistication that was available was much lower than it is today. Hospitals did not have the high technology that we have. They did not have the expertise or the knowledge; it was a different world; it was a time when people went into hospital for minor operations and spent days occupying a hospital bed. Today that is no longer necessary, but that does not represent a cut in the number of hospital beds. What we have done is increase services to patients.
  Today people can have hip operations when they are as old as 95. A leading patient in this country, Her Majesty the Queen Mother, has had such an operation. I welcome
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  the excellent news that she is making a good recovery and will be able to be back with her family at Christmas. What is remarkable is that Her Majesty's operation was unthinkable way back after the war. Her operation is available to everyone on the national health service.
  Ms Eagle: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Lady Olga Maitland: No. I do not plan to give way to the hon. Lady because she is quite capable of making her own speeches, and she does.
  We must make sure that our hospitals produce not only quantity of care but quality of care. In this, I am going to blow very proudly the trumpet of my local hospital trust, St. Helier NHS trust, which comes out extremely well in all the hospital league tables in terms of performance. May I just give one example?
  Waiting times are a topic much beloved by the Labour party. It tries to give the impression that the whole country is queuing up for unreasonable and unbearable times for operations. I can only say that if any patients in their constituencies are having to wait for unreasonable lengths of time, they had better send them to Sutton. In Sutton they would get five-star treatment. Five-star treatment in waiting times is now applicable in urology, ear nose and throat, ophthalmology, oral surgery, gynaecology, general medicine and dermatology. We have a track record to be proud of—fine quality services.
  Another hospital in my constituency which will benefit from the increase in health service funding is the Royal Marsden. It has a reputation across the world. It is second to none. People travel far and wide to Sutton for treatment. It now has NHS trust status. It has been doing extremely well in the past two years. The Royal Marsden dovetails its work closely with the Institute of Cancer Research. The purpose is to integrate their research, education, training of medical students and the development of patient care.
  As a result of the close harmony between those two important institutions, they have not only become world leaders together in quality care but have improved no end man's knowledge and understanding of how to cope and live with cancer, how to make it more bearable for the patients and how to improve the quality of life, not only of those who will make a good recovery, but of those who may not. They can still have a quality of life which was denied to their peer group years ago.
  The Labour party seems to have a fixation about the private finance initiative. I suppose that it is the latest buzz word in what to attack as a Government project. We are proud of our progress with the private finance initiative; it is making great inroads; it is of great benefit to projects; it provides an opportunity for projects to expand at a faster rate than they might otherwise have been able to do.
  In my constituency a programme is now being put together to build a massive Sutton medical campus. Such a project is possible only by working through the PFI. The programme is being drawn up. Bankers have been consulted. There is no shortage of people willing to invest. When this wonderful new hospital comes to be built in my constituency in the next century, the end result will be to the benefit of all around.
  The hospital will be able to bring into my constituency and provide for the community expert services in all the different disciplines. It will have a medical training school

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  and research facilities. It will become an academic centre of excellence. It will be an opportunity to create a major trauma centre from which everyone will undoubtedly benefit. In short, people are planning to build for the future. Surely if we are building for the future it is absolutely right that we should look at all possible alternatives for funding. That is the only way in which we can provide effectively for the next generation.
  Although so far I have been talking about hospitals, I should like to devote a moment or two to GP fundholders. Fundholding practices have been a colossal success across the land. They have created a revolution. Indeed, 41 per cent. of all GPs are fundholders. The patients benefit. They have wider access to services. The GPs can now apply their professional skills right the way through into decisions about how the hard cash is spent. They can summon hospital consultants to give consultations in their own surgeries. Patients can only benefit from that. I trust that some of the money that has been earmarked in the increased health budget will go down to expand further the services that GPs can deliver.
  What a pity it is that the Labour party carps and criticises and tries to undermine the whole concept of GP fundholders—those wonderful, dedicated people who are there to serve the community. What a pity it was to hear the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) say that GP fundholding is, as it currently stands, unacceptable. The truth is that the Labour party wants to intervene at every level of the profession and if it can intervene politically and control and dictate to GP fundholders, it will—much in the same way as it would, if it could, control the NHS trusts.
  Of course, there would be a price to pay for such interference, because, if the Labour party had its way and brought in the minimum wage and the social chapter, valuable resources would be denied to patients; they would go to pay for increased wages for others in the NHS. I know who I think should get the fairer share of the pot.
  I welcome the fact that the Government have committed more resources to education. Sutton alone will benefit from an extra £3.3 million for our schools. I hope that the local education authority in Sutton, which is Liberal-controlled, will, for once, heed the advice of my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor, who said that he wanted the money to go directly to schools, and parents to ask where the money is being spent and for the schools or local education authorities to be accountable. If parents do not get the answers, we should find out why.
  The trouble is that local education authorities, especially those under Liberal Democrat control, tend to spend money on other things. I for one regret that important services are not ring-fenced. The local authority in Sutton has earmarked £48,000 to create mini-town halls, as in Tower Hamlets. If I were a parent, I would want that money to go to education. It has spent £105,000 refurbishing the entrance hall of the civic offices—what a waste of money. It should go to essential services such as education and social services. Indeed, just the other day, the authority had to inflate its vanity by spending £21,000 on a MORI poll to try to show how green it is.
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  The Budget is a wide and important subject; it affects our lives in every possible way. It is a welcome Budget. The Chancellor is not trying to buy people's votes, which is to his credit. It shows him to be a man of integrity, as the Government are a Government of integrity. We would never stoop so low. The Budget makes sure that there is something for everybody but it does not throw away the careful prudence that we have built up over all these years. I therefore give the Budget a hearty welcome.
  7.53 pm
  Mr. Chris Mullin: I am glad to hear that all is well in Sutton and Cheam, Bromley and Hastings. In Sunderland, we tend to take more a more sceptical view of Government policy, but I do not plan to dwell on that.
  I welcome the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) to our deliberations. Let the record show that he first set foot in the Chamber at 6.55 pm, remained on the premises for 30 seconds, and returned 30 minutes later clutching a copy of the Red Book. He is one of the most original thinkers on the Conservative side of the House and is always entertaining, with something interesting to say. However, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I hope that you will look kindly upon those of my hon. Friends who have been waiting since 3.30 pm to catch your attention.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Order. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to take over the Chair, he should volunteer for the Chairmen's Panel. In the meantime, he should take advantage of the fact that he has Floor now, and note further that the shortest speech so far has been 14 minutes. I hope that I can record his as even shorter.
  Mr. Mullin: I do not think that they would have me on the Chairmen's Panel, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  I do not intend to follow the line on the health service taken by the two Front-Bench speakers, except to say that the Secretary of State made the usual claim about spending on the national health service having increased substantially since 1979. In 1979, it was a darn sight easier to get a bed in Sunderland general hospital than it is today.
  The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Michael Jack)indicated dissent.
  Mr. Mullin: The Minister shakes his head, but only last month, someone telephoned me from Sunderland general hospital to say that there were six geriatric patients aged between 60-something and 90 in the gynaecology ward because of the shortage of beds. That sort of thing did not happen in 1979.
  The huge cuts in the local health budget were sold to us on the basis that all sorts of primary health care would be put in place to take up the slack. That has not so far happened. Within the time allotted me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should like to address a slightly wider issue.
  As other hon. Members have said, this is an irresponsible Budget. It is not as irresponsible as I feared, nor, to judge from the glum looks on the faces of Tory Back Benchers on Budget day, as irresponsible as they had hoped it would be, nor as irresponsible as the next

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  one is likely to be. It is based on the entirely cynical belief that votes can be purchased; the only argument between the Chancellor and his Back Benchers is over the price.
  The large cuts in social security spending that arise from the Budget will place still further strains on our damaged social fabric. If the Government really want to do something about the burgeoning housing benefit bill, they could start by regulating landlords. They will not, of course, because they are the party of the landlords.
  It is surely one of life's richest ironies that, after 17 years of Governments that have never ceased to proclaim their commitment to low taxes, the overall tax burden is as great today as it was 16 or 17 years ago. Even with the benefit of North sea oil and the massive one-off revenues from the sale of public assets, this Government of so-called tax cutters still cannot get taxation down to the level that they inherited from the wicked socialist Government that preceded them. [Interruption.]
  Tory Members may huff puff about that, but it is an uncomfortable fact of life. There is no great mystery about why that is so. To keep 2 million to 3 million people out of work permanently is extremely expensive. There is not only the cost of benefit—vast though that is—but the cost to the Exchequer of lost taxation, and the additional cost of maintaining our disintegrating social fabric.
  As we all know, the Thatcher decade gave rise to the birth of an underclass, the like of which we have not seen since the 1930s. To cope with it, there has had to be a massive increase in the law and order budget. While Conservative Members may deny any connection—indeed, I heard the Home Secretary making just such a denial only last Thursday—most sensible people, of all political persuasions, know that there is a clear link between permanent mass unemployment and the tidal wave of yobbery that accompanied the Thatcher decade.
  Not only law and order are affected. The burden on schools, the health service and just about every other social agency is increasing. A psychiatrist in my constituency told me the other day that she was having to deal increasingly with chronically depressed men in their 40s and 50s from the former mining towns of Murton and Seaham, who had no hope of working again and no purpose in life.
  When the Government closed the mines and shipyards, and encouraged the privatised utilities to unleash a war of attrition against their employees, they may have thought that they were choosing the cheap option. The truth is that, for everyone except the shareholders, privatisation was a very expensive option, and Muggins the taxpayer has to pick up the tab. The bills are now coming in for the Thatcher decade.
  That is why, whether they like it or not, the Tories are a party of high taxation. Margaret Thatcher came to power, cheered by most Conservative Members, promising to end the benefit culture. Is it not ironic that she and her heirs ended up creating a benefit culture on a scale hitherto unknown? I recall that she promised to end to what she used to call "pretend" jobs. The irony is that she ended up doing away with real jobs, and creating pretend jobs on a vast scale. Wt have all been paying the price of that ever since.
  To be fair—although I do not see why I should be—the doubling and trebling of the unemployment rate over which successive Conservative Governments have presided is not entirely their own fault. New technology
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  means that capital no longer requires so many human beings to make it function. Monetarist economics means that capital is particularly ruthless about disposing of those human beings who are surplus to requirements. Mass unemployment is happening across the developed world; we just got there first, and embraced it with more enthusiasm than our neighbours. There is no easy solution. The genie is out of the bottle, and it will be difficult to put it back.
  We have created a generation, particularly of unskilled young men, who are entirely alienated from society. Even if, by some miracle, work became available tomorrow, they would not be capable of doing it. In the long term, there is only one way in which to cut taxes—either by creating new jobs or by sharing out existing work more equitably. That is the only way we will reduce the huge benefit bill—anything else is just tinkering.
  When we reduce unemployment, we not only reduce the soaring cost of welfare; we will also find that we are spending less on shoring up our disintegrating social fabric. In addition, the Treasury would gain more in extra tax revenue. In every respect, we will be a healthier society. For those reasons, the Labour party gives a high priority to job creation, especially for the young.
  The job creation programme recently proposed by my hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor may not be a panacea, but it is a serious attempt to address the most important issue facing our society, besides which short-term gimmicks of the sort that we saw in the Budget pale into insignificance. If anyone has better ideas, let us hear them, but let us not mock those who are at least addressing what is surely the greatest threat to the stability of our society.
  There is one issue, however, that we should not duck: the cost. A job creation programme on anything like the scale needed to make an impact on the problem which any new Government will inherit will require huge public investment. That money can come only from taxation, borrowing or growth. It is not credible to suggest that it will be provided solely from growth. In an age when we are all signed up to sound money, it is not credible either to suggest that that investment can come only from borrowing. It will therefore have to come mainly from taxation.
  My hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor has said that he intends to fund his initial programme through a one-off windfall tax on the utilities. I should be surprised if that is enough, given the scale of the problem we face. We must therefore leave open the possibility that further revenue will need to be raised, in the short to medium term at least, through taxation. I therefore urge my hon. Friend not to rule out that possibility. We should not get involved in an auction over taxes. It is one that we could never hope to win, because, in the last analysis, the Tories will simply lie, as we saw at the previous election.
  There are only three promises that a responsible Labour Government should make about taxes. First, we should pledge that we will raise whatever is necessary to maintain the social fabric. Secondly, we should promise that Labour will spend taxpayers' money at least as efficiently as the Tories. That will not be hard, given the billions squandered on the poll tax, Trident missile systems and the cut-price sale of public assets.
  Thirdly, we should promise that the burden of taxation will fall on those who are most able to pay. That should be the cardinal principle of our approach to taxation. By

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  all means say that there will be no return to the ludicrous surtax levels that obtained under past Governments, Labour and Tory—that is only common sense—but let us make it quite clear that those who have done best out of the Thatcher decade will be expected to contribute most to repairing the damage.
  When my hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor is challenged. as he has been and will be, to say whether he will restore the irresponsible tax cuts in the Budget, or the next one, I hope that he will give no hostages to fortune. Social stability is far more important than short-term gimmicks.
  If there is one thing I most deeply resent about the Government—beside the fact that they have brought politicians lower in public esteem than estate agents—it is that they have turned taxation into a dirty word. As a result of the constant baying for tax cuts from Conservative Back Benchers, and the mass hysteria liable to be unleashed by their friends in the media at the slightest hint of a tax increase, it is no longer possible to have an honest debate about taxation.
  I shall always remember one summer two or three years ago, when the hon. Member for Bridlington (Mr. Townend), who spoke in the Budget debate the other day and who represents, in my view, the meanest instincts in Tory Britain, appeared on the television news. Item one was the catastrophe then taking place in Kurdistan, and was illustrated by harrowing film of families living without shelter on freezing mountain sides. Item two was the famine in Somalia. illustrated by harrowing pictures of starving children, then dying at a rate of 1,000 a day. Item three on the news was the hon. Member for Bridlington, standing in front of an elegant period house, where he no doubt lives, calling for cuts in the overseas aid budget. He was at it again the other day.
  I do not believe that the British people are as mean-spirited as the hon. Gentleman thinks they are. He may well speak for most Tory Members-I do not think that he necessarily does, but he may do-but I do not think that he speaks for most Tory voters. Such meanness should not be pandered to; it should be resisted.
  It is the duty of responsible politicians in a democracy to will not only the ends but the means. It is our duty to point out that, if people want decent public services, they have to be paid for. If people want something done about crime and yobbery, they will have to spend money tackling their social causes. If people want intervention to end the unspeakable suffering in Somalia, Rwanda or anywhere else, it must be paid for. Taxation, honestly raised and efficiently spent, is the basis of a civilised society. We should not be afraid of saying so.
  8.6 pm
  Ms Angela Eagle: I regret that we have not had a chance to hold a debate specifically on employment during the debate on the Budget. The abolition of the Department of Employment has meant that no separate press release has been issued on specific employment issues.
  The Secretary of State for Education and Employment has not appeared at the Dispatch Box to talk about the Budget, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for
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  Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) has just said, tackling unemployment is crucial to our ability to deal with our current economic problems.
  The Budget offers tax cuts of £3 billion, which will be paid for by public expenditure cuts of £3 billion. The Budget is notable for what it did not tackle, and the questions it left unanswered.
  The forecasts in the Red Book are ominous, and unrelated to reality. Some commentators have even called them heroic. They are incredibly optimistic, and we all know, unfortunately, that the Treasury's record on achieving its forecasts is dubious, to say the least.
  The Government's economic strategy, based on forecasts, appears to be founded on the understanding that there will be a slowdown in manufacturing output this year, continuing into next year, and an increase in consumer spending. That will then work its way through to become an increase in growth next year. One of the structural problems with the British economy, which has been well recognised, is our inability to finance growth and recovery from recession by anything other than consumer spending. We should instead try to create a bigger manufacturing base to sustain recovery in the long run. The Government, however, seem to happy to work according to their own forecasts, which suggest that consumer spending will fuel growth.
  How will that extra growth be achieved? We are now in the third year of the so-called recovery from the recession. The Red Book reveals that the Government have revised downward the estimate of investment growth from 3 per cent., as expected in last year's Red Book, to a mere 1 per cent. this year. That means that we are managing only 1 per cent. growth in investment, at a time when the economy is meant to be in recovery. That is the worst record of investment out of recession since the 1930s.
  According to Treasury forecasts, next year investment is scheduled to grow by 4.5 per cent. However, the Budget strategy gives no indication of how that investment will come about. The Chancellor is paying no attention to stimulating the huge increase in investment that the Government forecast, so how will it be achieved?
  I believe that the cuts in public investment are likely to lead to an opposite result. Instead of an increase in investment, we may well have a slowdown. Many City economists also predict that the Treasury's forecasts for growth are grossly optimistic, and are unlikely to reach about 1.75 per cent., let alone the 3 per cent. that the Red Book forecasts.
  The swingeing cuts in public investment are likely to cause that downturn. The construction sector, where one usually witnesses the beginnings of economic recovery, is stagnant, and the cuts in public housing, the cuts in other public investment and the £4 billion of cuts in road investment are all likely to lead to continuing stagnation in the construction sector.
  I do not believe that the private finance initiative will ever fill that gap. We had some discussion earlier about the likely efficacy of the private finance initiative, but obviously the initiative has failed to reach the targets that were set for it in the past, and I am aware of no reason why the rate of that failure should improve in the next few years.
  Last year, £5 billion of private finance initiative so-called investment was announced, but a mere £500 million was delivered during the year. At that rate

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  of delivery, all we are likely to see are significant cuts in public investment, and the gap created, which was meant to be filled by the private finance initiative, simply left.
  We have heard many examples of the failure of the private finance initiative from both sides of the House during today's debate. I add another. The channel tunnel rail link was announced as a private finance initiative in 1986, yet here we are, almost 10 years later, not really any closer to having our high-speed link. Those of us who have been to France and seen how their high-speed rail link works are still waiting for the private finance initiative to deliver the goods in this country. So the omens for filling the gap of that investment are not good.
  Why should consumer spending increase and generate growth in the year to come? The modest tax cuts that we have had have left families about £2 better off. That is not £9, as the Government first tried to claim when the Budget emerged, and we know that most of that £2 will be swallowed up in other charges as a result of the Budget. That leaves a deflationary balance of about £16 billion from the tax increases in the past two or three years-21 tax increases, 7p up and only 1p down.
  Therefore, although this year's Budget was effectively neutral, I cannot imagine where the stimulus will come from for strong growth in the years to come.
  Mr. Jack: May I take issue with the hon. Lady on one detail? She speaks about people being £2 a week better off as a result of the tax changes in the Budget. Does she agree that the average family would be £190 a year better off specifically as a result of the changes in tax, which I work out to be about £4 a week?
  Ms Eagle: I understand—it is typical of the sleight of hand in the Budget that becomes apparent when one studies it—that initially the Government claimed that people would be £9 a week better off, but that included a Treasury assumption that there would be a 4 per cent. increase in wages next year.
  I do not know how many people expect a 4 per cent. increase in wages next year, but I very much doubt that any of those in the public sector do. The Red Book, and various of the press releases that accompanied it, show that the Government have not calculated, or provided any extra finance for, public sector wages next year. Any wage increases are meant to be paid for out of efficiency savings, which have been made so often, year on year, that there is very little left to save, and certainly not 4 per cent.
  On the one hand, the Treasury makes an assumption that there will be a 4 per cent. wage increase next year, and on the other, it deliberately fails to fund any of that increase in the public sector. That is a telling comment on the way in which the Government treat the public sector.
  I return to my question-why will consumer spending not increase to generate growth? There is the persistence of the feel-bad factor, as I call it, or the lack of the feel-good factor, as some people call it. What did the Chancellor do to tackle that significant phenomenon, which has been with us throughout most of 1990s?
  First, why is it here? It is here because of insecurity and fear in the labour market and the flat, stagnant condition of the housing market. The Chancellor had little to say about either. There was no action for the housing market. Perhaps he hopes that interest rate cuts will give some stimulus to that, but we must wait and see.
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  The Chancellor did nothing about the labour market and unemployment. People will not start unleashing massive spending when they do not know whether they will have a job next week and whether they will be able to pay their mortgage if they become unemployed. They expect to be thrown out of their houses if that happens. After all, we have 1,000 repossessions a week at the moment because of the effects of unemployment and job insecurity. It is impossible to tackle those issues without tackling the causes of the feel-bad factor.
  The tax cuts that we have had are wrapped in a large IOU, partially because of those issues but also because of the significant cuts in public spending and public service that were revealed in the press releases that accompanied the Red Book. The £4 billion cut in the road programme, without extra investment in public transport to compensate, can only add costs to business as our roads become more and more congested.
  Have the Minister or his officials estimated the increase in costs to business that will result from the decisions to abandon investment in the roads programme? I know that businesses believe that that will add to their costs.
  We have cuts in housing budgets, at a time of increasing homelessness, with 1,000 families being repossessed a week. We have cuts-this is shameful-in training budgets and education, at a time when we are carrying mass unemployment and its burdens. We have a 5 per cent. cut in the colleges of further education, in spite of the fact that they are meant to provide 50,000 extra places in further education.
  How are those sums to be balanced? How are we meant to preserve a public sector that we can be proud of in the face of cuts of that size? We have 3 per cent. cuts in university budgets: £4 billion of cuts in capital spending in the next three years.
  It is the third year of freeze also, as I said, for public sector pay.
  Mr. Jack: Let me give the hon. Lady a simple answer. By the end of the current public expenditure survey, we expect that £14,000 million of private finance initiative deals will have been signed up. That is a massive infusion of capital and provision of services for the benefit of the public.
  Ms Eagle: That is the usual wish list, and it sounds as though the Minister is appealing to Father Christmas. We must wait and see whether he gets his wishes. I have already placed on record my great scepticism about that ever happening.
  We have had the nasty little cuts in single-parent benefit, housing benefit for the under-25s and the lone-parent premium, which will have significant effects on individuals, especially lone parents, but save little money.
  We must remember, as we contemplate the public sector, that the Government have had £120 billion of North sea oil revenues and £80 billion of revenues from privatisation sales, yet all around us, day in, day out, services for real need continue to be underfunded. It is not a record that I would be proud of.
  Instead of the significant, damaging cuts in the fabric of the public sector, why on earth did the Chancellor not attack unemployment? There have been significant cuts in public expenditure, and they have saved only

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  £3 billion, yet we spend £20 billion a year on maintaining all those people in unemployment, doing nothing. Surely that is where cuts in public expenditure could best have come, and the Chancellor did nothing about it.
  I shall comment briefly on the arrangements and the agreements that were signed in Beijing by representatives of the Government at the fourth international conference on women. I quote from the platform for action, which the Government signed up to, about lone parents.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady may be ingenious, and perhaps the relevance of her comments to the Budget will come out. I hope that it will.
  Ms Eagle: My comments are relevant, and I shall explain my train of thought. We have signed up, as a Government and a country, to the commitments that emerged from the women's conference. The platform for action contains a specific section on lone parents, which states that Governments must
  "provide adequate safety nets and strengthen State-based and community-based support systems …to enable women living in poverty"
  with children to
  "preserve their livelihood, assets and revenues in times of crisis."
  We have cut support for single mothers and lone parents, to save a mere £13 million a year.
  In the 1985 Green Paper on social security reform, the Government admitted that there were additional costs for lone parents bringing up children. The Green Paper described the need for the creation of the lone parents premium in income support
  "as a contribution to the additional costs faced by lone parents bringing children up alone."
  Why have the Government, in the Budget, decided to freeze that premium and announce its future abolition? They are punishing lone parents.
  When the Select Committee on Employment, of which I am a member, looked at the issue, it discovered that lone parents who are women are the only group of women who, over the past 10 years, have found it harder to get out to work. Fewer of them, as a percentage of the total number, work now than they did 10 years ago, simply because of the difficulties of looking after children, going to work and the costs involved. Yet the Government, in the Budget, have deliberately made matters worse for them, just to save very little money.
  The Budget contained no measures to solve unemployment; it contained nothing to increase investment; it contained nothing to repair the social fabric—indeed, it made even more attacks on it. We wait for the so-called prudent Chancellor to introduce the electoral bribes next year ahead of the general election. When he does so, we shall immediately ask him why he has had the change of heart.
  8.21 pm
  Mr. Nicholas Budgen: I understand the rebuke directed towards me by the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin). I am sorry that I was held up on the motorway and I plead guilty, albeit with some mitigation, to some of his charges. You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, have rectified matters by properly calling two speakers in succession from the Opposition Benches.
  Although I crave the indulgence of the hon. Member for Sunderland, South, I hope that the House will give proper attention to his significant speech. The shadow Chancellor has suggested a 10p rate of income tax and I have no doubt that it is a splendid thing. Many ordinary working people must feel tremendous pride at being led by a public school activist on the make who is anxious to gain the middle-class votes of people from Hampstead and to preserve the high earnings of those at the Bar and engaged in, similar activities. It is refreshing and interesting to hear the voice of old-fashioned, honourable socialism saying that socialism is not about creating inflation by vast deficits, but is properly financed by higher taxation and redistribution. The hon. Member for Sunderland, South spoke in unfashionable but honourable terms. I hope that the myriad spin doctors now employed by the Labour party will give proper prominence to his interesting and honourable speech.
  As the hon. Gentleman chided me, he said that I had gone off to get the Red Book, which I did. I hope that he will note that it is a well thumbed Red Book and I have given a little thought to the balance of the Budget these last few days. I shall do something unusual: I shall commend the Chancellor's judgment over the Budget. I have known the Chancellor, man and boy, for more than 30 years. He and I were at Cambridge together; we were at the Birmingham Bar together; we ran the Birmingham Bow Group together and we have been in the House of Commons for a long time. On almost everything that is important in politics, he and I have disagreed. I read that many of my hon. Friends were almost insulted when the Chancellor said that the financial deficit was now expected to be close to the Maastricht reference level of 3 per cent., but in light of the Chancellor's views I thought that he was being remarkably reticent in containing his European federalism to but one sentence.
  Those are all unnecessary and adolescent jibes at my right hon. and learned Friend and his views over the past 30 years. Contrary to the views of some of my hon. Friends, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Bridlington (Mr. Townend), I think that the central question that the Chancellor had to decide was properly decided. Contrary to what commentators on both sides of the House say, we know that the balance between one action and another is well constrained and the arguments are finely balanced. My right hon. and learned Friend had to decide whether to take more off the standard rate and please my hon. Friend the Member for Bridlington or be cautious and hope to have a helpful effect on interest rates.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bridlington draws on many of the arguments that have been used in the Republican party in America. Roughly speaking, the Republicans said that if taxation was cut hard enough it would create a big deficit and rising interest rates, which would force the Government to cut public expenditure. I do not know whether that happens in America, but that was the argument advanced.

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  The Americans' different political system and different federal structure may allow that policy to work there, but it would not work here. If we had a bigger deficit, it would merely create trouble in the money markets. Everyone knows that, although every Chancellor gives the impression of being in complete control of interest rates—as though he decides unilaterally on their level—he is merely the biggest player in the market. Of course he has a substantial influence on interest rates, but he does not control them.
  If the Chancellor had followed the advice of my hon. Friend the Member for Bridlington, we would have had a funding crisis, higher interest rates and possibly a cut in public expenditure—although that would have happened much later. The dislocation and sense of crisis created would have been far more damaging. Those effects would have had to be balanced against the stimulus that would not occur until next year in lower rates of taxation.
  I believe that we should be more helpful towards interest rates. As we debate the Budget in the autumn, we forget that its effects will not come until next April and are not immediate, whereas the effects of interest rates can be immediate and variable. Let us consider the effects on interest rates. We know that there has been a dispute between the Chancellor and the Governor of the Bank of England. At this stage, no one can say who is right. The Chancellor has been applauded and it has been said that the Governor of the Bank of England has lost authority as a result of being overruled by the Chancellor.
  But the Governor may yet prove to be right. The Governor is simply saying that he, as the custodian of sound money, is told that it is the Government's objective to achieve an inflation rate no higher than 2.5 per cent. per annum and he replies, "Okay—if those are my riding instructions, we should not have lower interest rates." The Chancellor says no and that, perhaps for other reasons, we must have slightly lower interest rates. This year's cautious Budget may not result in lower interest rates immediately, but it will be a factor for lower interest rates and it will certainly prevent them from rising.
  Lower interest rates are felt by all the most fragile elements in the economy. Mention has been made of the construction industry. I have in my constituency one of the largest construction companies, Tarmac, which has faced considerable troubles. It was not the company's fault, but it bought an awful lot of well priced land in the south-east hoping to build houses very profitably. The company's housing sector has had great difficulties, as has every house builder in recent years.
  I am told that there are only six or seven big contractors who undertake major road building contracts, and it is said that two or three of them are in an extremely dodgy state and may either go into liquidation or be taken over. The construction industry itself is in a very dodgy state at present, and for that industry interest rates are the most crucial element in the economy.
  Interest rates are also important to those entering self-employment or starting up small businesses. Companies and individuals who are not making profits, but are borrowing a bit of money because they are starting out, are not terribly interested in getting 1p, 2p or 3p off the standard rate of income tax. If they are not paying any profits or making any money, all that they want is the lowest possible interest rates to keep them going for the initial and most difficult period. So lower interest rates
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  are good for unemployment in the sense of reducing unemployment and making it easier for people to move into self-employment.
  Lower interest rates are crucial to the housing market. Of course we have had much discussion about whether something selective could be done for the housing market. I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor that nothing affordable would do anything selectively for the housing market, but the housing market is also important for employment.
  If a chap is made redundant at 40 and wants to go into self-employment, perhaps as a consultant in the services that he was previously providing for a large firm, he borrows some money from a clearing bank and uses his house as collateral. If he is in negative equity, the house is not acceptable as collateral. Some improvement in the housing market is important to the economy and itself is dependent on the level of interest rates.
  I do not believe that my right hon. and learned Friend had any great room for manoeuvre or, as some would argue from these Benches, that he was mistaken in not further cutting the standard rate of taxation. I believe that he was right to provide the way for lower interest rates, which can take effect immediately, as opposed to lower taxation, which would not take effect until some time next year. I believe that the central and most disagreeable and difficult decision that he had to take was rightly taken.
  8.33 pm
  Mr. Kevin Hughes: We have heard some right royal back slapping from Conservative Back Benchers to the Chancellor and their colleagues on the Front Bench. Unfortunately, the last three Conservative Members who spoke were not even in the Chamber at the start of the debate. No doubt the Conservative Whips have been running around Chelsea and Mayfair dragging them in to speak.
  This year's Budget did absolutely nothing for poor people and very little for the elderly and served further to emphasise what 80 per cent. of the country already knows—that we cannot trust the Tories to look after the national health service.
  We must set the Chancellor's Budget statement against the background of £1 in every £10 being spent on NHS administration, the number of hospitals in England having been reduced by more than 200 in the past four years and two in every five hospital beds having been cut since 1979. No matter how much the Government massage the figures, there are more than 1 million people on NHS waiting lists. The NHS repair backlog has soared by 38 per cent. since the reforms and capital spending cuts, and the number of NHS nurses and midwives has declined by almost 50,000 in four years.
  The Government should be ashamed of that background—and they are. Earlier this year, the Maples report admitted that the Tories wanted zero press coverage on the national health service. That is clearly not a sign that the Government are proud of their record in health and this year's Budget offers little to change that record.
  The cost of bureaucracy in the NHS has more than doubled since the reforms. An extra £1.5 billion per year is spent on administration. The Tories tell us that they will cut bureaucracy, but bureaucracy, administration and the internal market are still costing the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds.

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  Now the Secretary of State says that he will make 3 per cent. efficiency savings. He calls those new efficiency targets "challenging". They certainly are challenging; they are ill thought out and unrealistic.
  Pay rises next year will have to be earned through those so-called efficiencies. Once again, NHS employees are being unfairly treated. Already, one in five nurses are set to leave the NHS due to low pay, increased work load and poor promotion prospects. At the same time, productivity in the NHS has increased. Department of Health data confirm that the NHS is treating more patients with fewer qualified nurses. Surely the overall funding allocation to the NHS should include fair pay awards, but unfortunately it does not. Managers of health authorities have already voiced their concern that the 3 per cent. efficiency savings will lead to job losses because they do not see how further efficiencies can be achieved without cutting jobs.
  Once again, the Government are cutting the NHS capital budget. They are cutting the hospital building programme by some 16 per cent. in just one year. There will be a shortfall of more than £100 million, even after the expected revenue from the private finance initiative—that is, if the Government get the private finance that they project. Many of my hon. Friends have covered that subject. Like them, I do not believe that the private sector will produce the amount of money that the Government expect. On top of last year's cuts, that will demolish the NHS hospital building programme and may leave the private sector calling the shots. If that is the case, it is not privatisation by the back door, but privatisation by the front door. The Government are afraid to admit that to the electorate, because the electorate do not want a private health service.
  Last year, the Government said that private sector investment should be in addition to capital spending, but it is being made instead of capital spending. The Government predicted capital spending cuts of 1.4 per cent. but the figure is 16 per cent. The backlog of health service repairs stands at 40 per cent. Patients are being treated in hospitals that are 30, 40 or 50 years old and desperately in need of repair and renovation. Unless private finance is forthcoming, the Government are not prepared to meet the cost. This year's shortfall is £100 million, which is equivalent to three new 700-bed hospitals. We cannot trust the Government over the shortfall next year or how long it will be before private finance overtakes public finance in the NHS capital building programme and hospitals are fully privatised—which I am sure is where the Government are heading.
  I welcome the announcement that the assets threshold above which elderly people must pay for their long-term care is to be raised, but is it not a case of too little, too late? A £16,000 threshold will not help many elderly people, who will still be forced to sell their homes as a result of the current system because their assets—including their homes—are well above £16,000. The Government are trying to quieten down the outrage felt by many elderly people on realising that they will not be provided with the care that they expected in their old age.
  The Government are offering the elderly a short-term solution to a problem that should be considered in the long term. Despite an increased threshold, access to care
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  for the elderly will be a lottery, with patients in one part of the country forced to sell their homes to buy care that is provided free in another part of the country. How will the raised threshold be funded? Unless local authorities are adequately funded by the Government to meet the extra demand, the new threshold will help nobody.
  The Budget has done little to make the Government proud of their national health service policies. It proves that the Tories are privatising the NHS and care more about trying to win over the electorate with token tax cuts than about funding capital expenditure on hospitals and offering fair pay deals to NHS staff. Time and again, the Tories say that the health service is safe with them and that they value the service, but it is not true. The Government have let down the ill, the elderly and the nurses, and they are letting down the people of this country.
  The Government want the public to be kept in the dark about what they have done to the NHS, but the public already know the story and the Budget gives them little reason to change their minds. Their only choice now is to change the Government—and that cannot come too soon.
  8.43 pm
  Mr. Alan Simpson: The most interesting part of the Budget debate is not the gloss of the Chancellor's statement but the detail to be found in the Red Book and ensuing statements. Having ploughed through them all, I can commend the Budget only for being consistent. All the things that were not in the Chancellor's statement are not to be found in the supporting documents either. The Budget did not tackle unemployment, create jobs, help the poor or solve the problems of the homeless. In many cases, the Budget will create more ill health than it will remove.
  I was fortunate enough to have a much better alternative Budget published by New Statesman. I will not describe it in detail, but I commend it to the Chancellor.
  I shall focus on three key aspects of the Budget and health. The first is the relationship between health and wealth. A huge burden of ill health is poverty-related—the poverty of unemployment, of the environment in which people live, of dependence on inadequate pensions or benefits and of being caught in the harshness of the means-test trap.
  The Chancellor and many Conservative Members made great play of the fact that Government policy aims to give people freedom to keep or spend their money by reducing the burden of direct taxation. For the working poor, that is an unprincipled fraud. The Government's obsession with a labyrinth of means-tested benefits is such that the working poor pay the highest marginal rates of taxation in the land. A number of my hon. Friends pointed out that it amounts to about 97p in every £1 earned by the working poor. That is a combination of the interface between low pay and the benefits system, where successively the clawback from family credit, housing benefit and council tax rebate eats into the amount that the individual thinks that he or she is earning.
  I was on the verge of doing the Government a disservice by suggesting, on the basis of my first calculations, that the impact of the Budget changes would be to reduce that clawback rate from 97.08p in every £1 to 97.03p. I got that figure wrong because it was

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  calculated on the basis of the extra £1 earned. If one takes the impact on the individual's existing income, a much more generous interpretation must be made. The clawback rate is reduced to 95.5p in every £1.
  For the working poor in that category, the reduction of 1p in the basic rate will deliver a net increase in spending power of 5p per week—a total of £2.78 a year. I would dearly like to see the Chancellor out on the streets trying to explain the virtues of his Budget, on the basis that he was offering to deliver to the working poor less than the cost of a Mars bar a month. I suggest that the right hon. and learned Gentleman would find no shortage of people willing to suggest to him how a Mars bar might be deployed, if only they could afford one.
  The Budget will not improve the lives of the working poor. More than 600,000 households are caught in the clawback trap of paying marginal rates of tax of more than 70 per cent. That is the direct consequence of the shift in Government employment policy, which has created the facade of employment figures—with people being shifted out of full-time employment and into part-time employment and dependence on the benefits system. Any Budget must be tested against that interface.
  There is a strong case for reducing the real burden of basic tax on the working poor. There may be an argument for further reductions in the basic rate, but I say to members of both Front Benches that there is no credible way of pursing that as a realistic policy unless it is underpinned by three other elements. Such a policy would have to be based first on the restoration of universal benefits and the ending of means testing. It must be done in conjunction with the raising of top rates of tax, so that the people who are £35 billion a year better off than in 1979 accept the burden of paying for that shift. It must be done also in conjunction with the introduction of a fair and progressive taxation system for industry and commerce.
  It is not fair to ask industry to be taxed on the basis that firms that provide work should pay the social insurance costs for firms that do not. The structure of the taxation regime for industry is massively regressive. We ought to be looking at the approaches pursued in Germany up to 1965, involving a progressive tax regime on contributions from industry. Apart from anything else, there is a fundamental inequality in the United Kingdom's approach to contributions to the Exchequer from industry and commerce. Their contribution is well below the average of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. If we were to equal that average—7.8 per cent. of gross domestic product—that would bring in £33 billion more a year to the Exchequer.
  I make no apology for saying that this country has the wealth but not the will to tackle poverty, ill health and unemployment. An incoming Labour Government should not be afraid to use our resources to deliver genuine personal growth and improved health opportunities. Those things should be our birthright.
  I come secondly to hospital funding. I want to offer the example of the Queens medical centre in my constituency, one of the leading teaching hospitals in the country. It faces a huge budget crisis. The chief executive of the QMC university hospital trust says:
  "Because of the hospital's low costs, high productivity and efficiency, together with the need to deliver a 4.85 per cent. efficiency gain in 1995–96, there is no latitude to absorb the
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  unexpected financial pressure which the hospital has now experienced … because those who pay the hospital for treating patients do not have the extra resources to cover the unexpected additional emergency patients … we are forced to consider measures that will manage their activity back to an affordable level".
  That is what the trust has told the public of Nottingham in the past month.
  It is a myth that the extra funding that the Government say is going into the health service can be paid for out of retained savings. There are no retained savings to be found in the QMC in Nottingham, and I suspect there are few to be found anywhere else. In essence, Government funding for the NHS is camouflaged funding. The Secretary of State made that clear at the start of today's debate, when he confirmed that the extra money for research would not be confined to medical research but would be spent on management research. It has come to something when the only consultants to be found in hospitals these days are management consultants. That absurdity derives from the Government's obsession with money and with privatising health care.
  My third point concerns the relationship between health and housing. In the UK there are 50,000 avoidable deaths every year due to fuel poverty. Eight million households live in properties that they cannot afford to heat adequately. Absurdly, the VAT regime taxes energy saving more heavily than energy use.
  Against this background, the Chancellor turned his back on a series of sensible proposals from the all-party warm homes group. We said that there needs to be a programme by which the House commits itself to the improvement of the home insulation standards of 500,000 houses a year, over the next 15 years. We should do so in the clear knowledge that we are saving lives, saving energy and creating a huge number of jobs. Those who have followed the experiments done around the country know, too, that such moves have a tremendous effect on reducing neighbourhood-based crime.
  These proposals must be set alongside the need—widely recognised outside the House—for 100,000 new homes a year over at least the next decade; but the Chancellor says that none of the foregoing is affordable. I point out that the warm homes initiative would cost £1.5 billion a year—the equivalent of about half the public spending cuts that the Government announced in the Budget. The same amount would be almost covered by redirecting the fossil fuel levy, and it would be more than covered by the introduction of a new tax: a public service obligation placed on the whole energy industry to bring to an end the scandal of cold homes in Britain.
  The last thing that the housing market needed was a cut in the housing benefit entitlement of the under-25s. The Secretary of State spoke of reducing entitlement to the average cost of local shared accommodation. There is a certain irony in the fact that no one under 25 will be able to afford to live alone and enjoy an entitlement to housing benefit. The Tories call themselves the party of the family and frown on the idea of cohabitation, yet that is exactly what the Government will be forcing on young people.
  Before the ink has dried on these Budget debates, this measure will be seen to rank alongside some of the Government's greatest follies—such as the idea of sharing a bath with a friend to save energy. This will soon be known as the bunk-up-together benefit. The under-25s will be able to find accommodation only by finding a

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  friend to share it with them—the whole idea is farcical. It is not an answer to our housing problem, but it will contribute to worsening it.
  We needed a Budget that would give a direct boost to jobs, infrastructure and investment—we did not get one. We needed a Budget to restore the value of the state pension and the status of universal benefits—we did not get one. We needed a Budget to introduce a progressive tax regime for industry—we did not get one. We needed a Budget that re-established a progressive personal taxation regime under which the richest in Britain paid at least as much as their counterparts in Europe—we did not get one. We needed a Budget that did not tax the poorest at higher marginal rates than are imposed on the rich. There should have been an honest reduction in the real impact of tax on the poor. To achieve that, we need to tackle the interface between the basic rate of tax and the benefits system.
  Faced with all this, the Chancellor has simply piddled about at the margins of the economy. And this is the saddest conclusion about the whole Budget: what a way to spend a penny.
  8.56 pm
  Mrs. Helen Jackson: I had thought of saying that one of the few things for which we can thank the Government is the boost that they have given education over the past few years. I hasten to add that I am not referring to education for three and four-year-olds, who are still waiting for nursery places and whom the Budget did nothing to help. I regret that the Budget did nothing, either, for mature students, who are not taken into account in the Government's policies for student finance. The Budget did nothing but make matters worse by transferring student loans to commercial banks.
  The Budget, however, together with certain other Government measures, has done a great deal to educate the general public on taxation and the Government's policies to deal with it. The average household has watched its tax burden and charges rise year on year since 1992—increases in indirect taxation and council tax, cuts in income tax allowances, and rising bus fares, rail fares, national insurance costs and water and sewerage charges. The people have learnt their lesson; they have pledged never again to be fooled by a gimmick of a penny or two off income tax just before an election. They have also learnt that the Tories cannot be trusted with their targets, and if their targets are wrong their Budgets falter.
  An analysis of the difference between the Chancellor of the Exchequer's targets last year and what happened needs to be remembered. There was 14 per cent. less growth than the right hon. and learned Gentleman predicted last year. Inflation was 20 per cent. greater than was predicted. Government borrowing was 29 per cent. more than he foresaw. The balance of trade was 100 per cent. worse than he predicted. If the Chancellor's targets this year are as shaky as those that he presented to us last year, the Budget strategy has no credibility.
  The story has been especially bad for lower income groups. Successive Budgets over the past few years have shifted the relative weight of taxation from direct income tax to indirect taxation and charges. Value added tax or charges are based on volume, and low-income households
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  or families spend a much greater proportion of their income on essentials. Volume-based taxes on essentials will inevitably penalise low-income households, and that is what we have seen. Such taxes may be all right on goods that are subject to choice, but on essentials they are unfair, especially on lower-income groups in our society.
  Fuel costs, for example, amount to far more of lone parents' weekly incomes than of the incomes of couples. The same applies to the costs of other essential outgoings such as water, council tax, food and housing, which take the lion's share of a lone parent's income or wealth, leaving virtually nothing for the goods that they have the so-called freedom to buy.
  The freezing of one-parent benefit was especially mean. I shall quote from a letter written last week by the woman of a one-parent family to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. She did not write directly to me. She said that cutting
  "this benefit will greatly increase the stress and pressure in my life and the main person to suffer will be my 5 year old daughter.
  I am not a single parent by choice, but became one to escape a severely abusive relationship. This Government seems to have a lot of misunderstandings about single parents."
  I worry about the Chancellor's mean approach to lone families and the way in which that has fed through. It has also fed through in some of the other minor income-related issues in the Budget.
  Essentials are important, of course, for a household that does not have much to spend. That is why I supported the Chancellor's rejection of VAT on newspapers, books and periodicals. I believe that such items are essential to people's quality of life. I would have fully supported the cutting of VAT on the cost of women's sanitary protection. It is a minor but essential and regular cost. The imposition of 17.5 per cent. VAT penalises low-income women and their families. I pay tribute to the excellent campaign by the Asda chain of supermarkets and to the many of my constituents who have signed a petition that focuses on the issue.
  I endorse the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Simpson) on the Budget's lack of effect on housing, the policy area that at present has the greatest "feel-bad" factor. Pundits throughout have recognised that feeling and the seriousness of the problem. The Government have done nothing to meet the problems of housing decay and need. The estimates made by the Department of the Environment tell us that only 60,000 new social housing lettings will be generated next year. That figure is right at the bottom of the Department's estimates of housing need.
  The proposals set out in the Budget will cut by 10 per cent. the capital that is available through Housing Corporation grant for housing association new build and renovation. Shelter has told us that that expenditure alone would have provided at least 11,000 new homes over the next two years. The mean proposal to restrict housing benefits for the under-25s, on the assumption that they can simply continue to live with their parents, will do nothing to boost the housing market. I worry that it is a rather cynical wheeze to bring down the huge discrepancy in the Budget between the number of houses in the social sector—which are what people require to have independence—that are allowed to be built and the indices of housing need. It is quite right to say that it encourages dependency culture, not the opposite.
  Of course we welcome the raising of the level for community care, but there is incontrovertible evidence that what elderly people really want is not to be pushed

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  into residential care. What really gives them dignity as they become frail is adequate community care in their own homes, with their own front door, and the right, even if they are too disabled to manage it, to come and go as they please. The evidence shows that community care is underfunded, that is has been underfunded and that, tragically, local authorities find their budgets squeezed, so that the simple things—grab rails, ramps for wheelchairs and walk-in showers, rather than a bath that they are too scared to use—cannot be provided. Those things make the essential difference in determining whether somebody retains his or her independence.
  Often, local authorities' discretionary funds for such services are exhausted by Christmas, so councils struggle to make ends meet and old people are pushed into the sad but cheaper option of living collectively in private residential and nursing homes. All of us have known, either in our families or through our friends, the quite sad results that can result from that exploitation.
  I am being frowned at, but I make one final point, on environmental issues. I have struggled today to find from the House of Commons Library any suggestion in any of the Budget speeches that there is any money for the extra monitoring that is required for air quality standards. A clear pledge was made during the passage of the Environment Act 1995—there was no time to put it into the Act—that the Secretary of State for the Environment would be urged to make resources available in this year's Budget statement, so that local authorities could plan to do that important new work, which had cross-party approval. To my knowledge, there is nothing in it. I should be grateful if the Minister would respond on that point. There is no disagreement about the need for that work, but we are adamant that, unless resources are made available, local authorities simply will not have the staff to undertake their new duty.
  On the environment, to follow the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South, it is disgraceful that the home energy efficiency scheme was used in the cynical way it was, to appear to make it all right that VAT was placed on the cost of keeping people warm in their own homes, an essential need. The scheme has been cut right back by 30 per cent.; instead of £100 million being available each year, there is a mere £69 million this year. It is no wonder that Opposition Members and the people outside are saying, "You cannot trust the Tories." Words do not fool them any longer.
  9.8 pm
  Mr. Gordon Prentice: I have very little time, but I shall start with two disarmingly simple propositions, with which Conservative Members will disagree: first, that taxation should be fair; and, secondly, that it is right to tax wealth, especially inherited wealth, where vast fortunes are passed down the generations. The Duke of Westminster inherited £1,500 million, the Duke of Buccleuch £400 million and Alan Clark a more modest £41 million.
  I shall start at the other end of the scale by referring to a constituent of mine, Mrs. Smith, who earned 15p an hour, possibly an all-time record. She was employed by a loathsome individual, Peter Pomgourou of Christina Fashions of Manchester. She was paid £1.75 to make up a suit which retailed for £55 and was described in the local paper as a "hard-up granny". She said:
  "It is definitely exploitation of the worse kind, nothing short of slave labour."
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  The Pendle Citizen contacted the firm and asked about this employment. The owner of Christina Fashions told Stephanie Beardsworth, the reporter:
  "If she"—
  Mrs. Smith—
  "does not want the money she has no need to work for me. Mind your own business."
  I sent copies of all this stuff, including a file of cuttings from the Pendle Citizen and the Lancashire Evening Telegraph, to the then Minister for Competition and Consumer Affairs, the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Evans). He wrote back:
  "We believe that employers should treat employees with consideration and should adopt fair personnel policies … but, of course, instances such as the case highlighted in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph will occur from time to time … The regulation of homeworking would represent an unacceptable burden on the great majority of employers … I hope this has explained the position."
  It does not really explain the position. It does not explain the position to my constituents who gag when they see the Government responding in that way.
  People at the other end of the scale seem to be treated in a completely different way. The chairman of the National Grid Company will receive £2 million in share options, pay and special dividends from the sale of that company. We have just read about Lord Young, a former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, who is trying to screw £2.5 million out of Cable and Wireless plc, having been sacked from that company. We read of the people in charge of National Power getting a monthly salary of £36,000. It would take more than seven years for someone on £2.50 an hour to earn that sum. In my neck of the woods, the highest paid director of NORWEB gets £19,739 per month. It would take almost four years for someone on £2.50 an hour to earn that kind of money. That is what upsets people.
  It was the deputy chairman of the Conservative party who, a little over a year ago, said:
  "The rich are getting richer on the backs of the rest who are getting poorer."
  That indeed is the case. The poor are poorer and the rich are richer. The Government's own figures confirm that after housing costs, the poorest 10 per cent. are 70 per cent. worse off and the richest 10 per cent. are a staggering 62 per cent. better off. Indeed, the gap between the highest paid and the lowest paid is greater than at any time since records began in 1886.
  The tax burden falls disproportionately on the low-paid. Everyone knows that since April 1992 the tax burden has increased by 7p in the pound, although we had the 1p cut in the basic rate last Tuesday. The typical family now pays 35.6 per cent. of their gross income in tax, compared with 32.2 per cent. in 1979.
  My constituents would have been as intrigued as I was if they had turned on the BBC yesterday lunchtime. I watched John Humphrys, in the "On the Record" programme, quizzing the chairman of the Conservative party, the right hon. Member for Peterborough (Dr. Mawhinney). He was asked a simple question: whether the tax burden would be lighter at the time of the next general election than it was in April 1992. The right hon. Gentleman could not or was not prepared to answer the question. He came out with the fiction that people would be £9 a week better off. That answer has been blown apart

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  because we know that, of that £9, £6.56 is accounted for by optimistic predictions about the growth in earnings. We have been told that that 9 per cent. anticipates an increase in earnings of 4 per cent. Again, the right hon. Gentleman was unable to answer that point.
  What did he say yesterday? He told viewers to
  "trust the instincts of the Tories."
  Can you believe that, Madam Deputy Speaker? It is an absurd notion. After the experience of the past few years, the electorate would not trust the Conservatives to look after anything. We have had broken promises on value added tax, VAT on fuel and the infamous 21 tax rises since 1992. We hear about the growth in the economy, but the Conservatives never remind us about the devaluation in September 1992, which unleashed that growth and which is now petering out. That is from the party that in 1991 had the brass neck and effrontery to put up posters all over the country accusing the Labour party of going for broke. That is why people are so cynical about the Conservative party and why, when they hear Conservative Members talk about trust, they choke on the word.
  Yesterday, the front page of The Sunday Times reported a national opinion poll that stated that only 26 per cent. of people now trust the Tories on taxation. Seventy-one per cent. distrust them, and I wonder why. More than anything else, we need some fairness and equity in the tax system. We need more income tax bands. It is simply not fair for someone on £25,000 a year and someone on £250,000 a year to pay the top tax rate of 40p in the pound. There are eight bands in the council tax. Property has been taken by this Government as a rough proxy for wealth. Income is perhaps a more accurate proxy for wealth, yet we have two or two and a half bands.
  Inheritance tax is another example of where the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer are so disingenuous. The Prime Minister says that he wants to abolish it so that wealth can cascade down the generations. The £155,000 limit has gone up to £200,000, but that will affect a tiny number of people. In my constituency in north-east Lancashire, where many people are on low incomes. 36,460 households are in properties worth up to £160.000—the limit that has just been moved—and only 544 in properties above that level. When they die. most people's estates consist of the family home. People do not have expensive jewels, shares and all the other bits and pieces to hand on to their offspring. A tiny number of people live in family homes that are worth more than that level.
  Recent Inland Revenue statistics. published in 1995 but based on the value of estates in 1991-92, show that. if inheritance tax were abolished on estates worth more than £2 million. in the entire country only 157 people would benefit—but to the tune of £141 million. If inheritance tax were scrapped in total. just over 16.000 people would benefit. but they would garner more than £1 billion. so let us hear no more from the Conservative party about fairness and equity. The tax policies that have been pursued since 1979 have brought great injustice and great unfairness to our tax system. which is riddled with inequities. The abolition of inheritance tax—a stated policy of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and of his right
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  hon. Friend the Prime Minister—will do nothing to bring forward the notion of the classless society that the Prime Minister claims to want.
  The Budget is entirely typical of the Conservatives and it is another reason why they will soon be out of office.
  9.19 pm
  Mr. Peter L. Pike: Five minutes are available to me so I shall have to be brief. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman) spoke about the possibility of a windfall tax and gave his reasons for opposing it. There is a strong argument for such a tax and I shall certainly support the Labour Government when they introduce it in a year or 18 months from now.
  Almost all the privatised utilities are monopoly suppliers with protected rights to make profits because of the way in which the legislation was carried when they were privatised. For example, the profits of the water companies are assured by the formula and despite recent interventions by the regulator they cannot fail to make substantial profits. National Power and PowerGen work within the pool system and the great fluctuations in prices in the pool result in grossly inflated profits.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) asked who gets the £9 a week about which the Government, the Chancellor and the chairman of the Conservative party talk. We saw the chairman of the Conservative party on "On the Record" speaking about that yesterday. Few of my constituents will get anywhere near that amount from the Budget. Because of the single allowable maximum at the lower rate, the most that a single person who pays only the 20p tax rate can earn is £7,665. That is equivalent to about £147 a week, and in a constituency such as mine that is high pay. The majority of people in Burnley and Pendle and north-east Lancashire get well below that amount. However, the person earning that amount will be £83 a year better off as a result of the tax cut. That is equal to just over £1.50p a week.
  Hon. Members have spoken about the national health service and the private finance initiative. My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) intervened durinġ the speech of the Secretary of State for Health and twice asked whether the Government would guarantee the programme if the PFI did not deliver what it was expected to deliver. The Secretary of State failed to answer. We have nothing against the principle of the private finance initiative, but we think that the programme for health service provision is so crucial that we want it to be guaranteed. Much of what the Government say is ludicrous.
  A fourth phase of development was planned for Burnley general hospital in my constituency and the planners were asked to see whether the private finance initiative would be appropriate. In the end it was deemed inappropriate and the programme was considerably delayed. The PFI will not deliver what is expected.
  Most people think that the Government have failed to recognise not only the major need for housing investment but the fact that housing development is one of the quickest ways to get the economy going. What have the Government done to housing associations? In 1979

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  housing associations were the favourite sons of the incoming Tory Government. The National Federation of Housing Associations briefing states:
  "The Chancellor announced that … housing associations will receive less than £1.1 billion to provide affordable homes for those most in need. That is a cut of £450 million from the £1.5 billion first promised by the Government".
  That means that next year the housing associations will be able to provide only 41,000 new homes, compared with the 76,000 that could have been built. That reduction makes no sense when there is such a desperate need for housing investment.
  Another issue is the £1 billion privatisation of the Housing Corporation's loan book. I have no particular objection to that, but if we have to move in that direction why not invest some or most of that money in housing stock? If the Government were prepared to use the £1 billion of capital receipts, they could start to tackle some of the problems in housing. They could get people back to work and get the economy moving in the right direction.
  The cut in funding for the home improvement energy efficiency scheme is nonsense, and is a step in the wrong direction. Reducing the funding from £100 million to £69 million—a cut of 30 per cent.—will mean that 200,000 fewer homes are insulated.
  Finally, I wish to raise the funding that councils will get for education. The rise in the standard spending assessment of 4.5 per cent. will not in itself give councils a single extra penny, because most local education authorities are already spending more than the Government said they should this year.
  9.25 pm
  Ms Dawn Primarolo: This has been a very long and interesting debate which—for most of the time—has concentrated on the issue of fairness and on the divided Britain. My hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray) concentrated his comments on the structural changes in employment, a subject to which I want to return later in my speech. He talked about the need to create jobs and the need for sustainable growth, and—in a thoughtful speech—talked about the deep-seated problems of the economy.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Mr. Galbraith) made a precise speech on the NHS, and reinforced the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) in her opening remarks. In particular, my hon. Friend concentrated on the jargon and the way in which words are used in the NHS to disguise the denial of care to those who need it. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport, East (Mr. Hughes) characteristically defended his countrymen, and women, against the onslaught of Tory tax rises.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) graphically described the lack of hope bordering on despair and the alienation of young men in particular, and referred to the Government's broken promises year in, year out. My hon. Friends the Members for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) and for Doncaster, North (Mr. Hughes) spoke eloquently about the NHS, and also referred to the need to reduce unemployment, to increase security in work and to provide investment in our economy.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Simpson) highlighted the inequalities in health and in wealth, and put the case for a fair tax system. He made
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  the point that, if the Government were interested in reducing taxes, the fairest tax cut that they could have made would to reduce VAT to 5 per cent. My hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mrs. Jackson), for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) and for Burnley (Mr. Pike) talked about the unfairness of our divided Britain, and referred to the hunt for the £9 that was allegedly on offer to all of our constituents. When we return to our constituencies, the burning question from our constituents will be: "Where is that £9?" Like all Tory promises, it is an illusion. It is only there for the wealthy, and is not available for the poorest and most vulnerable members of society.
  The Government have failed in the Budget to tackle the real weaknesses in the British economy. They have failed to encourage new and sustained investment, and they have failed to close the investment gap with our competitors. They have failed to move people out of welfare and into work, and they have failed to bring down the crippling levels of unemployment. It is because they do not understand the relationship of the welfare state to the changing nature of work and the restructuring of work in society that they still cannot address the question which blights the lives of so many of our citizens.
  Public borrowing will now be £7 billion higher next year and £10 billion higher the year after. Public finances are in such a poor state under the Government's stewardship that there will be a 17 per cent. cut in public investment and a 27 per cent. cut in the hospital building programme. Having put taxes up by the equivalent of 7p in the pound, the Government propose in this Budget to reduce them by just 1p. That is giving with one hand and taking back with the other.
  As Britain slips further into despair, moving down the world prosperity league from 13th to 18th place, the Government have failed to deal with the continued economic failure and the rising social distress that accompanies that economic failure.
  Even the tax cuts are distributed unfairly. The simulations by the Institute of Fiscal Studies, the figures produced by Coopers and Lybrand for The Guardian and those produced for The Times show that the better-off get more and the poorly-paid get less. The Chancellor has completely missed the fact that people now demand tax fairness, not simply tax reductions.
  The Chancellor repeated in his Budget that the Conservatives wanted to abolish tax on inheritance and capital gains. Half the benefit from those tax cuts will go to the richest 5,000 people in our country. Instead of abolishing those taxes, he should use the money to introduce the new lower starting tax rate of 10p that we have proposed.
  The tax giveaways announced by the Chancellor will do little to reverse his previous two packages. High indirect taxes—VAT and excise duties—have made a serious dent in families' pockets, particularly low-paid families. Unless e strengthen our economy for the long term, tax cuts will not last and public services will continue to deteriorate.
  We must deal with unemployment. Changing patterns of employment mean that we have to have a strategy not only for keeping people in work but for getting them back to work. During the Government's reign we have seen a growth in insecurity in the labour market. The new jobs that are being created are insecure and poorly paid. That

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  is why we proposed using the windfall tax of £1 billion on the public utilities to guarantee to every young man and woman under 25 a proper job with proper pay, a job that provided qualifications, or a full-time education place.
  In his speech last year the Chancellor said:
  "We must combine greater prosperity for the majority of our people with measures to prevent the emergence of a deprived underclass, excluded from the opportunity to work and dependent on welfare."—[Official Report, 29 November 1994; Vol. 250, c. 1079.]
  There is nothing in that Budget or this year's Budget to assist the 20 per cent. of households—one in five non-pensioner households—who have no work and no prospect of work and are trapped on benefit. The Chancellor still fails to understand that those people are caught in an unbreakable circle of high rent, poverty and benefits and are excluded from work. The Budget continues to favour a shift to the creation of a low-pay employment market. Many will find themselves less able to escape reliance on benefit. There is nothing in the Budget to create security at work.
  The Government claim that they have understood the changes in the labour market and are designing policies to overcome them. Women, who are over-represented among the low-paid and under-represented in the House, and whose concerns are not spoken about by Conservative Members as they have their private conversations, still disproportionately take the burden of all the tax increases in this Chancellor's Budget. The gap between men's and women's earnings is widening and the divide is getting ever greater.
  Mr. Forman: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Ms Primarolo: I promised the Minister that I would sit down by 20 minutes to 10. As Conservative Members have made so many long speeches, I shall take only 15 minutes; so, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will continue.
  Lack of child care has been identified as one of the major barriers to women taking up full or part-time employment and the Government still refuse to deal with that. Not only that, they will not recognise that women are driven from the labour market by a lack of elder care. The Budget has not helped the low-paid individually and it has done nothing to attack the over-reliance of our economy on low skills. There has been no closing of the poverty trap, and benefit penalties on earnings will continue to act as a disincentive for people to go to work.
  The conditions under which the Beveridge welfare state was created half a century ago have changed. Beveridge's—and the Government's—assumptions that women should not work outside the home and that the nuclear family should always exist are no longer the norm. Mothers deserve incentives to return to work rather than having their hopes that they can afford to work and still care for their children shattered.
  The Women's Budget Group pointed out that, unlike an increasing number of countries, the United Kingdom does not publish an assessment of the differential effects of fiscal and public expenditure on women as distinct from men. The House and Conservative Members are so preoccupied with male-only interpretations that they do
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  not realise that using the household as a focal economic unit is now recognised as producing gross social inequalities—inequalities which they do not challenge.
  Mr. Kenneth Clarke: The hon. Lady cannot be serious.
  Ms Primarolo: The low political representation of women in the UK also means that women's diverse views and needs are not heard. Yes, Chancellor, I am serious: 52 per cent. of the population are women and his Budget does nothing to assist them.
  Mr. Clarke rose—
  Ms Primarolo: Let me explain. One in six people aged under 25 are unemployed; 3 million Britons earn less than £58 a week. They are not able to make contributions to their own pensions, as the Chancellor tells them to. The majority of those people are women, and while a quarter of people with occupations are women, most are unable to accumulate savings. They cannot be more thrifty, because they do not have the money in the first place and the Chancellor's Budget does nothing to assist them.
  The Chancellor clearly says that lone parents need no extra help, but that flies in the face of common knowledge and understanding. It costs more to bring up children in a lone-parent family. There are no economies of scale or shared housing or fuel costs. There is less opportunity to share responsibility for caring for the children and more need to pay for child care. The shameful attack on lone parents is a piece of punitive symbolism through which the Government seek more scapegoats instead of addressing the problems that our welfare state is creating.
  The Budget does nothing to help most of those in poverty in old age, women. Women cannot afford to rely on private pension schemes and they are affected by a casualised labour market. The effects of discrimination and low pay throughout their lives guarantee their poverty in old age. While the Chancellor referred to older couples, the reality is that most of the elderly and frail are women who have outlived their spouses and who are more likely to be reliant on Government benefits.
  We welcome the rise of the thresholds for residential nursing homes. The majority of frail, disabled and elderly women live in their own homes and die in them. Only 5 per cent. of them are in residential care. The increase has little to do with preventing old, frail people from being insecure in their homes and everything to do with the Government trying to save their skin at the next election.
  How can the Chancellor claim to be a one-nation Tory when he encourages division, privatisation and the exclusion of people from our society; when he cuts employment programmes and the hospital capital building programme, forces up council taxes and deepens the poverty trap and the divisions in our society?
  The Budget further divides the country. It gives with one hand and takes with the other. It fails to create jobs and security. It fails to create investment and to understand how people live their lives. It is a failed Budget from a failed Government, and it is about time they went to the country and allowed us to be the Government.
  9.39 pm
  The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Michael Jack): I was amazed by the closing remarks of the hon. Member for Bristol, South (Ms Primarolo). The Budget was for the men and women of this country. The Budget benefits men and women in work. The hon. Lady does not seem to acknowledge that under the Conservative Government we now have one of the highest proportions of women in employment anywhere in the European Union.
  The Budget benefits men and women with savings. The Budget benefits men and women with children at school, who can now enjoy more resources as a result of the Budget. It will benefit men and women in their old age who need care. The Budget is for the whole of the United Kingdom, and not for the small sectional interest described by the hon. Lady.
  The other Saturday night I saw the television programme "Have I Got News for You". It is little wonder that, when the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) was asked to comment on Labour's economic policy, he said:
  "Let me know what it is and I'll comment on it."
  Today's debate has left us no wiser as to what is Labour economic policy. It is therefore extremely difficult to comment on it in detail. I accept, however, that we were offered a brief glimpse of it, and I shall say something about that later.
  The hon. Member for Bristol, South referred to people being "allegedly" £9 better off. She obviously was not listening to "Any Questions" on Friday, unlike her hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar), when I explained clearly that had it not been for a Budget that would lead to growth, one could not have a combination of tax cuts and increases in earnings, which will deliver to the average family £9 per week. I do not recant one part of the achievements of my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor in producing a Budget that can deliver that money to the average family.
  The hon. Member for Bristol, South and some of her hon. Friends mentioned their desire to see yet lower taxes. That leads on to the question of the so-called 10p tax. I want to talk about that tax, because I was particularly interested in what the hon. Member for Garscadden said about it at Bilston on Friday. I probed him very hard about it, and he acknowledged that he was not certain whether it would cover all those currently covered by our 20p band. He and his hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) seem to be at odds about that.
  I challenged the hon. Member for Garscadden about the cost of introducing the 10ptax—£8 billion—but no answer did we get about where the money will come from. I challenge the hon. Gentleman again to say whether he is aware that just 10 per cent. of the low-paid whom he aims to assist with the 10p tax would benefit, whereas 90 per cent. of its benefit would accrue to standard and higher rate taxpayers. That proposal is supposed to be a great one for work incentives. Does any Opposition Member who cares to break the Trappist vows that the Opposition have all had to take agree with the likely cost of that tax? Do they have any figures of their own? Do they agree with anything that we have said about taxation?
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  I am prepared to give way, but no answer will be forthcoming, because Tribune this week—[Interruption.] The Opposition may laugh, but read what it says. The hon. Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith) said there could be
  "no commitments on levels of tax and spending beyond the existing Budget."
  The hon. Member for Dunfermline, East is present. He has had the figures. He knows what the Budget says, and he has read the Red Book. Will he now come clean and tell us what his targets are for inflation, growth and spending? The facts are there in the Red Book. We are not setting him the difficult question about what he would do if, God forbid, the Opposition ever became the Government. We will set the Opposition the easy question. We will supply the answers. Silence comes from the Labour Benches. We know that they are well and truly rumbled.
  We heard some sane ,economic voices from my hon. Friends the Members for North-West Hampshire (Sir D. Mitchell), for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman), for Hastings and Rye (Mrs. Lait), for Beckenham (Mr. Merchant), for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) and for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen), all of whom made a positive contribution to the debate.
  My hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire rightly drew the attention of the House to the effects of the reductions in taxation achieved, not only by 1p off the standard rate of income tax, but by some substantial changes in tax allowances. He asked me how much a married man may earn before he pays any tax. I will tell him. The answer is £5,108 per year—£98.23 per week.
  I hope that that will help my hon. Friend in the task that he will be undertaking—to communicate to his constituents the fact that the Budget went far beyond a straightforward 1p off the standard rate of tax. It had the benefit of extending the 20p band to a quarter of all taxpayers. It took more than 200,000 people out of tax altogether. It answered in clear and unequivocal terms the question, what were we doing for work incentives—unlike the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East, who refuses to answer similar basic questions.
  My hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire drew our attention to the subject of small businesses, and I was glad that he did so. He mentioned the penny off the small companies rate of corporation tax. He will note also that national insurance charges have decreased, not only for smaller companies, but for larger employers. There will also be deregulation packages in relation to annual VAT accounting, and special help for the transitional arrangements with business rates. The Government take the role of small businesses seriously and have acted in their interests, as witnessed by their strong endorsement of my right hon. and learned Friend's Budget.
  My hon. Friend mentioned deregulation. He knows that the Inland Revenue will shortly publish a report on that subject, arising from section 160 of the Finance Act 1995.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington, who has been a doughty campaigner on the subject of employee share ownership, paid tribute to some important changes that we are making regarding such ownership, because that is a significant way in which working people can share, not only in the success of the companies that they work for, but in the success of the growth of the economy that will surely result from my right hon. and learned Friend's Budget.

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  As my hon. Friend knows, we introduced in the Budget improvements to the save-as-you-earn option scheme, coupling it for the first time with the work of employee share-owning trusts. I am glad that my hon. Friend was keen in his advocacy of that change. We have opened it up to people who can save as little as £5 a week, who can invest in the success of the companies that they work for. Improvements have also been made to the profit-sharing scheme. Both those schemes incorporate a total of about 2 million people.
  We listened carefully to what industry and employees told us. Sometimes little people working for multiple supermarkets wanted a share in their company. Their employees wanted to give them that. We introduced in the Budget the new company share option plan, which has been widely welcomed. I am delighted about that.
  My hon. Friend asked why it was not possible to put the national insurance cut into effect earlier than April 1997. It is linked with the timing of the landfill tax, which does not start until October 1996, and it was fair to employers to make the changes later, in April 1997.
  A moment of rare history occurred when my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West made a sage, balanced and well-judged contribution to the debate. It was such that he admitted that he was able to support my right hon. and learned Friend unequivocally. It will bring joy to the Chancellor's heart to hear that, and I am sure that a framed copy of Hansard will hang on his wall for many a long day to come.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam, in a wide-ranging and helpful contribution, reminded the House that the Budget went beyond the issue of health, to which I shall return later, and would benefit education especially. She rightly drew our attention to the Chancellor's challenge in his speech, in which he threw out the words to remind every local authority in the land that they must pass on to the schools of the country the full benefit of the £778 million of additional revenue passed through the revenue support grant. My hon. Friend did the House a service in reminding us of that perspective.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham reminded us that it was a good Budget for both pensioners and savers. The age allowance changes that we have made in tax help those with modest incomes or occupational pensions, and those savers within the 20p band will enjoy more of what they can earn through their savings. Pensioners are the major beneficiaries of that change. My hon. Friend also drew our attention to the benefits to communities throughout this land of the additional expenditure available for close circuit television and the police. That will find an echo in every town, city and village throughout the country.
  My hon. Friend asked a question about one other welcome aspect of the Budget: my right hon. and learned Friend's repudiation of the non-story in the newspapers about redundancy. My right hon. and learned Friend confirmed that there would be no tax on the £30,000 exemption and that there was no intention to restrict that exemption's scope. The precise definition of the payments covered by the exemption was causing difficulties in practice, and discussions arc presently continuing between the Revenue and interested parties, particularly the Law Society, to clarify the details.
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  My hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye made a useful contribution to our debate. I am delighted with her comments on the way local business has responded to the Budget, and her support for the private finance initiative.
  Those were some of the saner comments during the debate. I shall now turn to the comments of those hon. Members who perhaps require some education on the benefits of my right hon. and learned Friend's Budget.
  I listened to the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) with growing incredulity. I have to suffer her outbursts in my kitchen as I make my breakfast when she attempts to convince the nation, without success, that the Government want to privatise the health service. Nothing could be further from the truth. I should have thought that the Secretary of State for Health, in his polished presentation of what he is doing to advance health care, would have silenced the hon. Lady once and for all. But in case she has a thirst for more information about the facts, I shall give her some.
  The view of the health service that I have heard from Opposition Members is not that of my constituents, who tell me about the quality and exceptional care that they receive. They have a different view of the health service.
  Mrs. Maria Fyfe: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Jack: I cannot give way, as I have much information to give, which I am sure the hon. Lady wants to hear.
  In spite of having to administer a tough spending round, my right hon. and learned Friend has seen spending on the health service next year grow by £1.3 billion—a 1.6 per cent. real increase. That is not an example of someone who is running down the health service. Since 1978–79, spending on the health service in real terms will have risen by 71.1 per cent. I can say that with pride, whereas the Labour party not only presided over cuts in NHS capital spending, but in cuts in nurses' pay. That is the Labour party's track record, not ours, which is one of which we can be proud.
  There were comments from the Opposition and some of my hon. Friends on management costs in the NHS. Those much maligned managers have done much to try to improve the operation of the health service. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is right to consider that issue. The £650 million, which will be carved off administrative costs and generated through improvements in efficiency in the NHS, will go directly to patient care. I know that the Labour party finds that concept difficult to understand, but improvements in the efficiency of the NHS have helped us to be able to say truthfully that more patients are now being treated in our hospitals than ever before.
  If one adds the private finance initiative to the real-terms growth in funding—I underline that it is added to the real-terms funding—one finds that there is yet more increased funding for the NHS in total. It adds to the funding; it does not take away from it. The hon. Member for Peckham has the idea that, because we have found another way to build new hospitals and new facilities in the health service, we are taking something away. I do not

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  know where she has been, but perhaps she should reflect on what is happening in Peckham under the private finance initiative.
  Ms Harman: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Jack: The hon. Lady has enough time to entertain us with misleading columns. Let her hear it from me that in King's College hospital, which is in her constituency, the trust issued an advertisement in the Official Journal of the European Communities in August 1995 for a £70 million project to consolidate acute and specialist services on the Denmark hill site. I am sure that her constituents and the people of Peckham will be delighted with the rubbishing that she has given a project that will clearly bring improvement in health care. Far from competing for the work being a minority sport, tenderers are already shortlisted down to three, and they will be competing for a quality piece of business.
  I announced in my recent action agenda that, to ensure progress in the private finance initiative, we would put before the construction industry and those providing the services for the nation good quality business projects which would be run from within Government by highly trained people, and that there would be a private finance initiative training exercise with Price Waterhouse to train between 5,000 and 10,000 civil servants in the ways of private finance.
  Ms Harman: Before the Minister creates the impression that people in King's College hospital are tucked up in the beds provided by the new private finance initiative, will he confirm to the House that in one year the Government have cut 17 per cent. of the NHS capital budget? Will he confirm that the proposed 242 per cent. increase in one year in the private finance initiative is an unlikely and unachievable target?
  Mr. Jack: I shall confirm neither, but in respect of the private finance initiative I can confirm that my right hon. and learned Friend pointed out that we expect some £14 billion-worth of projects to be agreed by the end of the public expenditure period, and we know that £5 billion will be signed up by the end of the financial year.
  Turning to deliveries on hospitals, why cannot the hon. Lady acknowledge the success that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health announced recently in Amersham and South Buckinghamshire of £35 million-worth of real hospital? There are many more to come. I recommend that the hon. Lady spends less time on the "Today" programme and more time reading the
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  press releases from the Department of Health, where she will receive information about what we can achieve through the private finance initiative.
  Let me tell the hon. Lady about some of the other thrilling successes that are about to happen. They include projects worth £140 million in Norfolk and Norwich, £60 million in North Durham, £50 million in Swindon and Marlborough, £26 million in Bishop Auckland and £90 million in Dartford and Gravesham, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) said in his telling intervention. Those contracts are being negotiated and represent real progress in the private finance initiative.
  If the hon. Lady wants to know what the NHS really thinks, I suggest that she reads what the clinical directors of the South Buckinghamshire NHS trust said about that project. They were absolutely delighted and they could not believe that that initiative would deliver them such a remarkably good hospital.
  I conclude by saying that the worst speech we heard this evening was from the hon. Member for Newport, East (Mr. Hughes). I have never heard an hon. Member run down in such unequivocal terms the part of the country that he purports to represent. He destroyed Wales in but a few telling moments, and he did not tell his constituents and the House that, as a result of the Government's excellent economic policies, unemployment in Wales is below the national average and that Wales has the highest percentage of three and four-year-olds in education compared with the rest of the country. Barclays bank tells us that confidence is growing at a faster rate in Wales than in the rest of the United Kingdom. Those are the symbols of success, not failure, and the hon. Gentleman has done a great disservice to Wales and his constituents in the way in which he has conducted himself.
  The hon. Gentleman mentioned league tables. This country is the biggest European destination for direct United States of America and Japanese investment. We have the highest proportion of the population of working age in work than any other major European country. We have the best job creation record in Europe. Our level of unemployment is well below the European average. We export more per head than the USA or Japan, and we have far fewer labour disputes than the European average. We are proud to be top of those league tables, and we are a party proud to support an excellent Budget, which will bring improvements to the lives of 26 million taxpayers in this country. I commend the Budget to the House.
  It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
  Debate to be resumed tomorrow.

  Lancashire
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Wells.]
  10 pm
  Mr. Peter Thurnham: It is fair to say that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State is a southerner, but nevertheless I welcome him to an important Adjournment debate for those of us who live in the north-west. It is important because of its subject, which is the future of Lancashire, and timing—a day on which England has been saved by its Lancastrian captain's magnificent innings of 185 not out.
  This debate is also happily timed to commemorate another day in Lancashire's long and proud history. Exactly 700 years ago last week, Lancashire's first two Members of Parliament arrived at Westminster. According to the Library records, on 27 November 1295, Sir Mattheus de Redman and Sir Johannes de Elwyas took their places for the first time. Sir Mettheus hailed from Levens in the former historic county of Westmorland, near my own home. The second knight of the shire, Sir Johannes, was from near Salmesbury, near Blackburn, but he was also connected with Breighmet, which I take to be the Breightmet in my constituency of Bolton, North-East.
  Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: My hon. Friend may be interested to learn that my treasurer for many years had the same name as the original knight, and our association offices are named after him.
  Mr. Thurnham: I am delighted that my hon. Friend is here this evening. I thank her for all the support that she gives in the House for everything to do with Lancashire.
  Lancashire's long and proud record as a county stretches back more than 800 years—to 1168, when it was first mentioned as the county of Lancaster. In 1351, the Duchy of Lancaster was created, with boundaries that have—I am glad to say—remained intact to this day. My constituency was justifiably proud of its 806 years of Lancashire history—at least, until the disastrous local government reorganisation of 1974, which created the infamous Greater Manchester county council, and attempted to tear up Boltonians' loyalties to Lancashire by trying to make them into so-called Greater Mancunians.
  The Government wisely recognised their folly, when, in 1986, they abolished Greater Manchester county council, allowing Bolton its independence as a unitary authority. Bizarrely, the Government have left the Greater Manchester county boundary in place, much to the annoyance of the vast majority of the people of Bolton.
  Bolton is known all over the world as a Lancashire cotton town. There may not be much left of its cotton industry, but overwhelmingly it wants to return to its historical county of Lancashire. Opinion polls by the Bolton Evening News showed that more than 99 per cent. of respondents want Bolton to be back in Lancashire. It is hard to find anyone who disagrees, other than in the Minister's Department and the Lord Lieutenant's office in Greater Manchester.
  All political parties in Bolton supported the unanimous resolution of the council on 19 October 1993
  "that the Council re-affirms its traditional affinity with Lancashire and requests Her Majesty The Queen to appoint the Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire … to act in Bolton".
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  Other councils throughout the north west have expressed similar views.
  I was delighted last year when my hon. Friend the Minister of State accepted my invitation to visit Bolton, to learn for himself the strength of local views. He met councillors and other representatives of the Friends of Real Lancashire, and was left in no doubt about the strength of people's feelings—at a time when the Friends of Real Lancashire were raising a petition with about 30,000 signatures, calling for the return of Lancashire's historic boundaries.
  The day after his visit, the Bolton Evening News carried a front page banner headline:
  "Red rose to bloom again".
  And the people rejoiced that a Minister had listened to their views.
  I commend the work of the Friends of Real Lancashire under their leader, Mr. Chris Dawson, who, with others, and out of the goodness of his heart, has campaigned ceaselessly for Lancashire's proud history to be remembered and its boundaries properly restored. The Friends of Real Lancashire are a part of the Association of British Counties; I commend my hon. Friend the Coventry, South-West (Mr. Butcher) for his work for the association. I am delighted that he and 25 other hon. Members have signed early-day motion 109, calling for the marking of historic county boundaries with clear signposts on all roads as they cross the historic counties' boundaries.
  Last year, I presented to the House a petition with 30,000 signatures gathered by the Friends of Real Lancashire, calling for the restoration of Lancashire's historic boundaries. It was presented on 21 March to mark the birthday of Her Majesty the Queen, who, as monarch, carries the title of Duke of Lancaster, dating from the time of Henry IV.
  I hope that the Minister is in no doubt as to the strength of people's feelings about this issue, which strikes at the very heart of each person's sense of local identity.
  Not only does the Greater Manchester county boundary limit the Parliamentary Boundary Commission in its work—not so happily in my case—but it has a negative effect on industries such as tourism, and on the whole sporting, cultural and emotional heritage of Lancashire's people. Surely the home of Lancashire county cricket club should be in Lancashire, especially after today? I hope that my hon. Friend will now cease to procrastinate, and will direct the Local Government Commission forthwith to undertake an immediate review of Lancashire's boundaries, with a view to restoring them for ceremonial, sporting and cultural purposes.
  In 1974, the Government said, in a statement quoted in The Times of 1 April:
  "The new county boundaries are administrative areas, and will not alter the traditional boundaries of counties, nor is it intended that the loyalties of people living in them will change, despite the different names adopted by the new administrative counties".
  Perhaps 1 April was the right date for that statement, which seems to have been honoured much more in the breach than in any attempt to observe it.
  In 1990, my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Portillo), when he was the Minister responsible for local government, confirmed that the statement was still true, and the situation had not changed.

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  In spite of the clear assurance that the traditional county boundaries were not altered in 1974, they are no longer shown on Ordnance Survey maps, and have been replaced by administrative county boundaries. In the areas affected by changes to local government in 1974, road signs naming traditional counties have been removed and sometimes replaced by signs naming the administrative counties—while other boundaries remain totally unmarked.
  Travellers can no longer tell when they pass from Cheshire, Cumberland, Westmorland and even Yorkshire into the county of Lancashire. Travelling north on the M6 from Cheshire into Lancashire, drivers are not informed that they have arrived in Lancashire until more than 20 miles past the border, where they reach a sign north of Charnock Richard proclaiming that they are in Lancashire, the red rose county. Not only is this confusing for the traveller; it means that people moving into the area have no idea which county they are living in.
  The Post Office is happy for mail to be addressed to Bolton, Lancashire, and I am glad to see that Bolton council now includes Lancashire in its notepaper address. Indeed, the Post Office warns customers not to put Greater Manchester on the address, as letters thus addressed may be delivered 24 hours late, having had to go to Manchester first and then be sent back to Bolton. If the Post Office can recognise Bolton as being in Lancashire, why cannot the Government?
  Hitherto, we have been passed backwards and forwards between the Department of the Environment and the Local Government Commission, with each saying that the other must take a decision to carry out a review. Now that decisions are being made on unitary status for Blackburn, Blackpool, Warrington and Widnes, surely this is the time to carry out a proper review of all Lancashire's former constituent parts, so that Bolton can once more be restored to Lancashire.
  I hope that my hon. Friend will listen to what the people are saying and ensure that the Government no longer stand in the way. The lord lieutenant of greater Manchester may regard the campaign as a nuisance factor, and I have nothing against that excellent gentleman's work, but the fact remains, however, that the people of Bolton do not want to be Greater Mancunians.
  In a letter to me, Mr. Dawson wrote:
  "The restoration of the historic county of Lancashire to the boundaries that it held prior to 1974 would be no more than a confirmation of the promise, made by the Government of that day to the people of the county, that these boundaries had not changed. This could be demonstrated by ensuring that the boundaries of historic Lancashire are signposted on all major roads, including motorways, and that the boundaries of the historic county are shown on all maps."
  When my hon. Friend the Minister of State with responsibilities for local government visited Bolton last year, I was happy to present him with a rare copy of Henry Fishwick's 1894 "History of Lancashire". I have been able to obtain a second copy of the book, and would be happy to lend it to my hon. Friend the Minister if he wishes to learn more of Lancashire's proud history, so that he can better direct its future.
  10.10 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Sir Paul Beresford): My hon. Friend the
  118
  Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) made the key point of ceremonial or sporting purposes. I am beginning to feel that I am the target of the ceremonial purposes, and that is certainly so of the sporting.
  I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate, and on raising the interesting and emotive subject of local identity. If nothing else, I shall attempt to clarify the position on formal recognition of the traditional county of Lancashire, and the limits on what could realistically be done to meet my hon. Friend's requests.
  On the point of most concern to my hon. Friend, that of common ceremonial arrangements for historic Lancashire, we had an historic lesson this evening—perhaps a lesson of history would be more accurate. We do not have the power simply to return former parts of Lancashire for ceremonial purposes. The relevant primary legislation allows us to make changes to ceremonial arrangements only as a consequence of structure or boundary changes following a review. I think that my hon. Friend is aware of that.
  Changes to ceremonial arrangements for an area where there has been a recommendation for no change, for an area that has not been reviewed, or one which is not affected by changes happening elsewhere, are therefore not possible. As my hon. Friend knows, the outcome of the recent structure review of the present county of Lancashire, carried out by the Local Government Commission, was that there should be no change to the existing two-tier structure of local government in the county, and that there should be no change either to the ceremonial and related arrangements.
  Following completion of the county reviews in England, we asked the Local Government Commission to carry out further reviews of districts to test the case for consistency. In some instances, the commission recommended different outcomes for what seemed to be very similar districts. Among the 21 districts referred back to the commission for further review were Blackpool and Blackburn in the present county of Lancashire, and Halton and Warrington in the present county of Cheshire.
  In its draft recommendation for public consultation, the commission recommended unitary status for all four districts, with no change to the present arrangements for ceremonial and related issues. That means that Blackpool and Blackburn would be deemed to be part of the present county of Lancashire for ceremonial purposes. Similarly, Halton and Warrington would be deemed to be within the present county of Cheshire. The commission is due to submit its final recommendations to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State at the beginning of January next year.
  With the completion of the structure reviews of counties and the further district reviews, the only way in which some of the ceremonial changes called for could be further considered is if there were a boundary review of the metropolitan areas of Greater Manchester and Merseyside. That must lead to a wry smile from behind me.
  Legislation does not permit the commission to recommend structural changes to areas which are already unitary. It could, however, recommend boundary changes to abolish a metropolitan county, establish the metropolitan districts within it as counties in their own right, and recommend as a consequential arrangement that those new county areas should be associated with existing counties for ceremonial and related purposes.

  119
  We are considering the commission's future timetable for reviews, but given its statutory duty to undertake periodic electoral reviews, some of which are increasingly urgent, it is unlikely that it will be able to carry out the metropolitan reviews to cover all Greater Manchester and Merseyside in the near future, particularly tomorrow, as has been requested. However, as we have always said, it is possible that, in due course, we shall direct the commission to review certain metropolitan areas where there is pressure for change. Southport, in the Merseyside borough of Sefton, is an area where we are aware of strong—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"]—as reinforced this evening—and widely shared pressure for a review.
  I know that my hon. Friend presented a petition of 20,000 signatures to the House in April 1994, seeking the abolition of the metropolitan counties of Merseyside, Greater Manchester and Cumbria. I appreciate the feeling that that represents, but the fact is that we cannot act on that petition alone. We have to consider it against the diversion that it would represent of considerable resources from other reviews that the commission is under pressure to undertake.
  I should also emphasise that, with the further district reviews due to be finished shortly, we are seeking to conclude the major local government reviews, in the interest of minimising disruption and uncertainty. We do not wish to launch another major review unless there is an outstanding reason for doing so.
  I recognise that there will be some disappointment at this response to what is undoubtedly a heartfelt issue for many people in historic Lancashire. However, as my colleagues have pointed out in the past, local government boundaries are concerned essentially with administration,
  120
  and changes, whether arising from the 1974 reorganisation or as part of the current review, need not affect ancient loyalties and affinities.
  I need hardly name some of these. Lancashire county cricket club was mentioned, and continues to have Old Trafford as its main ground and headquarters, and has managed to do quite well on it in the last season, despite being within Greater Manchester. Participants in the rugby league Lancashire cup are drawn from across the traditional county, and, as far as I am aware, the performance of the individual teams is unaffected by the fact that they come from the administrative areas of Halton, Wigan and so on. In fact, I recall a very well known Lancastrian—Tuigamala—who, I believe, plays for Wigan.
  The Queen's Lancastrian regiment continues to maintain its traditional affiliations with areas such as Warrington, Bury and Oldham, despite their incorporation into Cheshire and Greater Manchester.
  The matter of postal addresses was also raised. I doubt whether the presence of the metropolitan counties makes much of an impact on the level of misdirected mail where correspondents choose to use the traditional county rather than the administrative county in an address. Indeed, as I understand it, the Post Office is unconcerned whether letters are addressed using the administrative county or the traditional county, as long as the postcode is correct.
  I hope that those examples, of which there could be many more, serve to demonstrate that an area does not have to have a formal structure in order to maintain a clear identity.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at seventeen minutes past Ten o'clock.

DEFENCE

  Married Housing Stock
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how his Department's married housing stock will be moved into the private sector. [3680]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced on 30 November,Official Report, columns 810–11, we propose that the Ministry of Defence should transfer ownership of the married quarters estate in England and Wales to the private sector on a series of very long leases, renting back the accommodation which is needed to meet service housing needs. Several thousand surplus properties would be transferred on a freehold basis at the same time. The Ministry of Defence would retain, through the Defence Housing Executive, responsibility for maintenance and the allocation of housing rented by MOD. Further details of this proposal are set out in the preliminary information memorandum published on 30 November, a copy of which has been placed in the Library of the House.

  Mr. Anthony Coombs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he will publish the preliminary information memorandum on the sale of the married quarters estate. [4168]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  The preliminary information memorandum was published on 30 November 1995, and a copy was placed in the Library of the House.

  Departmental Targets
  Ms. Armstrong
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the published recommended response times within which his Department is expected to reply to letters from the public.[2999]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my predecessor on 6 June 1995,Official Report, column 148.

  Queen's Flight
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence on how many occasions since the recent change in procedures aircraft of the Queen's Flight have been used by members of the royal family for private travel, unconnected with their official duties. [3254]

  Mr. Soames
  Since the introduction, on 1 April 1995, of arrangements under which the royal households are charged for private use of aircraft of No. 32 (The Royal) Squadron, there have been six occasions when such aircraft have been used for private travel.

  Navigation Systems
  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence for what reason the specification for integrated inertial navigation and global positioning system equipment for Sea Harriers was drafted in accordance with the US Department of Defence's requirement; and if he will instruct British Aerospace to amend that specification to accord with British requirements. [3727]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  As prime contractor with responsibility for conducting the competition for an integrated inertial navigation and global positioning system for the Sea Harrier, British Aerospace defined the specifications to be applied. My Department has reviewed these specifications and is satisfied that they are consistent with recognised international standards.

  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what steps he has taken to ensure that British Aerospace treats all bidders fairly in its administration of the competition for the supply inertial navigation and global positioning systems for the Sea Harrier aircraft; [3725]

  (2) what are the implication for the IN-GPS contract for the Sea Harrier aircraft of the relationship between British Aerospace, BASE and the division of Honeywell which is bidding for the contract. [3726]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  British Aerospace's handling of the competition for an inertial navigation and global positioning system for the Sea Harrier has been closely supervised by my Department's technical and contracts staff. We are satisfied that the conduct of this competition has been fair and proper.

  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment he has made of the economic and strategic importance of maintaining a British industrial capability to design and manufacture inertial navigation and guidance systems. [3728]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  My Department is now assessing the results of the competition for an inertial navigation and global positioning system for the Sea Harrier prior to reaching a procurement decision. This assessment will take into account any impact on a continuing United Kingdom design capability in this technology field.

  Armed Forces Exercises (Ebford)
  Mr. Mackinlay
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many low flying operations or exercises were conducted by the Royal Air Force or other NATO armed forces over the village of Ebford, Devon, during the autumn of 1988. [2855]

  Mr. Soames
  Although records are maintained of the total number of sorties flown in the UK low flying system, statistics are not available on, nor is it possible to estimate, the number of sorties flown over precise locations.

  Mr. Mackinlay
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence on how many occasions a Royal Marines colour sergeant was deployed in Ebford village during autumn 1988. [2860]

  Mr. Soames
  No colour sergeant of the Royal Marines command was deployed in Ebford village during the autumn of 1988.

  Departmental Efficiency Savings
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will provide details of the efficiency savings required to meet his Department's budget settlement. [3679]

  Mr. Soames
  The MOD efficiency programme has led to savings worth more than £3 billion and "Front Line First" will produce a further £1 billion of savings per year by the end of the century. We will build on this in setting targets for future efficiency savings.

  Amphibious Operations
  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will place a copy of his directorate of operational capability's latest report in the Library; if he will make a statement on the Royal Navy's capability to mount an amphibious operation equivalent to the Falklands campaign; and what immediate plans he has to order new amphibious assault ships or other vessels to improve that capability. [3745]

  Mr. Soames
  Reports produced by my directorate of operational capability are classified documents, and constitute advice to Ministers. It is not our practice to place such documents in the Library of the House.

  The Royal Navy retains the capability to conduct amphibious operations in support of our defence policy objectives. This capability is currently being enhanced by the acquisition of the helicopter carrier HMS Ocean, which was launched earlier this year, and the refit of the landing ship logistic Sir Bedivere.

  Negotiations are under way with VSEL on its tender to replace the amphibious ships HMS Fearless and Intrepid.

  Aircraft Spare Farts
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the provision of spare parts for British aircraft. [3677]

  British tourist authority

  English tourist board

  Scottish tourist board

  GIA £ million

  £ per head population

  GIA £ million

  £ per head population

  GIA £ million

  £ per head population

  1979–80

  12.8

  0.23

  10.3

  0.22

  4.3

  0.83

  1980–81

  12.0

  0.22

  9.7

  0.21

  4.4

  0.85

  1981–82

  12.5

  0.23

  9.8

  0.21

  4.7

  0.91

  1982–83

  13.0

  0.24

  10.7

  0.23

  5.2

  1.01

  1983–84

  11.6

  0.21

  10.3

  0.22

  5.6

  1.09

  1984–85

  11.3

  0.21

  11.6

  0.25

  6.6

  1.28

  1985–86

  10.6

  0.19

  10.4

  0.22

  5.4

  1.05

  1986–87

  12.4

  0.22

  12.2

  0.26

  5.5

  1.07

  1987–88

  12.6

  0.23

  13.3

  0.28

  5.2

  1.02

  1988–89

  12.7

  0.23

  13.8

  0.29

  5.3

  1.04

  1989–90

  12.8

  0.23

  10.9

  0.23

  6.0

  1.18

  1990–91

  12.8

  0.23

  8.0

  0.17

  5.7

  1.12

  1991–92

  12.8

  0.23

  8.7

  0.18

  5.6

  1.10

  1992–93

  13.0

  0.23

  7.6

  0.16

  5.7

  1.12

  1993–94

  13.1

  0.23

  6.1

  0.13

  5.6

  1.09

  1994–95

  13.3

  0.23

  4.5

  0.09

  7.0

  1.36

  1995–96

  13.4

  0.24

  3.9

  0.08

  6.6

  1.28

  4
  Mr. Arbuthnot
  The Ministry of Defence obtains spare parts from industry for support of its aircraft. Logistic support procedures are designed to ensure that requirements are satisfied while minimising spares holdings in the interests of efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Unforeseen problems can mean that aircraft are unavailable awaiting spare parts but this has not affected our current operational commitments.

  Dr. Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many RAF aircraft are currently not operational due to the lack of spare parts. [3678]

  Mr. Soames
  The number of RAF aircraft unavailable awaiting spare parts from industry varies on a daily basis. The figure for Monday 27 November 1995, including training aircraft, was 44.

  Ro-ro Ferries
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has to purchase roll-on roll-off ferries; and if he will make a statement. [3676]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  We are examining a number of possible enhancements to the civil and military strategic lift available to the joint rapid deployment force, including the charter, lease or purchase of suitable shipping and cargo aircraft.

NATIONAL HERITAGE

  Tourism
  Mr. Tyler
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage if she will set out the Exchequer grant for the promotion and support of tourism for each of the years 1979–80 to 1995–96, at 1979 prices and expressed per head of population, for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. [2158]

  Mr. Sproat
  [holding answer 27 November 1995]: The total Government grant to the statutory tourist boards, expressed in 1979 prices—millions of pounds—for each year from 1979 to 1995, and expressed per head of population—pounds—for the countries covered by the boards, was as follows:
  5

  Wales tourist board

  Northern Ireland tourist board

  GIA £ million

  £ per head population

  GIA £ million

  £ per head population

  1979–80

  3.7

  1.32

  3.9

  2.55

  1980–81

  3.6

  1.28

  4.1

  2.67

  1981–82

  3.9

  1.39

  4.1

  2.67

  1982–83

  4.0

  1.43

  3.7

  2.41

  1983–84

  3.4

  1.21

  3.1

  2.01

  1984–85

  4.2

  1.50

  3.4

  2.19

  1985–86

  4.8

  1.71

  3.4

  2.18

  1986–87

  4.8

  1.70

  3.4

  2.17

  1987–88

  5.0

  1.76

  2.9

  1.84

  1988–89

  5.0

  1.75

  2.9

  1.84

  1989–90

  5.0

  1.74

  2.9

  1.83

  1990–91

  4.9

  1.70

  3.5

  2.20

  1991–92

  5.0

  1.73

  3.1

  1.94

  1992–93

  5.8

  2.00

  4.9

  3.03

  1993–94

  5.6

  1.93

  4.9

  3.00

  1994–95

  5.7

  1.96

  5.0

  3.05

  1995–96

  5.7

  1.95

  5.3

  3.24

  Sources:

  Population Estimates Unit (OPCS) 1979–1994.

  Government Actuaries Department 1995.

  (1992—based projections).

  The British Tourist Authority is responsible for marketing Great Britain overseas. The grant per capita for BTA has therefore been calculated using the total population of England, Wales and Scotland.

ENVIRONMENT

  EU Directives
  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list all EU and EEC directives which have come into force and have not yet been translated into United Kingdom regulation. [2075]

  Mr. Clappison
  Directives for which my Department is responsible, for which the date for transposition has passed but for which no transposing legislation has been made are those relating to: nitrates, hazardous waste, safety signs and the adaptation of the directive on contained use of genetically modified organisms—GMOs. The steps necessary to give effect to these are well in hand, although explanatory guidelines from the Commission are necessary before the GMOs directive can be transposed. Directives on the quality of fresh waters to support fish life and the quality required of shellfish waters were implemented by administrative means, which are soon to be replaced by new regulations. My Department intends to transpose into United Kingdom law the directive on the control of volatile organic compound emissions from the storage of petrol and its distribution to service stations by the compliance date of 31 December 1995.

  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list all EU and EEC directives which will come into force during the next 12 months indicating the dates when he expects to lay regulations to implement them in the United Kingdom. [2076]

  Mr. Clappison
  There are no directives for which my Department is responsible which are certain to come into force during the next 12 months.

  planning permission
  Mr.Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if authorities will be expected to meet the costs of(a) the new rural business use class
  6
  initiative and (b)informing unsuccessful applicants of the outcome of their application for planning permission from within their existing budgets. [2644]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  The present regime under which local planning authorities charge fees for applications for planning permission would apply to applications relating to any new rural business use class. The Government's policy is to progress to full-cost recovery by local planning authorities, including the cost of notifying applicants of planning decisions, and we are close to achieving this target.

  Mr. Thurnham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list for each regional office the number of notices served for each of the last 12 months, for extension of time owing to failures to determine the call in process for planning applications, within the prescribed period of time, together with the average period of time for which such extensions were required. [3487]

  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  I will write to my hon. Friend.

  Departmental Targets
  Ms Armstrong
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the published recommended response times within which his Department is expected to reply to letters from the public. [2997]

  Mr. Gummer
  My Department has a target of replying to all letters from the public, including individuals, businesses and local authorities, within 15 working days of the letter being received by the Department.

  Homelessness
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to increase his Department's support to voluntary organisations which assist homeless people. [2870]
  7
  Mr. Clappison
  The Housing White Paper "Our Future Homes", issued on 27 June 1995, undertook to continue the Government's rough sleepers initiative—RSI—in central London beyond March 1996, and to assist the development of the successful RSI model in other areas where rough sleeping could be demonstrated to be a major problem. Over the next three years—1996–97 to 1998–99—my Department plans to make available an additional £50 million to meet these commitments. Following analysis of the responses to a consultation paper issued on 3 October 1995, we will be issuing a strategy paper in the new year inviting bids for these resources.

  My Department also provides grants under section 73 of the Housing Act 1985 to voluntary sector organisations to provide practical help for single people in housing need. Planned provision for this programme is an increase from £6.9 million in 1995–96 to £7.8 million in 1996–97.

  Public Inquiry (Welbeck)
  Mr. William O'Brien
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) when he intends to decide on the inspector's report covering the public inquiry into the appeal by the Warmfield Company against the planned refusal to develop the Newland park and Welbeck site in the Normanton constituency; [3206]

  (2) if he will now make a statement on the inspector's report following the public inquiry held on the Welbeck reclamation and landfill projects and compulsory purchase orders by the Warmfield Company. [3207]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  The inspector's report has been received. The Secretary of State's decisions on the Welbeck compulsory purchase orders and the appeal by the Warmfield Company have been deferred at the request of Wakefield council and the company. The Secretary of State currently awaits their confirmation of whether they wish to withdraw the orders and appeal or proceed with them. It is not possible to say when the decision on the appeal will be issued, should the company decide to proceed with it.

  Voting Disqualifications (Councillors)
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many councillors since 1979 have sought a dispensation from him to allow them to vote on matters in which otherwise they would be disqualified from voting by virtue of a declared interest. [3376]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  There would be a disproportionate cost involved in providing such figures from 1979. However, records kept since 1985 indicate some 1,360 councillors have sought a dispensation from the Secretary of State to allow them to vote on matters in which otherwise they would be disqualified from voting by virtue of a declared interest.

  Housing Associations
  Mr. Cann
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what proportion of new lettings by housing associations have been made to people in receipt of housing benefit in(a) 1994 and (b) 1995 to date. [3187]
  8
  Mr. Clappison
  The latest available information relates to housing association lettings to households that are eligible for either full or partial housing benefit.

  The figures for 1994 and the first nine months of 1995 are:

  Housing association new lettings: per cent. eligible for housing benefit

  England Percentage

  1994

  82

  19951

  82

  Note:

  11 January to 30 September.

  Source:

  CORE new lettings database.

  Local Government Finance
  Sir Irvine Patnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the metropolitan district budgets for 1994–95 ranking them in order from the largest increase from the previous year to the lowest. [3199]

  Mr. Curry
  The information is as follows:

  Percentage increase in budgeted net revenue expenditure 1993–94 to 1994–95

  Budgeted net revenue expenditure

  Increase

  Metropolitan districts

  1993–94 £000

  1994–95 £000

  Per cent.

  Bury

  110,399

  119,950

  8.7

  Dudley

  191,851

  208,375

  8.6

  Sunderland

  216,544

  230,944

  6.6

  St. Helens

  132,743

  140,857

  6.1

  Salford

  179,220

  188,998

  5.5

  Rochdale

  161,430

  170,041

  5.3

  Oldham

  176,578

  185,750

  5.2

  Sheffield

  370,880

  389,219

  4.9

  Stockport

  186,869

  196,104

  4.9

  Doncaster

  206,068

  215,770

  4.7

  Sefton

  199,304

  208,661

  4.7

  North Tyneside

  137,860

  144,150

  4.6

  Birmingham

  892,141

  932,140

  4.5

  Kirklees

  277,650

  289,371

  4.2

  Leeds

  491,611

  511,947

  4.1

  Wolverhampton

  206,863

  215,307

  4.1

  Manchester

  417,968

  434,576

  4.0

  Newcastle-Upon-Tyne

  217,066

  225,691

  4.0

  Liverpool

  447,622

  465,140

  3.9

  Knowsley

  141,829

  147,285

  3.8

  Tameside

  154,292

  160,092

  3.8

  Barnsley

  143,527

  148,718

  3.6

  Wirral

  248,457

  257,081

  3.5

  South Tyneside

  121,977

  125,429

  2.8

  Bolton

  192,921

  198,298

  2.8

  Rotherham

  183,835

  188,901

  2.8

  Calderdale

  143,241

  146,839

  2.5

  Coventry

  238,382

  243,646

  2.2

  Bradford

  394,674

  402,018

  1.9

  Wigan

  205,223

  208,862

  1.8

  Sandwell

  236,219

  239,676

  1.5

  Solihull

  123,725

  125,507

  1.4

  Trafford

  143,137

  145,174

  1.4

  Gateshead

  165,567

  167,526

  1.2

  Wakefield

  212,640

  214,138

  0.7

  Walsall

  207.930

  205.563

  –1.1

  Debt Charges (North Yorkshire County Council)
  Mr. Sykes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what were the annual debt charges paid by North Yorkshire county council in(a) 1992–93, (b) 1993–94 and (c) 1994–95. [3502]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  Annual debt charges paid by North Yorkshire county council were:

  (a) 1992–93: £18.3 million

  (b) 1993–94: £18.9 million

  (c) 1994–95: £18.3 million

  Sick Leave (Lancashire County Council)
  Mr. Elletson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many days off sick were taken by employees of Lancashire county council social services department in(a) 1990–91, (b) 1991–92, (c) 1992–93, (d) 1993–94 and (e) 1994–95 indicating (i) the total figure and (ii) the average for each employee. [3505]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  This information is not available centrally.

  Mr. Elletson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many days off sick were taken by employees of Lancashire county council in each of(a) 1990–91, (b) 1991–92, (c) 1992–93, (d) 1993–94 and (e) 1994–95 indicating (i) the total figure and (ii) the average for each employee. [3508]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  This information is not available centrally.

  Gas Pipeline (Zeebrugge-Bacton)
  Mr. Chris Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will call in for public inquiry the application by Interconnector for construction of a gas pipeline from Zeebrugge to Bacton, Norfolk. [3524]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  No. The Secretary of State for the Environment has no statutory powers to call in proposals for submarine pipelines. Submarine pipelines, from low water mark to the median line, are authorised by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry under the provisions of the Petroleum and Submarine Pipelines Act 1975. The section of pipeline from low water mark to the proposed Interconnector (UK) Ltd. facility at Bacton is currently the subject of planning applications before North Norfolk district council. Consideration has been given to call in that application, and one for the related gas processing facility, but it was considered that no more than local issues were involved and North Norfolk district council was best placed to determine the applications accordingly.

  Emergency Drought Order (Yorkshire Water)
  Mrs. Helen Jackson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish the proceedings, and representations made at the public inquiry into Yorkshire Water's request for an emergency drought order. [3449]

  Mr. Curry
  In line with usual practice, the record of the proceedings of, and representations made at, the public hearing into objections to the application by Yorkshire Water Services Ltd. for an emergency drought order will be the inspector's report.
  10
  Mrs. Jackson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish the inspector's report of the public inquiry into Yorkshire Water's request for an emergency drought order; and on what date he will be able to issue the report. [3451]

  Mr. Curry
  The inspector's report will be made public when a final decision is taken whether or not to make the emergency drought order sought by Yorkshire Water Services Ltd.

  Mrs. Jackson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list each measure and drought order he has approved in the current year for the Yorkshire region indicating the dates of each approval, in respect of Yorkshire Water's statutory duty to provide a supply of drinking water. [3453]

  Mr. Curry
  My right hon. Friend has made the following drought orders on the application of Yorkshire Water Services Ltd:
  1. YORKSHIRE WATER SERVICES Lm. (RIVER WHARFE) (DROUGHT) ORDER 1995.Order made 18 August 1995.This order reduced the support to the River Wharfe which Yorkshire Water was required to give Grimwith reservoir and thus allowed more water from Grimwith to be available for public supply. It also allowed the Nidd Aqueduct to be used to take water from Grimwith, rather than just bring water to Grimwith.2. YORKSHIRE WATER SERVICES LTD. (DROUGHT) ORDER 1995.Order made 26 August 1995.This order authorised the restriction of non-essential uses of water in the Bradford area.3. YORKSHIRE WATER SERVICES Lm. (HEBDEN WATER AND RIVER WORTH) (DROUGHT) ORDER 1995.Order made 7 September 1995.This order reduced the amount of compensation water that Yorkshire Water had to release from certain reservoirs.4. YORKSHIRE WATER SERVICES LTD. (SILSDEN RESERVOIR) (DROUGHT) ORDER 1995.Order made 31 August 1995.This order reduced the compensation water that had to be discharged from Silsden Reservoir.5. YORKSHIRE WATER SERVICES LTD. (PENNINE RESERVOIRS) (DROUGHT) ORDER 1995.Order made 2 October 1995.This order reduced the amount of compensation water that had to be discharged from a range of Pennine Reservoirs.6. YORKSHIRE WATER SERVICES LTD. (CHELLOW DEAN RESERVOIRS) (DROUGHT) ORDER 1995.Order made 2 October /995.This order allowed abstraction from reservoirs not normally used for drinking water abstraction.7. YORKSHIRE WATER SERVICES LTD. (RIVER WHARFE) (AMENDMENT) (EMERGENCY DROUGHT) ORDER 1995.Order made 28 September 1995.This order allowed increased abstraction from the River Wharfc to provide water for Bradford.8. YORKSHIRE WATER SERVICES LTD. (RIVER WHARFE) (DROUGHT) (EMERGENCY AMENDMENT) (EXTENSION) ORDER 1995.Order made 31 October 1995.This order extended the period for which Order No. 7 was valid.11 9. YORKSHIRE WATER SERVICES LTD. (SILSDEN RESERVOIR No. 2) (DROUGHT) ORDER 1995.Order made 30 October 1995.This order extended the period during which the amount of water required to be discharged from the reservoir was reduced.10. YORKSHIRE WATER SERVICES LTD. (HAIGH COTE DAM) (DROUGHT) ORDER 1995.Order made 31 October 1995.This order allowed abstraction from a reservoir not normally used for drinking water.11. YORKSHIRE WATER SERVICES LTD. (RIVER OUSE) (DROUGHT) ORDER 1995.Order made 3 November 1995.This order allowed increased abstractions from the River Ouse for supplies to Leeds.12. YORKSHIRE WATER SERVICES LTD. (DROUGHT No. 2) ORDER 1995.Order made 3 November 1995.This order authorised the restriction of non-essential uses of water in Leeds, Selby and Wakefield.13. YORKSHIRE WATER SERVICES LTD. (RIVER WHARFE) (ARTH1NGTON) (DROUGHT) ORDER 1995.Order made 8 November 1995.This order allowed additional abstraction from the River Wharfe for supply to Leeds.14. YORKSHIRE WATER SERVICES LTD. (PENNINE RESERVOIRS) (No. 2) (DROUGHT) ORDER 1995.Order made 9 November 1995.This order reduced the requirements to discharge compensation water from a large number of Pennine reservoirs.15. YORKSHIRE WATER SERVICES LTD. (HEBDEN WATER, RIVER WORTH AND PENNINE RESERVOIRS) (No. 3) ORDER 1995.Order made 15 November 1995.This order consolidated orders Nos. 3 and 5 and reduced further the required compensation water discharges.16. YORKSHIRE WATER SERVICES LTD. (DROUGHT) (No. 3) ORDER 1995.Order made 20 November 1995.This order restricted non-essential uses of water in Harrogate area.17. YORKSHIRE WATER SERVICES LTD. (LEIGHTON AND HAVERAH PARK RESERVOIRS) (DROUGHT) ORDER 1995.Order made 17 November 1995.This order reduced the compensation water required to be discharged from these reservoirs.18. YORKSHIRE WATER SERVICES LTD. (ABSTRACTION LICENCES) (DROUGHT) ORDER 1995.Order made 21 November 1995.This order allowed all operators of licensed boreholes in Yorkshire to provide water to any premises in West Yorkshire, within the quantity limits in their licences.
  Mrs. Jackson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he has received the inspector's report of the public inquiry into the request by Yorkshire Water for an emergency drought order. [3450]
  12
  Mr. Curry
  My right hon. Friend has received the report of the inspector on the public hearing into objections to Yorkshire Water Services Ltd.'s application for an emergency drought order.

  Mrs. Jackson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to respond to the inspector's report of the public inquiry into Yorkshire Water's request for an emergency drought order. [3452]

  Mr. Curry
  My right hon. Friend indicated on Friday 24 November that he had received the inspector's report, but that in present circumstances he did not propose to take a decision on the application: the matter would be kept under review.

  Asylum Seekers
  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what information he has collected from local authorities about the allocation of properties to asylum seekers and refugees; and how many representations he has received from local authorities about the provision of housing for refugees and asylum seekers. [3669]

  Mr. Clappison
  My Department does not collect information from local authorities about the allocation of properties to asylum seekers and refugees. My hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government, Housing and Urban Regeneration has received a request from the Association of London Government to discuss housing for asylum seekers.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many applicants for political asylum qualified for housing and housing benefits in the last year for which figures are available. [3667]

  Mr. Clappison
  The only available data relate to asylum seekers seeking housing under the homelessness provisions of the Housing Act 1985.

  In the year ending June 1995, 2,190 households which had applied under these provisions in England were found to be registered as asylum seekers with the Home Office. Local authorities have a duty to provide temporary accommodation for these households until their asylum application is resolved.

  Over the same period, 930 of the households which local authorities accepted for rehousing under the homelessness provisions of the Housing Act 1985 were former asylum seekers.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many properties(a) by local authorities and (b) by Government Departments are currently vacant in the United Kingdom; and what percentage of vacant dwellings were made available to refugees and asylum seekers during the past 12 months. [3668]

  Mr. Clappison
  I will write to the hon. Member about the numbers of vacant dwellings in England when the analysis of the data reported by local authorities on their 1995 housing investment programme returns is complete. No data are collected centrally on vacant dwellings made available to refugees or asylum seekers.
  13
  The information on vacant dwellings relating to Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland is a matter for the Secretaries of State for Wales, for Scotland and for Northern Ireland.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the cost of providing temporary accommodation for applicants for political asylum in the last year for which figures are available. [3674]

  Mr. Clappison
  This information is not held centrally.

  Single Regeneration Budget
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to announce the results of the latest round of bidding under the single regeneration budget. [3952]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  Before Christmas.

  Statutory Instruments
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many statutory instruments his Department sponsored in the last Session of Parliament; and how many of these(a) constituted a new rule or regulation, (b) were introduced to implement European Community directives and (c) amplify the minimum standards set out in an original European Community directive. [2464]

  Mr. Clappison
  [holding answer 28 November 1995]: The Department of the Environment was responsible for 192 statutory instruments in the last Session of Parliament. It is not possible to give a precise number for those which constituted a new rule or regulation. However, the White Paper "Competitiveness: Forging Ahead", Cm 2867, presented to Parliament in May this year, referred at page 192 to seven categories of regulations made in 1994. The statutory instruments made during the last Session of Parliament for which the Department was responsible fell within those categories as follows:

  (i) EU and international obligations: 9

  (ii) NHS Trusts: 0

  (iii) Fees and local provisions: 43

  (iv) Facilitating privatisation and competition: 12

  (v) Repeals and more favourable regimes: 12

  (vi) Other (with possible impact on business): 39

  (vii) Other (with no impact on business): 80.

  In addition, there were five commencement orders.

  The totals do not exactly correspond with the total number of statutory instruments as a small number fall within more than one category.

  In addition, nine statutory instruments have been made since the Health and Safety Executive became a non-departmental public body in connection with which the Department of the Environment has responsibilities.

  Of these, three fell within the category of giving effect to EC and international obligations, one fell within the category of fees and local provisions, five fell within the category of repeals and more favourable regimes and six within the category of other instruments with a possible impact on business.
  14
  None of the instruments adopts measures which set higher standards than minimum standards explicitly laid down in an EC directive.

  Radioactive Waste Dumping
  Mr. Macdonald
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will provide a complete list of all radioactive waste dumped since 1965 west of the Hebrides showing(a) the date, (b) the amount, (c) the source and (d) the exact location. [3177]

  Mr. Baldry
  I have been asked to reply.

  No radioactive waste has been dumped since 1965 west of the Hebrides. The "Report of the Independent Review of Disposal of Radioactive Waste in the North East Atlantic" by Professor F. G. T. Holliday, which is in the House Library, lists all the locations where the United Kingdom has disposed of radioactive waste at sea.

TREASURY

  Regional Electricity Companies
  Mr. Burden
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if regional electricity companies will be able to claim corporation tax relief or any other tax relief on any rebate given to domestic consumers arising out of the sale of the national grid; and what is his estimate of the expected value of any such tax relief to the regional electricity companies(a) per customer and (b) in total. [3391]

  Mr. Jack
  The general tax rules apply to any business which reduces its charges to customers. The precise tax consequences will depend on the particular arrangements. If, for example, a business reduces its prices for future services, then, in general because the business is not entitled to the money, there would be no charge to tax—a business would not be charged to tax on profits to which it was never entitled. If, however, the circumstances were such that a rebate was made out of sums which counted as taxable trading receipts, the rebate would be allowed only as a deduction in calculating the business's profits for tax purposes if the expenditure satisfied the general test that it was revenue in nature and incurred wholly and exclusively for the purposes of earning the business's profit.

  I cannot comment on the particular arrangements and tax affairs of individual taxpayers.

  Fuel Duties
  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will reduce the tax on low sulphur motor vehicle diesel to eliminate the retail price difference. [3750]

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  No. There are a number of new diesel products under development which will meet future environmental standards. I am not satisfied that any change in the duty structure would be justified.

  Mortgage Interest Relief
  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the tax expenditure of mortgage interest relief in each of the years since 1991–92. [3731]

  Mr. Jack
  The total cost of mortgage interest relief in the years 1991–92 to 1994–95 is given in table 5.1 of "Inland Revenue Statistics 1995", a copy of which is in the Library.

  The estimated total cost of the relief in 1995–96 is about £2.8 billion. This is based on the assumption, by convention, of no change from the current average building society interest rate.

  Public Service Pensions
  Mr. Matthew Banks
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is proposing to increase public service pensions from April 1996. [4459]

  Mr. Waldegrave
  Under the legislation governing public service pensions, they are increased annually by the same percentage as state earnings-related pensions—additional pensions. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security announced on 28 November,Official Report, column 618, that additional pensions will be increased by 3.9 per cent. in line with the annual increase in the retail prices index up to September. Public service pensions will therefore be increased by 3.9 per cent. from 8 April 1996. Pensions which have been in payment for less than a year will receive a pro rata increase.

  Paymaster General
  Mr. Matthew Banks
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has for the future of the office of Her Majesty's Paymaster General. [4460]

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  In accordance with its framework document, a full prior options review of the office of Her Majesty's Paymaster General will now be conducted, covering all its activities. The terms of reference for the review will be as follows:
  To carry out a full Prior Options Review of the Office of Her Majesty's Paymaster General (PAYMASTER), consulting interested parties. To consider the need for the functions of the Agency and for the Government's retaining responsibility for them; whether any need to remain in the Civil Service and if so, to recommend suitable arrangements and a mechanism for transferring the rest to the private sector.
  Since the office of Her Majesty's Paymaster General became a next steps agency nearly three years ago, it has made significant improvements to its efficiency, competitiveness and quality of service. It has won substantial business in competition with public and private sector competitors. I believe that there is a prima facie case now for moving the work of the agency into the private sector, subject to the review revealing no obstacles to this. Privatisation could offer new opportunities for the agency, its staff and—most important—its customers. The review will, therefore, focus on feasible options for moving the agency into the private sector.
  16
  Contributions from interested parties are invited and should be addressed to:

  The Treasury Accountant

  HM Treasury

  19 Allington Street

  London

  SW1E 5EB

  They should be received before 26 February 1996. The results of the review will be announced in due course.

  Finance Act 1995
  Ms Ruddock
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what procedures have been put in place by his Department to monitor the environmental impacts arising from the implementation of the Finance Act 1995; [246]

  (2) if the Finance Act 1995 was (a) subject to and (b) modified on account of an environmental appraisal using the guidance contained in "Policy Appraisal and the Environment", produced by the Department of the Environment; and if he will publish the appraisal; [244]

  (3) what alternative courses of action from those detailed in the Finance Act 1995 were considered in any environmental appraisal undertaken by his Department. [245]

  Mr. Jack
  [holding answer 22 November 1995]: The main measure in the Finance Act 1995 relevant to the environment was the real terms increase in road fuel duties enacted in sections 6 and 7.

  It was announced in the March 1993 Budget that the Government's policy would be to increase fuel duties by at least 3 per cent. on average in real terms in future Budgets in order to help to restrain carbon dioxide emissions. In the November 1993 Budget, this was raised to 5 per cent. Raising duties in this way will make a significant contribution to the UK programme for limiting CO2 emissions in line with our commitments under the UN convention on climate change.

  Emissions of CO2 are subject to regular monitoring by the Department of the Environment. It is not normal practice to disclose options considered, but not pursued, in the course of preparing the Budget.

  The 1995 Finance Bill largely related to measures announced in the 1994 Budget. This year's Budget contained other environmental measures: a further 5 per cent. real increase in fuel duties, the definitive arrangements for the new landfill tax, reduced duties on liquid petroleum gas and compressed natural gas, which are relatively clean road fuels, and an additional increase in the duty on super unleaded petrol, which causes higher levels of pollutants such as benzene. These measures will be enacted in the 1996 Finance Bill. The Chancellor also announced that the Government would look into ways of using vehicle excise duty to encourage the use of low emission vehicles.

  Public Bodies
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the annual income from(a) fees (b) charges and (c) fines; what was the total number of staff employed (i) part time and (ii) full time; and what contribution his Department has made towards the annual running costs in

  17
  each of the past three years in respect of (1) the Inland Revenue, (2) Customs and Excise and (3) the Central Statistical Office. [2742]

  Mr. Jack
  [holding answer 28 November 1995]: The information is set out in the table.

  1992–93

  1993–94

  1994–95

  Inland Revenue1

  Annual income from

  (a) fees and charges pound million

  303

  296

  288

  (b) fines2

  Number of staff employed3

  (i) part-time

  9,126

  9,569

  9,438

  (ii) full-time

  64,337

  61,595

  57,686

  Annual running costs4 pound million

  1,766

  1,823

  1,816

  Customs and Excise

  Annual income from

  (a) fees and charges pound million

  5

  2

  2

  (b) fines5 pound million

  162

  130

  113

  Number of staff employed3

  (i) part-time

  1,358

  1,556

  1,570

  (ii) full-time

  24,967

  25,112

  23,803

  Annual running costs4 pound million

  738

  735

  745

  Central Statistical Office

  Annual income from

  (a) fees and charges pound million

  1

  2

  2

  (b) fines

  —

  —

  —

  Number of staff employed3

  (i) part-time

  98

  125

  130

  (ii) full-time

  1,110

  1,205

  1,197

  Annual running costs4 pound million

  43

  44

  48

  1Includes the Valuation Office agency.

  2Not applicable. Penalties are part of overall tax revenues.

  3As at 1 April.

  4Gross running costs.

  5Covers fines and penalties.

PRIME MINISTER

  Former Prime Ministers (Briefings)
  Mr. Fatchett
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will set out the procedures by which civil servants are allowed to provide advice and information to former Prime Ministers; and if he will make a statement. [3025]

  The Prime Minister
  Subject to the approval of Ministers, civil servants may provide factual briefing to former Prime Ministers, as to other Members of Parliament. Such briefing is often provided for visits to overseas countries.

  Scott Inquiry
  Mr. Fatchett
  To ask the Prime Minister what is the latest total cost to public funds of providing legal services for witnesses to Sir Richard Scott's inquiry. [3028]

  The Prime Minister
  The accounts settled to date from public funds for the provision of external legal services to witnesses to Sir Richard Scott's inquiry are approximately £750,790. The value of legal services charged by the 18
  Treasury Solicitor's Department is £306,320. Some legal advice has also been provided by Government lawyers as part of their normal duties. The cost of this advice is not quantifiable.

  Northern Ireland Peace Process
  Mr. Forman
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will give an account of his latest discussions with the Prime Minister of the Irish Republic on the peace process; and if he will make a statement. [3699]

  The Prime Minister
  I refer the hon. Member to the statement I made on 29 November 1995,Official Report, columns 199-201.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Remand Prisoners
  Mr. Tim Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisoners in England and Wales had, at the latest available date, been held on remand for(a) up to three months (b) from three to six months (c) from six to 12 months and (d) for more than 12 months. [3271]

  Miss Widdecombe
  Responsibility for this matter has been delegated to the temporary Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from A. J. Pearson to Mr. Tim Smith, dated 4 December 1995:
  The Home Secretary has asked me, in the absence of the Director General from the office, to reply to your recent Question asked how many prisoners in England and Wales had, at the latest available date, been held on remand for (a) up to three months, (b) from three to six months, (c) from six to twelve months, (d) for more than 12 months.The latest available provisional information for England and Wales is for 30 June 1995 and is given in the attached table.

  Remand prisoners in Prison Service establishments in England and Wales by length of time since first reception1 on 30 June 1995

  Time since first remand

  30 June 1995

  Less than 3 months

  6,830

  More than 3 months, up to and inc. 6 months.

  2,343

  More than 6 months, up to and inc. 12 months.

  1,542

  Over 12 months.

  341

  Total

  11,056

  1Awaiting trial or sentence. Time since first reception on remand into a Prison Service establishment. This includes any intervening time spent on bail, but excludes time spent in police cells beforehand.

  Dr. Bayo Omoyiola
  Mr. Parry
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the(a) right hon. and hon. Members, (b) Church spokesmen and (c) other organisations that have made representations against the deportation of Dr. Bayo Omoyiola to Nigeria; and if he will make a statement. [3357]
  19
  Mr. Kirkhope
  Details of people and groups who have made representations in this case are set out in the tables.

  (a) Honourable and right honoutable Members for

  (b) Church spokesmen

  (c) Other organisations

  Birmingham Selly Oak

  The Rt. Rev. Lord

  Edward Frais

  Chesterfield

  Bishop of Coventry

  Abrahamson Bayo

  Cynon Valley

  The Rt. Rev. Lord

  Omoyiola

  Falkirk West

  Bishop of Liverpool

  Anti-Deportation

  Hackney North and

  The Rt. Rev. Lord

  Campaign

  Stoke Newington

  Bishop of Ripon

  Bolton Communities of

  Islington North

  The Rt. Rev. the

  Resistance

  Littleborough and

  Bishop of Blackburn

  Merseyside and Region

  Saddleworth

  The Rt. Rev. Bishop of

  Churches

  Liverpool Mossley Hill

  Truro

  The Campaign Against

  Liverpool Riverside

  The Most Rev. Derek

  Double Punishment

  Liverpool West Derby

  Warlock

  Partners of Prisoners'

  Renfrew West and

  The Rt. Rev. David

  Families Support

  Inverclyde

  Sheppard

  Group

  Staffordshire

  The Rev. Russell

  Theatre Link

  Moorlands

  Naylor

  Liverpool Black Sisters

  Sunderland North

  Unison

  Warrington North

  Black National Caucus

  Warrington South

  Friends Information

  Centre

  Merseyside Region of

  Churches

  City of Liverpool

  Housing and

  Community Services

  Directorate

  Liverpool Housing

  Trust

  National Museum and

  Galleries on

  Merseyside

  Merseyside African

  Council

  Methodist Church in

  Liverpool

  Liverpool and Law

  Centre

  Merseyside

  Immigration Advice

  Unit

  Federation of Black

  Housing Associations

  Merseyside Caribbean

  Council

  Greater Manchester

  Immigration Aid

  Unit

  Toxteth Activity

  Group

  In addition, an early-day motion was signed by the following:

  The hon. Members for:

  Liverpool, Garston

  Bootle

  Liverpool, Walton

  Tottenham

  Nottingham, South

  St. Helens, South

  Knowsley, North

  Wakefield

  Bolton, South-East

  Easington

  Leyton

  Knowsley, South

  Islwyn

  Birkenhead

  20

  Blyth Valley

  St. Helens, North

  Halifax

  Liverpool, Broadgreen

  Wigan

  Wallasey

  Dr. Omoyiola has been in the United Kingdom without leave since 14 May 1991 and entered his employment without permission to do so. He has been refused a work permit. On 16 November 1994 he was given notice of a decision to deport him and his appeal was subsequently dismissed by an independent adjudicator who considered it inappropriate to make any recommendation on his case to the Secretary of State. Full account has been taken of the various representations made on Dr. Omoyiola's behalf. However, he has no claim to be here and his circumstances are not so compelling or compassionate as to warrant him being allowed to remain exceptionally. A deportation order has therefore been signed on 10 November 1995 and this will shortly be served on Dr. Omoyiola. Arrangements will be made for his removal to Nigeria.

  Asylum Seekers
  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what was the number of claims for political asylum which have not yet been decided and which date from(a) 1990, (b) 1991, (c) 1992, (d) 1993, (e) 1994 and (f) 1995;[3641]

  (2) how many applications for political asylum dating from before 1990 have not yet been decided. [3631]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  The number of asylum applications awaiting an initial decision as at 31 October 1995 was 66,655. The available information on the years in which these applications were made is given in the table.

  Proportion of total number of asylum applications awaiting initial decisions as at 31 October 1995, by year of application.

  Year of application

  Percentage

  pre 1991

  5

  1991

  15

  1992

  15

  1993

  15

  1994

  25

  1995

  25

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many appeals against a decision to refuse political asylum on the grounds that the applicants have visited a third country were received in the last year for which figures are available; and how many were(a) upheld and (b) dismissed. [3633]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  The information requested for without foundation appeals—the majority of which are against refusals on the grounds that the applicant had arrived from a safe third country—is given in table 8.4 of Home Office statistical bulletin "Asylum Statistics United Kingdom 1994", issue 15/95. A copy of this publication is available in the Library.
  21
  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many applications for political asylum have been received from applicants fleeing countries affected by civil war; and how many of such applications were successful, in each year since 1990. [3635]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  Asylum applications are considered on the individual merit of each case. The basis for an application is not centrally recorded, so the number of those lodged directly as a result of civil wars is not available.

  Information regarding asylum applications, by nationality, for the years 1986 to 1994 is given in table 2.1 of Home Office statistical bulletin "Asylum Statistics United Kingdom 1994", issue 15/95, a copy of which can be found in the Library. Tables 3.1 to 3.3 of this publication gives decisions on asylum applications, by nationality, for the same time period.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which countries are currently classified as undergoing or having undergone events likely to give rise to a well-founded fear of persecution among the nationals of those countries. [3637]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  Under proposals on which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security has been consulting for restricting the benefit entitlement of asylum seekers, it will be possible for the Benefits Agency to be notified in the event of a future fundamental upheaval in a country such that persons cannot normally be returned to it for the time being.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many applications for political asylum by applicants with dependent children were refused in the last year for which figures are available; and how many dependent children were involved; [3639]

  (2) how many applications for political asylum by unaccompanied minors were received for the last year for which figures are available; and how many were (a) successful and (b) rejected. [3638]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  The available information on the number of asylum applications which were refused in 1994, both including and excluding dependants, is given in table 1.2 of Home Office statistical bulletin "Asylum Statistics United Kingdom 1994", issue 15/95, a copy of which can be found in the Library. The available information on applications from unaccompanied children is given in table 2.4 of the same publication. A more detailed breakdown of these figures is not available.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what was the average time taken to process an application for political asylum for the latest year for which figures are available; [3640]

  (2) what is the average number of hours taken to decide an application for political asylum from the receipt of the application to a decision. [3632]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to a question from the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson) on 21 November 1995,Official Report, column 219, which provided the available information on the average times involved in deciding applications for asylum.
  22
  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many applications for political asylum were dismissed as frivolous and vexatious under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1993; and how many of these cases went to appeal and how many appeals were successful, in the last year for which figures are available. [3634]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  The information requested is not available.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many applications for political asylum have been received from applicants from(a) Croatia, (b) Serbia, (c) Bosnia, (d) the Sudan and (e) Rwanda; and how many were successful in each case since 1990. [3636]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  Information regarding asylum applications from nationals of Sudan and the former Yugoslavia for the years 1986 to 1994 is given in table 2.1 of Home Office statistical bulletin "Asylum Statistics United Kingdom 1994", issued 15/95, a copy of which can be found in the Library. Tables 3.1 to 3.3 of this publication give decisions on asylum applications, by nationality, for the same time period.

  In 1994, there were an estimated 110 applications from nationals of Rwanda. During the same time period there were approximately 15 decisions on Rwandan applications, of which five were granted asylum and 10 were refused.

  Information on applications from the individual states of the former Yugoslavia, and one of those from Rwanda prior to 1994, is not available.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the situation in(a) Somalia (b) Liberia, (c) Nigeria, (d) Sierra Leone, (e) Sri Lanka and (f) Rwanda for the purposes of allowing asylum applications. [3682]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  Asylum applications are considered in accordance with the 1951 convention, taking account of available information from a wide range of sources about the position in the country of origin and its significance for the particular application in question.

  Mr. Beith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will publish a breakdown of the number of asylum seekers currently held in detention by(a) nationality, (b) gender, (c) length of detention, (d) place of detention and (e) immigration status at the time of application. [1523]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  [holding answer 23 November 1995]: I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to a question from the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson) on 28 November 1995, Official Report, column 655, which gave a breakdown of asylum seekers held in detention.

  Asylum and Immigration Problems
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 28 November,Official Report, column 659, concerning the bodies from which he sought information, or had consultations concerning current asylum and immigration problems, if he will place in the Library a list of the

  23
  organisations he then referred to, distinguishing those from which he sought information or with which he had consultations, respectively. [3701]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  The discussions referred to in my previous reply are generally ad hoc rather than in the nature of formal consultations. Information about them could be collated in the form requested only at disproportionate cost.

  Parole Applications
  Ms Janet Anderson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what percentage of(a) first and (b) second parole applications from prisoners in England and Wales were granted to prisoners serving more than four years in each ethnic category in 1994; [3654]

  (2) what percentage of first and second parole applications were granted to prisoners in England and Wales in each ethnic category in (a) 1989 and (b) 1994. [3656]

  Miss Widdecombe
  The available information is given in the tables; information for 1989 is not available. Comparisons between the ethnic categories are affected by many factors which influence the outcome of parole reviews, including length of sentence, type of offence and amount of time remaining to be served before unparoled released. These factors were analyse in Home Office statistical bulletin 2/94 "Parole recommendations and Ethnic Origin, England and Wales 1990", published in January 1994. Comparisons between 1990 and 1994 are affected by the substantial changes in the parole system—to which annual reports of the parole board refer. Copies are available in the Library.

  Parole reviews for prisoners serving 4 years or more 1994: Proportions recommended for parole

  Percentage

  Consideration

  Ethnic origin

  First

  Second

  White

  35

  44

  Black

  33

  49

  South Asian

  48

  48

  Chinese, Other Asian

  114

  165

  1Fewer than 50 cases considered.

  Parole reviews 1990 and 1994: Proportions recommended for parole

  Percentage

  1990 Consideration

  1994 Consideration

  Ethnic Origin

  First

  Second

  First

  Second

  White

  58

  46

  36

  45

  Black

  47

  39

  33

  50

  South Asian

  53

  40

  48

  49

  Chinese, Other Asian

  142

  1—

  118

  168

  1Fewer than 50 cases considered.

  Prisoners
  Ms Janet Anderson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the current prison population in England and Wales. [3657]
  24
  Miss Widdecombe
  Responsibility for this matter has been delegated to the temporary Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from Richard Tilt to Ms Janet Anderson, dated 4 December 1995:
  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about the current prison population in England and Wales.On Thursday 30 November, a total of 52,617 prisoners were in custody in England and Wales.

  Visa Applications (Algeria)
  Mr. Bill Michie
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what facilities were available in Algeria to deal with visa applications to enter the United Kingdom in 1994; how many staff were involved; how many applications were(a) received and (b) successful for a visa to enter the United Kingdom in 1994; how many applicants were recognised as political refugees in 1994; and how many applicants were granted long stay in the United Kingdom in 1994. [3264]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  A full entry clearance service was available in Algeria until 18 August 1994. Since then a service has been available for diplomats and officials only. A list of entry clearance staff appears in the list:

  1 x full-time Entry Clearance Officer (United Kingdom-based) all year

  1 x full-time Entry Clearance Officer (United Kingdom-based)

  January—September 1994

  1 x full-time Vice Consul spending 15 per cent. of his time as Entry Clearance Manager January—September 1994

  2 x LE3 (Locally Engaged) assistants all year

  1 x LE3 (Locally Engaged) assistant January—September 1994

  Information on grants and initial refusals of entry clearance by overseas posts in Algeria and by category—settlement and temporary purposes—in 1994 is given in table 2.1 of "Control of Immigration Statistics United Kingdom 1994", issued on 10 August 1995, Cm 2935 HMSO. Information on applications for asylum made at United Kingdom ports or after entry into the United Kingdom by Algerians in 1994 and the initial decisions is given in table 4.3 of the Home Office statistical bulletin "Asylum Statistics, United Kingdom 1994", issued on 30 June 1995—issue 15/95. Copies of these publications are in the Library.

  Mr. Michie
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many(a) successful and (b) unsuccessful applicants from Algeria for visas to enter the United Kingdom have relatives living in the United Kingdom who are British citizens; and what is the breakdown in age groups of those applicants who were successful in 1994. [3265]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  The information requested is not available.

  Prisons
  Mr. Battle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what arrangements have been made by the Prison Service to accommodate expected peaks in the prison population over the next 12 months. [3085]
  25
  Miss Widdecombe
  Responsibility for this matter has been delegated to the temporary Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from Richard Tilt to Mr. John Battle, dated 4 December 1995:
  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about what arrangements have been made to accommodate expected peaks in the prison population over the next twelve months.In dealing with a rising population, our first priority is to ensure that existing accommodation is fully utilised. To meet expected peaks in the population, arrangements have been made to identify accommodation which would normally hold one prisoner but is suitable for holding two for a short period of time; and to bring forward, where practicable, the opening of new accommodation. Around 2,700 additional prisoner places are expected to become available for use over the next twelve months.
  Mr. Battle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the impact of increasing the density of accommodation use at local and training prisons. [2993]

  Miss Widdecombe
  Responsibility for this matter has been delegated to the temporary Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from Richard Tilt to Mr. John Battle, dated 4 December 1995:
  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about what assessment has been made of the impact of increasing the density of accommodation use at local and training prisons.The majority of prisons are not overcrowded. Overcrowding is concentrated principally in some local prisons. This is because of the need to hold unsentenced prisoners close to the courts.The Prison Service recognises that overcrowding has the potential to impact on the delivery of planned regimes and other purposeful activity. In spite of increases in the population, since April 1995 prisoners have on average spent 25.5 hours a week on purposeful activity. This is in line with the target set in the Prison Service Business Plan for 1995–96. The proportion of prisoners unlocked for twelve hours or more on weekdays is currently 38 per cent, which is the target set in the 1995–96 Business Plan.In dealing with a rising population, our first priority is to ensure that existing accommodation is fully utilised. In addition, there is a substantial programme for the building of new accommodation. A new houseblock building programme will provide an additional 2,000 places by 1996–97. Further new accommodation is planned to come into use by 1997–98 with the rebuilding and re-opening of Lowdham Grange prison near Nottingham and the opening of two new privately financed prisons in South Wales and Merseyside.

  Prisoner-prison Ratios
  Mr. Steinberg
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list, by region, the prisoner to prison officer ratio in 1989–90, and the latest year for which figures are available. [2498]

  Miss Widdecombe
  Responsibility for this matter has been delegated to the temporary Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter front Richard Tilt to Mr. Gerry Steinberg, dated 4 December 1995:
  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about the ratios, by region, of prisoners to prison officers.26 Annex A shows the overall prisoner:officer (including prison custody officer) ratio in each of the Prison Service's fifteen areas. These figures reflect the position on 31 January 1995 and are the latest available.Area information for 1989/90 is not available. Annex B shows the available information for this period, which is restricted to an overall prisoner:officer ratio for the whole Prison Service.

  Annex A: Prisoner—Prison Officer/Prison Custody Officer ratio by area as at 31 January 1995

  Inmate population

  Officers/SO's/PO's

  Inmate: Officer ratio

  Central Area

  4,515

  2,243

  2.0:1

  East Midlands

  4,018

  1,539

  2.6:1

  Mercia

  2,359

  976

  2.4:1

  North-east

  3,356

  2,104

  1.6:1

  North-west

  3,149

  1,417

  2.2:1

  Trans Pennine

  5,168

  2,595

  2.0:1

  Yorkshire

  2,165

  1,107

  2.0:1

  Chilterns

  2,539

  1,240

  2.0:1

  East Anglia

  2,666

  1,250

  2.1:1

  Kent

  3,217

  1,479

  2.2:1

  London north

  4,302

  2,590

  1.7:1

  London south

  4,214

  2,752

  1.5:1

  South coast

  2,255

  1,244

  1.8:1

  Wales and west

  2,158

  1,147

  1.9:1

  Wessex

  2,570

  1,213

  2.1:1

  Annex B: Inmate—Officer ratio—1989

  Average number of inmates for 1989 calender year

  Officers in post in establishments

  Inmate: Officer ratio

  46,736

  20,532

  128:1

  Public Interest Immunity Certificates
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the total number of public interest immunity certificates signed by his Department for each of the last 10 years; and if he will make a statement. [2352]
  27
  Mr. Howard
  [holding answer 29 November 1995]: I refer the hon. and learned Gentleman to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) on 28 November 1995, Official Report, column 670.

  Murder Victims (Family Compensation)
  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many applicants were successful in respect of families of murder victims in general and specifically in respect of(a) parents of adult victims, (b) the adult children of murder victims, (c) the unmarried partners of murder victims and (d) the fathers of illegitimate murder victims under the tariff-based scheme of criminal injury compensation which was announced in April 1994 and subsequently withdrawn; [2307]

  (2) how many applications were received but not processed from the families of murder victims in general and specifically from (a) parents of adult victims, (b) the adult children of murder victims, (c) the unmarried partners of murder victims and (d) the fathers of illegitimate murder victims in respect of the tariff-based scheme of criminal injury compensation which was announced in April 1994 and subsequently withdrawn. [2306]

  Mr. Maclean
  [holding answer 27 November 1995]: I refer the hon. Member to the answers given to him on 28 November 1995, Official Report, columns 652-53.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Ministerial Statements
  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Lord President of the Council how many oral statements have been made by the Secretary of State for Wales in each Session since May 1992; and what was the total length of time taken in making these statements and replying to questions. [1709]

  Mr. Newton
  The information is as follows:

  Number of statements made

  1992–93: 5

  1993–94: 1

  1994–95: 2

  Information on the total length of time taken in making these statements and in replying to questions is not held centrally.

  Welsh Grand Committee
  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Lord President of the Council on how many occasions the Welsh Grand Committee has sat in each Session since the 1992 election; what was the number of total hours of those sittings; and what proportion those hours represent of the total number of hours that the House has sat. [1802]

  Mr. Newton
  The Welsh Grand Committee has met 12 times since the 1992 general election, for a total of 29 hours. This represents 0.64 per cent. of the House sitting time.

  Oral Answers
  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Lord President of the Council how many oral answers have been made by the Secretary of State for Wales in each Session since May 1992; and how many oral questions sessions have taken place since that date. [1710]

  Mr. Newton
  The POLIS database holds the following information:

  Number of orals answered Froem Order

  Session

  Paper

  Supplementaries

  Number of question times

  1992–93

  119

  320

  12

  1993–94

  74

  174

  6

  1994–95

  98

  213

  8

  Total

  291

  707

  26

  Short Money
  Mr. Gallie
  To ask the Lord President of the Council if he will list(a) additional office allowances and (b) other allowances paid from public funds made available to (i) the Leader of Her Majesty's official Opposition and (ii) other spokesmen from Her Majesty's official Opposition. [1854]

  Mr. Newton
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave on 21 November,Official Report, column 46.

  Select Committees
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Lord President of the Council what proposals he has for submitting the Bills proposed in the Queen's Speech to pre-legislative inquiries by Select Committees. [598]

  Mr. Newton
  It will be proposed that the Armed Forces Bill be committed to a Select Committee prior to its conventional Committee stage. This is the usual practice for such Bills, which are required once every five years.

  Select Committee on Welsh Affairs
  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Lord President of the Council how many reports have been received by the House from the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs; and how many of these reports have been debated on the floor of the House. [1801]

  Mr. Newton
  The Welsh Affairs Select Committee has made 36 reports to the House. None has been debated on the Floor of the House.

OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION

  Beijing Programme of Action
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs which aspects of the Beijing programme of action he is prioritising. [2911]

  Mr. Hanley
  We plan to discuss with our aid recipient partners their priorities for our support in implementing the global and regional platforms for action. Their response will also influence our approach to the newer priorities highlighted at the conference, including
  29
  promotion of women in politics and decision making, statistical work, credit, the revision of legal frameworks and capacity building, both of institutions of civil society and of Governments.

  Nigerian Police Force
  Mr. Gapes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many members of the Nigerian police force have visited the United Kingdom for training purposes in each year since 1990. [3147]

  Mr. Hanley
  [holding answer 30 November 1995]: Two members of the Nigerian police force visited the United Kingdom in financial year 1990–91; two in 1991–92; one in 1992–93; nine in 1993–94; and seven in 1994–95.

  Mr. Gapes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many Nigerian police officers have received scholarship awards in each year since 1990; and if he will give in each case the recipient's rank, the cost and duration of the scholarship. [3151]

  Mr. Hanley
  [holding answer 30 November 1995]: Twenty-one officers have received awards as follows:

  Year

  Rank

  Cost£

  Duration

  1990–91

  Deputy Superintendent

  2,601

  Six weeks

  1990–91

  Not available

  2,601

  Six weeks

  1991–92

  Chief Superintendent

  11,306

  Three months

  1991–92

  Not available

  2,400

  Six weeks

  1992–93

  Superintendent

  5,783

  Six weeks

  1993–94

  Nine Assistant Superintendents

  2,915 each

  Two weeks each

  1994–95

  Deputy Commissioner

  1,650

  One week

  1994–95

  Assistant Commissioner

  4,482

  Four weeks

  1994–95

  Deputy Superintendent

  4,482

  Four weeks

  1994–95

  Two Detectives

  4,482 each

  Four weeks each

  1994–95

  Two Deputy Superintendents

  4,482 each

  Four weeks each

  Mr. Gapes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many policemen or women have been seconded to Nigeria in each year since 1990; for what periods of time; and from which forces. [3155]

  Mr. Hanley
  [holding answer 30 November 1995]: Seven police officers have been seconded to Nigeria as follows:

  Force

  October 1991–May 1994

  Cleveland

  March 1991–April 1993

  West Yorkshire

  April 1991–May 1993

  Greater Manchester

  October 1993–November 19941

  British Transport Police

  October 1993–November 1995

  Metroplitan

  Septembr 1995–October 1995

  Metropolitan

  September 1995–October 1995

  Mettopolitan

  1 Retired officer, so not strictly a secondee.

  Mr. Gapes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs where and when Nigerian policemen or women have been trained in Britain under the police training programme since November 1993; and if he will make a statement. [3154]
  30
  Mr. Hanley
  [holding answer 30 November 1995]: Since November 1993, Nigerian police officers have been trained with the west midlands fraud squad, Birmingham in June 1994 and at the Police Staff College at Bramshill in March—April 1995.

  Mr. Gapes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when the Nigerian police training programme started; when it finished; how much in total has been spent in each year; and if he will make a statement. [3152]

  Mr. Hanley
  [holding answer 30 November 1995]: The programme started in March 1991, and ended in November 1995. Expenditure by financial year is as follows:

  1990–91: £91,793

  1991–92: £272,571

  1992–93: £311,962

  1993–94: £293,085

  1994–95: £197,398

  1995–96: £42,000 (Estimated)

  Mr. Gapes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many Nigerian policemen or women have been trained in Britain under the police training programme since November 1993; and if he will make a statement. [3153]

  Mr. Hanley
  [holding answer 30 November 1995]: Seven Nigerian police officers have received training in the UK since November 1993.

  Police Training
  Mr. Gapes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1) how many requests for funding for police training projects overseas have been refused and from which countries; what consideration is given to such requests to human rights and the rights of the individual; and if he will make a statement; [3146]

  (2) what proportion of (a) the overseas aid budget and (b) the amount of that budget allocated to good government has been spent on police training; what sums have been spent, in each year since 1990; and if he will make a statement; [3148]

  (3) what has been the cost of scholarship awards in Britain in each year since 1990 for (a) Nigerian police officers and (b) all police officers funded by his Department; [3149]

  (4) how many study tours to the United Kingdom were organised and funded for overseas police officers by his Department; and if he will state the countries that participated and at what cost in each year since 1990; [3150]

  (5) on how many occasions in the past five years, a request for funding for police training from a foreign country has been referred for ministerial approval; and if he will name the countries concerned; [3156]

  (6) which countries have benefited from police training since 1990; and if he will list the programmes, giving the start date and the size of the individual project budget; [3157]
  31
  (7) how many evaluations have been made by his Department of the effectiveness of aid in respect of police training; and if he will make a statement. [3158]

  Mr. Hanley
  [holding answer 30 November 1995]: Questions 3146, 3148, 3149(b), 3150 and 3156 to 3158 all concern police training worldwide; I can answer most helpfully by taking them together. The answer to 3149(a) is included in that for 3151.

  Under the aid programme, we provide management and technical training for police forces, both in the United Kingdom and in-country, including the development of in-country training capacity. This is usually in support of a wider objective of enhancing the effectiveness and public accountability of the police. This assistance is only a small part of the aid programme, currently accounting for under 0.5 per cent. of overseas aid. Such assistance is not separately recorded and details could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Support for overseas police forces under the aid programme, whether through training, study visits or other support, is considered as part of individual country programmes. There is no global allocation either for police or more generally for good government. Proposals are considered on their merits and in comparison with other competing demands.

  Priorities for the use of aid are considered periodically as part of the reviews of country programme strategy, which are approved by Ministers, as well as in response to short-term events. Human rights issues are taken into account in these processes. Where support for the police is not identified as a priority for a country or is considered inappropriate, requests will often be refused at an early or informal stage rather than requiring detailed review. No records are kept of requests which are refused. Nor are separate records kept of submissions to Ministers. Issues are referred for ministerial consideration as necessary in view of their size, political sensitivity or novelty. In many cases, assistance to the police will have been only one facet of a wider-ranging submission or review.

  Since 1994, a quarterly report has been made to the Minister for Overseas Development, summarising assistance being provided to police forces under the aid programme.

  Police training is kept under regular review by two police advisers and by the departments financing such training. No overall evaluation has been made in recent years but the 1995 to 1997 work plan for ODA's evaluation department will include a review of assistance to police forces, including training.

  Police training is also supported on a more limited scale from diplomatic wing funds. Efforts are currently being made to assess the impact of such training by tracing the careers of trainees since their return home.

  Nigeria
  Mr. Gapes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what funding his Department has given(a) civil liberties organisations, (b) the Campaign for Democracy, and (c) the constitutional rights projects in Nigeria, in the last five years. [3159]
  32
  Mr. Hanley
  [holding answer 30 November 1995]: The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has funded specific projects designed to foster good government through a number of Nigerian non-governmental organisations in the last five years, including those named.

  Mr. Gapes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs which of the aid projects to Nigeria agreed before December 1993 received funding in(a) 1994–95 and (b) 1995–96; and if he will make a statement. [3160]

  Mr. Hanley
  [holding answer 30 November 1995]: Projects receiving funding in 1994–95 were:
  National Electric Power Authority (institutional development) University Management Systems
  Those funded in 1994–95 and 1995–96 were:

  Crop Protection Training

  Middle Level Agricultural Education

  Cross River State Forestry Management

  Administrative Staff College of Nigeria (institutional development)

  Police Training

  Lagos Lagoon (pollution reduction plan)

  Polytechnic Equipment Maintenance

  Integrated Science Teacher Education

  Federal Technical College, Yaba (institutional development)

  Mr. Garrett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will place an embargo on military equipment shipments in Nigeria. [2967]

  Mr. Hanky
  [holding answer 30 November 1995]: On 20 November 1995 the European Union adopted a common position extending measures against the Nigerian military regime in force since 1993. These included a full arms embargo. We shall continue to strictly enforce all European Union measures against the Nigerian military and keep them under review in the light of progress towards civilian democratic rule.

DUCHY OF LANCASTER

  HMSO
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1) if he will make a statement on his plans for the privatisation of HMSO; and what is the time scale for his plans for the privatisation of HMSO; [3210]

  (2) when he will be able to announce details of his plans for the future of HMSO. [3217]

  Mr. Freeman
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) on 27 November,Official Report, column 447. The Government's plans envisage completing a privatisation during 1996.

  Mr. Cunningham
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1) how many of its financial targets HMSO has met since 1980; [3212]

  (2) if HMSO has been self-financing since 1980. [3213]
  33
  Mr. Freeman
  As a trading fund, HMSO is required to cover all its costs with income from activities, and to make a small annual surplus. It has broken even every year, and achieved the target surplus on all except two occasions—1991 and 1994—since 1980.

  Mr. Cunningham
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many people are employed in HMSO. [3211]

  Mr. Freeman
  The total number including casual staff on 1 November 1995 was 2,898.

  Mr. Cunningham
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what(a) representations and (b) requests for a meeting he has received from trade unions representing employees in HMSO with respect to the possible privatisation of that agency; and what response he has given. [3215]

  Mr. Freeman
  I and my colleagues have so far received one letter on the possible privatisation of HMSO from the Graphical, Paper and Media Union, and one from the HMSO trade union side, and have responded to the points each raised. I have received no requests for a meeting. However, I met local trade union representatives at my own request during a visit to HMSO's Norwich headquarters in September.

  Mr. Cunningham
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many times he has met the chief executive of HMSO to discuss proposals for the privatisation of the agency. [3214]

  Mr. Freeman
  Five times.

  Mr. Cunningham
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what representations he has received from organisations or groups interested in bidding for the contract to run a privatised HMSO. [3216]

  Mr. Freeman
  Around 60 potential purchasers of HMSO have so far contacted me or my advisers. Their identities must remain confidential for the time being for commercial reasons.

HEALTH

  Breastfeeding
  Mr. Chris Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list breastfeeding rates in England for each year since 1985; and if he will make a statement on his Department's policy with regard to the encouragement of breast feeding. [2531]

  Mr. Horam
  Breastfeeding rates are surveyed every five years. Survey results for 1985 and 1990 are comparable. The Government continue to protect and promote breastfeeding as the best way of feeding a baby. Information on breastfeeding rates for 1985 and 1990 are available in "Infant Feeding 1990", copies of which are available in the Library.

  Clinical Psychologists
  Mr. Bayley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many vacant posts for clinical psychologists there were in English NHS trusts in
  each region on(a) I April
  34
  1994 and (b) at the latest date for which figures are available. [543]

  Mr. Malone
  The table shows the number of vacancies for clinical psychologists in English national health service trusts by region at 31 March 1994 and 31 March 1995.

  The figures shown for the two years are not comparable because 1995 figures include data from about 80 fourth wave trusts which were directly managed units in 1994.

  The vacancy rate as a percentage of the funded establishment in all trusts in 1994 was 15.2 per cent. In 1995 it was 15.5 per cent.

  The figures supplied are for advertised vacant posts.

  Clinical psychologist all vacancies in English NHS trusts by region: England as at 31 March 1994 and 1995

  Number

  1994

  Northern

  10

  Yorkshire

  30

  Trent

  10

  East Anglia

  20

  North-west Thames

  30

  North-east Thames

  20

  South-east Thames

  20

  South-west Thames

  10

  Wessex

  20

  Oxford

  10

  South Western

  30

  West Midlands

  10

  Mersey

  10

  North Western

  10

  SHAs

  1—

  England total

  240

  1995

  Northern and Yorkshire

  60

  Trent

  20

  North Thames

  60

  South Thames

  30

  East Anglia and Oxford

  40

  Wessex and South Western

  50

  West Midlands

  60

  Mersey and North Western

  60

  SHAs

  2—

  England total

  380

  Source:

  The Department of Health Joint National Professional Manpower Initiative Survey.

  Notes:

  1. Figures are rounded to the nearest ten. Total may not equal sum of components due to rounding.

  1Denotes zero

  1Denotes figures of five and under.

  NHS Finance
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will provide an analysis of capital expenditure compared to cash limit allocation for(a) trusts in each region and (b) regions in each of the last three years. [2400]

  Mr. Horam
  The available information is shown in the tables. "Allocations to RHAs" represent the final capital cash limits for the year. Trusts do not have cash limits; their equivalent control is external financing limits, but
  35
  these cover both revenue and capital expenditure. The figures provided for trust "Capital Allocations" in the tables therefore represent initial planned capital allocations for the year concerned. In each case, capital expenditure covers capital additions, which include assets purchases by, and donated to, authorities and trusts, as

  £ thousand

  RHAs

  Trusts

  Region

  Capital allocations

  Capital expenditure

  Capital allocations

  Capital expenditure

  1992–93

  Northern

  73,952

  73,531

  17,553

  33,270

  Yorkshire

  56,137

  66,052

  49,017

  76,104

  Trent

  107,883

  134,592

  37,684

  55,044

  East Anglian

  49,673

  54,727

  9,975

  8,215

  North-west Thames

  78,952

  105,782

  22,928

  39,532

  North-east Thames

  58,819

  137,600

  28,691

  38,669

  South-east Thames

  103,389

  119,133

  34,900

  80,401

  South-west Thames

  48,846

  60,975

  40,078

  39.381

  Wessex

  58,405

  66,282

  26,504

  24,028

  Oxford

  61,129

  66,567

  8,802

  11,175

  South Western

  48,692

  56,472

  73,680

  93,486

  West Midlands

  129,651

  145,852

  27,435

  23.799

  Mersey

  18,525

  25,637

  47,054

  57,071

  North Western

  106,797

  108,136

  30,333

  44,915

  Totals

  1,000,850

  1,221,340

  454,634

  625,090

  1993–94

  Northern

  71,205

  70,965

  40,751

  47,780

  Yorkshire

  16,650

  18,509

  94,772

  97,041

  Trent

  37,780

  48,638

  108,112

  158,828

  East Anglian

  16,692

  30,752

  47,412

  49,012

  North-west Thames

  9,396

  15,549

  40,958

  55,981

  North-east Thames

  45,820

  58,965

  71,408

  84,208

  South-east Thames

  20,327

  27,967

  76,691

  120,639

  South-west Thames

  4,681

  26,755

  50,232

  71,330

  Wessex

  29,543

  42,610

  54,167

  62,732

  Oxford

  27,384

  38,238

  31,408

  37,227

  South Western

  18,062

  62,705

  97,775

  120,957

  West Midlands

  97,904

  85,784

  44,775

  54,989

  Mersey

  –1,907

  4,790

  64,030

  73,452

  North Western

  79,721

  125,351

  54,731

  64,593

  Totals

  473,258

  657,578

  877,222

  1,098,769

  1994–95

  Northern and Yorkshire

  12,502

  16,949

  187,702

  208,695

  Trent

  10,175

  18,073

  143,074

  190,355

  Anglian and Oxford

  8,992

  14,021

  128,693

  138,132

  North Thames

  –8,447

  42,576

  154,420

  244,318

  South Thames

  –27,362

  22,445

  194,640

  263,946

  South and West

  –732

  18,137

  188,038

  234,856

  West Midlands

  13,814

  26,603

  140,940

  136,741

  North-west

  –342

  10,950

  185,941

  214,079

  Totals

  8,600

  169,754

  1,323,448

  1,631,122

  1. Capital allocations for RHAs are final cash limits which include in year adjustments made to the original cash limits. The transfer of capital cash limit and capital receipts to Trust external financing limits by some RHAs resulted in negative final cash limit figures.

  2. Capital allocations for trusts are capital planning totals.

  3. The 1994–95 capital expenditure figures are unaudited and therefore provisional.

  4. Capital expenditure represents capital additions, as shown in annual accounts, which includes assets purchased by, and assets donated to, authorities/trusts.

  5. Changes were made to the definition of capital spending in 1993–94. Some items of expenditure formerly treated as capital are now treated as revenue.

  6. RHAs were restructured in 1994–95.

  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many national health service trusts have borrowed money from commercial sources; and if he will list the sums involved. [3249]

  Mr. Horam
  Information on national health service trusts' borrowing from commercial sources during the year is not available centrally.36
  shown in their accounts. Expenditure also includes assets purchased with the proceeds from land sales which are not included in allocations.

  Information is now available for 1994–95, and provisional figures from the summarised accounts for capital expenditure for that year are also included.

  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what is(a) the current capital value of the Princess Margaret hospital, Swindon, (b) the capital value of the proposed new hospital, (c) the cost of refurbishment and rebuild, (d) the length of the lease from the private financiers with the NHS, (e) the annual cost of the lease to the NHS for each year of the duration, (f) the cost to

  37
  the NHS of preparing the bid and (g) the projected time to rebuild the hospital; [3765]

  (2) what is (a) the current capital value of the Bishop Auckland hospital, (b) the capital value of the proposed new hospital, (c) the cost of refurbishment and rebuild, (d) the length of the lease from the private financiers with the NHS, (e) the annual cost of the lease to the NHS for each year of the lease, (f) the cost to the NHS of preparing the bid and (g) the projected time to rebuild the hospital; [3761]

  (3) what is (a) the current capital value of the Wycombe and Amersham general hospital, (b) the capital value of the proposed new hospital when completed, (c) the cost of refurbishment and rebuild, (d) the length of the lease from the private financiers with the NHS, (e) the annual cost of the lease to the NHS for each year of the lease, (f) the cost to the NHS of preparing the bid and (g) the projected time to rebuild the hospital. [3752]

  Mr. Horam
  The capital value of individual hospitals and the costs of preparing individual business cases are not available centrally. The other information requested is a matter for negotiation between the individual trusts and the private sector consortia bidding for the developments.

  Mr. Hawkins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he will publish information on health authority costs and NHS trust management costs. [4461]

  Mr. Dorrell
  I shall tomorrow publish "Health Authority Costs" setting out actual spending on running each district health authority and family health services authority for 1994–95 together with plans for 1995–96 and the planned spending for the new health authorities in 1996–97. I shall also publish "National Health Service Trusts Management Costs 1994–95" setting out spending on management for each NHS trust for 1994–95.

  Copies of the documents will be placed in the Library.

  Methionine
  Mr. Battle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what plans he has to introduce legislation to require methionine to be added to paracetamol products; [3136]

  (2) what assessment he has made of the benefits of adding methionine to paracetamol products. [3135]

  Mr. Malone
  There are no plans to make the inclusion of methionine in paracetamol-containing medicines mandatory.

  Methionine is sometimes given by mouth to treat paracetamol overdose. It is not possible to assess directly the benefits of adding methionine to paracetamol products. It is believed that methionine may have a protective effect on the liver in paracetamol overdose, but clinical trials to establish this would be unethical. At the recommended doses the addition of methionine provides no benefit.

  Prescriptions
  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much was received in prescription charges in respect of prescriptions where the cost of the drugs to the NHS was less than the prescription charge in each year since 1989. [3121]
  38
  Mr. Malone
  The estimated amounts received in 1993–94 and 1994–95 were £86 million or 32.5 per cent. and £111 million or 38.7 per cent. respectively. Information is not available for earlier years.

  These figures take no account of income received from prepayment certificates or prescriptions dispensed by dispensing doctors.

  Osteoporosis
  Mr. Pope
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what progress has been made towards establishing national clinical guidelines for the prevention of osteoporosis; and if he will make a statement; [2861]

  (2) in what percentage of hip fractures experienced by women osteoporosis has been identified as a contributing factor; and if he will make a statement; [2864]

  (3) what research is being conducted by his Department into the prevention of osteoporosis; and if he will make a statement; [2865]

  (4) what measures have been taken since 1994 at a local and national level to educate the public and health professionals about the prevention of osteoporosis; and if he will make a statement. [2866]

  Mr. Horam
  It is likely that osteoporosis is a contributing factor in most hip fractures, of which about 80 per cent. are suffered by women. Our concern about these and other effects of osteoporosis caused us to set up the advisory group on osteoporosis, whose report was published in January 1995. The Department is currently working to implement its recommendations.

  It is the responsibility of professional bodies to develop clinical guidelines where a need has been identified. Discussions have begun the Department and the relevant medical royal colleges with a view to their developing guidelines for osteoporosis, in response to one of the recommendations of the advisory group. The Department has this year significantly increased its financial support to the National Osteoporosis Society, which does a great deal at both national and local levels to educate the public and health professionals about the disease.

  The Department is funding a study into the cost-effectiveness of hormone replacement therapy, including the benefits of using it for the prevention of osteoporosis. The Medical Research Council, which receives its grant in aid from my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, also funds a significant amount of research on osteoporosis. We are discussing with the Medical Research Council what further work should be undertaken.

  Departmental Targets
  Ms Armstrong
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the published recommended response time within which his Department is expected to reply to letters from the public.[2995]

  Mr. Horam
  "Access to Information: a guide for the public" states that the Department aims to respond to letters requesting information under the open government code of practice within 20 working days of receipt.

  Breast Cancer Screening
  Mr. Battle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to ensure that all women aged over 65 years will be offered breast cancer screening in the same way as women aged 50 to 64 years. [3137]

  Mr. Horam
  The Government announced proposals on 18 October for pilot schemes in Northern and Yorkshire, and South Thames regions to evaluate the effectiveness of extending the call/recall breast screening programme to women up to the age of 69. These schemes will run for three years to enable an assessment of the likely uptake, effect on work load, and effectiveness in terms of cancers detected. We will base any changes to our policy on the evidence emerging from these studies.

  Women over 65 can continue to have three-yearly breast screening free of charge if they request it. This facility has been well publicised in leaflets available in general practitioner surgeries and clinics as well as in breast screening centres.

  NHS Trust Directors
  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the compensation given to directors of trusts for loss of office in each financial year since 1991–92(a) in total and (b) by each trust. [3113]

  Mr. Malone
  This information is not available centrally.

  Capital Projects
  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list in order of priority capital projects in the NHS which he plans to undertake. [3430]

  Mr. Horam
  No such list is compiled centrally. Programming of capital developments is devolved to national health service executive regional offices and is ultimately determined at local level by the decisions of local purchasers and providers.

  Infertility Treatment
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many health authorities provide in vitro fertilisation treatment free within the national health service system. [3185]

  Mr. Horam
  This information is not available centrally.

  Information on the services available under the national health service for the treatment of infertility is contained in "The Effective Health Care Bulletin", "The Management of Subfertility", August 1992, published for the NHS management executive by a consortium of Leeds and York universities and the research unit of the Royal College of Physicians. Copies of the bulletin are available in the Library.

  Local health authorities are responsible for the provision of local health services, including the provision of infertility services. Decisions about the resources available for these services must be left to individual health authorities as they are in the best position to determine priorities in the light of local needs and circumstances.

  In-patient Episodes
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the average length of in-patient hospital stay for each specialty in each year since 1989–90. [3250]

  Mr. Horam
  Mean duration of stay by specialty is published annually in volume 1 of "Hospital Episode Statistics", copies of which are available in the Library.

  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what has been the average throughput of patients per hospital bed in each major specialty in each year since 1989–90; and what was the percentage change over the entire period. [3251]

  Mr. Horam
  The information is not available in the form requested. Information on average throughput by sector groups is published annually in the "Statistical Bulletin—NHS Hospital Activity Statistics: England", copies of which are available in the Library.

  Market Testing (Clinical Services)
  Mr. Bayley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his Department's press release 95/532, dated 21 November 1995, concerning his speech on that day to the Royal College of Physicians, if he will identify the NHS trusts which have explored local arrangements for private sector provision of clinical services; and if he will list the clinical service or services considered for private sector provision by each of those trusts. [3474]

  Mr. Horam
  A table will be placed in the Library listing the trusts that are recorded on the national health service executive's market-testing database as having market-tested one or more of their clinical services together with details of the outcome.

  Out-patient Attendances
  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what has been the total number of out-patient attendances in each of the last five years. [3763]

  Mr. Horam
  Information on out-patient attendances is published annually in "Outpatients and ward attenders, England", copies of which are available in the Library.

  Hospital Beds
  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the total number of NHS beds in the last five years. [3769]

  Mr. Horam
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply that my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Sackville) gave to her on 28 November 1995,Official Report, column 604.

  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the number of private pay beds in the NHS in each of the last five years. [3768]

  Mr. Malone
  This information has not been collected centrally since 1990–91 when there were 2,956 pay beds. Laing's "Review of Private Healthcare", copies of which are available in the Library, provides estimates for subsequent years.

  National Blood Service
  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what types of blood products are currently sold by the blood transfusion service outside the United Kingdom; and what is the total value of these contracts every year. [3770]

  Mr. Horam
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply that my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Sackville) gave to the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) on 2 November 1995,Official Report, column 455. The value of these exports has never exceeded £5 million in any one year.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what factors led to the difference between the figures for the National Blood Authority budget for the national blood service quoted in "Plans for the future of the National Blood Service", dated November 1995, and in the National Blood Authority consultation document of August 1994; and if he will make a statement. [3675]

  Mr. Horam
  The figure of £135 million contained in the consultation document is based on actual expenditure in the blood service for the year 1992–93. The figure of £154 million in the November 1995 document is a cost forecast for the current financial year. The difference reflects an average annual increase in the amount of blood supplied of 4 per cent. and a general increase in the level of provision of other services to hospitals.

  NHS Pensioners Trust
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the management costs of the national health service benevolent fund. [3840]

  Mr. Malone
  Further to my answer of 19 June 1995,Official Report, column 38, I now wish to clarify the situation. The parliamentary question tabled in June asked for details of the benevolent fund. It was impossible to identify the body on the basis of the information given. Further information was sought but none was provided. We now have full information which indicates that the question related to the national health service pensioners trust. The trust was formally established in 1990. It is managed independently by its trustees and any action regarding the management costs of the trust is the responsibility of those trustees.

  NHS Trusts
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list all NHS trusts(a) as of 30 November 1995 and (b) with effect from 1 April 1996. [4064]

  Mr. Malone
  A list of all national health service trusts as at 30 November 1995 will be placed in the Library. No decision has yet been made on any trust applications for 1 April 1996.

  EU Health Council
  Mr. Barnes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the outcome of the Health Council held on 30 November, giving details of all votes and all decisions which were determined by unanimity or without dissension. [1972]
  42
  Mr. Bowis
  The Health Council agreed a common position on a proposal from the European Commission for a programme of action within the field of public health on combating drug dependency. The Council agreed six resolutions, two in response to reports from the Commission—on the integration of health protection requirements into other Community policies, and on the state of health in the European Community—and four which invited the Commission to produce a study on an area of interest to the Health Council concerning orphan drugs, the mutual recognition of prescriptions, generic medicinal products and medicinal plant preparations. The Council also discussed a modified version proposal on tobacco advertising put forward by the presidency but reached no decision on it. The matters on which decisions were taken were agreed by all member states with no abstentions or votes against.

  NHS Reforms
  Mr. Alfred Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is his estimate of the income that has become available to the private sector as a result of NHS reforms. [2272]

  Mr. Malone
  This information is not available centrally.

  Legionnaire's Disease
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when his Department was first notified of an outbreak of legionnaire's disease at Kusadasi, Turkey, in 1995; what action was taken and at what time to advise travel agencies operating in the United Kingdom about the outbreak; and what advice has been issued to United Kingdom travellers to Kusadasi, Turkey, since May 1995 about the outbreak of legionnaire's disease associated with the Hotel Imbat. [3273]

  Mr. Horam
  The Department of Health was informed of five possibly related cases of legionnaire's disease which were known to have occurred in travellers returning from Kusadasi on 16 August and of a sixth case on 21 August 1995. The Turkish authorities were informed, via the British embassy in Turkey, of all cases as they became known. The consular department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Association of British Travel Agents were informed on 23 August. The Federation of Tour Operators was informed of further cases on 29 September 1995. A notice to travellers was issued on the Prestel database on 23 August and updated on 29 September.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what action was taken to alert medical agencies in the United Kingdom about an outbreak of legionnaire's disease in Kusadasi, Turkey. [3274]

  Mr. Horam
  Public health doctors were alerted about cases of legionnaire's disease in travellers returning from Kusadasi, Turkey via the Epinet electronic message system on 23 August and through the public health laboratory service communicable disease reports of 15 September and 6 October.

  Patient Records
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make it his policy to introduce measures.
  43
  including specific criminal offences, to prevent the obtaining of particulars of patient records from general practitioners other than in circumstances of clinical need; and if he will make a statement. [3356]

  Mr. Horam
  Patient confidentiality is already protected by a number of legislative measures. The General Medical Council re-emphasised the importance of confidentiality in guidance to the profession earlier this year. We shall shortly be issuing guidance to the national health service as a whole on the protection and use of patient information.

  Community Care Services
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his answer of 27 November 1995,Official Report, column 523, on community care services, what relevant information is held by his Department. [3618]

  Mr. Bowis
  Information is collected on expenditure on the community health programme on a provider basis. Information about purchaser expenditure on board service groupings, including community health services, will be available at the end of 1995–96.

  Tiffield Secure Unit
  Mr. Marlow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the capital and revenue costs of proposals with regard to the Tiffield secure unit. [3625]

  Mr. Bowis
  The capital cost of the new children's secure unit at Tiffield is £ 4,308,379. A grant to cover this cost has been made available to Northamptonshire county council. The county council is responsible for all revenue cost matters.

  Private Finance Initiative
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what proposals he has(a) to place in the Library or (b) to place in the nearest public libraries to the development affected, the principal components of the agreements signed between NHS provider units and private sector facilities management and design and build consortia under the private finance initiative. [3733]

  Mr. Horam
  The private finance initiative will further develop our excellent record of co-operation with the private sector and ensure new national health service capital schemes are provided promptly and run efficiently, for the benefit of all NHS patients. Before any PFI scheme with significant expenditure consequences for the NHS is approved, a business case is produced to demonstrate the 44
  cost-effectiveness of the proposal and assess the public spending implications. Approval to PFI schemes is only given only if the business case demonstrates that a PFI approach increases the cost-effectiveness of the scheme for the NHS and if any expenditure implications are affordable to NHS purchasers. NHS trusts and health authorities are accountable to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health, who is accountable to Parliament. He is supported by an accounting officer who has to answer to the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons. The Audit Commission, which we invited into the NHS in 1990, carries out independent financial audits in every NHS trust and health authority and it sends to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State any report that is causing it particular concern. Since we are satisfied that all of this process protects the interests of the NHS and patients and taxpayers, I do not propose to place the commercial contracts in Libraries.

  Clinical Negligence
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will publish figures on clinical negligence settlements for each of the last four years(a) by region, (b) by district and (c) by trust indicating (i) their number and (iii) their cost. [2419]

  Mr. Malone
  [holding answer 24 November 1995]: Information is no longer collected centrally about the numbers of clinical negligence claims settled, nor is any information held about claims settled by districts. However, I am able to give details of the costs of clinical negligence claims by trust, and this will be placed in the Library.

  For information by region, I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave him on 6 March 1995, Official Report, columns 40-42, which contains the most current data available.

  Medicine Prices
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what representations he has received calling for the abolition of the retail price maintenance scheme for medicines. [3017]

  Mr. Malone
  [holding answer 27 November 1995]: None.

  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what representations he has received that patients purchasing medicines are being disadvantaged through the higher prices required by resale price maintenance of medicines. [3014]

  Mr. Malone
  [holding answer 27 November 1995]: None.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  National Grid
  Mr. Burden
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what assessment he has made of the impact of the promised rebate to domestic consumers, arising from the sale of the national grid, on the collection of the fossil fuel levy; and if any rebate will be leviable. [3390]

  Mr. Eggar
  The rebate is expected to take the form of a discount in the first quarter of 1996 with a consequent effect on the fossil fuel levy collected in that quarter.

  Gas Pipeline (Zeebrugge-Bacton)
  Mr. Chris Davies
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement with regard to the implications for United Kingdom energy reserves of the proposed construction of a gas pipeline from Zeebrugge to Bacton, Norfolk. [3484]

  Mr. Eggar
  The Department considers the proposed gas pipeline from Bacton to Zeebrugge to be an important strategic project that will ensure the continued development of our oil and gas resources.

  Natural Gas Reserves
  Mr. Chris Davies
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what are the United Kingdom's current reserves of natural gas; and what is the rate of consumption through(a) domestic supply and (b) exports. [3483]

  Mr. Eggar
  Estimates of the United Kingdom's remaining recoverable reserves of gas are given in my Department's energy report 1995, volume 2, a copy of which is in the Library of the House. The report shows that discovered reserves could yield 1,915 billion cu m of gas. Allowing for the full potential from as yet undrilled structures could raise this to 3,815 billion cu m.

  In 1994, some 63.5 billion cu m were produced for United Kingdom supply and 0.9 billion cu m were exported.

  Late Payment
  Mr. Day
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what plans there are to review the case for a statutory right to interest in June 1996 in accordance with the commitment made in the White Paper of June 1994. [3553]

  Mr. Page
  The incidence of late payment and the need for new measures to address the problem are subject to on-going investigation. A number of measures were put in place following the publication of "Competitiveness—Helping Business to Win" in May 1994 and the effect of these will need to be evaluated. Any decision to review the case for a statutory right to interest will be dependent on these considerations and will be announced by June 1996.

  Beaufort's Dyke
  Mr. Macdonald
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade on what date in 1981 a United Kingdom Atomic 46
  Energy Authority shipment destined for Rockall Deep in 1981 was diverted to Beaufort's dyke; what was the reason for the diversion; and if he will list the full contents of that shipment. [3552]

  Mr. Page
  In November 1981, the MV Gem left Bromborough bound for the Rockall Deep. It was intended to test a new mechanism for handling drums of the type used for sea disposal of radioactive waste. However, due to severe weather it was necessary to carry out the tests at an alternative approved site at Beaufort's dyke.

  The tests involved the dumping of a small batch of dummy drums containing only solid concrete. Beaufort's dyke was not used for the disposal of radioactive waste.

  Scott Inquiry
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what is the estimated cost to date of the Scott inquiry. [1890]

  Mr. Lang
  The direct cost to date of the Scott inquiry is £1.8 million.

  Executive Agencies (Overseas Travel)
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will list for each of his executive agencies for the last financial year in respect of overseas travel by staff of the agency(a) the cost, (b) the countries visited and (c) the posts held by the staff involved. [2358]

  Mr. Lang
  Responsibility for the subject of the question has been delegated to the chief executives of the agencies for which my Department is or has been responsible. I have therefore asked Mr. David Durham of Companies House, Mr. Peter Joyce of the Insolvency Service, Dr. Richard Worswick of the Laboratory of the Government Chemist, Dr. Peter Clapham, acting chief executive for the National Engineering and National Physical Laboratories, which ceased to be agencies earlier this year, Dr. Seton Bennet of the National Weights and Measures Laboratory, Mr. Paul Hartnack of the Patent Office and Mr. Jim Norton of the Radiocommunications Agency to arrange for replies to be given. My Department's Accounts Services Agency has also ceased to be an executive agency. Its financial and management accounting functions did not necessitate overseas travel.

  Letter from R. D. Worswick to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 29 November 1995:
  The President of the Board of Trade has asked me to reply to you about overseas travel by staff of the Laboratory of the Government Chemist (LGC).In financial year 1994/95 just over £99,000 was spent on overseas travel (air fares, hotel bills and subsistence); of this £56,000 was for travel to EU countries and £43,000 for travel outside the EU.Visits were made to Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Hong Kong, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, and the USA. These visits were made in order to fulfil customer contracts.47 The staff involved were within the Civil Service grades Scientific Officer to Grade 3, with the bulk of the trips made by staff in Grades 5, 6, 7 and Senior Scientific Officer.
  Letter from Peter Joyce to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 30 November 1995:
  The President of the Board of Trade has asked me to reply to your Question about overseas travel by staff in The Insolvency Service during 1994/95.The total cost of overseas travel for 1994/95 was £9,050: the countries visited were Austria, Belgium Canada, France and Spain: and those visits were made by myself, a grade 4, a grade 5, and insolvency B grade (equivalent grade 7) and an insolvency C grade (equivalent SEO).
  Letter from Seton Bennett to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 30 November 1995:
  The President of the Board of Trade has asked me to reply on behalf of the National Weights and Measures Laboratory (NWML) to your Question about overseas travel by the staff of the Agency.For NWML, the information you requested is as follows:

  (a) The cost of foreign travel by Agency staff in the financial year 1994/95 was £25,692 (some of which was recovered from the European Commission);

  (b) The countries visited were Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland;

  (c) Apart from myself, some 13 different members of staff were involved, who hold a variety of posts in the Agency.

  Letter from Peter Clapham to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 30 November 1995:
  The President of the Board of Trade has asked me to reply to your Question about overseas travel by staff of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and the National Engineering Laboratory (NEL) during the last financial year.As you will be aware, NPL and NEL are no longer executive agencies, both now being operated by private sector management. However, as the last Chief Executive of both laboratories I am pleased to respond to your question.I should comment that as internationally active research and technical advice laboratories, both NPL and NEL have a wide range of overseas commitments associated with, for example, collaborative projects, international consultancies, conferences and committee work. A significant proportion of staff travel costs is met directly by customers and in some cases these costs are not separately identified in our accounts. However, the approximate totals for overseas travel and subsistence in 1994/95 were £520,000 and £130,000 for the NPL and NEL respectively.As you might expect from the extent of both laboratories' activities, the countries visited and the grades of staff involved are very wide ranging and it would not be practicable to provide you with a breakdown. However, if you have some specific queries I should be happy to do my best to elicit the information for you.
  Letter from Jim Norton to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 29 November 1995:
  The President of the Board of Trade has asked me to reply to your Question about overseas travel by staff of the Agency.The Radiocommunications Agency has a major international role. It represents UK-wide interests in many international fora at the European and global levels. These activities all relate to the effective management of the radio frequency spectrum and include the harmonisation of frequency usage, the development of radio regulatory regimes, and the adoption of international standards for radiocommunications equipment. The interests we represent include the Agency's customers who use the radio spectrum, other
  48
  government departments, manufacturers, operators and service providers. In some fora we also represent the interests of the UK's dependant territories.With the agreement of ministers, we play an active and constructive role in the relevant fora and, particularly in Europe, we play a leading role by holding chairmanships and making substantive contributions to the development of international agreements.For the financial year 1994/95, the Agency spent a total of £538,202 on overseas travel including subsistence. In keeping with the Agency's net running cost regime, all of this expenditure was recovered through licence fees and other income.This expenditure involved extensive travel throughout Europe, some visits to the Americas and occasional visits to other parts of the world. The staff involved ranged from the Chief Executive to junior administrative staff (in support of large delegations to world treaty-making conferences). A detailed breakdown of countries visited and staff levels involved could only be provided at disproportionate cost.I hope that this information is of interest.
  Letter from David Durham to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 30 December 1995:
  The President of the Board of Trade, the Rt Hon Ian Lang MP, has asked me to reply to your Question about overseas travel by staff of Companies House Executive Agency during the last financial year.The information you sought is as follows:

  (a) Cost: £12,000

  (b) Countries Visited: Anguilla, USA, Eire, Belgium and France

  (c) Posts held by staff involved: Chief Executive, senior and middle management grades.

  I should explain that in the case of Anguilla, the net cost to Companies House will be nil, because the visit was in connection with consultancy advice we provided to certain overseas administrations, for which we are reimbursed.
  I hope this information fully answers your question.
  Letter from P. R. S. Hartnack to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 4 December 1995:
  The President of the Board of Trade has asked me to reply to your question about overseas travel by Patent Office staff in 1994/95.The information you requested is as follows:

  Countries visited

  Grades visiting

  Total cost £

  America

  2xSPE 1xPE

  10,472. 09

  Austria

  2xG3 1xG6 1xEO 1xPE 2xSE

  4,748. 98

  Belgium

  2xG3 3xG5 6xG7 1xSEO 10xSPE 21xPE 33xSE

  37,708.90

  Canada

  2xG7 1xSPE

  4,974.85

  Denmark

  1xSPE 2xSE

  3,335.68

  Finland

  1xSPE

  905,13

  France

  1xSPE 1xPE 2xSE

  5,781.01

  Germany

  10xG3 8xG4 2xG6 1xHEO 3xEO 6xSPE 5xPE 8xSE 2xE

  34,875.97

  Greece

  1xG4 1xPE 1xSE

  2,436.98

  Holland

  1xG5 2xG7 2xSPE 2xPE 5xSE

  6,754.41

  India

  1xPE

  1,113.52

  Ireland

  1xPE 2xSE

  961.66

  Italy

  1xG4 1xPE 1xSE

  1,529,66

  49

  Countries visited

  Grades visiting

  Total cost £

  Japan

  1xG4 1xPE

  7,285.02

  Luxemborough

  1xG4 1xG5 1xPE

  1,298.44

  Solvenia

  1xG3

  778.80

  Spain

  2xG3 2xG4 3xG5 1xG6 2xG7 3xPE 2xSE

  10,320.90

  Sweden

  lxG7

  719.05

  Switzerland

  1xG3 7xG4 1xG5 lxG6 5xG7 3xSEO 2xHEO 2xSPE 13xPE 13xSE

  47,815.37

  Zambia

  1G4

  965.54

  Note:

  G3 Grade 3.

  G4 Grade 4.

  G5 Grade 5.

  G6 Grade 6.

  G7 Grade 7.

  SEO Senior Executive Officer.

  HEO Higher Executive Officer.

  EO Executive Officer.

  SPE Superintending Examiner.

  PE Principal Examiner.

  SE Senior Examiner.

  E Examiner.

  As can be seen the bulk of overseas travel by Patent Office staff was to Belgium, Germany, Spain and Switzerland. These countries are respectively the seats of the European Commission, the European Patent Office, the EC Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (which deals with trade marks) and the World Intellectual Property Organisation.

  British Coal Enterprise
  Mr. Tipping
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will list those companies that have prequalified as potential buyers for British Coal Enterprise. [3384]

  Mr. Page
  [holding answer 30 November 1995]: The sale of British Coal Enterprise is a matter for British Coal. Details of the pre-qualifiers are commercially confidential and are not being released by British Coal, but I understand that there has been a very positive interest in purchasing BCE or its various activities.

  Small Firms
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what discussions his Department has had with the British Standards Institution regarding a British standard for small firms.[3692]

  thousands

  Table 1: UK imports of cycles

  1990

  1991

  1992

  1993

  1994

  China

  101.0

  141.9

  127.6

  7.7

  12.5

  ASEAN

  121.6

  136.3

  412.5

  318.2

  395.2

  Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia

  119.0

  125.1

  361.1

  300.2

  387.2

  Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea (north and south)

  1,048.0

  1,012.6

  1,001.6

  664.1

  624.2

  Note:

  ASEAN = Indonesia, Brunei, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Philippines.

  Source:

  Her Majesty's Customs & Excise.
  50
  Mr. Page
  This Department has had no discussions with the British Standards Institution regarding a British standard for small firms. As I stated in my reply on 22 November 1995,Official Report, column 209, there are no plans to introduce a British standard for small firms.

  Public Service Contracts
  Sir Teddy Taylor
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade (1) what powers he has to intervene when there is evidence of anti-competitive activity by local authorities in the award of contracts for public services; [3778]

  (2) how many councils have been investigated by the Office of Fair Trading for favouring their in-house supplier over external contractors bidding for work under CCT; and if he will list them. [3779]

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  Under legislation governing local authorities, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment is responsible for investigating behaviour by local authorities in connection with compulsory competitive tendering for contracts for public services.

  Cycle Imports
  Mr. Simpson
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade how many cycles were imported from(a) China and (b) south-east Asia as a whole in each of the last five years; what has been the allotted quota for each of these years; and by what month in the year the quota was exceeded. [2440]

  Mr. Oppenheim
  The figures for imports of bicycles from China and south-east Asia for 1990 to 1994 are given in table 1. There are no import quotas for bicycles. However, a "ceiling" on duty-free imports of bicycles into the EC under the previous generalised system of preferences scheme was introduced in 1991. When a ceiling was reached, full import duty could be reimposed at the request of a member state. Duty was reimposed on imports of bicycles from a number of countries in south-east Asia at various points—in some instances, at the request of the United Kingdom. Details of ceilings and duty reimpositions under the GSP scheme are provided in table 2. A revised EC GSP scheme introduced from 1 January this year contains no limits on the amount of a product that could be imported under it. Instead, a fixed rate of reduced duty is applied to sensitive products. In the case of bicycles this is set at 70 per cent. of the full duty.
  51

  Table 2: GSP Ceilings

  Year

  EC ceiling (ECUs)

  Country

  Ceiling reached1

  Duty reimposed

  1991

  9,004,000

  China

  14 June

  10 September

  1992

  9,454,000

  China

  27 March

  12 May

  Indonesia

  21 August

  22 November

  Thailand

  21 August

  22 November

  1993

  9,454,000

  China

  8 February

  14 May

  Indonesia

  6 August

  5 December

  Malaysia

  6 August

  30 November

  Thailand

  6 August

  5 December

  South Korea

  1 December

  19942

  January to June

  4,727,000

  Indonesia

  22 July

  Malaysia

  22 July

  Thailand

  22 July

  South Korea

  22 May

  July to December

  4,727,000

  India

  17 November

  Malaysia

  9 November

  Thailand

  1 December

  1 The date on which the United Kingdom were notified that the ceiling was reached.

  2 The GSP scheme was under review in 1994 and was operated as two separate six monthly schemes in that year.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the latest assessment he has made of the probability of BSE entering the human food chain: [1993]

  Mrs. Browning
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith) on 28 November 1995,Official Report, columns 530–31.

  Mr. Steinberg
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what measures are currently in place to prevent cattle infected with BSE from entering the food chain. [2668]

  Mrs. Browning
  The following measures are in place to prevent issue from cattle infected with BSE from entering the food chain:

  (i) BSE is a notifiable disease;

  (ii) all cattle suspected to be suffering from BSE are killed and their carcases incinerated;

  (iii) all cattle receive an ante mortem inspection at the slaughterhouse. Any that display signs of BSE are killed and the carcases incinerated; and

  (iv) cattle which are incubating BSE but are not yet showing clinical signs cannot be identified. All cattle are therefore assumed to be potentially infected, and the tissue in which infectivity may be present are removed and cannot be used in human food or animal feed. The tissues are the so called specified bovine offals—brain, spinal cord, spleen and tonsils of cattle over six months of age and the thymus and intestines of all cattle.

  My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food also announced new measures to control the use of bovine vertebral columns in the making of mechanically recovered meat—MRM—in an answer to
  52
  my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith) on 28 November, Official Report, columns 530–531.

  Mr. Steinberg
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many farmers have been prosecuted to date for falsifying documents relating to BSE in cattle. [2670]

  Mrs. Browning
  Farmers' declarations that cattle have not resided on a holding in which a case of BSE has been confirmed during the previous six years, or that individual animals are less than two and a half years of age, are required for export purposes. They do not form part of our comprehensive system for the protection of the consumer in this country.

  Responsibility for enforcement and prosecution in relation to these declarations rests with local authorities. Although the Department is often kept informed at local level, we do not keep central records of such prosecutions and information on total numbers could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Executive Agencies (Overseas Travel)
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list for each his executive agencies for the last financial year in resret of overseas travel by agency staff(a) the costs of the travel, (b) tie countries visited and (c) the posts held by foe staff concerned. [2287]

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Responsibility for this maucr is delegated to agency chief executives and 1 have asked them to reply to the hon. Member direct.

  Letter from George Trevelyan to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 4 December 1995:
  The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has asked me to reply to your question about overseas travel made by staff in this Agency for the last financial year as this matter is within my operational responsibility.The total cost of overseas travel between 1 April 1994 to 31 March 1995 was £77,986.Countries visited by Agency managers were Belgium, Denmark, Eire, France, Greece, Germany, Holland, Italy, Norway, Switzerland and the United States.In all, 62 managers were involved with official business visits and a number of these visited several of the countries concerned over the year. These include the Agency's Finance Director, Chief Accountant, Finance Policy Adviser, Finance Group Managers, Finance Managers, the Head of Information Systems, Group Manager Business Systems, Group Manager IT Development, Information Systems Contracts and Procurement Manager, Computer Services Senior Accounts Manager, Internal Market Director, Head of Internal Market Operations, Internal Market Group Manager, Scheme Managers, Technical Services Managers, Deputy Technical Services Manager, Procurement Manager, Head of External Operations, Group Managers External Operations, External Operations Scheme Managers, Group Manager Anti-Fraud Unit and Anti-Fraud Unit Scrutineers.
  Letter from Phillip Needham to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 4 December 1995:
  The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has asked me to reply on behalf of this Agency to your Parliamentary Question number 62. In this you sought details for this Agency, for the last financial year, for a) the cost of travel, b) the countries visited and c) the post held by the staff concerned in respect of overseas travel.(2287)53 ADAS was formed as an Executive Agency in April 1992 and is jointly owned by MAFF and the Welsh Office. It undertakes a broad range of consultancy and R&D work for commercial customers as well as government.In recent years, ADAS has been heavily involved in overseas work mostly in Central and Eastern Europe. The majority of work concentrates on consultancy to the emerging governments in matters related to re-structuring of agriculture and food production. Approximately £1.4 million of ADAS income derives from this source. The Agency incurs approximately £200,000 per annum in travelling expenses. These are relating to visits made by ADAS in order to secure future business, visits made to deliver consultancy services and visits to International conferences where these are required to update the professional knowledge of ADAS staff.
  Letter from Johnston McNeill to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 4 December 1995:
  As Chief Executive of the Meat Hygiene Service (MHS), I have been asked to respond to your question regarding overseas travel with respect to this Agency.As you may know, the MHS was established as an Executive Agency of MAFF on 1 April this year. Since that time there has been no overseas travel by any member of staff.
  Letter from G. K. Bruce to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 4 December 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 overseas travel.During the 1994/95 financial year the cost of overseas travel undertaken by PSD staff totalled £42,339. Details of the countries visited and the posts held by the officers concerned could only be provided at disproportionate cost but the greater part of this expenditure relates to attendance at meetings in Brussels.
  Letter from J. M. Rutter to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 4 December 1995:
  The Minister has asked me to reply to your question about the costs of overseas travel by staff of the Veterinary Medicines Directorate, the countries visited, and the posts held by the staff concerned, as these are operational matters for which I am responsible.The cost of overseas travel, including subsistence, in 1994/95 was £126,863.82. Full details of the countries visited and the posts held by the staff involved could only be provided at disproportionate cost. The main element of overseas travel however, was by immunological inspectors (Grade 7 equivalent) in the VMD, carrying out inspections of manufacturing premises for immunological veterinary medicines in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the USA and in Europe, and by staff, mainly at Grade 7 level and above, attending meetings of scientific, Commission and Council working groups in Brussels. In both cases, all or part of the travel costs is recovered from the companies involved or from the Commission.
  Letter from T. W. A. Little to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 4 December 1995:
  The Minister has asked me to reply to your question on overseas travel by staff in the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (known as the Central Veterinary Laboratory until 30 September 1995).In the last financial year, overseas travel costs in the Central Veterinary Laboratory amounted to £40,008. Due to internal management restructuring we have only been tracking the costs from the beginning of this financial year and, consequently, are not able to provide any further breakdown. However, the posts held by staff and the countries visited will be varied as we consider overseas travel, for the purpose of attending conferences and presenting papers, an essential component of the scientific development of staff.54
  Letter from Professor P. I. Stanley to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 4 December 1995:
  You asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to provide information for each of his executive agencies relating to overseas travel by agency staff in the last financial year. The Minister has asked me to reply to you in respect of his Central Science Laboratory (CSL) Agency as this is an operational matter for which I am responsible.In 1994–95:

  (a) The total cost of overseas travel was £175,779.

  (b) Countries visited were: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, USA.

  (c) The posts held by staff concerned were 109 scientific and 3 administrative. The main purpose of overseas travel was either to present scientific papers at conferences or to represent the UK in EU meetings.

  Early Retirement (Farmers)
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many representations he has received over the past three years on the subject of initiating an early retirement scheme for farmers; what research his Department has(a) commissioned and (b) evaluated into the likely benefits of this to the tenanted sector; and if he will make a statement. [2526]

  Mr. Boswell
  In the past three years, the Department has answered four parliamentary questions and 28 Ministers' correspondence on the subject of an early retirement scheme for farmers. Council regulation 2079/92 permits member states to provide early retirement pensions to farmers aged between 55 and normal retirement age who release their land for amalgamation with other holdings or for non-agricultural use. This option has not been taken upon the United Kingdom because we take the view that its terms are not appropriate to the conditions of agriculture here. For that reason, we have not commissioned any research on early retirement for farmers nor evaluated the likely impact on the tenanted sector.

  Executive Agencies (Meetings)
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what record he keeps of the number and dates of meetings he has with the heads of agencies which report to him. [3081]

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  My office holds a record of all my meetings. Those with the heads of agencies which report to me form a part of that record. They are not singled out in any special way.

  Arable Areas (Checks)
  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will commission a survey of arable areas throughout the European Union by the Western European Union satellite centre to facilitate a scientific comparison between the arrangements made by member states to secure compliance with common agricultural policy regulations including set-aside areas. [3259]
  55
  Mr. Baldry
  No. Most EU member states carry out remote sensing checks on arable areas including set-aside land, using satellite imagery or aerial photography as part of an EC Commission co-financed programme. Discrepancies found are followed up by individual member states and results monitored by the EC Commission. These measures, together with those applied by all member states under the integrated administration control system, are designed to ensure compliance with CAP regulations.

  Sheep and Beef Support Schemes
  Dr. Strang
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how much money was spent on(a) hill livestock compensatory allowances, (b) suckler cow premiums, (c) sheep annual premiums and (d) beef special premiums in each country of the United Kingdom in 1994–95. [3221]

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  [holding answer 30 November 1995]: In 1994–95 £31.3 million1 was spent on hill livestock compensatory allowances, £64.7 million was spent on suckler cow premium, including extensification premium; £163.7 million was spent on sheep annual premium, including Less-favoured area supplement, and £81.1 million was spent on beef special premium, including extensification premium, in England. Expenditure on these schemes in the other parts of the United Kingdom is a matter for the Secretaries of State for Scotland, for Wales and for Northern Ireland.

  'This includes expenditure carried forward from the previous financial year.

  Dr. Strang
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how much money will be spent on(a) the hill livestock compensatory allowances, (b) suckler cow premiums, (c) sheep annual premiums and (d) beef special premiums in each country of the United Kingdom in 1995–96. [3222]

  Mr. Hogg
  [holding answer 30 November 1995]: In 1995–96, we estimate that £27.6 million will be spent on hill livestock compensatory allowances; £83 million will be spent on suckler cow premium, including extensification premium; £182 million will be spent on sheep annual premium, including LFA supplement, and £129.2 million will be spent on beef special premium, including extensification premium, in England. Expenditure under these schemes in the other parts of the United Kingdom is a matter for the Secretaries of State for Scotland, for Wales and for Northern Ireland.

  European Funding (North Yorkshire)
  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how much matching funding his Department has provided for European agricultural guarantee and guidance projects in(a) 1994–95 and (b) 1995–96 within the north Yorkshire area; and if he will provide a breakdown based on (i) parliamentary constituency and (ii) local authority.[3744]

  Mr. Baldry
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to him on 19 October,Official Report, column 323. A breakdown of this information by parliamentary constituency and local authority can be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Investor in People Status
  Mr. Byers
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps his Department is taking to achieve investor in people status; when they started the process; when they expect to achieve investor in people status; and if he will make a statement. [2971]

  Mr. Boswell
  [holding answer 30 November 1995]: The Department is committed in principle to pursuing the investor in people standard. The Ministry's information technology directorate achieved the standard at the end of 1993; the regional organisation recently carried out a diagnostic survey and is now evaluating the results; and the rest of the core Department is preparing to follow suit by assembling the various elements that are required in order to attain investor in people status.

  Overgrazing
  Dr. Strang
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many farmers had their payments withdrawn as a result of overgrazing in each country of the United Kingdom in(a) 1994–95 and (b) 1995–96 to the latest available date. [3223]

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  [holding answer 30 November 1995]: In England, four farmers had their hill livestock compensatory allowances withheld in whole or in part in 1994–95 as a result of overgrazing. To date, three farmers have had their hill livestock compensatory allowances withheld in whole or in part as a result of overgrazing in 1995–96. Responsibility for the implementation of overgrazing provisions of the livestock subsidy schemes in other parts of the United Kingdom falls to the Secretaries of State for Scotland, for Wales and for Northern Ireland.

  Moorland Scheme
  Dr. Strang
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many lectures have been entered into the moorland scheme in each region of the United Kingdom to which the scheme applies. [3225]

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  [holding answer 30 November 1995]: In England, 4048.63 hectares of heather moorland grazing have been entered into the moorland scheme. Responsibility for schemes to enhance the nature conservation value of moorland in other parts of the United Kingdom falls to the Secretaries of State for Scotland, for Wales and for Northern Ireland.

  Dr. Strang
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many farmers have entered their land into the moorland scheme in each region of the United Kingdom to which the scheme applies. [3226]

  Mr. Hogg
  [holding answer 30 November 1995]: In England, 13 farmers have to date signed agreements entering land into the moorland scheme. Responsibility for schemes to enhance the nature conservation value of moorland in other parts of the United Kingdom falls to the Secretaries of State for Scotland, for Wales and for Northern Ireland.

TRANSPORT

  MV Derbyshire
  Mr. Loyden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects the results of his assessment of the further work required to be undertaken to identify the cause of the sinking of the MV Derbyshire; and if he will make a statement. [4119]

  Sir George Young
  I have today published Lord Donaldson's assessment. Copies have been placed in the Library of the House and are available in the Vote Office.

  The formal investigation in 1987 into the loss of the Derbyshire decided that
  …the Derbyshire was probably overwhelmed by the forces of nature in Typhoon Orchid"
  and added that
  "the evidence available does not support any firmer conclusion".
  Following the discovery in. June 1994 of the wreckage of the Derbyshire during a search sponsored by the International Transport Workers Federation, my predecessor appointed the right hon. Lord Donaldson of Lymington to undertake an assessment of what further work might be undertaken to seek to determine the actual cause of the loss of the Derbyshire, together with assessments of the costs involved, the likelihood of establishing the cause and the likely benefits to ship safety.

  Lord Donaldson has recommended that a second, and final, re-examination of the wreck should be carried out, at a cost which he estimates at around £2 million. He believes there is a compelling case for, seeking to establish the cause of the loss, with resulting benefits to ship safety.

  I have decided to accept his recommendation. The timing of his re-examination will depend on making the necessary arrangements—drawing up a specification, inviting tenders and selecting a contractor—and will take place as soon as practicable in either spring 1996 or spring 1997. I have raised within the European Commission the possibility of sharing the costs with it, as the potential benefits are not confirmed to British ships and seafarers. The Commission has confirmed its readiness to assist financially.

  Lockerbie
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to his answer of 27 November,Official Report, column 505, what considerations led him not to place all documents currently held by his Department relating to the destruction of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, seven years ago, in the Library. [3783]

  Mr. Norris
  It is not my Department's normal practice to release official files other than at the appropriate time under the procedures and criteria set down by the Public Record Office. There are no plans for earlier release of the papers in question, given the classified nature of some of the material and the pending criminal trial.

  South Yorkshire Supertram
  Mr. Betts
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) what assessment he has made of the financial impact of the sale of South Yorkshire Supertram; [3364]
  58
  (2) what will happen to any debts of South Yorkshire Supertram which are not covered by the sale; [3363]

  (3) what assessment he has made of the impact on (a) revenue funding, (b) capital funding and (c) capping levels of each council in South Yorkshire of the sale of Supertram. [3362]

  Mr. Norris
  My Department and South Yorkshire passenger transport executive are currently discussing these issues.

  Mr. Betts
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) when he announced the sale of South Yorkshire Supertram; and what steps he will take to advertise the sale; [3361]

  (2) if he will list the (a) organisation and (b) individuals which he has engaged to assist with the sale of South Yorkshire Supertram; [3360]

  (3) what restrictions will be placed on the bodies able to purchase South Yorkshire Supertram in respect of (a) bus companies and (b) other organisations; [3367]

  (4) if the sale of South Yorkshire Supertram will be by competitive tender. [3365]

  Mr. Norris
  Arrangements for the sale of South Yorkshire Supertram are a matter for South Yorkshire passenger transport executive.

  Mr. Betts
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the timetable and process for the sale of South Yorkshire Supertram. [3368]

  Mr. Norris
  Arrangements for the sale of South Yorkshire Supertram are a matter for South Yorkshire passenger transport executive. It is, however, this Government's policy to privatise public transport operations wherever possible. I therefore look forward to South Yorkshire Supertram being sold at the earliest possible opportunity.

  Mr. Betts
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport under what powers he has taken the decision to order the sale of South Yorkshire Supertram. [3366]

  Mr. Norris
  The Government and South Yorkshire passenger transport executive have always agreed that the operation of South Yorkshire Supertram will be privatised at the earliest opportunity. South Yorkshire passenger transport executive proposed the "build first, sell later" structure for Supertram and has put in place arrangements for privatisation. The director general of the PTE has frequently confirmed to me the PTE's commitment to privatisation.

  White Hart Roundabout, Northolt
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will order an inquiry into the time scale adopted by Ealing council in constructing phased traffic lights at the White Hart roundabout, Northolt; and if he will make a statement. [1853]

  Mr Norris
  No. It would not be appropriate for Ministers to intervene in the timing of this local highway scheme.

  A36 (South Newton)
  Mr. Key
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when the work, referred to in his answer of 7 November 1995,Official Report, column 753, will commence on installation of experimental speed limit warning signs on the A36 at South Newton. [3617]

  Mr. Norris
  Some of the installation work to accommodate the electronic speed limit warning signs has already started. Following the commissioning and testing of the equipment, the trial will be fully operational from 15 December onwards. The highway authority will be monitoring the site for a minimum period of six months.

  Pollution
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make it his policy to establish freephone numbers to which the public can report excessively smoky and polluting vehicles. [3721]

  Mr. Norris
  No. I am satisfied that the current reporting procedure for the smoky vehicle hotline explained in the publicity leaflet—copies of which were placed in the library on 27 October—is adequate.

  Cycle Tracks
  Sir Irvine Patnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what measures have been made in major cities for the provision for cycle tracks; and if he will make a statement. [3514]

  Mr. Norris
  Cycle facilities such as cycle lanes on the carriageway, cycle tracks away from the road, advanced stop lines at traffic lights and toucan crossings exist in most of our major cities. I hope all local highway authorities will respond positively to our initiatives to encourage cycling.

  Sir Irvine Patnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many miles of cycle track currently exist in the cities of(a) Birmingham, (b) Manchester, (c) Newcastle, (d) Leeds, (e) Liverpool and (f) Sheffield; and if he will make a statement. [3196]

  Mr. Norris
  This information is not held centrally. The responsibility for cycle facilities rests with individual local highway authorities.

  Sir Irvine Patnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what proposals he has to extend the existing cycle track network in Sheffield; and if he will make a statement. [3197]

  Mr. Norris
  Responsibility for providing cycle facilities in Sheffield lies with Sheffield city council as the local highway authority. Proposals for cycle improvements in Sheffield were included in the south Yorkshire package bid, which is currently under consideration. I expect to make an announcement on funding shortly.

  Cycling Accidents
  Mr. Chidgey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many(a) fatal, (b) injury causing non-fatal and (c) minor accidents were recorded involving cyclists who were (i) minors and (ii) adults on pavements in each of the last five years.[3468]

  Mr. Norris
  The information requested is not available.

  Road Accidents
  Mr. Rooker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what research he has(a) commissioned, (b) published and (c) evaluated from (i) the Transport Research Laboratory and (ii) others on the contribution of sideways spray from lorries and coaches to accidents on motorways. [3429]

  Mr. Norris
  In 1990 the Transport Research Laboratory undertook a review of the contribution of spray to motorway crashes and followed this with a study in which the police were asked about the contribution of spray when they reported injury accidents on wet motorways or A and M roads.

  The study suggested that spray was a contributory cause in about 131 and 552 accidents on motorway and A and M roads in Britain each year. The annual cost of these accidents was estimated to lie between £6,905,010 and £29,095,020, based on the Department of Transport's figure for the average cost of a motorway injury accident.

  The reports also discuss results of earlier estimates by the Transport Research Laboratory and others on the contribution of spray to accidents.

  British Railways Board (Logo)
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will take steps to ensure that for the foreseeable future the present logo of the British Railways Board will be continued to be displayed(a) on all buildings, direction signs, maps and publicity literature and (b) in all other ways as currently practised in respect of public rail services. [3342]

  Mr. Watts
  I intend to continue to use the double arrow symbol in those places where it is used as a road sign at present. Its use as a logo by the British Railways Board and others is a matter for them.

  Defective Pavements
  Mr. Hargreaves
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will issue guidelines to ensure compensation will be provided for accidents involving faulty paving stones of less than lin in height. [3332]

  Mr. Norris
  No. In any claim for compensation for injury allegedly caused by a defective pavement, it is for the courts to decide whether a highway authority's refusal to accept liability is reasonable in the light of the circumstances of the case.

  Vehicle Statistics
  Mr. Chidgey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is the total number of(a vehicle and (b) passenger miles travelled by (i) motor car, (ii) omnibus and (iii) private coach in each of the last 10 years.

  Mr. Norris
  Passenger and vehicle miles by vehicle type and year are given in the table. Figures for buses and coaches are available only as a single combined category. However, further information on the use of buses run by public service vehicle operators can be obtained in section 5 of "Transport Statistics Great Britain" 1995 edition, a copy of which can be found in the Library. [3464]

  Vehicle miles (billion)

  Passenger miles (billion)

  Year

  Cars and taxis

  Buses and coaches

  Cars and taxis

  Buses and coaches

  1984

  151.6

  2.4

  255

  30

  1985

  155.6

  2.3

  260

  30

  1986

  164.3

  2.3

  275

  29

  1987

  176.9

  2.5

  295

  29

  1988

  189.8

  2.7

  316

  29

  1989

  205.8

  2.8

  343

  29

  1990

  208.7

  2.8

  347

  29

  1991

  208.3

  3.0

  346

  27

  1992

  210.0

  2.9

  348

  27

  1993

  210.4

  2.9

  348

  27

  1994

  214.5

  2.9

  355

  27

  1. Estimates are derived from the traffic series (vehicle miles) and average occupancy rates from the National Travel Survey.

  2. Changes are estimated by deflating passenger receipts by the most appropriate price indices available. Because the proxy method has to be used the series gives only a broad guide to trends.

  Supplementary Credit Approvals
  Sir Irvine Patnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) if he will list for(a) Sheffield and

  £000

  1992–93

  1993–94

  1994–95

  Authority

  Tot SCA

  Return

  Tot SCA

  Return

  Tot SCA

  Return

  Bolton

  603

  260

  1,342

  0

  632

  0

  Bury

  335

  0

  600

  0

  564

  0

  Manchester

  1,495

  0

  12,986

  0

  3,458

  565

  Oldham

  1,521

  0

  1,830

  0

  646

  0

  Rochdale

  502

  0

  656

  0

  672

  0

  Salford

  913

  0

  1,054

  0

  1,079

  0

  Stockport

  1,154

  0

  1,410

  0

  379

  0

  Tameside

  997

  0

  877

  0

  525

  0

  Trafford

  170

  0

  673

  1,572

  477

  0

  Wigan

  443

  0

  405

  0

  394

  0

  Knowsley

  388

  0

  2,956

  7,867

  762

  0

  Liverpool

  1,100

  0

  1,042

  835

  1,324

  0

  St. Helens

  310

  0

  11,130

  1,069

  3,131

  0

  Sefton

  458

  0

  623

  0

  627

  0

  Wirral

  435

  0

  1,984

  0

  1,009

  0

  Barnsley

  680

  0

  2,116

  21

  704

  290

  Doncaster

  3,158

  0

  2,407

  0

  1,198

  40

  Rotherham

  284

  0

  304

  0

  1,350

  751

  Gateshead

  598

  0

  937

  0

  616

  0

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  398

  0

  518

  0

  355

  0

  North Tyneside

  110

  0

  315

  275

  634

  0

  South Tyneside

  67

  0

  338

  0

  441

  0

  Sunderland

  719

  0

  2,630

  595

  885

  834

  Birmingham

  2,829

  0

  18,791

  299

  14,507

  1,037

  Coventry

  617

  0

  2,553

  4,034

  756

  1,250

  Dudley

  1,250

  0

  2,692

  188

  1,440

  0

  62
  (b) all metropolitan boroughs the number and the value of each supplementary credit approval not used within the specified time period for each of the last three years; [3195]

  (2) if he will list for (a) Sheffield and (b) all the metropolitan boroughs the time limit specified for each supplementary credit approval granted for each of the last three years; [3194]

  (3) if he will list for (a) Sheffield and (b) all the metropolitan boroughs the total value of each supplementary credit approval granted for each of the last three years.[3193]

  Mr. Norris
  Supplementary credit approvals, SCAs, may be issued at any time during the financial year and are valid for expenditure incurred up to the end of the financial year in question. If they are not used, the local authority is expected to return the SCA to the Department for reissue to another authority.

  The following SCAs have been issued to Sheffield city council by my Department in the last three years:
  1992–93:£1,175k 1993–94:

  (a) £3,326k

  (b) £1,391k

  1994–95

  (a) £529k

  (b) £244k

  (c) £80k

  (d) £419k.

  None of these SCAs has been returned to the Department.

  Information for the the metropolitan boroughs is as follows:
  63

  £000

  1992–1993

  1993–94

  1994–95

  Authority

  Tot SCA

  Return

  Tot SCA

  Return

  Tot SCA

  Return

  Sandwell

  2,088

  0

  2,393

  0

  421

  83

  Solihull

  988

  0

  1,652

  0

  442

  0

  Walsall

  9,236

  0

  10,969

  0

  901

  0

  Wolverhampton

  3,580

  0

  6,898

  0

  803

  0

  Bradford

  1,000

  0

  1,929

  0

  1,635

  0

  Calderdale

  363

  0

  1,090

  0

  528

  0

  Kirklees

  1,722

  0

  3,351

  51

  3,929

  174

  Leeds

  1,881

  0

  5,518

  600

  2,417

  370

  Wakefield

  1,107

  0

  1,597

  0

  1,584

  397

  Kingskerswell Bypass
  Mr. Allason
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when work is to begin on the Kingskerswell bypass. [2102]

  Mr. Watts
  I have asked the chief executive of the Highways Agency to write to my hon. Friend.

  Letter from Lawrie Haynes to Mr. Rupert Allason, dated 4 December 1995:
  As you know, the Minister for Railways and Roads, Mr. John Watts, has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking the Secretary of State for Transport, when work is to begin on the Kingskerswell Bypass.As announced in Managing the Roads Programme published on 28 November, this scheme has been transferred to the Longer Term programme.It is too soon to anticipate when it might be possible to move the scheme back into the main programme.

  Royal Family (Diary Engagements)
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport to what extent he is consulted in

  Havey goods vehicles

  Public service vehicles

  Light vehicles

  checks

  Prohibition rate (per cent.)

  checks

  Prohibition rate (per cent.)

  checks

  Prohibition rate (per cent.)

  1992–93

  5,706

  0.6

  4,647

  1.7

  4,759

  0.5

  1993–94

  10,589

  2.1

  5,165

  2.8

  33,103

  0.7

  1994–95

  12,959

  3.5

  7,292

  2.5

  70,899

  3.6

  During 1992–93 and 1993–94, no delayed prohibitions were issued on light vehicles, thus depressing the Failure rate.

  The figures collected before 1992–93 did not specify prohibitions issued for non-compliance with emissions standards.

  Ro-ro Ferries
  Mr. Wallace
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what progress was made at the specially convened International Maritime Organisation diplomatic conference to consider the recommendations of the IMO's panel of experts, set up after the loss of the ro-ro passenger ferry, Estonia, on survivability, evacuation and life-saving appliances; and if he will
  make a statement. [307]
  64
  respect of diary engagements for members of the royal family. [3253]

  Sir George Young
  The extent to which my Department is consulted on visits in the United Kingdom depends on the nature of the engagement. My Department's transport security division is represented in discussions on the security for royal visits overseas.

  Vehicle Emissions
  Mr. Chidgey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what assessment he has made of the extent of non-compliance with vehicle construction and use regulations in respect of motor vehicle emissions in each of the last five years. [3472]

  Mr. Norris
  The extent of non-compliance with emissions standards in the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 is assessed in terms of prohibitions issued by the Vehicle Inspectorate after vehicle enforcement checks, which are targeted on vehicles thought most likely to be defective.

  The figures for the last three years, in respect of emissions, are as follows:

  Mr. Norris
  [holding answer 29 November 1995]: The Government welcome the outcome of the IMO conference, which has agreed significant amendments to the safety of life at sea convention.

  On the ability of a ship to withstand a significant amount of water on the car deck, the conference passed a resolution which paves the way for regional agreements applying the high SOLAS 90 plus 50 cm of water on the car deck standard recommended by IMO's panel of experts established after the Estonia.

  We fully support this resolution and the future application of the SOLAS 90 plus 50 cm standard, through a regional agreement, to all ro-ro passenger

  65
  ferries serving our ports. We will shortly be initiating, with other northern European states, discussion of such a regional agreement.

  The amendments to the convention introduced a wide range of safety improvements including enhanced life-saving equipment, evacuation requirements, search-and-rescue procedures and the extension of the SOLAS 90 survivability standard to all existing ro-ro ferries worldwide.

SCOTLAND

  Departmental Targets
  Ms Armstrong
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the published recommended response times within which his Department is expected to reply to letters from the public.[3009]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Scottish Office Ministers aim to reply to letters within 17 working days of receipt. Performance against that target is published in the Official Report. A 20-day response time has been set for letters addressed to Ministers which are answered by officials, although individual areas may set a tighter deadline. Executive agencies include details of target response times and performance in their annual reports.

  Acts of Parliaments of Scotland
  Mr. Charles Kennedy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list those Acts of the Scottish Parliament before 1707 which are still in force. [3209]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  A list of the Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland before 1707 which have not been statutorily repealed follows. While there is a presumption that any Scots Act which has not been so repealed remains in force, that presumption can be rebutted through application of the doctrine of desuetude. That doctrine requires proof to the satisfaction of the Scottish courts that an enactment has not been repealed and that there has been contrary practice.

  Index of short titles of the current Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland 1424–1707:

  Adjudication Act 1621 (c.7)

  Adjudication Act 1672 (c.45)

  Ann Act 1672 (c.24)

  Arrestments Act 1617 (c.17)

  Arrestments Act 1661 (c.283)

  Bills of Exchange Act 1681 (c.86)

  Bonds Act 1661 (c.244)

  Breach of Arrestment Act 1581 (c.23)

  Burghs Act 1578 (c.11)

  Burghs Act 1587 (c.114)

  Church Act 1579 (c.6)

  Church Jurisdiction Act 1567 (c.12)

  Church Jurisdiction Act 1579 (c.7)

  Citation Act 1592 (c.59)

  Citation Act 1686 (c.5)

  Claim of Right Act 1689 (c.28)

  College of Justice Act 1532 (c.2)

  College of Justice Act 1540 (c.10)(14 March)

  66

  Common Good Act 1491 (c.19)

  Compensation Act 1592 (c.61)

  Confession of Faith Ratification Act 1560 (c.1)

  Confession of Faith Ratification Act 1690 (c.7)

  Confirmation Act 1690 (c.56)

  Confirmation Act 1695 (c.72)

  Coronation Oath Act 1567 (c.8)

  Court of Session Act 1693 (c.42)

  Courts Act 1672 (c.40)

  Criminal Letters Act 1579 (c.16)

  Crown Appointments Act 1661 (c.6)

  Crown Proceedings Act 1600 (c.23)

  Curators Act 1585 (c.25)

  Declinature Act 1681 (c.79)

  Decrees in Absence Act 1584 (c.10)

  Deforcement Act 1592 (c.72)

  Diligence Act 1469 (c.12)

  Diligence Act 1621 (c.6)

  Diligence Act 1661 (c.344)

  Disqualification of Ministers Act 1584 (c.6)

  Division of Commonties Act 1695 (c.69)

  Ejection Caution Act 1594 (c.27)

  Election Act 1707 (c.8)

  Entail Act 1685 (c.26)

  Executors Act 1617 (c.14)

  Expenses Act 1592 (c.62)

  Feu-Duty Act 1597 (c.17)

  Fisheries Act 1705 (c.48)

  General Assembly Act 1592 (c.8)

  Inland Bills Act 1696 (c.38)

  Kirk Dykes Act 1597 (c.3)

  Land Purchase Act 1594 (c.26)

  Lands Redemption Act 1555 (c.3)

  Lawburrows Act 1429 (c.20)

  Lawburrows Act 1581 (c.22)

  Lawburrows Act 1597 (c.40)

  Leases Act 1449 (c.6)

  Leases Act 1491 (c.7)

  Liferent Caution Act 1491 (c.6)

  Liferent Caution Act 1535 (c.14)

  Lyon King of Arms Act 1592 (c.29)

  Lyon King of Arms Act 1669 (c.95)

  Lyon King of Arms Act 1672 (c.47)

  March Dykes Act 1661 (c.284)

  March Dykes Act 1669 (c.38)

  Mines and Metals Act 1592 (c.31)

  Ministers Act 1693 (c.38)

  Minority Act 1663 (c.4)

  Papal Jurisdiction Act 1560 (c.2)

  Parliament Act 1661 (c.7)

  Parricide Act 1594 (c.30)

  Precedence Act 1661 (c.211)

  Prelacy Act 1689 (c.4)

  Prerogative Act 1661 (c.13)

  Protestant Religion and Presbyterian Church Act 1707 (c.6)

  Real Rights Act 1693 (c.22)

  Redemptions Act 1661 (c.247)

  Register of Sasines Act 1693 (c.23)

  67

  Registration Act 1617 (c.16)

  Registration Act 1661 (c.243)

  Registration Act 1693 (c.24)

  Registration Act 1696 (c.41)

  Reversion Act 1469 (c.3)

  Royal Burghs Act 1487 (c. 17)

  Royal Mines Act 1424 (c.13)

  Runrig Lands Act 1695 (c.36)

  Sovereignty Act 1584 (c.2)

  Sovereignty Act 1606 (c.1)

  Sovereignty Act 1633 (c.3)

  Teinds Act 1690 (c.63)

  Theft Act 1607 (c.6)

  Tolls Act 1587 (c.37)

  Udal Tendure Act 1690 (c.61)

  Union with England Act 1707 (c.7)

  Unlawful Jurisdictions Act 1584 (c.4)

  Writs Act 1672 (c.16)

  Salmon Fishing
  Sir Cranley Onslow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what representations he has received from the Scottish district salmon fishery boards for the restriction of the salmon netting season in Scotland following the publication of the Salmon Advisory Committee report of the timing of salmon runs. [1974]

  Mr. Raymond S. Robertson
  I have made one order to implement a two-and-a-half month reduction in the netting season from the River Eachaig district salmon fishery board, and an application for a reduction in the season for the River Dee (Aberdeenshire) district is under consideration. Scottish district salmon fishery boards can also arrange for reductions in net fishing effort in their districts by other means without my intervention, and many have done so in the past 10 years.

  Communication Autistic Spectrum Disorders
  Mr. Hain
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many children of school age there are with communication autistic spectrum disorders; and how many places there are in schools appropriate for their needs. [2709]

  Mr. Raymond S. Robertson
  The information requested is not held centrally.

  Al (Haddington-Dunbar)
  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the target date for the completion of the Haddington and Dunbar section of the Al dual carriageway. [3664]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  In his announcement on 15 June of the programme for developing Scotland's trunk road network, my right hon. Friend announced that, subject to the usual criteria including satisfactory completion of the statutory procedures and the necessary preparatory work, it is intended to start work on this section of the A1 dualling by March 1998. The subsequent construction period is expected to be approximately two years.
  68
  The Department plans to publish revised draft road orders early next year to re-test public reaction to the scheme and the design revisions which have been adopted following earlier publication of the proposals. Subsequent progress will be dependent on the reaction of the public to the revised proposals.

  Roads Programme
  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on his Department's road construction programme following the Chancellor's financial statement.[3665]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  My right hon. Friend will make an announcement on the roads programme for the next three years after he has set out his new expenditure plans for the Scottish Office.

  Hairmyres Hospitals
  Mr. Ingram
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will give details of the time scale and funding arrangements for the proposed new build hospital facility at Hairmyres.[3843]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The Hairmyres and Stonehouse Hospitals NHS trust is currently seeking a private sector partner to design and build a new hospital at Hairmyres, East Kilbride. The Scottish Office Department of Health expects to received a full business case from the trust in the spring on 1996. Subject to approval, final contractual and planning issues will be completed in 1996 with a start on site scheduled for early 1997.

  Ministerial Transport, London
  Mr. McShane
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many times in the last year he has used(a) London Buses and (b) London Underground while on official business.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  [holding answer 24 November 1995]: None.

  Unitary Councils
  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list the guidance circulars issued by his Department to the new unitary councils. [1739]

  Mr. Kynoch
  [holding answer 23 November 1995]: Circulars issued by the Scottish Office to the new unitary councils have included the following:
  Local Government, Finance, CCT, Staff, Properly etc Finance Circular No. 15/95: Distribution of Grant to Shadow Authorities SOEnvD Circular No. 11/95: Local Authorities (Allowances) (Scotland) Regulations 1995 Finance Circular No. 16/95: Preparation of Notional Budgets Circular Letter: Distribution of Grant to Shadow Councils Circular Letter: The Local Authorities (Staff Transfer) (Scotland) Order 1995 SoEnD Circular No. 13/95: Outlining in detail the provisions of the Statutory Instrument suspending Compulsory Competitive Tendering during local government reorganisation.Finance Circular No. 19/95: Illustrative Grant Aided Expenditure Assessments (GAEs) for 1995-–96.69 circular Letter: The Local Government (Transitional Provisions) (Scotland) Order 1995 Circular Letter: The Local Government (Relevant Date) (Scotland) Order 1995 Circular Letter covering decentralisation guidance Circular Letter: Announcement of Publication of "Green Book" (Illustrative GAEs)Finance Circular No. 20/95: Notional Budgets Circular Letter: The Local Authorities (Property Transfer) (Scotland) Order 1995 and The Local Authorities Property Commission (Scotland) Order 1995.Circular Letter: The Valuation Joint Boards (Scotland) Order 1995 Circular Letter (issued by Scottish Office Pensions Agency): The Local Government (Compensation for Reduction of Remuneration on Re-organisation) (Scotland) Regulations 1995 Finance Circular No. 22/95: Mismatch Problem Transitional Schemes Circular Letter: CCT and Local Government Reorganisation in Scotland Housing Circular: Housing Management Compulsory Competitive Tendering—Arrangements for Tenant Involvement and Consultation.Circular: List of Housing Circulars in force at 31 October 1995.Circular: A Baseline Study of Housing Management in Scotland Planning SOEnD Circular No. 15/95: The Town and Country Planning (Demolition Which is Not Development) (Scotland) Direction 1994.SOEnD Circular No. 18/95 Planning and Compensation Act 1991: Simplified Planning Zones Roads etc.,"Competing for Better Roads"–response to the consultation paper Laying of Records (Transitional Powers) (Scotland) Order 1995 The Roads (Transitional Powers) (Scotland) Order 1995 Circular Letter: Provision for routine and winter maintenance on the trunk road network (from 1 April 1996)Education etc.Circular No. 5/95: Local Government Etc. (Scotland) Act 1994: Local Government Reorganisation—Guidance on Education Provisions Circular No. 6/95: Local Government Etc. (Scotland) Act 1994: Guidance to New Authorities on their responsibilities for Community Education.Circular on provision of cultural and library services Industry Circular concerning notification of Local Authorities State Aids Circular on the implementation arrangements of new urban regeneration policy arrangements under the programme "Policy for Partnership"Social Work SWSG 8/95: Cancellation of obsolete and superseded circulars SWSG 2/95: Local Government Etc., (Scotland) Act 1994—(Section 45) Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 (Section 3)—Chief Social Work Officers: Responsibilities, Appointments and Qualifications SWSG 9/95: Community Service for Offenders: Revised National Objectives and Standards SWSG 10/95: Local Government Reorganisation and Social Work Services SWSG 11/95: The Adoption (Designation of Overseas Adoptions) (Variation) (Scotland) Order 1995 70 SWSG 12/95: Criminal Justice Social Work Services: Options for Management and Organisation Arrangements (Shared Services)SWSG 13/95: Community Care: National Assistance (Assessment of Resources) Amendment Regulations 1995: Regulations and Guidance SWSG 14/95: Criminal Justice Social Work Services: Standard requirements in Supervised Release Orders SWSG 15/95: Local Government Etc. (Scotland) Act 1994: Children's Hearing System SWSG 16/95: Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1995: Commencement of Supervised Attendance Order Provisions SWSG 17/95: Children (Scotland) Act 1995: Commencement Order No.1SWSG 18/95: Children (Scotland) Act 1995: Implementation Plan Police Circular covering the issue of a new guidance booklet for members of the new police authorities.

  Private Nursing Homes
  Mr. Hood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he last met representatives of Scottish private nursing homes; what subjects were discussed; and who attended. [2956]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  [holding answer 28 November 1995]: On 25 September 1995, my right hon. Friend met Mr. John Shearer, chairman of Lanarkshire Nursing Homes Association, and Mr. Neil Cameron, a residential care home proprietor, to discuss community care issues.

WALES

  Unemployment
  Dr. Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the current level of unemployment in Wales. [1872]

  Mr. Richards
  In October 1995, the seasonally adjusted number of people on the claimant unemployment count in Wales was 106,600.

  Welsh Development Agency
  Mr. Donald Anderson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he next proposes to meet the chairman of the Welsh Development Agency to discuss its financing. [1873]

  Mr. Hague
  I regularly meet the chairman of the Welsh Development Agency to discuss a wide range of issues.

  Mr. Denzil Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he last met the board of the Welsh Development Agency to discuss its budget cost. [1875]

  Mr. Hague
  I met the board of the Welsh Development Agency in October to discuss a range of issues.

  National Health Service (Costs)
  Mr. Whittingdale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the total cost of health care provided by the NHS in Wales; and what was the comparable figure in 1979. [1874]

  Mr. Richards
  Planned expenditure on the NHS in Wales in 1995–96 is £2,191 million compared with expenditure of £466 million in 1979–80.

  Inward Investment
  Mr. Congdon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the total value of inward investment into Wales since the signing of the Maastricht treaty. [1876]

  Mr. Hague
  The forecast value of inward investment into Wales since February 1992 is £3.2 billion with 23,000 associated new jobs and almost 22,000 safeguarded jobs.

  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement about inward investment in Wales. [1881]

  Mr. Hague
  Inward Investment in Wales has made and continues to make a major contribution to the diversification of the industrial base and to the well-being of the economy.

  Business Advice and Support
  Mr. Robert G. Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what steps have been taken to improve the advice and support available to the business community in Wales from governmental organisations. [1877]

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  In November, the Department's small firms roadshow completed a tour of Wales. A mobile unit visited many industrial estates and business centres throughout the Principality. It was attended by advisers from the Welsh Office, the Welsh Development Agency, the Development Board for Rural Wales, the training and enterprise councils and other local business support bodies. It gave a shop window on business support to local business people and enabled the business community to air its views and have access to the support available. The roadshow provided advice to some 820 small and medium-sized firms in Wales.

  The roadshow precedes the launch, on 15 January 1996, of "Business Connect Wales". This new initiative will greatly simplify access to publicly funded business support services throughout Wales. One low-cost telephone number will connect callers to the full range of services. Callers will be automatically switched to one of 34 outlets at which trained staff will either deal with the inquiry direct or refer to the source of expertise.

  Further Education
  Mr. Gamier
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what increase there has been in enrolments on further education courses in Wales from 1979–80 to 1994–95.[1878]

  Mr. Richards
  The number of student enrolments on further education courses in Wales for the 1979–80 academic year was 62,207 compared with a provisional figure of 105,994 in 1994–95. This is an increase of nearly 44,000 or 70 per cent.

  Assisted Places Scheme
  Mr. Duncan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what plans he has to expand the number of places in the assisted places scheme in Wales. [1879]

  Mr. Richards
  I refer my hon. Friend to the reply given by my right hon. Friend to the hon. Member for Conwy (Sir W. Roberts) on 29 November,Official Report, columns 757–58.

  Mr. Hanson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what discussions he intends to undertake with representatives of parent-teacher organisations following the Prime Minister's recent announcement of the enlargement of the assisted places scheme. [1880]

  Mr. Richards
  My right hon. Friend and I will consider carefully all points made to us about our proposal to double the number of places available under the assisted places scheme in Wales.

  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement about inward investment in Wales. [1881]

  Mr. Hague
  Inward Investment in Wales has made and continues to make a major contribution to the diversification of the industrial base and to the well-being of the economy.

  Fluoridation
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make it his policy to require Welsh Water plc to fluoridate drinking water supplies. [1882]

  Mr. Hague
  I support the principle of fluoridation but I do not have the statutory power to require Welsh Water to fluoridate drinking water supplies.

  Cancer
  Mr. Merchant
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what progress has been made in the treatment of cancer in Wales. [1883]

  Mr. Richards
  In response to the report on cancer services from the chief medical officers of England and Wales we have commissioned a review of existing services throughout the Principality which will recommend how the necessary improvements identified in the report can be implemented to bring about better quality of care to patients.

  Work is being undertaken in parallel in the NHS in Wales to establish the right local framework to facilitate progress. We expect to receive a report by September 1996 which will include recommendations on links between the providers of treatment and care, clinical standards and targets and the contribution which can be made to research in this field.

  Parliamentary Accountability
  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what proposals he has for the improvement in parliamentary accountability and scrutiny of his Department's affairs; and if he will make a statement. [1884]
  73
  Mr. Hague
  I refer the hon. Member to the statement I made on 30 November on proposed changes to procedures in the Welsh Grand Committee,Official Report, columns 1353– 55.

  Block Grant
  Mr. Alan W. Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the block grant settlement for expenditure by the Welsh Office in 1996–97; and what percentage change this represents on planned expenditure in 1995–96. [1885]

  Mr. Hague
  In 1996–97 the provision for the Welsh Office will be £6,865 million, including the proceeds of the sale of the Housing for Wales loan portfolio. This represents a 1.4 per cent. increase over the original planned expenditure for 1995–96 and 2.2 per cent. higher than the forecast outturn.

  Community Forests
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is his policy on community forests. [2656]

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  The Government are committed to the expansion of forests close to where people live, with benefits for local communities. We have introduced a range of measures to achieve this aim. The woodland grant scheme offers a community woodland supplement to encourage the creation of new woodlands close to towns and villages, and an annual management grant which can contribute towards the cost of providing public access in existing woodlands. We recently announced a new woodland improvement grant project to encourage owners to provide new facilities for informal public recreation in existing woodlands and a locational supplement for planting in the Aman Gwendraeth community forest project area in south Wales. In addition, the Welsh Valleys initiative encourages local people to make full use of the Forestry Commission's forests through community involvement.

  Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what assessment his Department has made of the probability of BSE entering the human food chain. [2659]

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith) on 28 November 1995,Official Report, columns 530–31, by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The Welsh Office has issued the draft regulations for consultation in Wales.

  School Funding
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the planned expenditure in the schools service in Wales for the year 1996–97; and if he will make a statement.[2924]

  Mr. Richards
  It is for individual local authorities to determine how the resources that are made available are allocated between services, including education, in the 74
  light of their statutory responsibilities and their perception of local needs and priorities.

  Pedestrian Crossings
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many pedestrians have been killed at pedestrian crossings in the past five years, and if he will make a statement. [2922]

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  The number of pedestrians recorded by the police as having been killed in road accidents at pedestrian crossings in Wales between 1990 and 1994 are as follows. These figures exclude those killed while waiting to cross or while crossing near to but not actually on the crossing.

  Year

  Number killed

  1990

  1

  1991

  3

  1992

  3

  1993

  0

  1994

  3

  Domiciliary Care
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what monitoring his Department has undertaken of public and domiciliary care; and if he will make a statement. [2926]

  Mr. Richards
  The Welsh Office collects the following information form local authorities:
  care arrangements, including those for domiciliary care, made each quarter following assessments of individuals' needs;the number of people receiving different types of care arranged by the local authorities at 31 March each year;local authority annual budgets and expenditure for home care arrangements and annual expenditure on private and voluntary non-residential care.
  From 1995–96, information will also be collected annually on the volumes of domiciliary care provided directly by local authorities and arranged by them with the independent, private and voluntary, sector.

  Figures on privately arranged domiciliary care are not collected centrally.

  Private Finance Initiative
  Sir Wyn Roberts
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what progress has been made with the private finance initiative in Wales: and if he will make a statement. [3486]

  Mr. Hague
  Good progress is being made. Twenty-five projects, with a combined capital value of some £1 billion are being examined at the moment with a view to taking them forward under the initiative. I estimate that £360 million of private finance will be generated by the PFI in Wales over the next three years.

  Chemical Bank
  Mr. Jon Owen Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will recover the grants paid to Chemical bank following its decision to close its branch in Wales. [3681]

  Mr. Hague
  Discussions with companies are commercial in confidence and I cannot comment on particular cases. However, all offers of regional selective assistance contain clawback provisions which are deployed where appropriate.

  WDA Funding
  Mr. Ainger
  to ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he expects the Welsh Development Agency to make its contribution to Leader and 5b projects in west Wales. [3738]

  Mr. Hague
  This is an operational matter for the agency. I have asked the chief executive to write to the hon. Member and will arrange for a copy of his letter to be placed in the Library of the House.

  Votes cast

  Authority

  Type of school

  Number of ballots

  For grant-maintained status

  Against grant-maintained status

  Percentage of schools holding ballots1

  Primary

  5

  598

  735

  2.1

  Clwyd

  Secondary

  28

  4,074

  2,104

  21.9

  Primary

  1

  27

  155

  0.3

  Dyfed

  Secondary

  1

  37

  426

  3.2

  Primary

  1

  151

  44

  0.5

  Gwent

  Secondary

  26

  2,432

  1,699

  15.2

  Primary

  1

  195

  48

  0.5

  Gwynedd

  Secondary

  1

  84

  311

  4.3

  Primary

  1

  26

  2

  0.3

  Mid Glamorgan

  Secondary

  0

  0

  0

  —

  Primary

  1

  36

  12

  1.0

  Powys

  Secondary

  1

  209

  499

  7.7

  Primary

  2

  122

  273

  1.3

  South Glamorgan

  Secondary

  25

  1,687

  1,560

  15.4

  Primary

  0

  0

  0

  —

  West Glamorgan

  Secondary

  4

  1,771

  3,053

  14.8

  Primary

  12

  1,155

  1,269

  0.7

  Wales

  Secondary

  26

  10,294

  9,652

  10.1

  1 These figures represent the number of schools holding a grant-maintained ballot since the Education Reform Act 1988 as a percentage of LEA maintained and grant-maintained schools existing at September 1995.

  2 These figures include schools which have held more than one ballot.

  Autism
  Mr. Hain
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many children of school age there are with communication autistic spectrum disorders; and how many places there are in schools appropriate to their needs. [2711]

  Mr. Richards
  According to returns made by schools to the January 1995 schools census, 240 pupils in Wales had statements of special educational needs in which autism was identified as the major need. All these pupils were in maintained schools: 146 were in special schools, 79 were in primary schools, 14 were in secondary schools and one was in a nursery school.

  Shorthold Tenancies
  Mr. Dafis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make it his policy to require landlords to issue a specific prior notice concerning shorthold tenancies; and if he will make a statement. [3388]

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  The consultation paper "The Legislative Framework for Private Renting", issued in July, outlined proposals to change current notification arrangements for shorthold tenancies. My right hon. Friend and I are currently considering the responses.

  Grant-maintained Schools
  Mr. Dafis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will for each county and for Wales as a whole the total number of ballots held in(a) primary schools, (b) secondary schools and (c) in total to determine whether grant-maintained status should be adopted, indicating the numbers of votes cast for and against the proposals; and what percentage of schools held such ballots in each case. [1855]

  Mr. Richards
  The information is as follows:

  Staffing
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the latest number of staff employed for each civil service grade by his office, indicating the percentage who are Welsh speaking where this is known. [2067]

  Mr. Hague
  The information is as follows:

  Grade

  Number of people

  Percentage who have notified they have some ability in the use of Welsh

  G1

  1

  —

  G2s and equivalents

  2

  50

  G3s and equivalents

  11

  9

  G4s and equivalents

  6

  33

  77

  Grade

  Number of people

  Percentage who have notified they have some ability in the use of Welsh

  G5s and equivalents

  48

  15

  G6s and equivalents

  29

  10

  G7s and equivalents

  159

  16

  SEOs and equivalents

  139

  24

  HEOs and equivalents

  312

  17

  EOs and equivalents

  488

  17

  AOs and equivalents

  570

  16

  AAs and equivalents

  457

  8

  Industrial and museum support grades

  120

  13

  Measles and Rubella Immunisation
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the monitoring and aftercare support programme established in conjunction with the vaccination campaign instituted in November last year against measles and rubella, covering(a) Blaenau Gwent and (b) Wales. [2766]

  Mr. Richards
  I am content that there is a well-established satisfactory system in place, covering the United Kingdom as a whole, to monitor adverse reactions to all medicines, including vaccines. Aftercare support, following vaccination, would be a matter for the clinical judgment of an individual patient's practitioner.

  European Funding
  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) how much matching funding the Welsh Development Agency is committing to Leader and 5b projects in Wales this year; and if he will list those projects; [3739]

  (2) if he will list those Leader and 5b projects that have received official approval by his Department this financial year; how much each will receive from the EU and from each of the partners involved on the projects; and how many jobs will be supported or created in each project; [3737]

  (3) if he will list the Leader and 5b projects the Welsh Development Agency contributed to in each of the last two financial years; how much each received; how many jobs were supported or created; and what was the contribution from other partners on the projects; [3736]

  (4) how much the Welsh Development Agency contributed to Leader and 5b projects in each of the last two financial years. [3732]

  Mr. Hague
  I will write to the hon. Member and place a copy of my reply in the Library of the House.

  Breast Cancer Mortality
  Mrs. Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what research he has initiated to examine the reasons for the higher rates of mortality from breast cancer in Wales relative to the rest of the United Kingdom. [4003]

  Mr. Richards
  Whilst a number of factors influence the mortality rate from breast cancer, the higher rate in Wales may partly be a reflection of its higher incidence in Wales. The Government's priorities in this area have 78
  been directed at achieving a reduction in the overall mortality rate from this disease, through improved diagnosis and treatment.

  European Education Programmes
  Mr. Win Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the organisations which bid for the provision of the advisory and information service for further and higher education establishments in Wales on European matters, when put out to tender by the Welsh Office; how many had knowledge and experience of further and higher education in Wales and the activities relevant to this field in the European Union; how many had the support of organisations representing and involved in the relevant activity areas in Wales and the European Union; and what considerations led to the selection of Euclid of Liverpool for this contract. [3945]

  Mr. Richards
  The following seven organisations tendered for the provision of services for European education programmes in Wales:
  City college, Manchester and Cardiff institute of higher education—joint tender Cynefin Environmental Euclid Friarsgrove Management Services Ltd.Gwent Tertiary college Penzer Allen Ltd.Welsh joint education committee.
  All tenderers expressed knowledge and experience of the further and higher education sectors in Wales, and activities relevant to the European Union.

  One tenderer declared expressions of support for its tender by other organisations.

  The contract was awarded to Euclid because its tender met the specification at the lowest price.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Iran
  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what were the observations of the European Union observers at the trial of those accused of murdering the Christian leaders, Rev. Tateos Michaelian and Rev. Mehdi Dibaj in Iran. [1996]

  Mr. Hanley
  A representative of the European Union presidency attended two of the four sessions of the trial. No formal observations have been issued. But despite the fact that the trial was held in public, it is not possible to say that justice was done. We are concerned that certain aspects of the procedure did not conform to generally accepted international standards. Examples are the publicity given to the apparent confessions made by the accused before the trial, and the impression that it was stage-managed.

  Nevertheless, the holding of a public trial is a welcome development in itself and we shall continue to stress the importance of public trials and of due process.
  79
  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what action Her Majesty's Government are taking to press the Iranian Government to allow the free sale and distribution of bibles and to put an end to the forced closures of churches. [1998]

  Mr. Hanley
  Following the hon. Member's question on the Bible Society on 10 January 1995,Official Report, columns 60–61, we raised the matter with our European Union partners. As a result, one partner pressed the Iranian Government to clarify their position: no substantive response has been forthcoming. In March 1995 the European Union sponsored a tough resolution on human rights in Iran, adopted by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which reflected the criticisms of the then UN special representative, Mr. Galindo Pohl. Mr. Pohl referred to the Bible Society's predicament in his final 1995 report.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what action Her Majesty's Government are taking to press for the Government of Iran to allow an independent investigation into the murders of Bishop Haik Hovsepian Mehr, Rev. Tateos Michaelian and Rev. Mehdi Dibaj by the United Nations human rights rapporteurs. [1997]

  Mr. Hanley
  We fully support the involvement of UN special representatives in investigating the human rights situation in Iran. We and our European partners co-sponsored resolutions on human rights in Iran adopted at the General Assembly in December 2994 and by the Committee on Human Rights in March 1995. They called on Iran to co-operate with the UN special representative and to carry out a thorough and impartial investigation into the deaths of the three pastors.

  Saudi Arabia
  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what measures Her Majesty's Government are taking to link the United Kingdom's trade and defence policies with Saudi Arabia's performance in the area of respect for religious liberty; and if he will make a statement. [2000]

  Mr. Hanley
  The practice of any form of religious other than Islam in Saudi Arabia is prohibited by law. Her Majesty's Government have no plans to link the UK's trade and defence policies with Saudi Arabia's performance in the area of respect for religious liberty. But the Saudi Government are well aware of our views on freedom of thought, conscience and religion and on the importance of inter-faith dialogue.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what action Her Majesty's Government are taking to encourage the Government of Saudi Arabia to permit(a) Christian worship, (b) the building of churches and (c) the free sale and distribution of bibles in that country; and if he will make a statement. [1999]

  Mr. Hanley
  The practice of any form of religion other than Islam in Saudi Arabia is prohibited by law. The Saudi authorities are aware of our views on the importance of the freedoms enshrined in the universal declaration of human rights, including the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

  Executive Agencies (Overseas Travel)
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list for each of his executive agencies for the last financial year in respect of overseas travel(a) the cost, (b) the countries visited and (c) the posts held by the staff involved. [2323]

  Mr. Hanley
  The FCO—diplomatic wing and ODA—has two executive agencies, Wilton Park and the Natural Resources Institute.

  The details requested of overseas travel in financial year 1994–95 for Wilton Park were as follows:

  (a) Cost: £19,472 total.

  (b) Countries visited: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Italy, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, USA.

  (c) Posts of staff involved: the Director of Wilton Park, and four Associate Directors.

  The chief executive of the Natural Resources Institute has written to the hon. Gentleman with the information requested in respect of that executive agency. The lists mentioned in his letter have been deposited in the Library of the House.

  Letter from Anthony Beattie to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 29 November 1995:
  In your question addressed to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs you asked for information about travel undertaken by the staff of executive agencies. It has been agreed that I should provide this information in respect of NRI.I am enclosing lists of all visits undertaken by NRI staff during 1994–95, with details of countries visited, the grade of the person visiting, dates and costs. You will see that these visits fall into two broad categories: those which are project funded and those which are funded from running costs.The majority of visits (accounting for £1.670 million out of total visits expenditure of £1.872 million) fall into the former category. They are undertaken by members of the Institute's scientific and professional staff (staff grades are shown on the list) in connection with projects, programmes, and other assignments on behalf of the Overseas Development Administration and other clients.Visits funded from running costs are mainly in connection with marketing and business development (the Institute operates on a commercial basis and these are important aspects of our work), professional development and representation of the Institute in a wide variety of scientific fora. Visits are frequently undertaken for a combination of project- and running-cost-related purposes and these elements have been shown separately in the attached lists.

  European Convention on Human Rights
  Mr. Robert McCartney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make it his policy to propose an amendment to article 2.2 of the European convention on human rights, in respect of the use of force which is no more than absolutely necessary to replace the word "absolutely" with the word "reasonably". [3165]

  Sir Nicholas Bonsor
  The Government do not intend to propose any amendment to article 2 of the European convention on human rights. As my noble Friend the Minister for Overseas Development said in another place on 23 October, the European Court of Human Rights did not find a violation in relation to compatibility of the national law on the use of lethal force article 2 standards.
  81
  Mr. McCartney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information he has on the compliance of the security forces of other signatories to the European convention on human rights with article 2 of that convention. [3166]

  Sir Nicholas Bonsor
  Compliance with the European convention on human rights by other states party to it and their security forces is a matter for them or, when applications raising questions of such compliance are introduced, for the European Commission and Court of Human Rights and the Committee of Ministers, as appropriate.

  International Court of Justice
  Mr. Berry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is his Department's policy in respect of advisory opinions from the International Court of Justice. [2942]

  Sir Nicholas Bonsor
  [holding answer 28 November 1995]: The Government believe that advisory opinions by the International Court of Justice at the request of the UN or a specialised agency can serve a useful purpose when they resolve legal matters on which the requesting organisation requires guidance for its current activities. Advisory opinions of the court are given careful consideration. However, they are not binding either on the requesting organisation or on its member states. The Government's attitude to particular advisory opinions depends on the terms of the opinion and the circumstances of the case.

  BBC World Service
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if the charges for the use of transmission faciltiies by the BBC World Service when transmission is privatised will be paid out of the Foreign Office grant; and what proposals he has to bring forward in respect of specific grant for transmission charges. [3248]

  Mr. Hanley
  The BBC World Service's costs will continue to be paid by grant in aid after privatisation of the BBC's transmission services. I have no proposals for a specific grant for transmission charges.

  Mr. Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if the BBC World Service would be allowed to hire foreign transmission facilities if these were cheaper than its own transmission facilities following privatisation. [3242]

  Mr. Hanley
  The BBC World Service already hires foreign transmission facilities where they fit in with its delivery plans, which are a matter for the World Service.

  Iraqi Marshlands
  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on evidence obtained by his Department from the Western European Union satellite centre about the effects of the construction of the Euphrates barrage in southern Iraq in 1993; what percentage of the Al Amarah and Hawr al Hammar marshes have been drained; and what assessment he has made of the impact of the draining those marshes on the population of that area. [3260]
  82
  Mr. Hanley
  Although we cannot estimate the precise extent to which the marshlands have been drained, satellite and other imagery of southern Iraq points to a severe reduction of the Amarah and Hammar marshes. This repressive policy has enabled Iraq to control the local population by driving them from the marshes, upon which they rely for their livelihood, into impoverished conditions in cities.

  Visa Applications (Turkey)
  Mrs. Ann Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is the average waiting time between the receipt of a decision to grant a visitor's visa to a visitor from Turkey and the visa being obtained by a visitor. [3694]

  Mr. Hanley
  In Istanbul, once a decision has been made to issue a visitor's visa the visa may be collected the same afternoon, provided the application was received before 11 am. Those received after 11 am may be collected the following working day.

  In Ankara, once a decision has been made to issue a visitor's visa, the visa may be collected within 24 hours.

  Mrs. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is the average waiting time for an interview for a visitor's visa for a visitor from Turkey. [3693]

  Mr. Hanley
  The longest waiting time for an interview in Istanbul in 1994 was 20 working days and in Ankara in 1994 was two working days.

  Records for average waiting times are not kept.

  Former Soviet Union
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list all independent states with a population of 3 million or less, ranked in order of population and indicating for the latest available date(a) population, (b) gross domestic product or gross national product per head in sterling and (c) area. [2068]

  Sir Nicholas Bonsor
  No independent state of the former Soviet Union has a population of 3 million or less.

  We do not consider that the Baltic states, which regained their independence in 1991, are part of the former Soviet Union. We never recognised de jure their incorporation into the Soviet Union. Two Baltic states have a population of less than 3 million.

  Estonia

  Latvia

  (a) Population

  1.5 million

  2.56 million

  (b) Per capita GDP

  $1,100

  $1,600

  (b) Area

  45,200 km2

  64,600 km2

  United Nations
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will publish a list of all countries that have been members of the United Nations since 1965 indicating, where appropriate, the date on which they gained independence. [2069]
  83
  Sir Nicholas Bonsor
  The list of states that have become members of the United Nations since 1965 can be found in the "United Nations Handbook 1995" edited by the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. This book is available in the House of Commons Library.

  Turkey (Legionnaire's Disease)
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when notification was first received about an outbreak of legionnaire's disease in Kusadasi, Turkey. [3275]

  Mr. Hanley
  On 17 August 1995, when the Department of Health asked our consular officials to notify the Turkish authorities that there may be a link between visitors to Kusadasi and the reported cases of legionnaire's disease.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions have been held with Turkish officials about the safety of United Kingdom travellers to Kusadasi. [3276]

  Mr. Hanley
  Our consular officials alerted the provincial and local health authorities, the provincial governor's office, a local hospital, and the Hotel Imbat to the possibility of the hotel being linked to an outbreak of legionnaire's disease.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what estimate he has made of the number of United Kingdom nationals visiting(a) Kusadasi and (b) the Hotel Imbat between May and October 1995. [3277]

  Mr. Hanley
  Based on figures from the provincial tourist authority in Turkey and the Hotel Imbat, we estimate(a) some 21,000 British nationals visited Kusadasi, and (b) some 4,230 British nationals stayed at the Hotel Imbat between May and October 1995.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what estimate he has made of the number of United Kingdom nationals visiting(a) Kusadasi and (b) the Hotel Imbat since official notification of legionnaire's disease. [3278]

  Mr. Hanley
  Based on figures from the provincial tourist authority in Turkey and the Hotel Imbat, we estimate(a) some 8,750 British nationals visited Kusadasi, and (b) some 1,250 British nationals stayed at the Hotel Imbat after the possible link was made between the resort and the reported cases of legionnaire's disease.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what advice was issued to British persons located in(a) the Hotel Imbat and (b) Kusadasi when the outbreak of legionnaire's disease was formerly notified. [3358]

  Mr. Hanley
  In late September the Hotel Imbat told British tour companies and their clients that the hotel was a possible source of legionnaire's disease. British tourists were transferred to other hotels.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what advice was issued to British persons planning to travel to(a) the Hotel Imbat and (b) Kusadasi following formal notification of legionnaire's disease. [3359]
  84
  Mr. Hanley
  The Department of Health issued advice to public health doctors about the possibility of a link between the hotel and the reported cases of legionnaire's disease. It also wrote to the Federation of Tour Operators and to the Association of British Travel Agents advising them of the situation.

  Budget
  Ms Quin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement about the implications for his Department of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's financial statement. [3700]

  Mr. Hanley
  The Foreign and Commonwealth Office will respond imaginatively to the challenge of maintaining the front-line effort through demanding efficiency targets, and use of the private finance initiative.

  With 21 new posts opened since 1990, the United Kingdom has diplomatic relations with a record high number of countries. The effort to promote exports and investment has been considerably enhanced in recent years and remains a high priority. The British Council and BBC World Service will continue to make an outstanding contribution to the overall UK diplomatic effort.

  The UK's aid programme will remain the fifth largest in the world. Its overriding priority will continue to be poverty reduction through sustainable development, focused on the poorest countries in Africa and Asia.

  Committee of the Regions
  Mr. Berry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs which councillors appointed by him to the Committee of the Regions are no longer elected members of local authorities; and what plans he has to request them to stand down from the committee. [3844]

  Mr. David Davis
  Two of the full UK members appointed to the Committee of the Regions in 1993 and six of the alternate members are no longer elected members of local authorities. The full members are:

  Dame Elizabeth Anson

  Roy Cross (who has since resigned from the committee)

  The alternate members are:

  Doreen Fleming OBE

  Bill Hughes

  Marcus Humphrey

  Frazer Mitchell

  Tony Prior

  Hedley Salt.

  Since losing his seat in the 1994 local elections, Marcus Humphrey has gained a seat on the new Aberdeen council, representing the mid-Deeside ward, which will come into being in April 1996.

  The European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993, which implemented the Maastricht treaty, states that UK members of the Committee of the Regions must be elected members of a local authority
  "at the time of the proposal of their membership".
  Nothing therefore requires committee members who lose their local authority seats to resign.
  85
  Article 198a of the treaty of European Union states that Committee of the Regions members should be
  "completely independent in the performance of their duties".
  The Government have no intention therefore of imposing their views on the committee, or its members.

  Aral Sea
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on Her Majesty's Government's response to Kazakhstan's request for technical help in relation to the Aral sea. [3089]

  Mr. Hanley
  [holding answer 28 November 1995]: The British Government have committed £500,000 to the World bank's programme for the rehabilitation of the Aral sea. Using funds from the know-how fund for the former Soviet Union, we are providing expertise to enhance Kazakhstan's environmental monitoring capabilities and to investigate climate changes and the geology of the region.

  Retrospective Service Awards
  Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the Australian and Canadian Governments' approval of retrospective awards of a special service medal for prescribed peacekeeping and non-warlike operations for the period 1945 to 1975; and what plans Her Majesty's Government have to issue a similar medal for Her Majesty's forces. [3240]

  Mr. Soames
  The decision of a Commonwealth Government to institute retrospectively the award of a medal for any service operation, and any approval which Her Majesty the Queen may have given as Queen of that Commonwealth country, is the sole responsibility of the country concerned. It has been a long-standing policy of successive British Governments not to consider the belated institution of medals and awards, and we therefore have no plans to introduce any medals for the period 1945 to 1975 additional to those already approved.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL

  Crown Prosecution Service (Discontinued Cases)
  Mr. Whittingdale
  To ask the Attorney-General what proportion of cases are discounted by the Crown Prosecution Service, and if he will make a statement. [1893]

  The Solicitor-General
  The rate of discontinuance has fallen from 13.4 per cent. of cases for the year ending September 1993 to 11.9 per cent. of cases for the year ending September 1995.

  Court of Appeal (Referrals)
  Mr. Spring
  To ask the Attorney-General how many cases he has sought leave to refer to the Court of Appeal on grounds of unduly lenient sentencing since 1 January 1995. [1894]

  The Attorney-General
  Since 1 January 1995, I have referred 68 cases in England and Wales and four in Northern Ireland. One has been withdrawn, twenty-four 86
  have so far been heard by the Court of Appeals of which 22, or 92 per cent., have resulted in an increase in sentence.

  Serious Fraud Office
  Mr. Carrington
  To ask the Attorney-General what is the current case load of the Serious Fraud Office. [1895]

  The Solicitor-General
  The current case load of the Serious Fraud Office is 63 cases, excluding appeals. In addition to its domestic case load, the SFO is increasingly being called upon to assist overseas investigators.

  Departmental Staff
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Attorney-General how many staff work in his Office; at what cost to the public funds; and if he will make a statement. [2169]

  The Attorney-General
  Twenty-six staff are employed in the legal secretariat to the Law Officers. The total staff costs for the financial year 1994–95—consisting of salary, allowances, overtime, earnings-related national insurance contributions and superannuation—were £1,040,018. These figures do not include agency staff.

  Lockerbie
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Attorney-General how many staff in his Department are involved in matters related to the Lockerbie crime. [2170]

  The Attorney-General
  Responsibility for the prosecution aspects of the Lockerbie crime lies with the Lord Advocate and his staff in the Crown Office in Edinburgh. Members of my chambers may become involved in the course of their normal duties but only in relation to aspects of the case which have a bearing on my own responsibilities.

  Electro-shock Batons
  Mrs. Clywd
  To ask the Attorney-General if he will make a statement on the progress of the police investigations into the allegations about the production of electro-shock batons. [1887]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  I have been asked to reply, since the question relates to a Scottish police investigation.

  The inquires which are being conducted by Strathclyde police into these allegations are still continuing.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Industrial Injuries Benefit
  Mr. Tipping
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many claims for industrial injuries benefit in respect of chronic bronchitis and emphysema were made in Nottinghamshire up to 31 October; how many were successful and how many were refused; and if he will indicate the grounds for refusal or acceptance. [3022]
  87
  Mr. Roger Evans
  This is a matter for Peter Mathison, the chief executive of the Benefits Agency. He will write to the hon. Member with such information as is available.

  Letter from Peter Mathison to Mr. Paddy Tipping, dated 30 November 1995:
  The Secretary of State for Social Security has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about how many claims for industrial injuries benefit in respect of chronic bronchitis and emphysema were made in Nottinghamshire up to 31 October 1995; how many were successful and how many were refused; indicating the grounds for refusal or acceptance.The information is not available in the format requested. Statistics on the number of claims for Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit are maintained by each Benefits Agency District office. The figures provided in the attached Appendix A are for the main benefit offices in the North, East and West Nottinghamshire areas for the period from 1 April 1995. These include those offices in Nottingham, Mansfield and Sutton in Ashfield. It is possible that these figures will include some people living outside Nottinghamshire.The information in this reply follows on from your earlier Parliamentary Question, on 21 April 1995, in which you were provided with the details to 31 March 1995.I hope you find this reply helpful.

  Appendix A: Claims to IIDB for prescribed disease D12—Chronic Bronchitis and/or emphysema in the Nottinghamshire area for the period 1 April to 31 October 1995

  Number

  Claims made

  127

  Successful claims assessed at 14–19 per cent.

  3

  Successful claims assessed at 20–25 per cent.

  6

  Successful claims assessed at over 25 per cent.

  37

  Disallowed claims—20 year rule

  10

  Disallowed claims—failed FEV test

  71

  Disallowed claims—failed X-Ray test

  59

  Assessed at 1—13 per cent.

  0

  IIDB not payable for assessment under 14 per cent. Note that not all claims received within the period will have been decided by 31 October 1995. Similarly some claims decided in the period will have been made prior to 1 April 1995.

  Figures are provisional and subject to amendment.

  Mr. Peter Sutton
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when the hon. Member for Wakefield will receive a full reply from the finance director of the Benefits Agency to inquiries made by Mr. Peter Sutton, national insurance No. ZS065267D, in the hon. Member's letter to the Benefits Agency, dated 13 September; and for what reasons the response has taken longer than the three weeks indicated in the agency's letter of 6 October and the further two weeks reported in its letter of 2 November. [3352]

  Mr. Heald
  The administration of the national insurance scheme is a matter for Mrs. Faith Boardman, the chief executive of the Contributions Agency. She will write to the hon. Member.

  letter from Faith Boardman to Mr. David Hinchliffe, dated 30 November 1995:
  As Chief Executive of the Contributions Agency, I have responsibility for answering questions about operational matters relating to the Agency and the National Insurance (NI) scheme.I have been asked to reply to your enquiry made on behalf of Mr. Peter Sutton, National Insurance Number ZS065267D, regarding difficulties with his National Insurance affairs.88 When my assistant wrote to you on 2 November 1995 I anticipated being able to provide a full response within the 2 weeks indicated. Due to the issues raised this was not possible but we should have provided a further update. Please accept my apologies for this oversight.I anticipate that all the information will be available to provide a full response within 2 weeks, if I am unable to meet this deadline I will write to you again.

  War Pension Disregards
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many local authorities and London boroughs currently offer(a)full disregard, (b) partial disregard and (c) the statutory £10 disregard of war widows' and war disablement pension for the purpose of council tax benefit and housing benefit. [1660]

  Mr. Roger Evans
  The information is not available in the format requested and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. All local authorities and London boroughs operate the statutory £10 disregard.

  Mr. Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what extra public expenditure he estimates would be entailed in implementing a full nationwide disregard of war widows' and war disablement pensions for the purposes of(a) council tax benefit and (b) housing benefit. [1662]

  Mr. Evans
  The information required to make such an estimate is not available.

  Disability Living Allowance
  Ms Rachel Squire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) what is the average length of time taken to process an appeal against the disallowance of a disability living allowance applications; [2687]

  (2) how many appeals have been lodged following the disallowance of a disability living allowance application since 1 April 1994; and, of these appeals, how many have been upheld. [2688]

  Mr. Andrew Mitchell
  The information is not available in the format requested. However, the average clearance time for appeals considered by disability appeal tribunals, which include disability living allowance appeals, is 30 weeks.

  Between 1 April 1994 and 31 October 1995, 41,800 disability living allowance appeals have been decided and, of these, 26,662 cases the appeal was upheld.

  Ms Squire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many disability living allowance applications have been received since 1 April 1994; and how many of those were disallowed. [2686]

  Mr. Mitchell
  The information is not available in the format requested. The available information is in the table:

  Number

  DLA claims received between 1 April 1994 and 31 October 1995

  747,000

  DLA claims processed between 1 April 1994 and 31 October 1995

  735,000

  Number disallowed between 1 April 1994 and 31 October 1995

  378,000

  Compensation Recovery
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many victims of(a) culpable accidents, (b) illnesses and (c) diseases are now settling for compensation of £2,500 or less; and what assessment he has made of the relationship between the number settling at this level and the rules of the compensation recovery unit. [2902]

  Mr. Andrew Mitchell
  Settlements at or under £2,500 are not necessarily notified to the compensation recovery unit. However, the effect of the small payments limit on settlements has been examined as part of a compliance cost assessment of the changes to the compensation recovery scheme proposed by the Social Security Select Committee. The assessment will be published shortly.

  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans he has to raise the limit of £2,500 as the threshold for non-recovery by the compensation recovery unit. [2903]

  Mr. Mitchell
  A consultation document was published in October on the implications of changes to the compensation recovery scheme proposed by the Social Security Select Committee. One issue discussed in the consultation document is the future of the small payments limit of £2,500. The Government are now considering the responses to the consultation exercise, and will announce their decision in due course.

  Funeral Benefit
  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what was the maximum funeral benefit available to claimants or families in receipt of benefits such as income support in(a) 1979, (b) 1985, (c) 1990 and (d) when it was last uprated. [3735]

  Mr. Roger Evans
  In each of these years, the maximum amount payable would have been the reasonable cost of specified essential expenses which fell to be met by the person responsible. There was no set maximum amount. Since 5 June 1995, the social fund funeral payment scheme allows up to £500 for specified funeral directors' services, the payment of reasonable costs for other specified disbursements and up to £25 for flowers. Payments may still exceed £1,000, especially in the case of burials. The £500 and £25 caps will be kept under review.

  Disabled People, Carers and the Long-term Sick
  Mr. Bradley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) what is the projected total annual spending on benefits for disabled people for(a) 1995–96, (b) 1996–97 and (c) 1997–98; and what was the equivalent figure for 1978–79; [3801]

  (2) what is the projected total annual spending on benefits for carers for (a) 1995–96, (b) 1996–97 and (c) 1997–98; and what was the equivalent figure for 1978–79; [3800]
  90
  (3) what is the projected total annual spending on benefits for the long-term sick for (a) 1995–96, (b) 1996–97 and (c) 1997–98; and what was the equivalent figure for 1978–79. [3802]

  Mr. Burt
  Total projected spending on carers is not available as carers have access to the full range of social security benefits, depending on their individual circumstances. The available information is in the table.

  £ million

  1978–79

  1995–96

  1996–97

  1997–98

  Long term sick and disabled

  1,771

  20,230

  20,550

  21,250

  Invalid Care Allowance

  4

  609

  700

  750

  Source:

  1995 Departmental Report and earlier equivalents.

  Departmental Running Costs
  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security for what reasons the forecast of his Department's running costs for 1996–97 has risen from £3,195 million, as set out in table 3.7 of the statistical supplement to the "Financial Statement and Budget Report 1995–96", Cm 2821, published by Her Majesty's Treasury, to £3.5 billion, as set out in chart 6.6 of the "Financial Statement and Budget Report 1996–97". [4057]

  Mr. Burt
  The main reason for the increase is a reclassification of £200 million of other current expenditure as running costs. This does not alter overall DSS current provision. The remaining increase of around £100 million is to cover the implementation of jobseeker's allowance, changes to child support, further anti-fraud measures and increases in work load.

  Personal Pensions
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what estimate he has made of the number of holders of appropriate personal pensions who are contributing only their national insurance rebate; and if he will provide this information by relation to the income of the holder. [2701]

  Mr. Heald
  The information is not available in the format requested.

  Out of a total of 5.6 million appropriate personal pensions in 1993–94, we estimate that some 1.25 million received DSS contributions and associated tax relief only.

  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what estimate he has made of the number of holders of appropriate personal pensions who have rejoined the state earnings-related pension scheme in each of the past five years; and if he will provide this information by relation to the income of the holder. [2702]

  Mr. Heald
  The information up to the end of 1991–92, the latest year for which figures are available, is set out in the table.
  91

  (£pa)

  APPs terminated in

  Reckonable earnings in the year of termination

  1987–

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1991–92

  Total

  All cases

  14.1

  16.2

  9.6

  13.9

  21.2

  75

  Zero

  0.3

  0.1

  0.1

  0.5

  0.9

  1.9

  1 to 4,999

  3.7

  3.9

  1.5

  1.1

  2.2

  12.4

  5,000 to 9,999

  6.4

  6.2

  4.4

  3.6

  6.4

  27

  10,000 to 14,999

  3

  4.7

  1.8

  5.2

  5.6

  20.3

  15,000 and over

  0.7

  1.3

  1.8

  3.5

  6.1

  13.4

  Source:

  1 Per cent sample for the National Insurance Recording System.

  Note:

  1. As the numbers of cases are low the figures are subject to large sampling errors.

  2. The analysis uses reckonable earnings as data on income are not available.

  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many individuals currently(a) contribute towards a state earnings-related pension, (b) do not pay SERPS because they are in an occupational scheme and (c) do not pay SERPS because they are in a personal pension scheme. [2703]

  Mr. Heald
  The information for 1992–93, the latest year for which all the requested data are available, is in the table.

  Millions

  Accruing SERPS entitlement only

  8.3

  In a contracted-out occupational scheme only

  7.7

  Accruing SERPS entitlement only for part of the year, and in a contracted out scheme during another part

  0.8

  In an Appropriate Personal Pension Scheme

  5.7

  Source:

  1 per cent. sample from the National Insurance Recording System.

  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many members of personal pension schemes who have opted out of the state earnings-related pension scheme he estimates will opt back into SERPS over the next five years; and how many have opted back into SERPS. [2704]

  Mr. Heald
  It is not possible to give a firm estimate of the number of people likely to opt out of an appropriate personal pension into the state earnings-related pension scheme, since the decision depends on an individual's particular circumstances. However, the introduction of age-related rebates from April 1997 should enable the majority of appropriate personal pension holders to maintain their arrangements.

  We estimate that some 75,000 United Kingdom appropriate personal pension holders joined SERPS over the five-year period from 1987–88 to 1991–92, the latest year for which figures are available. This may include people who have left their appropriate personal pension and joined SERPS more than once.

  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is his estimate of the number of those taking out personal pensions and who have ceased to pay national insurance rebates to this policy after(a) one year, (b) two years, (c) three years, (d) four years and (e) five years. [2705]
  92
  Mr. Heald
  The information is not available in the format requested and can be obtained only at disproportionate cost. Such information as is available is set out on pages 40 and 41 of "Personal Pension Statistics 1993–94", a copy of which is in the Library.

  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what would be the cost to the national insurance fund of all current holders of an appropriate personal pension with an annual income of(a) £2,000 or below, (b) up to £3,000, (c) up to £4,000, (d) up to £5,000, (e) up to £6,000, (f) up to £7,000, (g) up to £8,000, (h) up to £9,000 and (i) up to £10,000 opting back into SERPS. [2706]

  Mr. Heald
  Information is not available in the format requested. Any estimates of the total cost to the national insurance fund of current holders of appropriate personal pensions opting back into the state earnings-related pension scheme would depend on a number of unknown factors. These include how long the people concerned would remain contracted in to SERPS, how long they would otherwise have contributed to APP schemes and what their future earnings would be. The table gives illustrative estimates of the cost arising, in selected future years, from contributions paid solely in the single year in which the individuals concerned are assumed to contract into SERPS.

  Extra SERPS expenditure in selected years if APP holder in low earnings bands opt back into SERPS for one year

  £ million 1995–96 prices

  APP holders with earning under (£ per annun)

  2010–11

  2020‒21

  2030–31

  2040–41

  2050–51

  2,000

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  3,000

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  4,000

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  5,000

  0

  1

  2

  2

  1

  6,000

  0

  1

  4

  4

  3

  7,000

  1

  3

  10

  10

  5

  8,000

  1

  5

  15

  15

  10

  9,000

  2

  5

  20

  25

  15

  10,000

  2

  10

  30

  35

  20

  1. Little extra cost until 2010 as most APP holders are under age 45.

  2. Estimates of numbers affected based on data for 1993–94, the most recently available, used to estimate proportions of APP holders in respect of people in the earnings bands quoted.

  3. Earnings under £3,000 would not accrue SERPS so no financial effect in respect of that year.

  4. Earnings have been used, as a breakdown by income is not available.

  5. The year in which opting back into SERPS is assumed to take place is 1995–96.

  93
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the total cost to date to the national insurance fund of(a) national insurance rebates, (b) tax relief and (c) other incentives paid in respect of personal pensions contracted out of the state earnings-related pension scheme. [2707]

  Mr. Heald
  The information up to and including 1993–94, the latest year for which audited accounts are available, is set out in the table:

  GB receipts

  £ millions

  Rebates to personal pensions (a)

  9,149

  Tax relief to personal pensions (b)

  1,067

  Incentives to personal pensions (c)

  3,126

  Total (a)+(c)1

  12,275

  Notes:

  1 The cost of tax relief is not a cost to the National Insurance fund as it is continually reimbursed by the Inland Revenue.

  Source: National Insurance Fund Accounts and data from the Contributions Agency

  GB accruals of rebates

  £ millions

  Reckonable earnings less than £pa

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1991ߝ92

  1992–93

  1993–94

  2,000

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  3,000

  4

  4

  2

  2

  0

  0

  0

  4,000

  23

  22

  18

  14

  8

  7

  4

  5,000

  65

  63

  54

  43

  31

  26

  17

  6,000

  127

  127

  120

  95

  74

  60

  43

  7,000

  206

  205

  209

  175

  139

  120

  85

  8,000

  299

  301

  308

  275

  230

  205

  145

  9,000

  397

  399

  420

  394

  338

  306

  224

  10,000

  487

  500

  540

  519

  464

  427

  316

  Notes:

  1. The figures are for accruals of rebate up to and including the year 1993–94. These will normally be paid in the following year.

  2. The analysis uses reckonable earnings as data on income is not available.

  Source:

  One per cent. from the National Insurance Recording System.

  GB accruals of incentives and additions

  £ million

  Reckonable earnings less than £ pa

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1991–92

  1992–93

  1993–94

  2,000

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  3,000

  1

  1

  1

  1

  0

  0

  0

  4,000

  7

  8

  6

  5

  3

  2

  0

  5,000

  20

  21

  18

  15

  10

  9

  2

  6,000

  40

  43

  41

  32

  25

  20

  4

  7,000

  65

  70

  71

  59

  47

  41

  7

  8,000

  94

  102

  105

  93

  78

  70

  12

  9,000

  125

  135

  143

  134

  115

  104

  19

  10,000

  153

  170

  183

  176

  158

  145

  28

  Source:

  1 per cent. sample from the National Insurance Recording System.

  Notes:

  1. The figures are for accruals up to and including the year 1993–94. These will normally be paid in the following year.

  2. The analysis uses reckonable earnings as data on income are not available.

  3. The figures between 1987–88 and 1992–93 refer only to the 2 per cent. incentive. These payments ceased to accrue after 1992–93.The figure for 1993–94 is for the 1 per cent. age-addition only, payable to all appropriate personal pension holders aged 30 and over. This began to accrue from April 1993.

  94
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the cost, in each year until the most recent, to the national insurance fund of(a) national insurance rebates, (b) tax relief and (c) other incentives paid in respect of personal pensions contracted out of the state earnings-related pension scheme of individuals with an annual income of (i) £2,000 or below, (ii) up to £3,000, (iii) up to £4,000, (iv) up to £5,000, (v) up to £6,000, (vi) up to £7,000, (vii) up to £8,000, (viii) up to £9,000 and (ix) up to £10,000. [2708]

  Mr. Heald
  The information up to the end of 1993–94, the latest year for which figures are available, is set out in the tables. Tax relief is not a cost to the national insurance fund as it is continually reimbursed by the Inland Revenue.

  Invalidity and Incapacity Benefits
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many persons were found fit for work following medicals for(a) invalidity benefit and (b) incapacity benefit between (i) 1 April and 30 September and (ii) 1 October and 31 March in each year since 1990; and what studies he is undertaking in order to compare invalidity benefit take-up and benefit suspension with incapacity benefit. [3272]

  Mr. Burt
  The information is not available in the format requested. Such information as is available prior to April 1995 is in the table. Between April and September, 18,898 people have been disallowed under the all work test and 293 people because they are capable of their own occupation. Direct comparisons between incapacity benefit and invalidity benefit are not possible because of the different structure, qualifying conditions and administration of the two benefits.

  The figures for incapacity benefit reflects activity during a time when the take-on of cases has been carefully controlled to match capacity as experience of the new procedures grows. It is not representative and it is too early to draw firm conclusions about the effectiveness of the new procedures.

  A number of studies and research projects are planned to establish the effect of the introduction of incapacity benefit.

  Period

  Number of medical opinions given—capable of own occupation

  Number of medical opinions given—capable of alternative work

  April 1992–September 1992

  19,504

  29,502

  October 1992–March 1993

  18,217

  33,118

  April 1993–September 1993

  12,511

  47,370

  October 1993–March 1994

  9,904

  52,996

  April 1994–September 1994

  8,499

  52,217

  October 1994–March 1995

  8,365

  52,684

  1. Figures for Great Britain prior to 1992 are not available. The figures relate to the number of medical opinions given by the Medical Reference Service that the claimant was capable of work following examination for Sickness Benefit, Invalidity Benefit and Severe Disablement Allowance and not the number of disallowances. Excluded are references where the National Insurance contribution conditions for Sickness/Invalidity Benefit were not satisfied and benefit was payable because the person's incapacity was the result of an accident at work or a prescribed industrial disease.

  2. The decision whether to disallow benefit following a medical opinion was made by an independent adjudication officer.

  Asylum Seekers
  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what benefit provision Her Majesty's Government(a) currently make and (b) intend to make available to disabled applicants for political asylum and those asylum seekers who care for disabled applicants. [3672]
  96
  Mr. Roger Evans
  Disabled asylum applicants, and carers who are themselves asylum applicants, are currently entitled to claim social security benefits, including invalid care allowance, subject to the normal conditions of eligibility. Payment of income support is at the urgent cases rate, which limits the claimant's personal allowance to 90 per cent. of the normal rate. Entitlement to income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit ceases on the abandonment or final negative determination of an asylum application.

  Under proposed changes to these provisions, benefit entitlement would be limited to income support at the urgent cases rate, housing benefit and council tax benefit for people who applied for asylum on entry to the UK.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what percentage of his Department's budget is represented by social security benefits made available to refugees and asylum seekers. [3630]

  Mr. Evans
  Approximately one quarter of 1 per cent. of total benefit expenditure, or £215 million per annum.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what benefit provision Her Majesty's Government intend to make for pregnant women who apply for political asylum during the course of the application with regard to housing, maternal and foetal health and food. [3673]

  Mr. Evans
  The two maternity benefits, statutory maternity pay and maternity allowance, are specifically aimed at pregnant working women and both have qualifying conditions closely related to the woman's recent employment and earnings history. They are therefore not available to women who have newly arrived in this country. This applies whether or not they are asylum seekers and the proposed benefit changes do not affect this position. People from abroad, including pregnant women, who apply for asylum on entry to the UK will remain entitled to claim income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit under currently proposed benefit changes. In addition, an application may be made to the social fund for a maternity payment if the applicant or her partner is in receipt of income support, housing benefit or disability working allowance.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what discussions he has had with his European counterparts about the harmonisation of welfare benefits available for asylum seekers and refugees. [3629]

  Mr. Evans
  My right hon. Friend and his ministerial team have had no such discussions.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) what is the maximum amount of disability benefit that may be claimed by an applicant for political asylum; and what amount is then deducted from the amount paid to the applicant in income support; [3671]

  (2) what is the maximum weekly amount of benefit which may be claimed by applicants for political asylum who are (a) a single mother with one child, (b) a married couple without dependent children and (c) a married couple with two dependent children. [3670]
  97
  Mr. Evans
  Asylum seekers are currently entitled to claim any social security benefit, subject to the normal conditions of eligibility appropriate to each. The weekly amount of benefit paid will depend on which benefits are claimed and on the individual circumstances of the claimant and any partner and dependants.

  Income Support
  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will estimate the current monetary value of the capital thresholds for eligibility for income support; and where these have been indexed if he will give the date they were set at(a) £3,000 and (b) £8,000. [3623]

  Mr. Roger Evans
  The income support capital threshold of £3,000 was introduced in April 1988 and the threshold of £8,000 was introduced in April 1990. Had these limits been indexed in line with prices since their respective dates of introduction, the levels that they would be in 1995–96 are set out in the table:

  Income support capital thresholds indexed by prices

  Levels if indexed since introduction

  Current actual levels in 1995–96 £

  by ROSSI £

  by RPI £

  Lower thresholds 3,000

  4,172

  4,254

  Upper threshold 8,000

  10,101

  9,955

  1. The lower capital limit of £3,000 is indexed from 1988 to 1995–96 and the upper capital limit of £8,000 is indexed from 1990 to 1995–96.

  2. Indexation is based upon the yearly (September) CSO figures for ROSSI and RPI. The September figures are used because annual Social Security benefits uprating in April is based upon the ROSSI and RPI figures of the preceding September.

  3. RPI is the CSO Retail Prices Index. ROSSI is the RPI minus adjustments for housing expenditure. ROSSI is the price index used for uprating most of the Income Support allowances and premiums.

  4. No rounding has been assumed at each year so the results are presented to the nearest one pound.

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

  Departmental Targets
  Ms Armstrong
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what are the published response times within which his Department is expected to reply to letters from the public. [3007]

  Mr. Jonathan Evans
  The Lord Chancellor's Department comprises two next steps agencies —the Court Service and the Public Trust Office—the departmental headquarters and associated offices. The two agencies have published target response times to correspondence as part of their charter standards. As this is an operational matter, I have asked the chief executives of the two agencies to reply direct. There is no universal or published recommended response time in the headquarters of the Department or its associated offices, although individual divisions work to local targets. Every effort is made to respond substantively to letters from the public within 20 working days.
  98
  Letter from M. D. Huebner to Ms Hilary Armstrong, dated 4 December 1995:
  The Parliamentary Secretary has asked me to reply in respect of the Court Service to your Question about replies to letters from the public.If a member of the public writes to a court they should receive a written reply or telephone call usually within 5 but no later than 10 working days. If they are not satisfied with the reply they have received and write to the Court Service Customer Service Unit, they should receive an acknowledgement within 2 working days and a reply within 20 working days from the date the Unit receives the letter, unless legal advice is required. If we need to take legal advice, the member of the public will be notified within 20 working days and will be sent a final reply within 40 working days.These response times are published in the Charter for Court Users.
  Letter from Julia C. Lomas to Ms Hilary Armstrong, dated 4 December 1995:
  The Parliamentary Secretary has asked me to reply to you as part of the Lord Chancellor's Department's response to your Parliamentary Question, listed on 24 November 1995, regarding the published recommended response times to letters from the public.The Court Funds Office's standard for correspondence is to respond to all letters of enquiry within 5 working days. The Mental Health Sector and Trust Division standard is to respond to all letters within 10 working days or to acknowledge letters within 3 working days and respond fully within 20 working days.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  School Meals
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what action he has taken following the survey conducted by the Northern Ireland Chest, Heart and Stroke Association on the dietary content of school meals. [2676]

  Mr. Ancram
  The Department of Education has consulted the Department of Health and Social Services, the education and library boards and other agencies about the issues raised in the survey conducted by the Northern Ireland Chest, Heart and Stroke Association and in particular the application of recommendations made by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food Policy about nutrition. The Department will review the existing guidelines for school meals in light of these consultations.

  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what assessment he has made of the dietary value of school meals. [2677]

  Mr. Ancram
  The Department of Education has issued nutritional guidelines for school meals in nursery, primary and special schools.

  The Department and the education and library boards school meals service regularly assess the nutritional value of meals offered to pupils.

  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what has been the expenditure permitted on school meals per pupil in real and constant price terms in each school board area in each year since 1990. [2678]

  Mr. Ancram
  This information requested is in the table.
  99

  Belfast board £

  Western board £

  North-eastern board £

  South-eastern Board £

  Southern board £

  1990–91—actual

  206.54

  216.35

  234.89

  232.53

  229.04

  at 1994–95 prices

  239.36

  250.73

  272.22

  269.48

  265.44

  1991–92—actual

  233.31

  230.30

  255.30

  239.85

  236.53

  at 1994–95 prices

  254.40

  251.12

  278.38

  261.53

  257.91

  1992–93—actual

  214.58

  240.93

  254.54

  225.20

  238.97

  at 1994–95 prices

  225.02

  252.65

  266.92

  236.15

  250.59

  1993–94—actual

  233.93

  247.59

  248.71

  226.51

  245.58

  at 1994–95 prices

  238.02

  262.10

  253.06

  230.47

  249.88

  1994–95—actual

  227.40

  247.81

  260.46

  239.03

  248.53

  Roads (Belfast)
  Mr. Robert McCartney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what low-cost anti-accident measures have been considered as an alternative to the current enlargement scheme for the Balmoral avenue—Malone road junction in Belfast. [2510]

  Mr. Moss
  A number of low-cost options based largely on modified traffic signal arrangements were considered but none was found to be suitable. The proposed scheme is the most appropriate means of dealing with the major problems identified at the junction, a view confirmed by the independent inspectors who conducted two separate public inquiries.

  Mr. McCartney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if the Balmoral avenue junction scheme in Belfast is part of a wider road enlargement scheme being considered in that area; and how much extra traffic it is expected to generate. [2511]

  Mr. Moss
  The proposed scheme at the Balmoral avenue-Malone road junction does not form part of any other scheme and is not expected to generate additional traffic.

  Road Safety Education Officers
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many road safety education officers have been employed in Northern Ireland in each of the past five years; and how many are planned to be employed in the next financial year. [2717]

  Mr. Moss
  The information requested is as follows:

  Year

  Road safety education officers

  1991–92

  116

  1992–93

  15

  1993–94

  15

  1994–95

  13

  1995–96

  13

  1Reducing to 15.

  It is anticipated that the complement will be 11 road safety education officers with effect from 1 April 1996.

  Social Fund
  Rev. Ian Paisley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much receipts under the European social fund for Northern Ireland in each financial year to date were earned by(a) the private sector, (b) non-central
  100
  Government public sector bodies, and (c) central Government. [2487]

  Sir John Wheeler
  The information is as follows:

  £ million

  Year

  (a)Private/Voluntary sector

  (b)Non-central Government public bodies

  (c)Central Government

  1973–74

  —

  —

  —

  1974–75

  0.41

  0.31

  2.68

  1975–76

  —

  —

  —

  1976–77

  0.77

  0.58

  5.05

  1977–78

  0.90

  0.68

  5.92

  1978–79

  1.80

  1.35

  11.85

  1979–80

  1.80

  1.35

  11.85

  1980–81

  2.76

  2.07

  18.17

  1981–82

  3.00

  2.25

  19.75

  1982–83

  4.22

  3.17

  27.81

  1983–84

  4.56

  3.42

  30.02

  1984–85

  4.56

  3.42

  30.02

  1985–86

  3.00

  2.25

  19.75

  1986–87

  6.39

  4.80

  42.11

  1987–88

  6.77

  5.08

  44.55

  1988–89

  4.33

  3.25

  28.52

  1989–90

  4.17

  5.57

  36.66

  1900–91

  4.57

  6.08

  40.05

  1991–92

  4.75

  6.32

  41.63

  1992–93

  3.77

  5.03

  33.10

  1993–94

  3.16

  4.21

  27.73

  1994–95

  6.36

  8.47

  55.77

  72.05

  69.66

  532.99

  Rev. Ian Paisley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much money Northern Ireland has received in each financial year to date; how much each year represented a cash addition to the Northern Ireland economy; and how much was used to offset Government expenditure on Northern Ireland. [2484]

  Sir John Wheeler
  The following amounts were received from the European social fund:

  Financial year

  Total £ million

  1973–74

  —

  1974–75

  3.4

  1975–76

  0.0

  1976–77

  6.4

  1977–78

  7.5

  1978–79

  15.0

  1979–80

  15.0

  1980–81

  23.0

  1981–82

  25.0

  1982–83

  35.2

  101

  Financial year

  Total £ million

  1983–84

  38.0

  1984–85

  38.0

  1985–86

  25.0

  1986–87

  53.3

  1987–88

  56.4

  1988–89

  36.1

  1989–90

  46.4

  1990–91

  50.7

  1991–92

  52.7

  1992–93

  41.9

  1993–94

  35.1

  1994–95

  70.6

  Total

  674.7

  Receipts earned by the private sector and by non-central Government public sector bodies are paid to the claimant. The receipts represent cash additions to the

  Recurrent financial allocations to Education and Library Boards

  £1000

  Financial year

  Belfast

  North Eastern

  South Eastern

  Southern

  Western

  Total

  1988–89

  Actual

  47,959

  55,284

  44,927

  54,083

  47,841

  250,094

  Current prices

  66,152

  76,256

  61,969

  74,599

  65,990

  344,966

  1989–90

  Actual

  53,017

  62,309

  51,246

  60,528

  53,914

  281,014

  Current prices

  68,354

  80,334

  66,071

  78,038

  69,511

  362,308

  1990–91

  Actual

  58,888

  70,036

  59,590

  68,820

  61,371

  318,705

  Current prices

  70,291

  83,598

  71,130

  82,147

  73,256

  380,422

  1991–92

  Actual

  141,136

  169,298

  144,105

  167,182

  146,637

  768,358

  Current prices

  158,506

  190,135

  161,841

  187,758

  164,684

  862,924

  1992–93

  Actual

  156,957

  189,915

  159,702

  185,858

  161,017

  853,449

  Current prices

  169,524

  205,121

  172,489

  200,739

  173,909

  921,782

  1993–94

  Actual

  161,214

  195,910

  166,957

  193,438

  170,183

  887,702

  Current prices

  168,952

  205,314

  174,971

  202,723

  178,352

  930,312

  Note:

  As from 1991–92, under the terms of the Education Reform (Northern Ireland) Order 1989, the Education and Library Boards became responsible for teachers' and lecturers' salary costs.

  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what resources were made available to each of the education and library boards in connection with the amalgamation of further education colleges in 1993–94 and 1994–95. [2494]

  Mr. Ancram
  The information is as follows:

  1993–94 £

  1994–95 £

  North Eastern education and library board

  52,000

  258,000

  Southern education and library board

  17,000

  89,000

  South Eastern education and library board

  17,000

  93,000

  Playing Fields
  Mr. Pendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1) how many playing fields are currently under threat of development; [2583]

  (2) what area of playing fields has been sold off since 1981; [2581]
  102
  recipients. Receipts earned by central Government are paid into the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund. All ESF receipts are subject to EC audit arrangements and normal government accounting requirements.

  The overall level of receipts is taken in account in the Government's decisions on public expenditure allocations, and their availability enables public expenditure to be maintained at a higher level than would otherwise be feasible.

  Education and Library Boards
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what has been the budget in(a) real, and (b) constant price terms, of each education and library board in each year since 1988. [2537]

  Mr. Ancram
  The information requested is as follows:

  (3) what estimate he has made of value of playing fields that have been sold off since 1981; [2673]

  (4) how many playing fields have been sold off since 1981. [2582]

  Mr. Ancram
  Comprehensive records of playing fields in Northern Ireland are not held centrally. Of those grant-aided by the Department, 13 have been sold since 1981 and of these seven were on school/university sites, five were owned by voluntary sports clubs and one was owned by a district council. The total area involved exceeds 76 acres and the total sale value exceeds £4 million.

  Two former school playing fields are currently on the market for disposal with planning permission for housing development. These sites have become available only because of the closure of the schools in question.

  My Department is exploring, with the Department of the Environment (Northern Ireland), the scope for introducing arrangements which would provide for consultation with the Sports Council for Northern Ireland on planning proposals which adversely affect playing fields.

  Further Education Colleges
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many(a) voluntary and (b)

  College

  1990–91

  1991–92

  1992–93

  1993–94

  1994–95

  Voluntary redundancies

  Belfast (wef 1 April 1991)

  n/a

  —

  —

  16

  —

  Fermanagh

  —

  —

  —

  1

  1

  Limavady

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1

  North-west

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Omagh

  —

  —

  —

  3

  2

  Northern Ireland Hotel and Catering

  North Antrim

  2

  —

  —

  2

  Causeway

  Coleraine

  —

  1

  1

  7

  Antrim

  —

  —

  —

  1

  North-east

  Ballymena

  1

  —

  —

  6

  7

  Magherafelt

  —

  —

  —

  2

  Newtownabbey Lame

  —

  —

  —

  1

  East Antirm

  Larne

  —

  2

  —

  9

  Castlereagh

  —

  —

  —

  —

  3

  Down

  —

  —

  —

  EastDown

  Newcastle

  —

  —

  1

  5

  4

  North Down and Ards

  —

  —

  —

  —

  3

  East Tyrone

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1

  Newry and Kilkeel

  —

  —

  —

  —

  2

  Banbridge

  —

  —

  —

  2

  Upper Bann

  Lurgan

  —

  —

  —

  3

  4

  Portadown

  —

  —

  —

  1

  Compulsory redundancies

  Belfast (wef 1 April 1995)

  n/a

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Fermanagh

  —

  2

  —

  —

  —

  Omagh

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1

  North Antrim

  1

  —

  1

  —

  Causeway

  Coleraine

  —

  —

  —

  Antrim

  3

  —

  —

  —

  North-east

  Ballymena

  —

  —

  —

  Magherafelt

  —

  —

  —

  Newtownabbey

  —

  —

  —

  —

  East Antrim

  Larne

  —

  3

  —

  2

  Banbridge

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Lurgan

  —

  3

  —

  Upper Bann

  Portadown

  —

  —

  —

  1

  Information on Belfast is not available prior to 1991–92. There were no voluntary or compulsory redundancies in the other colleges in 1988–89 or 1989–90.

  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many full-time lecturing posts have

  College

  11990–91

  11991–92

  21992–93

  21993–94

  21994–95

  21995–96

  BIFHE

  551

  567

  551

  550

  524

  526

  Fermanagh

  74

  69

  64

  59

  63

  68

  Limavady

  44

  45

  32

  36

  35

  46

  North-West

  156

  158

  132

  146

  154

  175

  Omagh

  67

  68

  67

  64

  61

  63

  NI Hotel and Catering

  22

  22

  19

  23

  24

  24

  North Antrim

  30

  27

  20

  20

  Causeway

  —

  Coleraine

  64

  64

  53

  56

  97

  89

  Antrim

  40

  38

  31

  33

  North East

  Ballymena

  106

  105

  98

  82

  Magherafelt

  44

  44

  41

  37

  184

  182

  Newtownabbey

  100

  94

  89

  92

  East Antrim

  —

  Larne

  54

  50

  38

  37

  145

  127

  104
  compulsory redundancies there have been in each further education college in Northern Ireland in each academic year since 1988. [2535]

  Mr. Ancram
  The information is as follows:

  been funded from the further and higher education budget in each further education college in Northern Ireland in each year since 1990–91. [2491]

  Mr. Ancram
  The information as at October in each year is as follows:
  105

  College

  11990–91

  11991–92

  21992–93

  21993–94

  21994–95

  21995–96

  Castlereagh

  78

  70

  67

  70

  70

  70

  Down

  67

  71

  56

  58

  East Down

  —

  Newcastle

  36

  34

  23

  27

  98

  96

  Lisburn

  96

  91

  65

  64

  66

  68

  North Down and Ards

  128

  134

  106

  107

  116

  120

  Armagh

  71

  70

  66

  60

  57

  61

  East Tyrone

  67

  70

  64

  59

  67

  64

  Newry and Kilkeel

  92

  92

  86

  86

  86

  101

  Banbridge

  31

  30

  28

  28

  Upper Bann

  —

  Lurgan

  59

  60

  47

  52

  Portadown

  98

  96

  88

  88

  178

  140

  Notes:

  1Includes full-time lecturers employed in the Youth Training Programme (YTP lecturers cannot be separately identified for 1990-91 and 1991-92).

  2 Excludes full-time lecturers employed in the Youth Training Programme.

  1. From 1994?–95 North Antrim and Coleraine became Causeway; Antrim, Ballymena and Magherafelt became North East; Newtownabbey and Larne became East Antrim; Down and Newcastle became East Down; and Banbridge, Lurgan and Portadown became Upper Bann.

  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many industrial tribunal and fair employment tribunal cases have been lodged against which further education colleges in each year since 1988. [2536]

  Mr. Ancram
  The following information has been provided by the education and library boards. Their records do not show cases prior to 1990.

  College

  1990

  1991

  1992

  1993

  1994

  1995

  Belfast

  —

  1

  —

  1

  4

  6

  Fermanagh

  —

  2

  —

  —

  2

  —

  North-west

  —

  1

  1

  —

  3

  1

  Omagh

  1

  1

  —

  2

  1

  —

  NI Hotel and Catering

  —

  —

  —

  2

  —

  2

  North Antrim

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Antrim

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Larne

  —

  —

  —

  —

  2

  —

  College

  11990–91

  11990–91

  21992–93

  21993–94

  21994–95

  College of Technology

  83

  BIFHE

  College of Business Studies

  89

  876

  903

  882

  857

  Rupert Stanley

  851

  Fermanagh

  56

  47

  48

  53

  79

  Limavady

  56

  60

  67

  70

  77

  North West

  137

  156

  184

  203

  337

  Omagh

  58

  52

  60

  53

  101

  NI Hotel and Catering

  5

  9

  5

  6

  11

  North Antrim

  30

  54

  35

  45

  Causeway

  Coleraine

  36

  39

  32

  38

  85

  Antrim

  39

  31

  51

  54

  Ballymena

  61

  72

  73

  67

  North-east

  Magherafelt

  29

  25

  16

  23

  195

  Newtownabbey

  154

  134

  116

  79

  East Antrim

  Larne

  29

  15

  7

  7

  127

  Castlereagh

  184

  139

  100

  145

  186

  Down

  126

  75

  99

  118

  East Down

  Newcastle

  52

  34

  44

  57

  183

  Lisburn

  154

  89

  96

  142

  163

  North Down and Ards

  264

  167

  170

  281

  235

  Armagh

  71

  51

  38

  40

  66

  106

  College

  1990

  1991

  1992

  1993

  1994

  1995

  Castlereagh

  —

  —

  1

  —

  —

  2

  Down

  —

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Newcastle

  —

  —

  5

  1

  1

  2

  Lisburn

  —

  —

  3

  —

  —

  2

  North Down and Ards

  —

  1

  1

  2

  2

  6

  East Tyrone

  —

  —

  —

  —

  4

  4

  Newry and Kilkeel

  —

  —

  —

  —

  7

  2

  Lurgan

  1

  —

  —

  1

  —

  —

  Portadown

  —

  1

  —

  —

  2

  1

  Upper Bann1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  3

  1Amalgamation of Portadown, Lurgan and Banbridge on 1 September 1994.

  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many part-time lecturing staff have been employed in each college of further education in Northern Ireland in each year since 1990. [2492]

  Mr. Ancram
  The information requested is as follows:
  107

  College

  11990–91

  11991–92

  21992–93

  21993–94

  21994–95

  East Tyrone

  47

  51

  51

  43

  119

  Newry and Kilkeel

  64

  82

  54

  53

  135

  Banbridge

  41

  44

  44

  46

  Upper Bann

  Lurgan

  28

  26

  33

  45

  249

  Portadown

  83

  47

  20

  12

  Notes:

  1 Part-time teachers as at January.

  2 Part-time teachers as at October.

  1. From 1994–95 North Antrim and Coleraine became Causeway; Antrim, Ballymena and Magherafelt became North East; Newtownabbey and Larne became East Antrim; Down and Newcastle became East Down; and Banbridge, Lurgan and Portadown became Upper Bann.

  Road Deaths (Children)
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many children died in road traffic accidents in Northern Ireland in each of the past five years. [2719]

  Sir John Wheeler
  The information requested is as follows:

  Age

  1990

  1991

  1992

  1993

  1994

  Under 1

  0

  0

  1

  1

  0

  1

  1

  0

  1

  0

  1

  2

  2

  3

  2

  0

  3

  3

  0

  1

  1

  0

  0

  4

  2

  1

  1

  0

  2

  5

  4

  1

  1

  0

  1

  6

  0

  2

  2

  0

  1

  7

  4

  2

  1

  0

  3

  8

  1

  1

  1

  2

  0

  9

  0

  4

  2

  4

  2

  10

  2

  1

  1

  1

  2

  11

  1

  2

  0

  1

  2

  £million

  Individual capital products

  Other guidance schemes

  Financial year

  Private sector

  Public sector

  Private sector

  Public sector

  Total

  1990–91

  4.75

  —

  6.25

  —

  11.0

  1991–92

  4.31

  —

  21.78

  2.86

  28.95

  1992–93

  8.31

  —

  9.56

  0.45

  18.32

  1993–94

  2.32

  —

  23.08

  2.7

  28.10

  1994–95

  6.23

  —

  22.13

  —

  28.36

  All these receipts present cash additions to the recipients and are subject to normal European Community audit arrangements. The overall level of receipts is taken into account in the Government's decision on public expenditure allocations and their availability enables public expenditure to be maintained at a higher level than would otherwise be feasible.

  Hotel and Catering College Lecturers
  Rev. Ian Paisley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many lecturers, who are citizens of the Republic of Ireland, were enrolled in hotel and catering colleges in Northern Ireland for each year since 1990–91. [2478]

  Mr. Ancram
  The information is not available.

  General National Vocational Qualifications
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what has been the expenditure on
  108

  Age

  1990

  1991

  1992

  1993

  1994

  12

  1

  1

  0

  0

  2

  13

  5

  1

  1

  3

  1

  14

  0

  2

  0

  0

  2

  15

  2

  6

  1

  2

  4

  Total

  25

  28

  16

  14

  26

  European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund
  Rev. Ian Paisley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much money Northern Ireland has received in each financial year to date from the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund guidance section; how much of these receipts were paid to the private sector; how much of these receipts were paid to the public sector; how much of these receipts represented a cash addition to the Northern Ireland economy; and how much was used each year to offset Government expenditure on Northern Ireland. [2485]

  Mr. Ancram
  The information requested is as follows:

  the introduction of GNVQs in schools and further education colleges in Northern Ireland in each year since 1992–93. [2493]

  Mr. Ancram
  It is not possible to identify separately the total expenditure on GNVQs in schools and further education colleges. Schools and colleges which provide GNVQs meet the costs from within the totality of the resources available to them.

  However, additional resources have been made available to 16 schools and to all colleges to assist them to pilot GNVQs and to facilitate the introduction of new subject areas. To date, a total of £32,000 has been paid to schools and £264,000 to colleges.

  Common Land
  Mr. Robert McCartney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will institute an
  109
  interdepartmental policy group to address the problems of those who live adjacent to common land and thoroughfares where anti-social elements gather; and if he will make it his policy to enclose publicly owned common land where persistent offences occur. [2507]

  Sir John Wheeler
  At present there are no plans to institute an interdepartmental policy group on these issues.

  The Northern Ireland Office and Northern Ireland Departments do not have a policy to enclose lands to which the public has access; rather, where offences occur, they take whatever steps are necessary to address the problem in consultation with the RUC.

  Road Safety
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what response he has made to the recommendations contained in the 13th report of the Committee of Public Accounts on the Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland on road safety—HC 26th Session 1993–94—in respect of the adoption of the local authorities, road safety code of practice. [2716]

  Mr. Moss
  The Public Accounts Committee made no such recommendation. In 1989 the local authority associations in Great Britain produced a road safety code of good practice. The Department of the Environment has not formally adopted the code. However, it has given

  £ million

  Infrastructure Projects

  Financial year

  Non- central government

  central government

  Industrial projects

  Programmes1

  Total

  1975–76

  0.6

  —

  2.3

  —

  2.9

  1976–77

  0.6

  2.8

  3.8

  —

  7.2

  1977–78

  3.2

  0.7

  2.5

  —

  6.4

  1978–79

  2.4

  0.8

  0.8

  —

  4.0

  1979–80

  9.7

  3.3

  3.0

  —

  16.0

  1980–81

  9.7

  1.3

  10.0

  —

  21.0

  1981–82

  4.7

  4.0

  7.6

  0.1

  16.4

  1982–83

  3.8

  11.3

  2.5

  0.4

  18.0

  1983–84

  3.9

  7.5

  1.3

  0.8

  13.5

  1984–85

  5.1

  7.5

  3.0

  1.3

  16.9

  1985–86

  7.0

  9.0

  1.0

  1.4

  18.4

  1986–87

  10.3

  6.8

  3.8

  2.3

  23.2

  1987–88

  22.9

  6.4

  11.1

  5.5

  45.9

  1988–89

  18.9

  7.0

  15.2

  5.6

  46.7

  1989–90

  8.4

  4.9

  16.9

  10.2

  40.4

  1990–91

  7.6

  4.2

  4.9

  9.0

  25.7

  1991–92

  2.4

  1.0

  3.2

  29.3

  35.9

  1992–93

  2.6

  0,8

  4.5

  76.7

  84.6

  1993–94

  2.6

  0.7

  10.5

  88.3

  102.1

  1994–95

  0.7

  —

  0.6

  65.8

  67.1

  1995–962

  0.0

  —

  —

  35.9

  35.9

  Totals

  127.1

  80.0

  108.5

  332.6

  648.2

  1 These programmes combine elements of both industry and infrastructure.

  2 Includes estimated receipts to date for 1995–96 financial year.

  University Research Funding
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what arrangements are in place to ensure the continuation of "DevR" research funding for the universities in Northern Ireland. [2532]
  110
  formal expression to the code principles, in so far as they are relevant to the Department's functional responsibilities, within the body of the road safety plan for Northern Ireland. The plan was formally launched on 5 July 1995.

  Carers (Recognition and Services) Act 1995
  Mr. Robert McCartney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what plans he has to bring in legislation similar to the Carers (Recognition and Services) Act 1995. [2509]

  Mr. Moss
  None. The Department of Health and Social Services already has the legislative authority to direct health and social services boards and trusts to carry out assessments of carers' needs as provided by the Act and has done so.

  European Regional Development Fund
  Rev. Ian Paisley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much money Northern Ireland has received in each year to date from the European regional development fund; how much has been earned by(a) infrastructure projects undertaken by non-central Government bodies, (b) in frastructute projects undertaken by central Government and (c) industrial projects. [2486]

  Sir John Wheeler
  The information is as follows:

  Mr. Ancram
  The developmental element of research funding for the Northern Ireland universities, NIDevR, is to extend until the end of the 1996–97 academic year. Following the outcome of the 1996 research assessment exercise, the Northern Ireland Higher Education Council,
  111
  which advises Government on the planning and funding of higher education in Northern Ireland, will make recommendations on the totality of research funding for both universities beyond 1996–97.

  Foyleside Centre
  Mr. Nigel Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what public funds have been allocated for the Foyleside centre, Northern Ireland; how much the total budget for the centre is, and if he will make a statement. [2909]

  Mr. Moss
  The allocation of public funds for the Foyleside centre in Northern Ireland comprised a grant of £7.5 million from the Department of the Environment urban development grant budget. The total budget for this centre including fitting-out costs is estimated at some £65 million.

  EEC Payments
  Rev. Ian Paisley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much Northern Ireland's share of the United Kingdom's payments into the European Economic Community was from 1 January 1973 to date; how much Northern Ireland's share of the receipts was for the same period; and how much of those receipts was used to offset Government expenditure in Northern Ireland. [2482]

  Sir John Wheeler
  It is not possible to determine Northern Ireland's actual share of the United Kingdom's contribution to the European Community because payments are made on a national and not a regional basis. Similarly, it is not possible to identify the full extent of receipts from the Community. However, a Northern Ireland attributed share of the contribution to the EC is calculated as an accounting mechanism necessary because of the operation of a separate Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund. This notional attributed share does not count as an item of expenditure within the Northern Ireland public expenditure programme and has therefore no bearing on the level of public expenditure in the Province.

  Figures for the notional attribution of part of Northern Ireland's share of the United Kingdom's payments and for those areas where the receipts from the European Community's structural funds can be separately identified are as follows:

  £ million

  Financial year

  Attributed share (part)

  2Identified receipts

  1973–74

  1

  0

  1974–75

  6

  4

  1975–76

  8

  4

  1976–77

  13

  16

  1977–78

  16

  14

  1978–79

  24

  19

  1979–80

  28

  31

  1980–81

  28

  44

  1981–82

  50

  41

  1982–83

  66

  53

  1983–84

  66

  51

  1984–85

  68

  58

  1985–86

  74

  44

  1986–87

  62

  77

  1987–88

  91

  111

  1988–89

  85

  96

  112

  Financial Year

  Attributed Share (part)

  2Identified receipts

  1989–90

  104

  95

  1990–91

  107

  110

  1991–92

  100

  132

  1993–93

  134

  158

  1993–94

  1171

  185

  1994–95

  1173

  157

  Total

  1,475

  1,500

  1Attributed share figures for the last two years are provisional estimates which will be revised when final details of tax revenues are determined.

  2This comprises total identified EC Structural Funds and, from 1994–95, Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance receipts in Northern Ireland.

  All receipts represent cash additions to the recipients and are subject to normal European Community audit arrangements and the requirements of government accounting.

  The overall level of receipts is taken into account in the Government's decisions on public expenditure allocations and their availability enables public expenditure to be maintained at a higher level that would otherwise be feasible.

  Structural Funds
  Rev. Ian Paisley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much money Northern Ireland has received in each financial year from EEC sources apart from payments under the three structural funds. [2483]

  Sir John Wheeler
  The following amounts have been identified as being received in Northern Ireland from European Community sources other than the three structural funds since 1987–88 when meaningful figures first became available.

  Financial year

  Total £million

  1987–88

  27.6

  1988–89

  27.8

  1989–90

  46.0

  1990–91

  48.0

  1991–92

  59.5

  1992–93

  56.1

  1993–94

  89.7

  1994–95

  114.7

  These receipts are from the guarantee section of the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund. However, it should be noted that the bulk of guarantee section receipts are disbursed centrally by the Intervention Board for Agricultural Produce and details of payments are not generally maintained at regional level. Other small payments are made by the European Commission direct to recipients which are not passed through the United Kingdom Government.

  Rev. Ian Paisley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much money has been received by Northern Ireland under each of the European Community initiatives to date. [2481]
  113
  Sir John Wheeler
  Under the 1989 to 1993 structural funds allocation, Northern Ireland had 11 approved Community initiatives. The amounts received to date under each initiative are:

  Initiative

  £ million

  Interreg I (assistance to border areas)

  26.90

  Stride (research and technological development)

  8.55

  Envireg (environmental improvement)

  11.23

  Prisma (assistance to firms)

  3.41

  Telematique (promotion of telecommunications service)

  3.36

  Euroform (qualifications and new skills, and employment opportunities)

  1.63

  Now (employment opportunities for women)

  0.84

  Horizon (handicapped and certain disadvantaged groups)

  1.18

  Retex I (diversification for textile regions)

  1.45

  Leader I (rural development)

  2.26

  Konver I (restructuring of defence-dependent areas)

  0.25

  Under the 1994 to 1999 structural funds allocation, eight of the nine Community initiative programmes benefiting Northern Ireland have been approved. The amounts to date under each initiative are:

  Initiative

  £ million

  Interreg II (Promoting cross border areas)

  5.94

  Smes (small firms)

  2.55

  Retex II (diversification for textile regions)

  1.54

  Employment (addressing exclusion and marginalisation in the labour markets)

  0.49

  Adapt (industrial change)

  0.13

  Urban (developing selected urban areas)

  5.65

  Pesca (development of fishing areas)

  —

  Leader II (rural development)

  0.64

  Proposed Memorial Volume
  Mr. Robert McCartney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will arrange for the publication of a memorial volume relating to the Northern Ireland conflict, listing the names and details of those members and former members of the armed forces and the police who were murdered or died in accidents while serving since 1969, in Northern Ireland and elsewhere. [1407]

  Sir John Wheeler
  The Government have no plans, at present, to publish a Memorial volume relating to the Northern Ireland conflict. A number of memorial volumes already exist in many military chapels and police stations across the Province, including a book of remembrance at St. Anne's cathedral in Belfast.

  Departmental Targets
  Ms Armstrong
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is the published recommended response times within which his Department is expected to reply to letters from the public. [3006]

  Sir John Wheeler
  The published recommended response time for the Northern Ireland Office and Northern Ireland Departments to reply to requests for information under the code of practice on open government is 20 working days.

  Targets for replying to other letters from the public are published by the individual NI Departments and agencies as follows:
  114

  Department/Agency

  Published target responce time (working days)

  Social Security Agency

  7 for letters of complaint

  Child Support Agency

  10

  Department of Agriculture

  15

  Valuation and Lands Agency

  10

  Department of the Environment:

  Environment Service, NI

  5

  Monuments and Building Record

  Making Belfast Work

  10

  Roads Service

  15

  Driver and Vehicle Licensing NI:

  vehicle Register information

  4

  General Correspondeance

  5

  Driver and Vehicle Testing

  10

  Agency Ordnance Survey of NI:

  Despatch of Orders

  7

  General Correspondence

  10

  Public Records Office for NI:

  70 per cent. of cases within 10 95 per cent. of cases within 14

  Rate Collection Agency

  10

  Training and Employment Agency

  5 (where an acknowledgement is sent, full reply within 10 days)

  Department of Economic Development:

  Redundancy Branch

  5

  Companies Registry

  5 (where an acknowledgement is sent, full reply within 10 days)

  Trading Standards Branch

  5

  Health and Safety Division

  10

  Compensation Agency

  95 per cent. of cases within 14

  Springvale Campus Project
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on how many occasions representatives of Planning, Industrial and Economic Development Advisers met representatives of the university of Ulster in the evaluation of the Springvale campus project on behalf of the Government; and whom they met and when. [1773]

  Mr. Moss
  [holding answer 27 November 1995]: Representatives of PIEDA met with officials from the university of Ulster on five occasions. Details of the names of the university of Ulster officials and dates of the meetings are listed:

  University of Ulster officials

  Dates of meeting

  Vice Chancellor and Senior Academic Officials

  16 December 1994

  B. Osborne

  16 December 1994

  Professor Wallace Ewart

  16 December 1994

  P. Donnelly

  5 January 1995

  Professor Wallace Ewart

  13 June 1995

  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland which representatives of the local community representatives of PIEDA met in their evaluation of the Springvale campus project on behalf of the Government; and on what dates they met. [1774]

  Mr. Moss
  [holding answer 27 November 1995]: PIEDA did not meet local community representatives as part of its assignment.
  115
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland which representatives of the Government representatives of PIEDA met in their evaluation of the Springvale campus project on behalf of the Government. [1775]

  Mr. Moss
  [holding answer 27 November 1995]: PIEDA met senior officials at grade 5 level from the Departments of Education, of Finance and Personnel and of the Environment and the Northern Ireland Office in its evaluation of the Springvale campus project. These officials make up the steering group which was chaired by T. McCusker from Making Belfast Work.

  T. Quinn, P. Hewitt: Department of Finance and Personnel

  J. Cowan: Department of the Environment (NI)

  P. Holmes, R. Davison: Department of the Education (NI)

  D. Gibson: Department of Economic Development

  D. Brown: Northern Ireland Office.

  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much PIEDA's evaluation of the Springvale campus project has cost; and if there will be further cost. [1776]

  Mr. Moss
  [holding answer 27 November 1995]: To date PIEDA' s evaluation of the Springvale campus project has cost £82,263. A further payment of £40,000 will be made shortly.

EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT

  Initial Teacher Training
  Mrs. Anne Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what funds will be available nationally for initial teacher training in 1996–97, and what funds were available in 1994–95 and in 1995–96. [23]

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The funds available for initial teacher training for 1996–97 are set out in the letter of 28 November from the Department to the Teacher Training Agency. A copy of this letter is in the Library.

  Some £151.641 million has been notionally allocated for the funding of ITT courses. It is for the agency to decide on the distribution of funds between the activities that it supports.

  In 1994–95, the Higher Education Funding Council for England allocated £141.587 million for the recurrent funding of ITT. In addition, the Department for Education and Employment spent approximately £1.259 million of the school-centred ITT-SCITT-scheme.

  In 1995–96, the HEFCE allocated £53.91 million for ITT funding, for the final term of academic year 1994–95. The Teacher Training Agency has allocated
  116
  £109.953 million for recurrent ITT funding for the first two terms of academic year 1995–96. In addition, the Department has provided £448,000 for funding for SCITT courses in 1995–96.

  None of these figures includes student support, or the income from fees for students on ITT courses.

  Grant-maintained Schools
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if she will list the grant-maintained schools which have applied for consent for the disposal of premises, in each case stating(a) the nature of the premises, (b) if the premises were previously transferred from a local authority, (c) if the premises were used also by other schools, (d) if consent was given, (e) the proceeds from disposal, (f) the attribution of proceeds and (g) the purpose for which proceeds were used by the school. [2896]

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The information requested is contained in tables, copies of which have been placed in the Library. Table(a) contains the information for disposals by sale, including land exchanges, and table (b) contains disposals by lease and easement. The term "disposal" also covers compulsory purchase of school premises and payments "in kind". There have been no applications for the Secretary of State's consent involving either compulsory purchases or payments in kind.

  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment (1) what provision has been made in the 1996–97 budget for an increase in the number of grant-maintained schools, in terms of(a) capital and (b) current expenditure; [3712]

  (2) what is the planned (a) current and (b) capital spending on grant-maintained schools in the years 1996–97 and 1997–98. [3734]

  Mr. Squire
  Recurrent provision for grant-maintained schools takes the form of annual maintenance grant and special purpose grants. Provision in 1996–97 and 1997– 98 for annual maintenance grant—the bulk of recurrent funding for grant-maintained schools—will depend on school budget decisions yet to be taken by local authorities, and by the Department in respect of the common funding formula, and on the number of additional schools which become grant-maintained in these years. Within the overall provision of £103 million for GM recurrent in 1996–97, £86 million has been allocated to special purpose grants for grant-maintained schools. The planning figure for GM recurrent in 1997–98 is £125 million. This total, and within that the provision for special purpose grants, will be subject to review in the next public expenditure survey.

  As regards capital, the Government have announced the allocation of £138 million to the Funding Agency for Schools for 1996–97. The planning figure for 1997–98 is now £134 million. These figures take into account the overall level of capital funds available for schools, the scope offered for work to be supported under the private finance initiative and, subject to parliamentary approval of the proposed legislation, the power which grant-maintained schools will in due course have to borrow on the commercial market. There is no separately identifiable provision for schools newly entering the grant-maintained sector.
  117
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what estimate she has made of(a) the number and (b) proportion of (i) primary and (ii) secondary schools opting out of local authority control in the coming year. [3714]

  Mr. Squire
  The number of schools leaving local authority control in the coming year will depend on parental choices in ballots on grant-maintained status.

  Pupils with statements of special educational need in mainstream schools

  1984

  1985

  1986

  1987

  1988

  1989

  1990

  1991

  1992

  1993

  1994

  Number

  1,815

  26,014

  30,047

  33,277

  40,931

  47,262

  54,299

  61,992

  71,246

  85,013

  100,254

  Percentage of all pupils with statements

  9.8

  20.3

  22.2

  24.7

  29.7

  34.1

  38.9

  40.1

  43.2

  48.1

  52.1

  Assisted Places Scheme
  Mr. MacShane
  To ask' the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many children in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been awarded an assisted place in the years since 1990. [3504]

  Mrs. Gillan
  The numbers of children who were awarded and took up assisted places for the first time in England in each year since academic year 1990–91 are given in the table:

  Assisted places scheme

  Academic

  Number of children taking up Assited Places

  1990–91

  4,948

  1991–92

  5,602

  1992–93

  5,815

  1993–94

  5,775

  1994–95

  5,813

  The total number of assisted place holders in England in the academic year 1994–95, including those who took up places for the first time in earlier years, was 29,747. Questions about the operation of the assisted places scheme in Scotland and Wales are for my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland and for Wales. There is no assisted places scheme in Northern Ireland.

  Mr. Blunkett
  to ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how much is proposed to be spent on the assisted places scheme in 1995–96, and in each year to 1995–99. [3713]

  Mrs. Gillan
  Provision in the supply estimates for the assisted places scheme in England in the current financial year 1995–96 is £104.4 million. We have increased the planned spending for financial year 1996–97 to £118 million. Provisional figures for the following two years will be published in the departmental report. The actual outturn will depend on the number of acceptable bids from eligible schools for new places from September 1996, and on parental demand.

  Diploma Directive
  Dame Jill Knight
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will add anything to his
  118

  Special Needs
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many and what percentage of disabled children with special educational needs were in mainstream schools in each year since 1979. [3616]

  Mr. Forth
  Data are available only for the years 1984 to 1994, and for all children with statements of special educational needs. The data are provided in the table:

  answer of 25 May 1994, Official Report, column 166, as to when he intends to issue a consultation document on the implementation of the Council directive for a second general system to supplement second diploma directive 89/48/EEC. [3551]

  Mr. Forth
  The preparation of legislation has proved not to be an easy task but is now at an advanced stage. We are hoping to take forward the process of consultation in the near future with legislation following.

  Work Force Skills
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how the £250 million announced in the "Financial Statement and Budget Report" for industry's efforts to improve the skills of the work force will be allocated. [3705]

  Mr. Paice
  The £250 million that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced on 28 November,Official Report, columns 684–88, will be used to support the following programmes:
  employer investment in people which enables TECs to help local businesses to improve their performance through the development of their people and, particularly, by achieving the investors in people standard;skills for small businesses which will improve the training skills of 24,000 key employees, who will lead the development of workforce skills in small firms across the country; and career development loans which aid individuals to upgrade their vocational skills with accessible bank loans.

  Literacy and Numeracy Centres
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what will be the cost of the project to raise standards of literacy and numeracy in primary schools in (i) 1996–97, (ii) 1997–98 and (iii) 1998–99. [3710]

  Mr. Robin Squire
  Up to £5 million will be made available to support the establishment of primary literacy and numeracy centres in 1996–97. Funding for later years will be decided in the light of each year's public expenditure settlement; it is expected that broadly similar sums ,will be available in 1997–98 and 1998–99.

  Technology and Language Colleges
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what funding has been
  119
  allocated for the 60 additional technology and language colleges announced on 28 November, Official Report, column 684. [3709]

  Mrs. Gillan
  The public expenditure settlement provides funding of some £23 million in 1996–97 to support technology and language colleges. This will support the 107 schools already designated as technology or language colleges, and around 60 schools which will be newly designated before or during 1996–97. The newly designated schools will be eligible for additional capital and recurrent funding in 1996–97 totalling some £11 million.

  Student Loans
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment when her Department asked the Contributions Agency to assess the feasibility and cost of collecting student loan repayments using the national insurance system on behalf of the Student Loan Company and the proposed private sector scheme; what costs were quoted for the first and subsequent years of operation and what these costs represent as a percentage of the total costs of running the social security deductions system; and if she will make a statement. [3615]

  Mr. Bryan Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what discussions her Department has had with officials of the Department of Social Security regarding the use of the national insurance system to collect student loan repayments. [4014]

  Mr. Forth
  My officials, with the assistance of other Government Departments, haye looked at this option on a number of occasions. There are fundamental objections of principle to collecting repayments via the Contributions Agency or Inland Revenue. Any such scheme would have significant implications for both employers and the collecting agency, in addition to the operational costs that the Student Loans Company would still incur in issuing and monitoring loans. For these reasons, no detailed analysis of the cost has been made.

  Mr. Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if students who have been declared bankrupt will remain eligible for subsidised loans made by private sector lenders under the proposed reforms of student loans provision. [3923]

  Mr. Forth
  The Education (Student Loans) Act 1990 does not specifically prevent students classified as bankrupt from being eligible for a loan. Private lenders, who would bear a large share of the risk, would be free to accept loan applications from students, or not.

  Mr. Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if it is her policy that private sector levels of subsidised student loans should be permitted to shorten the current loan repayment period if overall public sector subsidy per loan is held constant.[4054]

  Mr. Forth
  Contracts with the private lenders will set out minimum standards to be met to be eligible for subsidies. This will include a requirement that interest payments are no higher than the rate of inflation as measured by the retail prices index.
  120
  If a lender wishes to offer different terms, including a shorter repayment period and lower interest rates, that is a matter between it and the borrower. Our contracts will ensure that, in such cases, the public subsidy paid will have the same overall value to the taxpayer and to the student.

  Mr. Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what is her Department's estimate of the cost of establishing a new central database for the processing of student loans. [4056]

  Mr. Forth
  This work is being put out to tender. No estimate has been made at this stage.

  School Meals (Beef Products)
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what guidance her Department has issued to local education authorities on the use of beef products in school meals; and if she will make a statement. [3662]

  Mrs. Gillan
  None, but both the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Department of Health have made public statements on the safety of beef products.

  Communication Autistic Spectrum Disorders
  Mr. Hain
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many children of school age there are with communication autistic spectrum disorders, and how many places there are in schools appropriate for their needs(a) in London and (b) in England.[2710]

  Mr. Robin Squire
  This information is not held centrally.

  Nursery Vouchers
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment (1) how much of the £390 million over the next three years for nursery vouchers announced on 28 November(a) will be spent on administration costs and (b) will be spent on staff training and capital investment; [3743]

  (2) if the £390 million over the next three years for nursery vouchers announced on 28 November is in addition to the £185 million announced in her statement to the House on 6 July, Official Report, columns 517–32; and what proportion of the £390 million will be spent in each of the three years; [3741]

  (3) what proportion of the extra £390 million for nursery vouchers announced on 28 November will be channelled through local authorities; and what proportion will go to the private company appointed to administer the voucher scheme. [3742]

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The £390 million for the nursery education voucher scheme announced on 28 November is in respect of those four-year-olds who do not have a place in a maintained school, with £21 million for phase 1 in 1996–97 and £185 million for 1997–98 when the scheme is fully implemented and for the following year. It will be added to sums deducted from each LEA in respect of existing places for four-year-olds.
  121
  The Government's contract with Capita Managed Services Ltd. to administer phase 1 of the nursery voucher scheme was awarded after competitive tender. The financial details are commercially confidential. The contract for phase 2 will also be the subject of a competitive tender.

  The proportion of the £390 million channelled through local authorities will depend on where new places are created.

  The value of the voucher includes elements for training and the servicing of capital debt.

  Educational psychologists in service and children with statements of special educational needs maintained by each Local Education Authority area in England

  Position as at January in each year

  1985

  Educational psychologists

  Children with statements1

  Full-time equivalent

  per 10,000 pupils in schools2

  Number1

  per 10,000 pupils in schools2

  Corporation of London

  4—

  4—

  4—4—

  4—

  Camden

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Greenwich

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Hackney

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Islington

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Kensington and Chelsea

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Lambeth

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Lewisham

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Southwark

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Tower Hamlets

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Wandsworth

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Westminster

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Barking and Dagenham

  7.0

  2.8

  384

  154.1

  Barnet

  8.5

  1.8

  644

  136.7

  Bexley

  5.0

  1.4

  713

  205.7

  Brent

  9.6

  2.6

  5—

  5—

  Bromley

  8.0

  1.8

  766

  171.7

  Croydon

  9.0

  1.7

  791

  151.3

  Ealing

  5.4

  1.3

  513

  119.5

  Enfield

  9.0

  2.2

  779

  188.9

  Haringey

  7.0

  2.3

  556

  184.5

  Harrow

  6.0

  1.9

  596

  186.7

  Havering

  8.0

  2.0

  626

  158.5

  Hillingdon

  5.0

  1.3

  698

  184.6

  Hounslow

  5.9

  1.8

  12

  3.6

  Kingston upon Thames

  2.0

  0.9

  340

  160.2

  Merton

  5.0

  1.9

  160

  60.9

  Newham

  11.0

  2.9

  755

  199.5

  Redbridge

  6.0

  1.7

  724

  210.5

  Richmond upon Thames

  4.0

  1.7

  305

  133.0

  Sutton

  4.0

  1.6

  190

  75.8

  Waltham Forest

  8.0

  2.3

  716

  203.8

  Birmingham

  37.2

  2.0

  3,478

  188.7

  Coventry

  12.3

  2.2

  1,232

  222.7

  Dudley

  7.5

  1.5

  908

  181.7

  Sandwell

  8.0

  1.5

  1,103

  203.1

  Solihull

  7.3

  1.9

  84

  22.1

  Walsall

  7.0

  1.3

  777

  148.4

  Wolverhampton

  6.0

  1.2

  720

  150.0

  Knowsley

  7.0

  2.2

  348

  111.4

  Liverpool

  15.5

  1.8

  1,663

  188.0

  St. Helens

  4.0

  1.1

  647

  185.3

  Sefton

  9.0

  1.7

  581

  109.3

  Wirral

  8.0

  1.3

  1,277

  211.6

  Bolton

  4.0

  0.8

  675

  135.4

  Bury

  3.5

  1.1

  507

  165.9

  Manchester

  14.0

  1.8

  345

  43.2

  Oldham

  5.0

  1.2

  661

  159.3

  Rochdale

  9.0

  2.3

  618

  159.8

  Salford

  6.0

  1.4

  815

  191.0

  Educational Psychologists
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if she will list by local education authority for each year since 1985(a) the number of educational psychologists employed, (b) the ratio of educational psychologists to school children, (c) the number of children with statements and (d) to the ratio of children with statements to the school age population. [3627]

  Mrs. Gillan
  The available information is shown in the table:
  123

  Educational psychologists in service and children with statements of special educational needs maintained by each Local Education Authority area in England

  Position as at January in each year

  1985

  Educational psychologists

  Children with statements1

  Full-time equvalent

  per 10,000 pupils in schools2

  Number1

  per 10,000 pupils in schools2

  Stockport

  6.7

  1.3

  862

  166.8

  Tameside

  7.0

  1.8

  669

  175.8

  Trafford

  3.0

  0.9

  278

  79.4

  Wigan

  8.0

  1.4

  108

  18.9

  Barnsley

  4.0

  1.0

  443

  112.3

  Doncaster

  9.0

  1.7

  14

  2.6

  Rotherham

  9.0

  1.9

  844

  178.7

  Sheffield

  13.6

  1.6

  1,383

  162.3

  Bradford

  14.0

  1.6

  1,391

  157.0

  Calderdale

  2.0

  0.6

  338

  96.7

  Kirklees

  12.0

  1.7

  929

  132.2

  Leeds

  13.5

  1.1

  1,038

  85.9

  Wakefield

  6.0

  1.0

  981

  170.7

  Gateshead

  8.0

  2.4

  598

  176.7

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  12.0

  2.6

  882

  188.1

  North Tyneside

  8.0

  2.4

  604

  178.3

  South Tyneside

  6.0

  2.3

  467

  175.7

  Sunderland

  9.0

  1.6

  1,000

  178.8

  Isles of Scilly

  0.0

  0.0

  5—

  5—

  Inner London

  87.7

  2.6

  7,349

  220.7

  Avon

  28.6

  1.8

  617

  39.7

  Bedfordshire

  12.0

  1.3

  1,529

  162.5

  Berkshire

  17.3

  1.3

  2,121

  164.2

  Buckinghamshire

  16.0

  1.5

  2,859

  268.0

  Cambridgeshire

  12.0

  1.1

  1,252

  119.1

  Cheshire

  17.0

  1.0

  3,468

  209.1

  Cleveland

  18.0

  1.6

  2,290

  208.8

  Cornwall

  8.0

  1.1

  965

  132.9

  Cumbria

  90

  1.1

  1,363

  164.6

  Derbyshire

  21.5

  1.4

  2,698

  172.6

  Devon

  20.4

  1.4

  2,807

  188.2

  Dorset

  14.5

  1.6

  1,590

  171.7

  Durham

  17.4

  1.7

  1,569

  149.5

  East Sussex

  11.8

  1.2

  1,766

  181.0

  Essex

  31.4

  1.3

  4,555

  182.1

  Gloucestershire

  11.0

  1.3

  483

  55.4

  Hampshire

  31.5

  1.3

  5,252

  214.4

  Hereford and Worcester

  11.0

  1.0

  14

  1.2

  Hertfordshire

  21.5

  1.2

  3,472

  193.2

  Humberside

  21.0

  1.4

  2,417

  158.5

  Isle of Wight

  3.0

  1.6

  317

  166.8

  Kent

  19.0

  0.8

  5,137

  203.2

  Lancashire

  34.0

  1.4

  4,708

  200.2

  Leicestershire

  19.0

  1.3

  1,797

  118.9

  Lincolnshire

  10.0

  1.1

  2,001

  217.9

  Norfolk

  14.0

  1.2

  1,494

  130.4

  North Yorkshire

  15.2

  1.3

  1,723

  151.5

  Northamptonshire

  15.0

  1.5

  1,858

  183.2

  Northumberland

  4.1

  0.8

  806

  156.9

  Nottinghamshire

  30.0

  1.7

  2,617

  152.3

  Oxfordshire

  12.5

  1.4

  1,046

  115.7

  Shropshire

  8.0

  1.1

  780

  110.6

  Somerset

  9.0

  1.2

  1,320

  175.6

  Staffordshire

  17.7

  1.0

  2,671

  150.2

  Suffolk

  13.0

  1.3

  1,532

  148.8

  Surrey

  22.0

  1.3

  3,384

  204.0

  Warwickshire

  9.8

  1.2

  1,547

  183.9

  West Sussex

  12.0

  1.1

  1,394

  130.8

  Wiltshire

  13.0

  1.5

  1,795

  202.7

  England

  1,173.4

  1.5

  127,889

  160.7

  1 Children with statements of special education needs maintained by the LEA.

  2 Divisor includes pupils of all ages in maintained nursery, primary, secondary and special; independent and non-maintained special schools.

  3 Derived from returns received from LEA's-Special Educational Needs Survey (SEN2). Includes children in maintained nursery, primary, secondary and special schools; independent and non-maintained special schools and children being educated otherwise than in a school.

  4 Not applicable.

  5 Not available.

  124 125

  1992

  Educational psychologists

  Children with statements1

  Full-time equivalent

  per 10,000 pupils in schools2

  Number3

  per 10,000 pupils in schools2

  Corporation of London

  0.0

  0.0

  5

  28.2

  Camden

  7.8

  2.9

  454

  170.4

  Greenwich

  11.0

  2.9

  1,000

  262.6

  Hackney

  8.5

  3.0

  575

  203.9

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  8.0

  4.1

  414

  213.9

  Islington

  10.0

  4.2

  445

  189.1

  Kensington and Chelsea

  6.0

  2.9

  264

  126.0

  Lambeth

  7.8

  2.8

  752

  269.7

  Lewisham

  10.0

  2.9

  760

  219.0

  Southwark

  10.0

  2.8

  779

  217.9

  Tower Hamlets

  10.0

  3.1

  672

  208.1

  Wandsworth

  11.0

  3.4

  1,028

  321.2

  Westminster

  7.0

  3.2

  457

  206.0

  Barking and Dagenham

  7.5

  3.0

  347

  140.5

  Barnet

  13.6

  2.8

  752

  153.6

  Bexley

  6.5

  1.9

  814

  242.4

  Brent

  11.2

  3.2

  543

  154.0

  Bromley

  10.0

  2.4

  1,018

  244.9

  Croydon

  10.8

  2.1

  1,016

  200.1

  Ealing

  9.8

  2.1

  907

  198.8

  Enfield

  12.5

  3.1

  241

  58.8

  Haringey

  9.8

  3.2

  414

  136.4

  Harrow

  6.0

  1.9

  540

  169.1

  Havering

  8.0

  2.2

  629

  174.0

  Hillingdon

  8.2

  2.2

  575

  157.0

  Hounslow

  5.8

  1.7

  1,020

  301.9

  Kingston upon Thames

  3.0

  1.4

  433

  204.9

  Merton

  5.7

  2.2

  581

  227.0

  Newham

  11.0

  2.8

  690

  176.5

  Redbridge

  7.4

  2.0

  621

  169.9

  Richmond upon Thames

  5.5

  2.3

  430

  176.8

  Sutton

  6.0

  2.3

  581

  227.0

  Waltham Forest

  7.0

  2.1

  674

  198.1

  Birmingham

  37.5

  2.0

  3,122

  170.1

  Coventry

  14.0

  2.7

  1,021

  198.4

  Dudley

  8.5

  1.8

  897

  192.8

  Sandwell

  14.0

  2.7

  740

  144.2

  Solihull

  8.0

  2.2

  631

  172.0

  Walsall

  10.0

  2.1

  899

  185.6

  Wolverhampton

  10.0

  2.3

  938

  217.3

  Knowsley

  6.8

  2.4

  813

  288.2

  Liverpool

  18.0

  2.1

  1,870

  221.4

  St. Helens

  6.5

  2.1

  808

  260.4

  Sefton

  11.0

  2.2

  1,049

  207.7

  Wirral

  13.5

  2.3

  1,270

  218.4

  Bolton

  7.4

  1.5

  696

  145.6

  Bury

  4.5

  1.5

  804

  269.5

  Manchester

  19.3

  2.5

  1,024

  130.6

  Oldham

  4.0

  0.9

  860

  202.8

  Rochdale

  7.5

  2.1

  781

  220.3

  Salford

  7.0

  1.8

  470

  120.5

  Stockport

  9.5

  1.9

  1,293

  261.4

  Tameside

  11.0

  2.9

  1,126

  301.0

  Trafford

  4.0

  1.1

  671

  192.1

  Wigan

  6.5

  1.3

  1,000

  195.3

  Barnsley

  4.5

  1.3

  520

  154.1

  Doncaster

  9.0

  1.7

  1,023

  198.0

  Rotherham

  10.3

  2.4

  1,171

  269.0

  Sheffield

  16.2

  2.2

  1,261

  171.7

  Bradford

  19.0

  2.1

  1,267

  141.0

  Calderdale

  6.8

  2.0

  461

  136.9

  Kirklees

  15.0

  2.3

  1,551

  237.9

  Leeds

  19.0

  1.7

  2,879

  252.0

  Wakefield

  12.0

  2.2

  1,011

  186.4

  Gateshead

  10.0

  3.2

  503

  161.1

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  11.0

  2.4

  948

  206.0

  North Tyneside

  8.0

  2.4

  888

  268.8

  South Tyneside

  8.0

  3.1

  497

  193.5

  Sunderland

  10.1

  2.0

  1,107

  216.5

  Isles of Scilly

  0.0

  0.0

  0

  0.0

  Inner London

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  126 127

  1992

  Educational psychologists

  Children with statements1

  Full-time eqivalent

  per 10,000 pupils in schools2

  Number3

  per 10,000 pupils in schools2

  Avon

  28.8

  1.9

  4,131

  275.0

  Bedfordshire

  17.0

  1.8

  1,893

  199.8

  Berkshire

  17.0

  1.3

  2,450

  192.2

  Buckinghamshire

  21.9

  2.1

  3,413

  319.9

  Cambridgeshire

  14.0

  1.3

  1,745

  161.9

  Cheshire

  25.1

  1.5

  3,798

  233.7

  Cleveland

  18.3

  1.7

  2,272

  210.5

  Cornwall

  12.0

  1.7

  2,152

  299.8

  Cumbria

  18.0

  2.3

  2,049

  263.4

  Derbyshire

  33.1

  2.2

  3,945

  266.9

  Devon

  22.1

  1.5

  4,704

  316.3

  Dorset

  17.5

  1.9

  2,151

  229.6

  Durham

  20.4

  2.1

  1,938

  195.9

  East Sussex

  19.6

  2.0

  1,888

  191.1

  Essex

  42.7

  1.8

  4,923

  210.6

  Gloucestershire

  17.0

  2.6

  1,477

  176.6

  Hampshire

  44.0

  1.9

  7,048

  298.2

  Hereford and Worcester

  16.5

  1.5

  1,197

  110.2

  Hertfordshire

  28.4

  1.7

  3,806

  224.2

  Humberside

  24.0

  1.6

  2,207

  150.8

  Isle of Wight

  3.0

  1.6

  378

  201.1

  Kent

  30.0

  1.2

  5,862

  236.9

  Lancashire

  42.0

  1.8

  5,950

  262.0

  Leicestershire

  33.6

  2.3

  2,592

  174.1

  Lincolnshire

  13.0

  1.4

  2,534

  281.7

  Norfolk

  18.5

  1.7

  2,732

  248.7

  North Yorkshire

  20.0

  1.8

  2,238

  200.8

  Northamptonshire

  17.5

  1.7

  1,847

  181.7

  Northumberland

  9.5

  1.9

  1,016

  198.3

  Nottinghamshire

  28.5

  1.8

  1,914

  118.0

  Oxfordshire

  14.5

  1.6

  1,078

  121.9

  Shropshire

  12.0

  1.8

  2,004

  296.3

  Somerset

  11.0

  1.5

  1,052

  144.4

  Staffordshire

  29.4

  1.7

  3,400

  201.1

  Suffolk

  14.0

  1.4

  2,384

  239.2

  Surrey

  28.4

  1.8

  4,172

  265.3

  Warwickshire

  12.3

  1.6

  1,600

  203.5

  West Sussex

  17.4

  1.7

  1,555

  148.0

  Wiltshire

  14.8

  1.7

  3,299

  386.6

  England

  1,496.6

  1.9

  165,095

  214.0

  1Children with statements of special education needs maintained by the LEA.

  2Divisor includes pupils of all ages in maintained nursery, primary, secondary and special; independent and non-maintained special schools.

  3Derived from returns received from LEA's-Special Educational Needs Survey (SEN2). Includes children in maintained nursery, primary, secondary and special schools; independent and non-maintained special schools and children being educated otherwise than in a school.

  4Not applicable.

  1993

  Educational psychologists

  Children with statements1

  Full-time equivalent

  per 10,000 pupils in schools2

  Number3

  per 10,000 pupils in schools2

  Corporation of London

  0.0

  0.0

  5

  27.9

  Camden

  7.0

  2.5

  508

  184.5

  Greenwich

  12.0

  3.1

  1,200

  314.3

  Hackney

  7.5

  2.7

  1,027

  363.6

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  7.0

  3.6

  497

  253.5

  Islington

  8.0

  3.4

  567

  243.4

  Kensington and Chelsea

  7.0

  3.3

  285

  135.4

  Lambeth

  11.1

  3.9

  598

  210.8

  Lewisham

  9.0

  2.5

  912

  256.2

  Southwark

  10.5

  2.9

  814

  221.3

  Tower Hamlets

  8.5

  2.5

  829

  245.0

  Wandsworth

  10.0

  3.0

  920

  278.0

  Westminster

  6.0

  2.7

  523

  231.3

  Barking and Dagenham

  7.5

  3.0

  404

  159.2

  Barnet

  14.5

  2.9

  781

  157.9

  Bexley

  6.5

  1.9

  873

  255.9

  Brent

  8.5

  2.3

  629

  169.2

  128 129

  1993

  Educational psychologists

  Children with statements1

  Full-time equivalent

  per 10,000 pupils in schools2

  Number3

  per 10,000 pupils in schools2

  Bromley

  10.0

  2.3

  946

  219.0

  Croydon

  10.8

  2.1

  992

  189.7

  Ealing

  9.8

  2.2

  1,024

  225.7

  Enfield

  13.0

  3.1

  397

  93.5

  Haringey

  10.8

  3.5

  479

  154.0

  Harrow

  9.0

  2.8

  594

  182.9

  Havering

  8.7

  2.4

  671

  183.6

  Hillingdon

  8.8

  2.3

  423

  112.0

  Hounslow

  6.0

  1.7

  1,038

  300.9

  Kingston upon Thames

  4.0

  1.8

  437

  202.1

  Merton

  6.6

  2.5

  706

  267.6

  Newham

  10.2

  2.5

  794

  193.6

  Redbridge

  7.4

  1.9

  681

  179.0

  Richmond upon Thames

  6.0

  2.4

  491

  196.1

  Sutton

  4.0

  1.5

  673

  256.6

  Waltham Forest

  7.0

  2.0

  672

  192.1

  Birmingham

  31.5

  1.7

  3,598

  192.8

  Coventry

  12.0

  2.3

  1,025

  196.4

  Dudley

  7.1

  1.5

  940

  198.7

  Sandwell

  14.0

  2.7

  660

  126.8

  Solihull

  8.4

  2.2

  713

  188.7

  Walsall

  9.0

  1.8

  951

  192.9

  Wolverhampton

  9.0

  2.0

  1,044

  234.5

  Knowsley

  5.8

  2.0

  810

  283.6

  Liverpool

  18.0

  2.1

  2,092

  244.2

  St. Helens

  9.0

  2.9

  1,020

  327.0

  Sefton

  10.0

  2.0

  1,119

  219.2

  Wirral

  10.5

  1.8

  1,431

  242.8

  Bolton

  7.4

  1.5

  823

  169.4

  Bury

  4.6

  1.5

  990

  322.9

  Manchester

  18.2

  2.3

  1,217

  153.6

  Oldham

  7.0

  1.6

  768

  176.6

  Rochdale

  7.5

  2.1

  810

  225.1

  Salford

  7.6

  1.9

  445

  112.2

  Stockport

  9.5

  1.9

  1,397

  278.0

  Tameside

  8.0

  2.1

  1,086

  284.3

  Trafford

  4.0

  1.1

  757

  212.3

  Wigan

  6.5

  1.3

  1,409

  272.3

  Barnsley

  4.5

  1.3

  631

  184.4

  Doncaster

  11.0

  2.1

  1,112

  212.7

  Rotherham

  9.3

  2.1

  1,207

  272.4

  Sheffield

  18.2

  2.4

  1,483

  199.1

  Bradford

  20.0

  2.2

  1,270

  137.9

  Calderdale

  6.5

  1.9

  488

  142.1

  Kirklees

  17.0

  2.6

  1,691

  256.6

  Leeds

  19.0

  1.6

  3,011

  258.2

  Wakefield

  10.5

  1.9

  1,074

  194.6

  Gateshead

  8.5

  2.7

  536

  169.0

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  11.0

  2.4

  1,019

  219.8

  North Tyneside

  8.0

  2.4

  1,066

  319.4

  South Tyneside

  6.0

  2.3

  501

  191.8

  Sunderland

  11.1

  2.1

  1,200

  231.8

  Isles of Scilly

  0.0

  0.0

  1

  35.5

  Inner London

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Avon

  25.5

  1.7

  4,054

  265.8

  Bedfordshire

  15.9

  1.6

  2,448

  253.7

  Berkshire

  19.5

  1.5

  3,009

  234.2

  Buckinghamshire

  23.0

  2.1

  3,793

  349.1

  Cambridgeshire

  16.0

  1.5

  1,842

  168.3

  Cheshire

  25.3

  1.5

  4,154

  252.5

  Cleveland

  16.5

  1.5

  2,353

  215.8

  Cornwall

  12.0

  1.6

  2,571

  352.3

  Cumbria

  19.0

  2.4

  2,076

  264.3

  Derbyshire

  30.3

  2.0

  4,066

  271.3

  Devon

  24.5

  1.6

  4,740

  313.0

  Dorset

  18.6

  2.0

  2,320

  243.5

  Durham

  23.5

  2.3

  2,133

  213.2

  East Sussex

  18.7

  1.8

  2,200

  217.4

  Essex

  42.3

  1.8

  5,067

  214.5

  Gloucestershire

  17.4

  2.0

  2,070

  243.5

  Hampshire

  46.8

  1.9

  6,802

  281.9

  130 131

  1993

  Educational psychologists

  Children with statements1

  Full-time equivalent

  per 10,000 pupils in schools2

  Number3

  per 10,000 pupils in schools2

  Hereford and Worcester

  16.0

  1.5

  1,676

  153.1

  Hertfordshire

  33.0

  1.9

  4,145

  240.6

  Humberside

  24.0

  1.6

  2,373

  159.0

  Isle of Wight

  3.0

  1.6

  391

  205.7

  Kent

  36.5

  1.5

  6,008

  239.2

  Lancashire

  40.2

  1.7

  6,556

  284.8

  Leicestershire

  32.6

  2.2

  5—

  5—

  Lincolnshire

  13.0

  1.4

  2,810

  306.1

  Norfolk

  19.0

  1.7

  3,060

  274.3

  North Yorkshire

  19.0

  1.7

  2,193

  192.8

  Northamptonshire

  19.0

  1.8

  1,983

  192.4

  Northumberland

  9.5

  1.8

  1,200

  230.1

  Nottinghamshire

  29.0

  1.8

  1,934

  117.3

  Oxfordshire

  14.5

  1.6

  1,521

  169.4

  Shropshire

  11.6

  1.7

  2,112

  305.0

  Somerset

  11.1

  1.5

  1,594

  215.4

  Staffordshire

  27.4

  1.6

  3,699

  215.1

  Suffolk

  14.0

  1.4

  2,704

  268.9

  Surrey

  29.5

  1.9

  4,449

  281.2

  Warwickshire

  12.7

  1.6

  1,458

  182.9

  West Sussex

  17.1

  1.6

  1,930

  180.3

  Wiltshire

  13.3

  1.5

  3,419

  388.9

  England

  1,497.7

  1.9

  176,698

  225.2

  1 Children with statements of special education needs maintained by the LEA.

  2 Divisor includes pupils of all ages in maintained nursery, primary, secondary and special; independent and non-maintained special schools.

  3 Derived from returns received from LEA's-Special Educational Needs Survey (SEN2). Includes children in maintained nursery, primary, secondary and special schools; independent and non-maintained special schools and children being educated otherwise than in a school.

  4Not applicable.

  5Not available.

  1994

  Educational psychologists

  Children with statements1

  Full-time equivalent

  per 10,000 pupils in schools2

  Number3

  per 10,000 pupils in schools2

  Corporation of London

  0.0

  0.0

  6

  32.7

  Camden

  8.2

  2.9

  645

  230.4

  Greenwich

  12.0

  3.1

  1,174

  306.8

  Hackney

  10.0

  3.5

  1,041

  366.4

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  7.0

  3.6

  519

  263.6

  Islington

  8.0

  3.3

  786

  326.8

  Kensington and Chelsea

  7.0

  3.4

  298

  145.7

  Lambeth

  13.5

  4.8

  518

  183.1

  Lewisham

  9.0

  2.5

  1,142

  320.6

  Southwark

  11.6

  3.0

  955

  247.8

  Tower Hamlets

  8.0

  2.3

  1,063

  303.0

  Wandsworth

  5.6

  1.7

  916

  277.2

  Westminster

  6.0

  2.6

  481

  210.5

  Barking and Dagenham

  7.2

  2.8

  478

  183.6

  Barnet

  14.5

  2.9

  884

  178.5

  Bexley

  8.0

  2.3

  916

  261.3

  Brent

  10.5

  2.8

  805

  213.3

  Bromley

  9.0

  2.0

  1,059

  234.0

  Croydon

  10.8

  2.1

  1,012

  195.1

  Ealing

  11.8

  2.6

  956

  209.8

  Enfield

  15.2

  3.5

  406

  93.5

  Haringey

  10.8

  3.4

  588

  183.5

  Harrow

  8.6

  2.6

  693

  212.6

  Havering

  8.0

  2.2

  691

  192.3

  Hillingdon

  8.9

  2.3

  840

  217.7

  Hounslow

  8.1

  2.3

  1,064

  302.1

  Kingston upon Thames

  4.3

  1.9

  484

  218.0

  Merton

  5.4

  2.0

  661

  248.3

  Newham

  10.0

  2.4

  963

  234.7

  Redbridge

  7.4

  1.9

  758

  193.7

  Richmond upon Thames

  6.0

  2.3

  515

  200.7

  Sutton

  5.0

  1.8

  707

  261.5

  Waltham Forest

  7.0

  2.0

  566

  165.4

  132 133

  1994

  Educational psychologists

  Children with statements1

  Full-time equivalent

  per 10,000 pupils in schools2

  Number3

  per 10,000 pupils in schools2

  Birmingham

  39.3

  2.1

  4,182

  226.9

  Coventry

  12.0

  2.3

  1,028

  195.1

  Dudley

  6.6

  1.4

  918

  188.4

  Sandwell

  12.0

  2.3

  667

  128.4

  Solihull

  7.5

  2.0

  758

  204.2

  Walsall

  10.0

  2.0

  1,263

  252.9

  Wolverhampton

  9.0

  2.0

  1,046

  233.3

  Knowsley

  6.8

  2.4

  828

  288.3

  Liverpool

  18.0

  2.1

  2,339

  266.7

  St. Helens

  8.0

  2.6

  1,326

  433.3

  Sefton

  10.0

  2.0

  1,304

  255.6

  Wirral

  11.5

  2.0

  1,556

  264.4

  Bolton

  7.4

  1.5

  927

  191.8

  Bury

  4.6

  1.5

  1,120

  366.5

  Manchester

  17.8

  2.3

  1,267

  164.9

  Oldham

  6.0

  1.4

  487

  111.9

  Rochdale

  7.5

  2.1

  797

  218.1

  Salford

  7.6

  2.0

  642

  166.5

  Stockport

  10.4

  2.2

  1,437

  298.1

  Tameside

  7.0

  1.9

  1,140

  303.2

  Trafford

  4.0

  1.1

  812

  221.2

  Wigan

  9.0

  1.8

  1,836

  362.7

  Barnsley

  5.6

  1.6

  813

  234.7

  Doncaster

  11.0

  2.1

  1,349

  254.6

  Rotherham

  10.3

  2.3

  1,123

  252.8

  Sheffield

  16.3

  2.2

  1,656

  219.2

  Bradford

  21.5

  2.3

  1,417

  151.6

  Calderdale

  7.0

  2.0

  566

  163.0

  Kirklees

  18.0

  2.7

  2,000

  304.0

  Leeds

  15.0

  1.3

  3,371

  282.2

  Wakefield

  8.5

  1.5

  1,303

  235.0

  Gateshead

  9.0

  2.8

  621

  193.9

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  11.0

  2.4

  1,099

  236.3

  North Tyneside

  8.0

  2.4

  895

  272.7

  South Tyneside

  6.0

  2.3

  577

  218.1

  Sunderland

  11.5

  2.2

  1,170

  223.1

  Isles of Scilly

  0.0

  0.0

  2

  68.7

  Inner London

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Avon

  25.0

  1.6

  3,929

  255.6

  Bedfordshire

  14.9

  1.5

  2,858

  294.0

  Berkshire

  18.8

  1.4

  3,273

  250.0

  Buckinghamshire

  22.8

  2.1

  3,802

  344.6

  Cambridgeshire

  18.0

  1.7

  2,109

  193.4

  Cheshire

  25.1

  1.5

  4,829

  293.9

  Cleveland

  19.9

  1.9

  2,454

  232.0

  Cornwall

  12.0

  1.7

  2,662

  366.1

  Cumbria

  19.0

  2.4

  2,506

  319.4

  Derbyshire

  29.0

  1.9

  5—

  5—

  Devon

  24.5

  1.6

  4,824

  313.9

  Dorset

  17.6

  1.8

  2,536

  261.4

  Durham

  21.5

  2.1

  2,789

  278.0

  East Sussex

  19.8

  2.0

  3,064

  304.2

  Essex

  35.8

  1.5

  5,322

  226.4

  Gloucestershire

  18.4

  1.9

  2,320

  268.6

  Hampshire

  46.9

  1.9

  7,526

  312.0

  Hereford and Worcester

  16.0

  1.5

  1,853

  169.1

  Hertfordshire

  28.0

  1.6

  4,299

  245.0

  Humberside

  21.0

  1.4

  2,751

  186.4

  Isle of Wight

  3.0

  1.6

  436

  227.4

  Kent

  42.1

  1.7

  6,347

  248.8

  Lancashire

  43.5

  1.9

  7,518

  324.3

  Leicestershire

  32.7

  2.2

  3,412

  226.6

  Lincolnshire

  15.0

  1.6

  3,140

  335.9

  Norfolk

  18.0

  1.6

  582

  321.0

  North Yorkshire

  18.0

  1.6

  2,520

  221.3

  Northamptonshire

  25.5

  2.4

  2,049

  195.4

  Northumberland

  8.4

  1.8

  1,232

  234.8

  Nottinghamshire

  28.6

  1.7

  1,836

  110.6

  Oxfordshire

  14.5

  1.6

  1,653

  180.3

  Shropshire

  11.6

  1.7

  2.221

  324.0

  Somerset

  11.9

  1.6

  1,415

  189.7

  134 135

  1994

  Educational psychologists

  Children with statements1

  Full-time equivalent

  per 10,000 pupils in schools2

  Number3

  per 10,000 pupils in schools2

  Staffordshire

  27.0

  1.6

  4,136

  239.3

  Suffolk

  15.0

  1.5

  3,078

  302.1

  Surrey

  27.2

  1.7

  4,673

  298.7

  Warwickshire

  14.1

  1.8

  1,812

  226.4

  West Sussex

  19.0

  1.8

  2,223

  208.7

  Wiltshire

  14.0

  1.6

  3,087

  344.5

  England

  1,514.2

  1.9

  192,308

  243.8

  1 Children with statements of special education needs maintained by the LEA.

  2 Divisor includes pupils of all ages in maintained nursery, primary, secondary and special; independent and non-maintained special schools.

  3 Derived from returns received from LEA's-Special Educational Needs Survey (SEN2). Includes children in maintained nursery, primary, secondary and special schools; independent and non-maintained special schools and children being educated otherwise than in a school.

  3Not applicable.

  4Not available.

  1995

  Educational psychologists

  Children with statements1

  Full-time equivalent

  per 10,000 pupils in schools2

  Number3

  per 10,000 pupils in schools2

  Corporation of London

  0.0

  0.0

  12

  65.3

  Camden

  6.5

  2.3

  788

  276.2

  Greenwich

  14.0

  3.6

  1,358

  353.1

  Hackney

  8.3

  2.8

  1,038

  348.1

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  6.5

  3.2

  580

  288.0

  Islington

  8.0

  3.2

  849

  341.9

  Kensington and Chelsea

  7.0

  3.4

  333

  161.5

  Lambeth

  11.0

  3.8

  668

  233.3

  Lewisham

  8.0

  2.2

  1,229

  338.9

  Southwark

  10.0

  2.6

  1,111

  286.6

  Tower Hamlets

  11.5

  3.2

  1,367

  380.0

  Wandsworth

  10.7

  3.2

  1,088

  320.6

  Westminster

  7.0

  3.0

  575

  249.2

  Barking and Dagenham

  8.9

  3.3

  607

  221.7

  Barnet

  13.0

  2.6

  1,141

  225.0

  Bexley

  8.0

  2.2

  1,010

  275.2

  Brent

  10.0

  2.6

  899

  234.2

  Bromley

  10.0

  2.2

  1,312

  282.1

  Croydon

  6.3

  1.2

  1,018

  189.5

  Ealing

  7.3

  1.6

  1,118

  239.7

  Enfield

  14.1

  3.2

  608

  136.5

  Haringey

  14.8

  4.4

  822

  246.8

  Harrow

  9.6

  2.9

  846

  257.1

  Havering

  8.5

  2.3

  841

  231.5

  Hillingdon

  11.4

  2.9

  1,201

  302.7

  Hounslow

  7.6

  2.1

  1,052

  293.8

  Kingston upon Thames

  4.0

  1.8

  528

  233.2

  Merton

  3.6

  1.3

  796

  294.1

  Newham

  10.7

  2.5

  1,063

  243.9

  Redbridge

  7.4

  1.9

  792

  200.2

  Richmond upon Thames

  6.0

  2.3

  527

  201.8

  Sutton

  6.0

  2.2

  794

  285.5

  Waltham Forest

  7.0

  2.0

  828

  236.6

  Birmingham

  39.4

  2.1

  4,437

  237.7

  Coventry

  13.0

  2.4

  1,051

  197.6

  Dudley

  8.0

  1.6

  974

  196.9

  Sandwell

  12.0

  2.3

  714

  135.1

  Solihull

  9.0

  2.4

  786

  205.4

  Walsall

  10.0

  2.0

  1,301

  258.4

  Wolverhampton

  9.8

  2.2

  1,115

  246.4

  Knowsley

  6.8

  2.2

  969

  320.6

  Liverpool

  18.0

  2.1

  2,654

  304.8

  St. Helens

  8.0

  2.6

  1,385

  449.9

  Sefton

  11.0

  2.1

  1,339

  257.7

  Wirral

  15.0

  2.5

  1,629

  275.0

  Bolton

  8.4

  1.7

  1,051

  214.1

  Bury

  6.5

  2.1

  1,210

  388.0

  Manchester

  13.1

  1.7

  2,084

  269.1

  136 137

  1995

  Educational psychologists

  Children with statements1

  Full-time equivalent

  per 10,000 pupils in schools2

  Number3

  per 10,000 pupils in schools2

  Oldham

  7.0

  1.6

  510

  116.1

  Rochdale

  6.5

  1.8

  876

  237.0

  Salford

  7.6

  1.9

  641

  161.9

  Stockport

  11.7

  2.4

  1,421

  290.5

  Tameside

  7.0

  1.8

  1,115

  291.1

  Trafford

  4.0

  1.1

  750

  199.1

  Wigan

  9.0

  1.8

  2,091

  409.9

  Barnsley

  6.4

  1.8

  1,046

  298.0

  Doncaster

  10.9

  2.0

  1,763

  328.8

  Rotherham

  10.3

  2.3

  1,375

  303.0

  Sheffield

  17.0

  2.2

  2,002

  261.3

  Bradford

  19.5

  2.1

  1,736

  183.5

  Calderdale

  9.4

  2.7

  696

  196.7

  Kirklees

  18.5

  2.8

  2,242

  337.0

  Leeds

  18.7

  1.5

  3,436

  283.5

  Wakefield

  7.5

  1.3

  1,512

  266.5

  Gateshead

  9.0

  2.8

  756

  233.5

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  12.0

  2.6

  1,184

  252.4

  North Tyneside

  8.8

  2.6

  956

  287.0

  South Tyneside

  6.0

  2.2

  641

  237.6

  Sunderland

  10.5

  2.0

  1,485

  282.8

  Isles of Scilly

  0.0

  0.0

  5

  176.7

  Inner London

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Avon

  30.0

  1.9

  4,712

  303.7

  Bedfordshire

  14.3

  1.5

  2,754

  280.1

  Berkshire

  22.8

  1.7

  3,625

  272.8

  Buckinghamshire

  23.2

  2.1

  3,929

  349.1

  Cambridgeshire

  18.0

  1.6

  2,654

  239.8

  Cheshire

  24.5

  1.5

  4,932

  296.4

  Cleveland

  17.5

  1.6

  2,541

  238.1

  Cornwall

  12.6

  1.7

  2,894

  393.5

  Cumbria

  20.0

  2.5

  2,660

  335.5

  Derbyshire

  28.6

  1.9

  5,311

  344.5

  Devon

  31.5

  2.0

  4,964

  316.3

  Dorset

  17.6

  1.8

  2,774

  280.3

  Durham

  23.4

  2.3

  3,222

  318.7

  East Sussex

  19.7

  1.9

  2,986

  290.5

  Essex

  56.6

  2.4

  5,652

  235.5

  Gloucestershire

  17.4

  2.0

  2,504

  283.8

  Hampshire

  49.8

  2.0

  7,960

  325.7

  Hereford and Worcester

  15.5

  1.4

  2,573

  231.4

  Hertfordshire

  28.8

  1.6

  4,488

  248.7

  Humberside

  26.0

  1.7

  3,298

  220.7

  Isle of Wight

  3.5

  1.8

  516

  265.8

  Kent

  48.2

  1.9

  7,122

  274.3

  Lancashire

  48.1

  2.0

  8,110

  344.8

  Leicestershire

  33.7

  2.2

  3,793

  248.4

  Lincolnshire

  16.0

  1.7

  3,047

  317.4

  Norfolk

  20.4

  1.8

  4,274

  377.0

  North Yorkshire

  19.0

  1.6

  3,872

  230.1

  Northamptonshire

  22.8

  2.1

  2,491

  233.6

  Northumberland

  8.4

  1.6

  1,390

  263.2

  Nottinghamshire

  28.6

  1.7

  1,803

  107.1

  Oxfordshire

  14.0

  1.5

  1,703

  180.8

  Shropshire

  13.0

  1.9

  2,401

  343.6

  Somerset

  13.7

  1.8

  1,850

  244.2

  Staffordshire

  27.0

  1.5

  4,894

  268.1

  Suffolk

  16.5

  1.6

  3,251

  312.8

  Surrey

  32.2

  2.0

  4,649

  285.6

  Warwickshire

  14.9

  1.8

  1,977

  244.0

  West Sussex

  17.8

  1.6

  2,715

  249.5

  Wiltshire

  13.3

  1.4

  2,841

  309.7

  England

  1,596.9

  2.0

  217,445

  271.2

  1 Children with statements of special education needs maintained by the LEA.

  2Divisor includes pupils of all ages in maintained nursery, primary, secondary and special; independent and non-maintained special schools.

  3 Derived from returns received from LEA's-Special Educational Needs Survey (SEN2). Includes children in maintained nursery, primary, secondary and special schools: independent and non-maintained special schools and children being educated otherwise than in a school.

  4Not applicable.

  138

  Local Education Authority Staff
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many(a) teaching staff and (b) non-teaching staff were employed by the local education authorities throughout the United Kingdom and for each year since 1990; and if she will make a statement. [3626]

  Full-time equivalent teaching and non-teaching staff employed by local authorities in England—June 1990 to June 1995

  1990

  1991

  1992

  1993

  1994

  19952

  Teaching

  482,700

  475,100

  466,800

  392,100

  378,000

  372,600

  Non-teaching3

  362,400

  364,200

  360,300

  318,200

  320,300

  262,000

  1 The table includes all manual and non-manual staff whether employed in schools or centrally based. Staff employed by grant-maintained schools are excluded throughout. There was a growth of over 6,000 teaching staff in grant-maintained schools between January 1994 and January 1995. The figures for 1993 to 1995 exclude staff in colleges that transferred to the new FE sector in April 1993.

  2 As a result of changes to the survey form, the 1995 figures are on a different basis from other years. Previously the FTEs were estimated using national statistics of average hours worked. More reliable FTEs are now calculated by local authorities at employee level. Also, staff doing two or more jobs in an authority are now recorded for each job separately. After adjusting the 1994 data to allow for these changes the estimated differences between 1994 and 1995 FTEs are decreases of 3,600 and 5,200, for teaching and non-teaching staff respectively.

  3 Non-teaching staff include educational support, clerical, school meals and premises related staff employed in schools and colleges, together with central services and administration within the education service.

  Jobseeker's Allowance
  Mr. Bradley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what are the pilot areas for the trials on the implementation of the jobseeker's allowance; and what is being undertaken in each pilot area. [3799]

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

  Letter from M. E. G. Fogden to Mr. Keith Bradley, dated 4 December 1995:
  The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your question about Jobseeker's Allowance trial offices.Jobseeker's Allowance implementation trials are currently taking place in Employment Service Jobcentres (ESJ) in the following locations:

  Exeter, Barnstable, Newton Abbott (all in Devon)

  Alnwick, Jarrow (North East)

  Porthmadog, Cardiff (Wales)

  Norwich (Norfolk)

  Madeley (Shropshire)

  Cheetham Hill (Manchester)

  Goole (Humberside)

  Bathgate (Edinburgh)

  Additional trials will be undertaken in an ESJ in Tottenham, North London commencing 4th December.These offices are examining various Jobseeker's Allowance processes under current legislation, including new claims, fortnightly job search reviews, enquiries and change of circumstances. The outcomes from these trials will inform the Jobseeker's Allowance project nationally and locally.I hope this is helpful.

  Publicity
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if she will list the expenditure on publicity by her Department in 1994–95 and 1995–96
  140
  Mr. Robin Squire
  Information on the numbers of teaching and non-teaching staff employed by local authorities is collected by a local government management board on behalf of the joint staffing watch group. The table provides information for England as at June of each year. The coverage of these figures does not reflect the 2,500 increase in teacher numbers in maintained schools between January 1994 and January 1995.

  broken down into spending on (a) television, (b) radio, (c) newspapers and (d) other matters; and what is the protected spending on publicity in 1996–97. [3983]

  Mr. Robin Squire
  Before the merger in July 1995, the Department operated separately as the Department for Education and the Employment Department. We will continue to follow separately funded programmes of publicity until the end of the financial year 1995–96.

  Expenditure on publicity by the Department is:

  £000

  ED

  DFE

  1994–95

  (a) Television

  2,778.3

  —

  (b) Radio

  441.6

  —

  (c) Newspapers and posters

  3,257.8

  147.1

  (d) Other matters

  2,528.4

  7,941.2

  1995–96 (estimated)

  2,906.1

  —

  (a) Television

  —

  —

  (b) Radio

  3,376.7

  300

  (c) Newspapers and posters

  1,312.6

  5,130

  (d) Other matters

  —

  —

  The projected spending on publicity in the 1996–97 public expenditure survey allocation for the Department is £13,040,000. Details on how this will be divided between various forms of publicity have not yet been agreed.

  Consultation Papers
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if she will list the consultation papers that have been issued by her Department since 31 July, indicating in each case(a) the date on which the consultation paper was issued, (b) what consultation period was allowed in weeks and (c) if the consultation period was subsequently extended and by how long. [4000]
  141
  Mr. Robin Squire
  The Department for Education and Employment has issued the following consultation papers since 31 July 1995:
  Proposed Amendment to the Teacher Regulations and Guidance on the use of Supply Teachers. Issued on 17 November, consultation period—10 weeks. No current plans to extend consultation period.The Education (School Premises) Regulations 1995—Draft Regulations and Circular. Issued on 14 August, consultation period—nine and a half weeks. The period was not extended.Quality Assurance Regime for Institutions which Redeem Vouchers for Pre-School Education. Issued on 4 September, consultation period—six weeks. The period was not extended.Removing the Requirement to Publish Statutory Proposals to Establish Nursery Classes in the Maintained Sector. Issued on 26 September, consultation period—four weeks. The period was not extended.Commercial Borrowing and Asset Disposal by GM Schools. Issued on 10 October, consultation period—six weeks. The period was not extended.
  Self-Government for Voluntary Aided Schools. Issued on 27 October, consultation period—four weeks. The period was extended by one week.Consultation Letter to Industrial Training Organisations, Lead Bodies and Occupational Standards Councils on working relationships with Sector Partners. The aim was to set-up a series of conferences on: 28 November, 11 December, 14 December and 19 December. Issued on 19 October, consultation period—five and a half weeks. The period was not extended.Consultation Proposals to Allow Easier Access to Schools' National Curriculum Assessments Results. Issued on 30 October, consultation period—six weeks. No current plans to extend consultation period.A Common Funding Formula for Grant-Maintained Schools, 1996–97: The Top-slice.Issued on 3 October, consultation paper—four weeks. The period was not extended.Consultation Paper on Calculating the Primary/secondary Split. Issued on 5 September, consultation period—four weeks. The period was not extended.Consultation Paper on Standardising the Pupil Count and Pupil Contingency. Issued on 6 October, consultation period—four weeks. The period was not extended.Consultation Paper on Other Common Funding Formula Issues. Issued on 31 October, consultation period—four weeks. The period was not extended.Consultation Paper on Proposed Allocation Formula. Issued on 29 November, consultation period—three weeks. No current plans to extend consultation period.Consultation Letter on Training for Appeal Committee Members for Admission and Exclusion. Issued on 27 November, consultation period—three weeks. No current plans to extend consultation period.Draft Planning Guidance for TECs and Careers Service 1996–97. Issued on 6 October, consultation period—three weeks. The period was not extended.Consultation Letter on Proposed Regulations Affecting Entitlement to JSA of People Undertaking Voluntary Work While Unemployed. Issued on 11 August, consultation period—six weeks. The period was not formally extended, however, the last response was accepted on 26 September.Future Arrangements for the Secretary of State to Receive Local Advice and Assistance on the Employment of People with Disabilities. Issued on 9 October, consultation period—12 weeks. No current plans to extend consultation period.Criteria for Severely Disabled People entering the Employment Service's Supported Employment Programme. Issued on 25 October, consultation period—14 weeks. No current plans to extend consultation period.142 Local Advisory Arrangements. Issued in October, consultation period—nine weeks. No current plans to extend consultation period.Draft Leaflet for Parents on School Attendance. Issued on 29 August, consultation period—four and a half weeks. The period was not extended.Letter Inviting Comments on the Proposed Collection of Exclusion Appeals Data. Issued on 28 September, consultation period—four weeks. This period was not extended.Letter to Governors of Stratford Schools about use of Powers to Replace First Governors. Issued on 3 November, consultation period—one and a half weeks. The consultation period could have been extended, however, no extension was requested.Consultation on the Main Proposals Contained in the Report Produced by the North East London Education Association on the Future of the Hackney Downs Schools. Issued on 31 October, consultation period one and a half weeks. The period was not extended.

  Unemployment (Waveney)
  Mr Berry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what is her most recent estimate of the level of unemployment in Waveney; and if she will make a statement on the measures she proposes to take to reduce it. [3845]

  Mr. Forth
  On 12 October 1995, the latest date for which figures are available, the number of unemployed people in Waveney was 4,580.

  The local offices of the Employment Service provide a wide range of programmes to assist jobseekers to find work. Norfolk and Waveney training and enterprise council provides a range of training programmes for adults and young people, including a programme specific to Waveney offering practical training in skills for the offshore industries. The TEC, in conjunction with the local authority, offers an incentive scheme for those who start up new businesses in the area. These opportunities, together with our overall policy aim of achieving sustainable low inflation growth, are the best way of achieving a reduction in unemployment.

  Code of Practice (Consultation)
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment when she expects to draw up a code of good practice on consultation along the lines recommended by the efficiency scrutiny on the administrative burden on schools. [4001]

  Mr. Robin Squire
  Work on the code of practice is due to start shortly. As my officials need to consult widely on the content, it will not be generally available until next year.

  Suffolk Training and Enterprise Council
  Mr. Spring
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what assessment she has made of the accuracy of the published information on the value of Suffolk TEC's contract with the Employment Department in the financial year 1994–95; and if she will make a statement. [4190]

  Mr. Paice
  The published figure is incorrect. The value of Suffolk TEC's budget in the financial year 1994–95 was overstated by £4.52 million: the correct figure should
  143
  be £15.6 million. This error was caused by a change to the method by which the TEC's youth credits programme was funded, midway through the year.

  This led to a clerical error when part of the budget was double counted. I should stress that this was purely an administrative error and at no time were public funds at risk. The administrative systems have now been changed to ensure that this mistake cannot be repeated.

  College Fees
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what plans she has for the future handling of college fees at the universities of Durham, Kent, Lancaster and York.[4192]

  Mr. Forth
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has accepted that the funds paid in college fees to the universities of Durham, Kent, Lancaster and York should be paid to those universities as part of their funding council grant. The constitutional independence of St. Chad's college, St. John's college and Ushaw college from the university of Durham precludes the transfer of 144
  college fees in their case. The Higher Education Funding Council for England has been asked to advise my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on the annual adjustment of their college fees in future.

  Lifetime Learning
  Mr. Clifton-Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if she will make a statement on lifetime learning. [4181]

  Mr. Paice
  I shall be publishing tomorrow a consultation document on lifetime learning. Copies will be placed in the Library.

  Building a culture of lifetime learning is crucial both to sustaining our international competitiveness and to the quality of our national life. It is a shared enterprise between Government, employers, individuals, and education and training providers. The document invites views from a wide range of interested parties by 26 February 1996 on how together we can set a course for achieving the national targets for lifetime learning, building on the progress already achieved.

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

Life Prisoners: Home Leave
Lord Boyd-Carpenter Lord Boyd-Carpenter asked Her Majesty's Government:
On whose authority convicted persons serving life sentences are temporarily released on home leave, and for what reason or reasons such persons are so released.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Blatch): My Lords, under the new system of release on temporary licence, eligible life sentenced prisoners in open conditions who satisfy the mandatory risk assessment may be released on resettlement licence to maintain their family ties and links with the community. A decision to grant an initial period of resettlement licence is made on the authority of the Secretary of State by Prison Service headquarters. Subsequent grants are made by the governor of the prison in which the prisoner is held.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer. However, is it not a fact that the deterrent effect of a life sentence is very much undermined by the frequent habit of releasing people during the running of it? Equally, is it not a fact that on quite a number of occasions persons serving life sentences released on home leave then commit further offences?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I hope that my noble friend can be comforted by some of the changes that have been made. It is now the case that life sentenced prisoners do not qualify for release on temporary licence until they have moved to open conditions. They cannot be moved to open conditions until they are within three years of their service. If there is any risk assessment to public safety, open conditions will not be granted and therefore early release does not apply.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, may or may not be comforted by the Minister's second answer. However, were not his first, and indeed his second questions, based on a considerable misunderstanding? As I understand it, all but 15 of prisoners who have mandatory life sentences may expect under the terms of their tariff period to be released into the community at some stage. Are not home leave and release under licence, which are intended to help them to get back into the community, as important for them as for other prisoners?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, first, the Question relates to anyone serving a life sentence and therefore
816
it will include discretionary as well as mandatory life sentences. If there is any assessment of risk to public safety, temporary release can be withheld and the prisoner can serve his whole sentence in custody. The noble Lord makes an important point that resettlement leave is a structured part of helping people to move from custody into open conditions and then out into the community.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that the anxiety which lies behind this Question is evidence of the folly in rejecting the removal of the mandatory life sentence for murder because that means, does it not?, that people who are to leave prison relatively soon and who no doubt have committed different sorts of offences will be treated in the same way as serious offenders?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I do not believe that this matter undermines that provision in any way. The paramount consideration in all of this is the safety of the public, whether someone is serving a mandatory life sentence or a discretionary life sentence. For the mandatory life sentence the period to be served is, of course, the tariff period. It is only within three years of the tariff period that consideration is even given for open prison conditions. If concern remains about public safety, open conditions will not be granted.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, can my noble friend confirm that, when someone has been convicted of an offence committed while on home leave, he will never receive home leave again?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, it is true that such a person would be unlikely ever to receive home leave again. An additional offence has been created for anyone who does not return from home leave. That new offence was created under the previous criminal justice Bill.
Lord Hayter: My Lords, will the Minister explain to the House under what order or what Act of Parliament this release is being governed?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, the recent changes to home leave conditions did not require primary legislation. That is a matter for my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, who has made changes to the way in which the system works. He has tightened it up in response to the anxiety on the part of the public, which is, I believe, underpinned by my noble friend's Question. The public were concerned about people who committed crimes while on early release.

Student Loans Company
2.42 p.m.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris Lord Morris of Castle Morris asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they are satisfied with the performance of the Student Loans Company.
The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Lord Henley): My Lords, yes.

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The National Audit Office report published on 24th November this year showed that, following certain difficulties last year, the company is now operating well.
Lord Castle of Castle Morris: My Lords, I am obliged to the Minister for that brief Answer. Is he aware that Sir Eric Ash, to whom most of the credit for rescuing the Student Loans Company must go, believes, and has stated, that the biggest problem with student loans is their repayment mechanism? That is also the opinion of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals, the Higher Education Careers Service Unit and the students. Why, then, do the Government do nothing about repayment but bring forward a Bill to extend nothing but choice, which nobody wants?
Lord Henley: My Lords, the Bill that we shall be bringing forward is another matter, but that will extend choice, diversity and competition and bring gains for the students accordingly. I reject the noble Lord's accusation that we do nothing about repayments. The Student Loans Company has collected some 95 per cent. of all the moneys due, and I believe that is a very creditable performance.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, does my noble friend recollect that when the student loans scheme first came before your Lordships' House in 1988, those of us with close connections with universities urged the Government to replace it by a scheme in which repayment would come through taxation, as in Australia? That scheme works. This scheme clearly causes hardship. When we have a Commonwealth, why do we not take advantage of the experience of countries in the Commonwealth which make experiments we might well follow?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I do not accept my noble friend's accusation that the scheme is not working. It would be possible to look at alternative schemes and, as my noble friend suggests, one could look at schemes which use either the tax or national insurance system. However, I have to say to my noble friend that I believe that would impose extra and unnecessary burdens on employers and would introduce unnecessary complication. It also possibly goes against the general principle that the tax and national insurance systems should not be used for debt collecting.
Baroness David: My Lords, in its report of 24th November the National Audit Office says that one in eight students with a government loan is unlikely ever to repay it, and that £1.3 billion is now outstanding. Why is that so, and what steps do the Government propose to take to recover the £142 million which the National Audit Office says will not be repaid? We were told when the 1990 Bill was before us that we would see the start of savings in the year 2015. Is that in any way a realistic date since, as of last March, 45 per cent. of all borrowers had had their grants deferred?
Lord Henley: My Lords, it was never the Government's intention that we should recover every last penny of money paid out in loans. It was our
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intention that the money should be recovered only from those whose incomes reached at least 85 per cent. of national average income. There will always be some who do not reach that figure or who die before the 25 years expire. We shall continue to try to reclaim those moneys which are due to us. As I made clear in my original Answer, we believe that the performance of the Student Loans Company so far has been very creditable. It has reclaimed some 95 per cent. of the moneys that are now due to it.
Baroness Perry of Southwark: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that, after its initial difficulties, the loan scheme is now deeply appreciated by responsible students, who have every intention of repaying their loans? Is he also aware that students from other countries who see the service we offer to students here in the United Kingdom regard it as a Rolls-Royce opportunity and are deeply envious of the opportunities that we give?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I am most grateful for my noble friend's comments. My noble friend is quite right to underline the success of the scheme. The success of the scheme is one of the factors which has allowed us to expand higher education to its highest ever level. Now one in three of all students go on to higher education. Those who oppose the scheme or other such schemes have to address the question of just how higher education is to be funded. We believe it is right that those who are the direct and principal beneficiaries of higher education should also make some contribution to it.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, if the Student Loans Company is now so efficient, why are the Government coercing unwilling banks and building societies into providing competitive schemes when there is no evidence whatever that students want competitive schemes?
Lord Henley: My Lords, we are not coercing banks and building societies into the new scheme. We shall invite expressions of interest from all banks, and I am sure that they will come forward. As I tried to make clear to the noble Lord earlier, and as I made clear on another occasion when I spoke in the debate on the Queen's Speech, we believe that it is important to extend choice and diversity in the loan scheme to all students. We think that all students will benefit. I believe that financial institutions themselves will be able to put forward packages which will be of interest to those students.
Lord Walton of Detchant: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the National Commission on Education and the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals have suggested a mechanism of repayment through the tax or national insurance system different in some respects from the Australian graduate tax, which is more of a lifetime tax? The proposals they have made relate to

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actual repayment of the sum borrowed once the individual has reached a certain level of income. Will the Government examine those proposals carefully?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I believe that I addressed that question in answering my noble friend Lord Beloff. I do not believe that the tax and national insurance systems are suitable vehicles for debt collection.
Baroness David: My Lords, is it not a fact that the reason so much money is owing and is likely to continue to be owed is the Treasury's objection to the PSBR being increased? Is that not why the scheme is being introduced?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I do not believe that excessive amounts are still owed. As I made clear, I believe that the Student Loans Company is performing well. I made it clear that of moneys due to be repaid, some 95 per cent. are being collected at the moment.
Lord Annan: My Lords, the noble Baroness may have said that there is great satisfaction among students; it is a very different view from that of vice-chancellors and principals. Will the noble Lord put his weight behind having a discussion with the committee? The committee has been trying to encourage the Government to discuss the matter for some time. The Government refuse to do so. Surely the time has come when there might be some exchange of views.
Lord Henley: My Lords, either I or my right honourable friend might be prepared to consider such applications for further discussions. However, I do not believe that now is the moment drastically to change the scheme. We shall still have the Student Loans Company. We shall also have the availability of private sector banks offering loans. I do not believe that there is a case at present either to extend the scheme or for trying to make use either of a tax or the national insurance system for the reasons that I set out earlier.

Disabled People: Job Prospects
2.50 p.m.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend Lord Ashley through illness, and with his agreement, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
Whether her Majesty's Government expect any significant changes in the job prospects of disabled people.
Lord Henley: My Lords, perhaps I may offer my best wishes to the noble Lord on behalf of this side of the House and hope to see him back in his place in due course.
The employment provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act will have a significant and positive impact on the job prospects of disabled people.
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The Government will continue to promote employer commitment to a positive approach to employing disabled people and will continue to provide practical support through employment and training services and programmes.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that response. What steps are being taken to educate employers in the provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act? What is being done to ensure that the situation is better rather than worse as a result of the disappearance of the quota system? The Minister will no doubt recall that during discussion of the Bill when it was before your Lordships' House a number of us expressed some concern about the disappearance of the quota system even though we accepted that it had its critics and disadvantages.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I think that the noble Baroness will accept, as will most Members of the House, that the quota system had reached the end of its life and that it was time that it should go. As the noble Baroness will be aware, the employment provisions of the Act will come into force next year. In the meanwhile, as we made quite clear as the Bill was going through Parliament, we shall bring forward a code of practice. That draft code of practice will be published shortly. We shall consult on it before producing the final code of practice some time in the summer—well before the provisions come into effect. Thus employers, disabled people, and organisations of and for disabled people will be able to get to grips with the code of practice to make sure that it can be brought into effect, and that it provides the best assistance to disabled people while not imposing an over-onerous burden on employers.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the access to work scheme—it was introduced by the Government only a few years ago—has been widely accepted as having been a great success? The only concern now is that the scheme might be reduced. Will the Government carefully consider any changes in that scheme? It is working well, although it coincides with the new Act.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I am grateful for what my noble friend said about the access to work scheme. I played some small part in its introduction a little over 18 months ago.
I accept that the access to work scheme has helped a large number of disabled people. I believe that some 10,000 people were being helped by the scheme in the 12 months to June 1995. However, my noble friend will be aware that we are reviewing the access to work scheme, as I and my right honourable friend Mr. Hunt promised to do when we introduced the scheme. Most of the beneficiaries of the access to work scheme have been those in employment. Some 80 per cent. of the beneficiaries were in employment, whereas the scheme was originally designed to help those unemployed. There is not yet direct evidence that the scheme has been

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as helpful to the unemployed as we would wish. That is one of the matters that we shall have to address when we review the scheme.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I am sure that the Minister will appreciate that the Royal British Legion has a great interest in the scheme. It would be only too willing to give some assistance. That body could gain from people who have served our country and who are disabled. I am sure that the Minister would be pleased to talk to it.
Lord Henley: My Lords, the noble Lord does considerable service to the Royal British Legion in bringing its marvellous work to the attention of the House. It is work of which I believe we are all well aware and for which we are grateful. I shall certainly listen to any specific points that the Royal British Legion wishes to put to me.
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: My Lords, I am sure that the Minister's view that the new changes will help disabled people into work is sincere. However, will he give an assurance that when the code of practice is drawn up it will contain a requirement to monitor the situation; and that the hoped-for increase in numbers will be published? While I rely on his assurance, we need to follow through quite clearly how people with disabilities will have equal access to work.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I can give the noble Baroness the assurance that we shall monitor the success of the Act. We are as committed to making it a success as everyone else, but I do not believe that the code of practice would be the right place to put in a guarantee to monitor the Act. However, I can give the noble Baroness that assurance from this Dispatch Box this afternoon.
Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, would it be useful to draw the attention of Members of the House to the brochures which have just been produced by the department? They draw attention to the effect of the measures which are likely to appear following the Disability Discrimination Act. The brochures are well produced and concise. I am sure that they will help to raise public appreciation of the problems of the disabled, both in looking for employment and in access.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for allowing me to make considerable savings on our publicity budget by bringing to the attention of the House those publicity documents. If my noble friend wishes, and it is the wish of the House, I shall certainly place copies of them in the Library.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, will the Minister tell the House what progress is. made with regard to supported employment programmes for the severely disabled? Will he give assurances about the continuing support, for example, for Remploy?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I can assure the noble Baroness that currently around 21,800 severely disabled people are assisted through the supported employment programme at a cost of some £153 million. Of those, some 8,800 are in Remploy, some in Remploy factories
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and some employed under what is known as the Interwork scheme. Obviously we shall continue to support people whether in workshops or outside in mainstream factories. What the appropriate balance should be is another matter. I can give the noble Baroness my assurance for the continued support of Remploy.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, the House will have been interested to learn of the production of a glossy brochure to publicise the benefits of the Disability Discrimination Act, and no doubt will wish to compliment the Government on that. Can we have an assurance that other actions by the Government will also receive publicity through expensive glossy brochures?
Noble Lords: No!
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, I am assured from a sedentary position that it is not expensive and glossy. However, it is a publicity brochure explaining the Act. Can we be assured that the same expenditure of effort will go into publicising other Acts of the Government—for example, the reduction in housing and unemployment benefit which the Government plan to bring in?
Lord Henley: My Lords, the noble Lord makes a rather silly point. We provide the appropriate publicity for our measures as and where necessary. We shall certainly provide the appropriate publicity to encourage employers to recognise the benefits of the Disability Discrimination Act.

EU/USA Relationship
2.59 p.m.
Lord Bruce of Donington Lord Bruce of Donington asked Her Majesty's
Government:
What steps they propose to take at the forthcoming meeting of the European Council (which will consider the Commission's proposals (9545/95 of 1st September 1995) concerning the strengthening and developing relations between the European Union and the United States of America) to protect the relationship between the United Kingdom and the USA, its membership of the United Nations Security Council, and its ties and commercial relationship with the Commonwealth.
Lord Chesham: My Lords, enhancing the transatlantic relationship is a top priority for the Government. President Clinton's successful visit last week demonstrated the strength of our relationship with the US. The EU/US initiative complements this, and does not affect our membership of the UN Security Council or our links with the Commonwealth.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, the Minister will be aware that the subject of my Question has been overtaken by events. An important pact between the United States and the European Union was concluded only a day or so ago. Either the pact that has been concluded is extremely important for the country or it is

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not. If it is important, is it not remarkable that the subject matter, which will affect practically every inhabitant of the United Kingdom, has not been discussed in Parliament at all prior to the conclusion of the pact? Parliament was not informed and knew nothing about it until the feature article today in The Times. Is the noble Lord aware that Canada has a vital interest in the matter and has expressed misgiving at being excluded from the discussions? Can the Minister be a little more forthcoming about the matter? Will he ensure that in future we are told about such matters in advance of them happening?
Lord Chesham: My Lords, I shall do my best to answer those various questions. What is debated in the other House has nothing to do with us. What is debated in this House is up to the usual channels. However, the UK Government have been closely involved in the preparations for the EU/US summit. The political declaration and action plan reflect UK input and priorities, particularly on trade liberalisation and joint action against international crime.
Lord Wright of Richmond: My Lords, will the Minister agree that despite the generous and heartwarming remarks made by President Clinton last Wednesday on the bilateral relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom, nevertheless British membership of the European Union and the extent of our positive commitment to that union is an important factor not only in the relationship of the United States with this country but also in regard to United States' and other investment in this country?
Lord Chesham: Yes, my Lords, I agree that the relationship is very important. That is why we welcomed the remarks which we heard last week from President Clinton. I should like to remind noble Lords that on Wednesday he said to me and a few other people:
"Today the United States and the United Kingdom [have] an extraordinary relationship that unites us in a way never before seen in the ties between two such … nations".
Of course it is important on a bilateral and a multilateral basis.
Lord Marsh: My Lords, will the Minister agree that the special relationship between this country and the United States of America—and like that of other countries with the United States or like that of other countries with the United States—will remain a special relationship for as long as it is in the interests of the United States of America?
Lord Chesham: My Lords, it is difficult to ask me to comment on the attitude of the United States of America. However, I wish to confirm that it is of great importance to the United Kingdom.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, is the Minister aware that many people are exceedingly worried about the creeping way in which the European Union increases its competence? Is it not just another way in which it is taking on the trappings of a European superstate, to the detriment of independent sovereign
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governments and to the detriment of Parliament itself, which has so easily and wilfully ceded its powers over a long period?
Lord Chesham: My Lords, the Council of Ministers agreed on 20th November that the EU/US initiative in no way alters the existing balance of competences.
Lord Richard: My Lords, is the Minister aware that for this country the acid test of the agreement reached between the European Union and the United States is whether it is to the benefit of this country? Is he also aware that anyone who looks at the matter objectively will come to the conclusion that it is for the benefit of this country? Is the noble Lord further aware that one should be loath to throw away, and reluctant to cast doubt upon, the pivotal diplomatic advantages that this country has in world affairs? One is our membership of the European Union through which we are in a position to influence what goes on in the largest trading block in the world. The second is our close relationship with the United States which is still the most powerful country in the world. Will the Minister re-emphasise and underline that that remains at the heart of government policy?
Lord Chesham: My Lords, the transatlantic relationship is of vital importance to this country and to Europe. It is the bedrock of our security and prosperity. The world is changing fast and we need to enhance the sense of common purpose on issues important to both Europe and North America, particularly trade liberalisation, and to tackle problem areas.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, will my noble friend indicate why the House did not have the opportunity to discuss this vitally important matter, apart from the reason he gave that the usual channels were not interested?
Lord Chesham: My Lords, I did not say that. I said that it was up to the usual channels in this House.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, they failed.
Lord Chesham: My Lords, if the matter was not produced to the usual channels then they had nothing to answer.
Lord Shepherd: My Lords, will the Minister reflect on what he said in reply to his noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter? I thought that what he suggested was that it was for the usual channels to decide what we debated. At the end of the day, it is what we, the Members of this House, wish to debate. If we have not had a debate, it is perhaps a failure of the usual channels. But equally the responsibility falls upon any Member of this House who felt that it was a matter which ought to be discussed but who did not make the obvious arrangements for initiating a debate.
Lord Chesham: My Lords, I believe that that is helpful. We are not opposed to a debate on the matter. Events have taken place recently which may make a

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debate inappropriate, but it is up to people to produce the matter for the usual channels to decide in the normal way of discussion. We are not opposed to it.
Lord Shepherd: My Lords, with due respect to the noble Lord, it has nothing to do with the usual channels. If the noble Lords, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, Lord Bruce of Donington, or myself, had wished to have a debate we could have put a Motion down to that effect. There is nothing to say that the agreement of the usual channels is necessary for it to be provided.
Lord Chesham: My Lords, all I can say is that no one has put down a Motion for debate on the matter.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, would it not be helpful if the Foreign and Commonwealth Office were to submit rather more documents to your Lordships' scrutiny committee so that such matters could be properly discussed before they take place?
Lord Shepherd: My Lords, that is another matter.
Lord Chesham: My Lords, I shall see to that but I believe that we are getting slightly wide of the original Question.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the Minister aware that my Question was directed not so much towards the facilities for debate in this House as to the provision of information that would enable us to have any debate at all on the subject? Will the Government make quite sure that before they conclude agreements, or become a party to conclusions, they will provide details to Parliament so that Parliament may consider the matter?
Lord Chesham: My Lords, I believe that I answered that point on the previous question. We shall certainly look at the matter.

Deer (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill [H.L.]
3.8 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Scottish Office (The Earl of Lindsay): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
This Bill is intended to update the legal framework under which wild deer in Scotland are managed. Wild deer, especially our native red and roe deer, are an integral part of our natural and cultural heritage. They contribute significantly to the economic life of much of rural Scotland, especially our most remote areas. Deer are our largest wild land mammal and there are no natural predators. They therefore need effective management to allow them to live in harmony with their habitat and other land uses. The purpose of the new Bill is to ensure that deer managers and in particular the Deer Commission have the powers they need for the future to carry out the necessary management tasks effectively.
In Scots law, deer are classified as res nullius, meaning that when alive they belong to no one. Traditionally however the right to kill deer goes with
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ownership of the land. Consequently, the rights and benefits of managing deer, and the parallel responsibilities which go with them, fall to the landowner. In recognition however of the impact deer can have on other legitimate land uses, the Deer (Scotland) Act 1959 gave certain rights to occupiers of land to take action to prevent deer damage. The 1959 Act also set down a framework of measures regulating the killing of deer, including provision for the setting of close seasons, controls on night shooting and other matters. These other measures were variously designed to protect the welfare of deer and also to control poaching. Just as importantly, the 1959 Act set up the Red Deer Commission as the Government's statutory adviser on deer. The commission was given powers to promote action to manage deer effectively, including advising deer managers on the conservation and control of deer and authorising action outwith the general framework of the close seasons to protect against deer damage to agriculture and forestry.
This legislative framework has proved invaluable over the past 35 years and it has allowed the Red Deer Commission to resolve successfully many of the long-standing conflicts over deer, especially in the Highlands and Islands. Some noble Lords present today may recall the complaints made in the 1950s by occupiers of farm and croft land in the red deer range and the controversy that resulted from this. Following the implementation of the 1959 Act, these problems became much less widespread. I know that farmers and crofters remain concerned about specific difficulties in some areas, but am encouraged that the commission, particularly through the efforts of the hardworking chairman and expert staff, is taking active steps to resolve problems when they arise.
Time moves on and circumstances change. From a land use point of view there has been a substantial increase in forestry planting and this has both reduced the traditional red deer range and provided additional potential habitats for deer of all species—red, roe and sika deer. We have also seen an increase in deer populations with, for example, an estimated doubling in the approximate numbers of red deer in Scotland from 1963 to 1989. As a result, concerns have grown that the number of deer in some areas is out of balance not only with other land uses, but with the habitat. This, in turn, has led to concerns about the long-term welfare of the deer and the threat of damage to the natural heritage. For the traditional deer estate, there is also the loss of income that results from the increased shooting of mature stags as marauding animals in winter, driven away from their traditional range by increasing hind numbers.
The Red Deer Commission has sought to address these new concerns. It has worked closely with the Forestry Commission to encourage more effective control of deer in woodland and it has provided advice to the Forestry Authority on the design and planning of new woodlands. It has also sought to encourage communication and, where relevant, co-operative action between deer managers through the medium of deer management groups, set up and run by deer managers themselves but with the backing and advice of the

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commission. Such groups now cover most of the deer range and are increasingly active in promoting measures to tackle effective population control. The Government strongly back the voluntary approach to promoting good deer management practices and the general thrust of this Bill, as with the 1959 Act itself, is designed to stress co-operation and consent where at all possible. The voluntary principle remains the central pillar.
The Red Deer Commission has however been working very much at the limits of the powers available to it through the 1959 Act, as amended, and it is to be congratulated on the resourceful manner in which it has approached the new problems facing deer managers. There is a clear need now for the legislation to be updated and for the commission to be given wider and more flexible powers to tackle the problems as they exist at the end of the 20th century.
There is a particular need for powers for the commission and deer managers to take action in respect of damage to the natural heritage. Although those concerned in the 1950s with natural heritage matters, including the then Nature Conservancy, were closely interested in the relationship between deer and their natural habitats, the whole issue of environmental sustainability did not have the same importance in public and policy terms at that time as it has now. In addition, deer numbers have increased dramatically and, as I stated, red deer numbers have more than doubled in the short period of just 25 years.
The current legislation acts as a constraint on those who wish to protect the natural heritage and it can also act to constrain private managers who wish to protect natural heritage features in which they themselves have made significant investment such as grouse moors. On that and other related matters, I am delighted that my noble friend Lord Woolton is able to make his maiden speech today. He has experience and knowledge of these areas.
The Government issued a consultation paper in late 1991 proposing changes to deer legislation to reflect the natural heritage dimension to deer management. It also proposed certain other changes to the general law on the rights of owners and occupiers to shoot deer to meet current and future requirements for balancing other land use concerns with the interests of deer and deer managers. Following the consultation period, my honourable friend the Member for Dumfries, my distinguished predecessor as the Minister for agriculture and environment at the Scottish Office, asked the Red Deer Commission to consider the responses to the consultation paper. The commission put forward its proposals for legislative change in 1994, after discussions with relevant bodies. It is to its credit that it was able to achieve a large measure of consensus between the various groups with an interest in the management of deer. Following subsequent consideration inside government and with key outside bodies the Member for Dumfries announced the government proposals for legislative change in May of this year. The Bill before the House is intended to put these proposals into effect.
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At the same time as progressing proposals for change in deer legislation, the Government have also stepped up their support for the Red Deer Commission. Following the appointment of Patrick Gordon-Duff-Pennington as chairman of the commission in 1993, a role which he is carrying out with considerable skill and determination, the Government have strengthened significantly their budgetary provision for the commission. This increased budget (now standing at over £600,000, and likely to rise as a result of this Bill) has enabled the commission to open a new office in Stirling. It has also enabled the commission to increase the level of support it can provide to deer management groups through the new deer liaison officer posts.
The commission will never be a large bureaucracy, and indeed that is the key to its continuing effectiveness; it does not have grant-giving powers and depends very much for the most part on using advice, guidance and persuasion to encourage others to adopt and continue good deer management practices. But it is important that the organisation has the necessary resources at its disposal to carry out its main tasks effectively, and the Government are committed to seeing this happen.
This Bill tackles several key issues facing the commission and deer managers today. First, the general powers of the commission will be expanded to allow it to promote good deer management practices across the range of issues affecting deer. In particular, these powers will allow it to promote action relating to all species of deer established in Scotland and all aspects of the relationship between deer and their habitats. Red deer will remain an important focus of the commission, given their economic, social and environmental significance, especially in upland Scotland. But these new powers will also reflect and develop further the interest already taken by the commission and deer managers in the management issues affecting other species of deer, especially sika and roe following the extension of some of its powers to cover those species in the Deer (Amendment)(Scotland) Act 1982, which was piloted through the House with some considerable skill and fortitude by my noble friend Lord Glenarthur. It is important that the commission has the full range of powers for the various species of deer which will allow it to promote effective action in ways which, nevertheless, can still take account of the individual characteristics of different species.
In recognition of this change, the Bill would re-name the commission the "Deer Commission for Scotland". On this I should perhaps add that the addition of "Scotland" will not mean any change in the territorial coverage of the commission, which is currently limited to Scotland only. I am sure that noble Lords understand that the specific nature of deer issues affecting us in Scotland differ, sometimes, considerably from those elsewhere in the United Kingdom and that therefore a specific Scottish approach to deer is required.
The Bill will also give the commission, through Clause 3, general powers to promote good practice in deer management by broadening its current advisory role and by allowing it to engage in demonstration projects. These general powers are in many ways the

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most important aspects of the commission's day to day role in promoting good deer management. Since for most purposes deer management in Scotland is carried out by local managers, it is essential that it has access to up-to-date and consistent advice and support. Just as importantly, these revised powers will allow the commission to develop further its current support for deer management groups, which provide an increasingly effective mechanism for co-ordinating action by deer managers in particular deer ranges.
The Bill contains a provision in Clause 2 to give more flexibility to the commission in deciding on the composition of local panels it can appoint to assist it in its work in local areas. In most circumstances we expect the commission to continue to work with the local voluntary deer management groups to which I have already referred. However, in exceptional circumstances, perhaps where a deer management group does not exist in a particular area, or where there is a need for action by several deer management groups jointly, there might well be a need for these statutory provisions to be put into effect. The new flexibility that the Bill will allow in this respect will ensure that the panel selected is the most appropriate for the issues affecting particular areas.
In parallel with the re-naming of the commission and the extension of its general powers, the Bill also contains in Clause 1 provisions to permit more flexibility in the system of making appointments to the commission. The current provisions set out a strict numerical formula for selecting members from nominees of specific interest groups and bodies. Those interest groups reflect very much the interests in deer as they were perceived in 1959, when the Act was passed. Although the bodies named in the Act remain important in the context of deer, the Act as it stands does not reflect the full range of bodies and individuals with interests currently in deer and their management. Moreover, while many distinguished people have served on the commission since its inception, the current system does not always allow the best available candidates to be appointed on merit.
The Bill therefore includes provisions which will allow a wider range of candidates to be considered. The Bill does, however, stress the need for such candidates to have knowledge and experience of the key issues facing the commission; namely, deer management itself, agriculture including crofting, woodland management and forestry and the natural heritage. It is important that members have this practical experience and knowledge so that they can reach decisions with a clear understanding of their implications for those on the ground. Only if the commission has the confidence of land use managers will it be able to promote effective voluntary action by them. That remains very much the primary thrust of the deer management framework and is the Government's and the commission's preferred option.
In Clause 1 the Deer Commission will also be given the specific general function of furthering the sustainable management of deer, alongside its existing general functions of furthering the conservation and
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control of deer. The Government's general policy on sustainable development has been clearly set out following the Rio Summit on Environment and Development in publications such as the UK Strategy on Sustainable Development published in early 1994 and the Government's recent Action Plan on Bio-Diversity. In Scotland, the Government are very much committed to promoting the sustainable development and management of our natural resources.
The extension of the general functions of the Deer Commission to cover this matter will enable the commission to seek to apply the key principles of sustainable management to deer management generally in Scotland. In essence, sustainable management implies that the natural resource should be managed so that it is used wisely and does not compromise the inheritance of the future. As far as deer are concerned, this will mean managing the resource in a way which enables the deer population to live successfully in balance with its habitats. That long-term objective would, if properly implemented, ensure that conflicts with other land uses are kept to a minimum and that, where possible, effective management action is planned well in advance, so that emergency action is either avoided altogether or kept to the absolute minimum.
The Red Deer Commission is already active in this regard in several ways. In conjunction with other public and private bodies with an interest in sustainable management, the commission is involved in the preparation of support models which are designed to assist managers to set appropriate population density levels in relation to particular habitats. The commission is also piloting the preparation of deer management plans which will be designed, as expertise develops, to reflect both local habitat needs and the requirements of deer managers. The Deer Commission will be seeking to demonstrate that the conservation, control and sustainable management of deer and their habitats in a manner which respects other land use considerations is the most effective, efficient and, in the long run, rewarding management system for deer managers.
The Deer Commission and private owners and occupiers will also be given by the Bill certain powers for controlling deer in order to protect the natural heritage. Most importantly, the Deer Commission will be given strengthened powers to promote voluntary control agreements in order to protect the natural habitats as well as agriculture and forestry. It will also be given new powers to protect against threats to public safety. Such voluntary control agreements were promoted widely by the commission in the 1960s, and have more recently been promoted in several parts of the East Grampians. They are implemented by local managers and backed up by the expertise and resources of the commission, and are designed to enable effective long-term action to be taken to solve problems of over-population in particular areas. These strengthened powers will be of considerable benefit to deer managers and others who wish to take co-ordinated action in future.
Your Lordships will also note that Clause 4 extends the existing powers of the commission to authorise the following and killing of marauding deer to cover serious

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damage to the natural heritage and dangers to public safety. This is very much an emergency provision to deal with marauding deer only and will not be appropriate for controlling deer established on land. Moreover, under Clause 5, in exceptional circumstances the commission would be able to promote compulsory control orders in respect of serious damage to the natural heritage, in the same way as it can now promote such measures for agriculture and forestry damage. The clause makes it clear, however, that such compulsory measures can only proceed if voluntary control agreements have been tried and failed and if there is no alternative measure. Moreover, such compulsory measures will only be applicable in cases of protection against serious damage; they will not be appropriate in cases of proposals to enhance the natural heritage; that is to say, when changes in existing land use are sought. Compulsory control orders will, as now, remain subject to confirmation by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State.
As now, the exercise of the commission's powers will be subject to its own discretion as to the appropriateness of proposed measures for particular situations. The Bill contains an important measure in Clause 1 which will place a balancing duty on the commission in reaching its decisions to take account of factors including the relationship between deer and their habitats, the needs of agriculture and forestry and the interests of owners and occupiers of land. That balancing duty will ensure that the commission gives full regard to the wider aspects of the problem at hand, as well as the specific deer issues that it has to consider, and that the merits of all relevant issues are taken into account. Such balancing duties are common to a number of public bodies in Scotland and are a very useful mechanism for ensuring that action is taken only after full consideration of all the relevant factors.
As I have already stated, the Bill also proposes that powers be granted to the commission to authorise action, or in certain circumstances to take action, in respect of threats posed by deer to public safety. Again, the best long-term approach to ensuring that deer do not disrupt or threaten communities, or facilities such as airports, will be effective planning of sustainable management which keeps deer numbers in balance with the available habitats. There is a need, however, to have provisions for use in exceptional circumstances to ensure that such very occasional threats as do occur are brought under control as quickly as possible. The inclusion of these provisions in Clauses 4 and 5 will give the commission the powers that it needs to act in this regard.
The Bill contains a number of other measures, similarly designed as regards a more controlled and effective system of deer management throughout Scotland, which also take account of the welfare of the deer. They include amendment to the general law on the rights of land managers to shoot and take deer. In Clause 7 of the Bill, a number of changes are proposed to bring that about. First, all night shooting will henceforth require authorisation by the commission. Night shooting can sometimes be necessary to protect crops and other forms of vegetation from deer damage but it raises
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significant animal welfare, poaching and public safety issues. The commission has already prepared a code of practice for night shooting and the extension of authorisation to replace the existing exemption for agricultural occupiers will ensure that animal welfare, law and order and public safety concerns are met.
The Bill also proposes enabling the commission to authorise shooting during the close seasons to prevent serious damage to unenclosed woodlands or the natural heritage, or in the interests of public safety. Such control is not allowed under the current Act and constitutes a significant constraint on deer management in a number of areas in Scotland.
We have also included in the Bill the commission's proposal that the moving of deer by vehicles for deer management purposes would be permitted if authorised by the commission. That is currently an offence under the 1959 Act. The deer management purposes that the commission has in mind are essential culling work and exclude any sporting activity. The commission has made it clear that they only see such authorisation being given in very exceptional circumstances, such as when there is a sudden, dramatic and unsustainable population explosion in a particular area and no other methods of control have been, or are likely to be, effective. In response to the public concern about this proposal, we have included in the Bill the stipulation that any such authorisation will be subject to a code of practice on the matter to be prepared by the commission. I should also like to emphasise that the Bill does not change the existing offence of shooting deer from an aircraft.
The Bill also contains, in Clause 6, a proposal to enable the Secretary of State to set by order close seasons for all species of deer. These close seasons, during which the killing of deer is normally prohibited, contribute to deer welfare, form part of the general framework of control of the killing of deer and also respect sporting traditions.
Currently, under the 1959 Act, the Secretary of State can set close seasons for all species except red deer, which are set on the face of the Bill. The Red Deer Commission's proposal will allow more flexibility to change season dates if that is required in future. We have no plans at present however to make any changes to close season dates and would want, as the Bill provides, to seek the commission's views on the matter and those of the wider public before proceeding to make any change.
Lastly, I should note that the Bill contains, in Schedule 1, a new definition of the types of agricultural land on which an occupier can take action to protect crops or stock. Your Lordships may be aware that the current definition in Section 33(3) of the 1959 Act is uncertain, in part because of a judgment some years ago by the sheriff at Dornoch. The new definition we are proposing is intended to allow action to be taken in respect of land on which the occupier has .made significant investment to improve its productivity, but to exclude such action on other land. I believe that the new definition will help to clarify the law on this matter and provide effective protection where it is needed.

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As your Lordships may be aware, we have prepared a compliance cost assessment to accompany this Bill. This sets out in detail our general assumptions about the impact the Bill will have on private businesses. For the most part the Bill is aimed at promoting voluntary action by deer managers and will not impose any extra costs on them. Indeed, effectively planned deer management will bring about significant benefits to other land uses and deer managers themselves. Only in the very exceptional circumstances of compulsory control schemes to protect the natural heritage and/or public safety would there be extra costs involved. Those costs are not insignificant, but they would, at least in part, be offset by venison sales. In general terms the deer commission will seek to demonstrate to deer managers that effective action to manage deer in a sustainable long-term manner is very much in their own interests.
I recognise that the new Bill, if enacted, would not be as user-friendly as it might be, being an amendment Bill. I am therefore pleased to announce that we propose to introduce, when a legislative opportunity arises, a Bill to consolidate all deer legislation in Scotland in parallel with this Bill through the consolidation procedure. While that may not facilitate the job of your Lordships in considering this Bill in the short term, it will be of some considerable benefit to those affected by the law in the long term, and I hope that your Lordships will give it your support.
I trust that I have given a sufficient explanation of the content of the Bill and of the policies which underlie it. The Bill is substantially based on proposals prepared by the Red Deer Commission and following many years of consultation with affected interests. It represents a carefully considered, balanced approach. It seeks to build on the existing achievement of the commission, deer management groups and deer managers generally, and to give them the powers they need for the future. The aim of the Bill is to ensure that wild deer in Scotland continue to thrive as part of our natural heritage in successful co-existence with other fauna and flora and with other land uses. I am pleased to have the opportunity to promote this Bill, and I commend it to the House.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(The Earl of Lindsay.)
3.33 p.m.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his full explanation of the Bill. I too look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Earl, Lord Woolton, when he addresses the House. I find it difficult to address this debate because I received my briefings only this morning. I am therefore grateful to-the Minister for clearing up some of the problems, although I shall be raising certain points which will require either a reply from the Minister today or can be raised more fully in Committee.
My briefings were extremely helpful. They came from the WWF Scotland, the Scottish Wildlife Trust, the British Deer Society and the Scottish RSPCA. The WWF made a clear statement in regard to the problems
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associated with deer. I am not by any means an expert on the subject. Looking at the Benches opposite, I realise that many people know a great deal about it; but it is not a subject that is raised very often on the streets of Partick!
I appreciate the points made, and the WWF put it succinctly when it said that the deer population is,
"too high for the interests of the sporting fraternity; higher population densities produce fewer shootable stags with lower body-weights and smaller antlers".
I am not sure that that is a good enough reason for the culling. A much more important reason is that the population is,
"too high for the interests of the environment; trampling and browsing deprives whole areas of priceless habitat (including natural forests) of a secure future; [it is] too high for the welfare of the deer themselves; they don't thrive when their population starts to exceed the carrying capacity of the land; in these circumstances, large numbers of deer can suffer a lingering death from starvation and exposure in bad winter weather".
I have seen that occur in certain parts of Scotland, particularly in the Lochaber area, when there has been insufficient grazing for the deer. It is a tragic sight.
I shall return to that point, but the RSPCA is concerned about the powers of the commission in relation to the control scheme set out in the Bill. The proposals for new Section 7(1)(a) refer simply to "damage" to woodland. In legislation of this kind that is far too loose a definition. We shall certainly suggest a better definition of "damage". What may be damaging to one landowner may not be to another. I can think of one or two Members of this House who would object to a child running on the land, never mind people hiking across it or walking around the edge. Therefore damage to woodland must be defined rather better than it is at present. It may perhaps be qualified by the word "serious", as is the case in new Section 7(5)(b).
In new Section 7(1)(b) there is a reference in lines 17 and 21 to the possible option of "exterminating" deer in . a locality if damage has been caused. That is even more drastic. The Bill gives the commission the power to exterminate deer without deciding whether the damage to the land is extreme or the extent of the damage. That point is supported by the Scottish Wildlife Trust as well as the RSPCA. Perhaps the Minister can respond in that regard today or again we can debate it more fully at Committee stage.
Another contentious point has been raised many times in conversation. Perhaps the Minister can give us some confirmation on this. He suggested that aircraft would not be allowed. The idea of driving deer by aircraft raises considerable anxieties. Apparently, somewhere in the Bill—though I have not yet found it—a "vehicle" is subsequently defined as including aircraft. I can imagine what would happen if the deerstalking fraternity came out with an aircraft, either fixed wing or helicopters and, with the television watching, the deer were stampeded across the hills of Scotland. It would cause real public anxiety and perhaps a great deal more. Perhaps the Minister can clarify whether or not the definition of a "vehicle" for this purpose includes aircraft, either fixed wing or helicopters. That would be of considerable help.

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The Minister dealt to some extent with the code of practice on night shooting. We would like further explanation of that. Will the -new code of practice relating to night shooting and the use of vehicles have any legal status? I am informed that at present there is no legal status for that. I do not think the Minister dealt with that point, but then he could not deal with every point in his speech.
The British Deer Society is very concerned about the appointment of commissioners by the Secretary of State. It wonders whether there will be a balance of interests and how that balance of interests will be reached.
I am learning as we go along. I have a little background knowledge of the subject but not a great deal. I hope that at the end of the debate, having listened to the distinguished group of people who are to speak, I will have a great deal more knowledge. I look forward to taking an active part at the Committee stage of the Bill. Everyone accepts that something needs to be done, but we are not convinced that what is proposed in the Bill is for the good of the deer only. We wonder how much is also for the good of the sporting interests rather than general environmental interests. I look forward to hearing the rest of the debate.
3.41 p.m.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, before speaking I have to declare an interest as I am an owner of a deer forest in the western Highlands.
I should like to thank the Minister very much for the clear way in which he introduced the Bill. I broadly welcome its contents. I particularly welcome the fact that for the first time for 40 years, as the Minister said, we are being given the opportunity to look at the working of the 1959 Act and to assess how it measures up to the problem of the overpopulation of deer in some parts of the Highlands. It is not happening everywhere but only in some parts of the Highlands, particularly in Perthshire and the Angus Glen. The Bill includes for the first time all species of deer, not just red deer, which is of great importance, particularly for woodland management where roe deer and sika deer can do an enormous amount of damage and certainly can prevent natural regeneration of the forest.
Before referring to some of the details of the Bill I wish to make two points. First, control of the deer population is needed not only for the protection of agricultural land and the environmental heritage, but also for the welfare of the deer population itself. Lack of nutritious feeding grounds which results from overpopulation causes suffering to the animals and is a sign of bad husbandry of the land. The Red Deer Commission's proposals, on which there was consultation in 1994, use the term "welfare of the deer", which to me has a wider meaning than the term "sustainable management" used in the Bill. I would very much like to see the word "welfare" included in the Bill. The Minister himself used the words "welfare of deer" in his opening address.
Secondly, we must remember that not all over-grazing is caused by deer. Over-grazing by sheep over the centuries has also been responsible for damage
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to the natural heritage. That must be taken into account in order to tackle the problem on a co-ordinated basis and not put all the blame on the deer population of the Highlands.
To return to the details of the Bill, I welcome the new provision for the appointment of commissioners by the Secretary of State because it removes the very prescriptive nature of the appointments to the old Red Deer Commission. However, it is important that all commissioners, whatever their other expertise, should have knowledge and experience of deer management. It would be helpful if the Minister could tell the House how the Government see the composition of the new Deer Commission.
The introduction of voluntary schemes side-by-side with control schemes is welcome when they are based on damage having been caused or being likely to be caused to agriculture, forestry or woodland, with the new addition of damage to the natural heritage in both schemes. However, there is a difficulty in defining serious damage to the natural heritage. It is important to guard against the possible use of compulsory powers even when dealing with recalcitrant owners. Compulsory powers should not be used until every avenue for the introduction of a voluntary scheme has been explored. By far the majority of owners of deer forests have a personal interest in carrying out good husbandry of their herds and the compulsory powers should not be needed except on very rare occasions.
The new provisions in Clause 6 relating to the close season, making it subject to amendment by the Secretary of State, are also welcome as long as the provisions for consultation are adhered to before decisions are taken. Clause 7 deals with the authorisation by the commission given to any occupier of agricultural land or woodland to shoot any deer on any such land if they are satisfied that that is necessary and no other method of control can be found. Subsection (3) also gives the occupier the right to use any vehicle to drive deer in order to take or kill them for the purpose of good deer management. "Any vehicle" now includes the use of helicopters. That causes concern. For such action to be allowed very special authorisations should be necessary coupled with the prohibition of shooting from an aircraft. I realise that that is not allowed under the Bill.
Subsection (10) allows night shooting by any person, subject to authorisation by the commission. That will require very close co-operation with the police. All of us are fully aware that night shooting is what takes place when poachers go on our land. The commission cannot be made responsible for policing all these authorisations. That will have to be undertaken by the police. There will have to be close co-operation between the commission and the police in order to prevent a further increase in poaching.
Lastly, I should like to ask whether under both voluntary control agreements and control schemes there is a right to follow deer onto other people's land. Under a control scheme there seems to be some justification for such action but it is likely to cause trouble under voluntary control agreements. I hope that we can have clarification of the conditions under which deer can be followed across a neighbour's land.

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I welcome the Bill and I look forward to the Committee stage when we will explore one or two amendments which we should like to see.
3.50 p.m.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: My Lords, I suppose that I have an interest to declare because, although I do not own a deer forest, my husband did own Mar Forest but has given it to a trust for our grandchildren. Naturally I do not want to see their inheritance damaged.
The Government's intention to update and improve the Deer (Scotland) Act 1959 is welcome, but in some respects this Bill in its current version provides a shaky foundation on which to build. In the mistaken belief that it would be based on the Government's consultation document, and that heed would have been paid to the responses to that document by such bodies as the British Deer Society and the Association of Deer Management Groups, some of us pressed the Government to find time for it. We thought that the Bill would be fairly uncontroversial, but, having studied it, I am beginning to wonder.
If the desired improvements to the current deer Act are to be achieved successfully without seriously reducing the humane protection the original Act afforded to the deer themselves, a number of amendments will probably be required. If the Bill is to be successful, it must be widely accepted and supported by all interested parties, particularly those legally and morally responsible for proper deer management. In most cases that responsibility lies with the owner of the deer forest, but occasionally with a long-lease holder of the deer shooting rights.
In cases where agreement between the legal deer manager and tenant cannot be reached, the Deer Commission will have to adjudicate, lay down a reasonable course of action and perhaps help to implement it. To do that fairly, the new Deer Commission will have to exhibit a very high level of balanced judgment and common sense but, above all, considerable technical expertise and experience, if all parties are to have confidence that their rights, livelihoods and interests are being safeguarded. Wherever an agricultural or forestry tenant's interests are damaged by deer, the principle in the first instance should be for the legal deer manager to put the matter right in a humane and balanced way to the satisfaction of both parties. Where the public interest—that is to say, the natural heritage—is being damaged, it should initially be for Scottish Natural Heritage to seek an acceptable solution with the legal deer manager.
Turning to the Bill itself, under Clause 1(1) the Deer Commission is given the function of furthering "sustainable management" of deer. I am very grateful to the noble Earl for having provided a definition of what "sustainable management" is supposed to mean in this instance because we have had many Bills with "sustainable" this, that or the other over the past two years and often we have been very pushed to understand what I call this "fashionable catchphrase" means. Sometimes it seems to me to mean whatever the user wants it to mean at any given time.
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The noble Baroness, Lady Robson, was sad that the term "welfare" of deer did not appear in the duties of the commission. I too am sorry to see that it has been omitted. I am beginning to wonder why. I have dark thoughts as to why, which I shall mention later on. I presume that "safety of the public" comes under the heading of "control".
The proposals set out in Clause 1(2) and (3) give the Secretary of State carte blanche to appoint whomsoever he pleases. First, he does not have to appoint 12 members because that is only an upper limit. Secondly, he is under no obligation to keep a balance between the various interests named in subsection (3A). While we are on that subject, I would very much like to see the interests of local communities added to the interests which must be considered.
The Secretary of State merely "may" appoint any person who appears to him to have experience of one or more of those matters and sporting interests are not one of them. What is an "appropriate" person? Is it someone who does not have a criminal record or is it just someone whose political views coincide with his own, or what is it? It seems to me that that is a very subjective definition. Surely, no one should be appointed who does not have knowledge of deer management and surely the expertise in the commission should be evenly divided between the four interests named. The Secretary of State may ask such persons or organisations, as he thinks fit, for suggestions of "appropriate" persons, but he is under no obligation to do so. Even if he does, he is under no obligation to act on their advice; he merely has to consider their suggestions and then, as I read the Bill, he can do whatever he pleases.
There are Secretaries of State and Secretaries of State: there are good ones; there are less good ones and one day there might even be a downright awful one. We have to legislate for all kinds, and this kind of permissive phraseology rather worries me. If the Deer Commission is not seen by the various interests to be balanced and impartial, it will have difficulty in obtaining the consent of owners and managers to voluntary control schemes because any proposals it makes will be suspect.
The noble Earl has told us in his introduction that it is the Government's object that, as far as possible, control schemes should be voluntary. I believe that that is something which is really important and that, if it is not got right, the object in promoting voluntary control schemes may fail.
I am very glad, too, to see that it is proposed in Clause 2 that greater reliance should be placed on local panels to solve local problems, but it is essential that they too should be as competent and balanced as the commission should be. Perhaps I may suggest that membership of local deer management groups might serve as a basis for their composition.
I believe that Clause 4 gives many of us cause for concern. The word "marauding" suggests the presence of deer on enclosed land where they should not be, whether agricultural fields, forestry plantations or gardens. Gardens are not mentioned in the Bill, as far as I can see. They are not in the schedule and I wonder

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why. Perhaps it might be stretched to cover constituting a danger to public safety, as on roads or airport runways. Clause 4 states:
"where the Commission are satisfied—
"(a) that, on any land, deer—
"(i) are causing serious damage … whether directly or indirectly, to the natural heritage generally" …
and …
"(b) that the killing of the deer is necessary to prevent further such damage or injury … they shall authorise in writing … any person … to follow and kill on any land mentioned in the authorisation such deer as appear to that person to be causing the damage or injury".
It seems to me that that means that a commission, heavily biased towards the fashionable objective of natural regeneration without any deer fencing at all, could arrange to massacre a large number of the deer in any area of open, unfenced land. Is that the Government's intention? As I read the Bill as it stands, that is what it makes possible. On top of that, in this clause there appears to be no right of appeal against any such action on the part of the commission.
I turn to Clause 5. The proposals regarding voluntary control schemes are warmly welcomed, but like, I believe, the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove, I very much question the wisdom of using the word "exterminate". I know that it is used in the 1959 Act and I believe that it has been used with sika deer in mind, but I believe that it should be removed. In the first place it is virtually impossible to exterminate any creature living in its natural habitat, if at all, without quite unacceptable cruelty. I believe that there will be an outcry from the animal lovers' lobby and from animal conservationists if that provision appears in the Act. In the second place, the phrase "reduce in number" surely covers what is required. The provisions do not state to what percentage the number has to be reduced. That is left completely open.
I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, that the phrase "serious damage" is too vague. I think that we need a more stringent definition of it. I also very much agree with the noble Baroness that deer are not the only animals responsible for the over-grazing in certain parts of Scotland. Like her, I should like to see something done about the sheep before the deer are reduced too far in number. Although I know that this is very much more difficult, I should also like something to be done about rabbits and hares because they too graze and must share some of the blame.
The proposals in Clause 6 to allow the close season dates to be fixed by order of the Secretary of State are welcome. However, I should like to see the word "shall" instead of "may" in subsection (2). For humane reasons, there must be a minimum fixed close season for all female deer. It is not acceptable to extend the season to the point where lactating hinds are shot, leaving the calves to starve; nor is it popular with the stalkers and ghillies to be obliged to gralloch a pregnant hind. Although I find that less unacceptable than the other, it is not you or me who has to do it.
Again, like the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove, and, I believe, the noble Baroness, I have the strongest objection to Clause 7(3) since the word
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"vehicle" includes aircraft, hovercraft and boats. I do not know that a boat is so bad, but to drive deer with a helicopter into a pen or a corner to be shot later or to shoot them from a helicopter, as has been done in New Zealand, or to pursue them on the ground in a moving vehicle, possibly firing at them while doing so, is quite unacceptable. That is what I had in mind when I used the word "massacre" earlier. That is why I suspect that the welfare of deer was omitted from the commission's duties under Clause 1. Apart from anything else, I do not think that public opinion will tolerate it.
Again, in this clause, to refer to "any deer", "any land" and "any person" is to give far too wide an opportunity for abuse by the ill-intentioned. Incidentally, why should only the occupiers be given such draconian powers, without any compulsion to inform or consult the legal deer managers? Furthermore, why should they be allowed to sell or dispose of the carcasses?
Overall, this has the makings of a good Bill and it is still possible for it to become one, but I think that it requires a certain amount of amendment at a later stage.
4.3 p.m.
The Earl of Woolton: My Lords, it is with some trepidation that I rise to speak today as a relative newcomer to the subject of deer management in Scotland, but now finding myself at the very centre of the issue as the owner of an estate in the Angus glens. I am also conscious that I am joining a distinguished list of speakers with a wealth of knowledge on the subject.
I should like immediately broadly to welcome the Bill and to thank my noble friend the Minister for finding time for the Bill in the Government's busy programme. Before I comment on the Bill itself I should like to make a few general observations on deer management, principally relating to red deer in the Highlands. The management of deer means different things to different people. To some, they are a nuisance and interfere with native woodland regeneration and heather moorland management; to others, they yield a significant economic return. Between those two extremes rests a whole host of other interested parties, with their own agendas and strongly held views. There is, I believe, a perception among many of those interested parties that the traditional methods of deer management have largely failed. It was as a result of that perceived failure that these amendments became necessary.
The increasing interest in the issue has now spread wider into the media and other sections of the general public. At the same time, the spotlight has been directed at all forms of traditional country life. Over the past 30 years two simultaneous changes seem to have occurred in the deer populations in certain parts of the Highlands. First, there has been a consistent increase in the deer population. In some areas it has been as high as a three-fold increase. Secondly and clearly related to the first, there has been a movement, particularly of red deer, away from their traditional ranges into. new habitats on the outer fringes. I suggest that one of those changes might have been manageable by itself over time, but the fact is that they appear to have happened together and over a relatively short timeframe.

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In the south and east Grampians, for instance, the three-fold increase in the red deer population and their movement down to the heather moorland has occurred only over some 30 years. There has been an inevitable conflict created where significant numbers of red deer have moved into areas that were traditionally the preserve of grouse moors and sheep farms. There now exist extensive competitive demands on many parts of the Highlands between agriculture, forestry, sport, habitat management and tourism. All have a vital part to play in the economic and social future of the Highlands, but all cannot be accommodated in all areas at the same time. There now exist a number of pressure points throughout the Highlands where that conflict is at its sharpest and where the need to address the excessive number of deer is immediate.
I have three major concerns for the future. First, the management and interests of the deer will lose out to more powerful economic demands. As a result of being the poor relation, the future of traditional forms of deer control will become more and more difficult. Secondly, the red deer range will continue to shrink in size under the constant pressure from more and more people wanting access to the Highlands. Ultimately, red deer may become confined to selected areas behind the inevitable miles and miles of deer fencing. Thirdly, future deer management must become proactive and not just reactive. Too often in the past pressure points have arisen in certain localities and the existing legislation has offered little or no alternative to extermination—often of whole herds of deer. That will become increasingly unacceptable to the public and lead only to greater criticism of deer managers. Public scrutiny of this issue will only grow in the future.
I hope that I have not sounded too pessimistic because I believe that there now exists—perhaps for the first time—a real consensus among all interested parties. That has been demonstrated in many forums, as promoted by Scottish Natural Heritage and other bodies. The promotion of responsible and sustainable deer management policies must remain the highest priority for the future. I therefore welcome the Government's decision to retain the commission, renamed and with wider powers. That is an important step in recognising that Scotland's deer are unique and require a separate body to look after their interests.
I should like to take this opportunity to welcome the Minister's comments on deer management groups. These have successfully brought together many parties which might otherwise have continued to operate in isolation. The opportunity to consider a local problem without the constraint of ownership boundaries has proved most worthwhile. As many of us know, there still exists an irrational suspicion of what is happening on the other side of the hill. Deer management groups represent the best forum for implementing deer management polices on the ground.
I should like to comment briefly on three clauses of the Bill. First, I welcome as a broad principle the extension of the commission's existing powers to cover serious damage to the natural heritage. The existing legislation has not proved sufficiently flexible to deal
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with serious damage to heather moorland. Large areas of the lower Angus glens, for instance, have been subjected to persistent deer pressure, particularly during the winter and early spring, such that heather regeneration is now impossible without fencing. That is to the detriment not just of grouse but of a much broader range of moorland flora and fauna.
Quite how the commission will respond to requests for assistance where serious damage to the natural heritage has been reported by someone other than the occupier of land may need to be given some further thought. I am sure also that what constitutes "serious damage" may be the subject of a great deal of debate.
Secondly, I welcome the amendments allowing close seasons to be fixed by the Secretary of State. That will provide a much needed degree of flexibility in dealing with local situations. It is an interesting idea that the Secretary of State might be able to set different close seasons for different parts of Scotland.
Thirdly, and finally, amendments to Section 7 of the Act dealing with control schemes are also broadly to be welcomed, while recognising that the voluntary principle must always be given priority where possible. These voluntary schemes, where permitted in limited circumstances under the current legislation, have already proved successful in dealing with a number of pressure points in the East Grampians.
In conclusion, all of us involved in deer management have a unique responsibility for the future wellbeing of Scotland's deer. We must not let this opportunity be lost to deliver a long-term and sustainable policy into the next century.
4.12 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I am glad to congratulate my noble friend Lord Woolton on his maiden speech, on behalf of the whole House as well as on my own behalf. It was a fluent and informed contribution to our debate and an excellent example of what a maiden speech should be. He follows distinguished forebears: his grandfather of course was the Cabinet Minster in World War II with heavy responsibilities for food supplies for the civilian population. It is felicitous for me to be speaking now because I had the pleasure of knowing his father and mother. His mother was a constituent of mine in northern Scotland when I was in another place. We look forward to hearing many more speeches from my noble friend, and we wish him well.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I support the principles in the Bill, and I am glad that a place was found for it in the current Session of Parliament. Legislation must keep pace with changing situations and provide suitable measures to meet them.
There is now a change of name for the commission—it is not just the Red Deer Commission—because.other deer are to be included in the legislation. Red and sika have interbred and there are now to be added fallow and roe. I welcome the latter because roe have become a more important element in Scotland than in the past.

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Stalking them is now more sought after as a sport, especially by foreigners. That is helpful to Scottish rural areas.
I declare an interest. I and my son own a modest estate in northern Scotland where there are many roe. It is arable land near the Moray Firth—not heather and granite—so it is not a habitat for red deer. I welcome the Bill because I have been concerned with previous legislation. I remember the passage of the principal Act of 1959 which was virtually the first in Parliament to deal with the control of red deer to protect farm land from damage from marauding deer. It also established the commission.
In the late 1960s, when I was in opposition in another place, I piloted through two Private Member's Bills on the subject, one being the Sale of Venison Act 1968. Noble Lords may also recall that in 1982 I took over the later stages of the Private Member's Bill (the Deer (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill) introduced by my noble friend Lord Glenarthur, when he was appointed to a position in the Government while the Bill was passing through Parliament.
The problems in Scotland have been mainly with red deer. They have a valuable place in the ecology of the Highlands, inhabiting wild areas of hill and moor where crops and forestry trees cannot be grown. Unfortunately they do not always remain in the areas which are most suitable for them. When they multiply to numbers which cannot be sustained within their normal habitats, they starve, or invade farmland and other arable territory, causing damage.
The Bill adds to the previous legislation considerations of "damage to the natural heritage", and threats to public safety. There is general agreement that more powers are needed to deal with the situation. I understand that the Bill follows recommendations from the Red Deer Commission.
Arrangements for culling to reduce population growth have in the past meant the killing of hinds (the females), and that seems likely to continue and to be increased. I refer now to an unusual proposal which has been put forward by an organisation called Animal Concern. It is that a contraceptive be introduced in some way so that large numbers will not have to be killed by shooting. How it could be done, I do not know, and how to administer the pill to deer in the hills and to reach the approximate numbers required—not too many and not too few. It is an unusual suggestion and probably impracticable.
At present where overpopulation occurs, starving deer will come to eat forage put out for them by man in winter conditions. Perhaps an experiment could be undertaken by including a contraceptive substance in that forage. It could then only affect a small proportion. I shall be glad if the Government would comment at some stage—not necessarily today but perhaps at later stages of the Bill—but I shall not be surprised if the proposal is found to be too difficult to carry out.
It is important—my noble friend Lord Woolton also stated this—to consider humane ways of reducing the numbers. The British public are concerned—I am talking about the British public in cities and towns as
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well as those in the countryside—about the lives of animals, and the reasons for various actions should be explained where public interest and anxiety are evident. To some members of the public, culling seems to be an authorised mass slaughter of females.
The Bill would provide also wider conditions for shooting deer, including at night and out of season in certain circumstances and within permitted arrangements. I agree that there should be scope for doing that when deer are in the wrong place, and causing damage, provided that control and supervision are guaranteed.
The Bill provides also for driving and herding deer to improve the management of them, presumably steering them to more suitable areas at the time. I understand that is not to be permitted as part of a day's stalking or in connection with sporting activities of any kind. Another issue that has already been raised today, in particular by the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, is whether "driving" includes the use of helicopters and light aircraft. I shall be interested to hear the Government's reply on that.
There is a new condition about threats to public safety. My noble friend in his introduction spoke of deer straying on to an airfield. I should be grateful for more examples of that, if not today perhaps at later stages. In my experience, the most likely and serious danger is of hitting a large red deer stag crossing a road, in particular at night. I have had to take quick avoiding action in darkness on Highland roads. A collision with an animal of that size could be serious. Is that what the Government have in mind? It is difficult to prevent unless wholesale herding is carried out to more remote areas. Am I right in assuming that, under the terms of the Bill, it would not be possible to do much to make roads safer?
I welcome my noble friend's announcement about consolidation and the fact that before long there will be a consolidation Act which will be far easier for everyone to understand. Having been involved in the various amending Acts since 1959, I am glad to hear that. In general, I support the principles of the Bill.
4.21 p.m.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I too wish to give a general welcome to the Bill and to congratulate my noble friend Lord Lindsay on his lucid and careful explanation of it. I believe that this is the first time for many years that Scottish deer legislation has been the subject of a government Bill, which to a large extent raises its profile. The previous Bills appear to have been Private Member's Bills—albeit hand-out Bills—although my noble friend Lord Forbes believes that I am wrong about that. No doubt he will be able to explain the matter further.
When I read the Bill I was reminded of many of the complex and competing issues, some of which could be described fairly as pitfalls, involved in legislating on deer. Some of those manifested themselves in the Deer (Amendment) (Scotland) Act 1982, on which I cut my legislative teeth in your Lordships' House. Towards the end of its passage, and under the circumstances

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prevailing, I was able to hand it on to my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy. I remember saying to myself, and probably to others, that after that experience I would never again get involved with animals, let alone deer, in this House. But here we are again. I have broken my resolution more than once, probably in support of Bills brought forward by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby.
Those who were involved in the passage of the 1982 Bill—and, sadly, many of them are no longer with us—also urged me and my noble friend Lord Mansfield, who was then on the Front Bench, to do all that we could to get the Bill right. The chances of further legislation on deer in Scotland emerging before a further 20 years or so, they said, was pretty unlikely. As regards this subject, 13 years seems like yesterday and it is to the credit of the Scottish Office and my noble friend and the Red Deer Commission that they conducted a consultation exercise in 1991–92 to see how the 1959 Act could be amended to reflect the contemporary scene and the problems which my noble friend Lord Lindsay has identified. I thank the Scottish Office and the Red Deer Commission for keeping me informed of how their considerations were developing.
I have little doubt that some of the broader points of principle relating to the management of deer, about which we heard in 1982 with so many knowledgeable Members of your Lordships' House playing a part in our considerations, will re-emerge this time. It is, of course, the case that the overall deer population, especially of red deer and sika, has markedly increased, as many of your Lordships have said. Mild winters, inadequate culling in some areas and other factors are reasons for that. In many places the population should be reduced. This Bill seeks to address the population issue. It is right that it should, as my noble friend Lord Woolton made clear in his admirably knowledgeable maiden speech. My concern, however, lies in the fact that the Bill now before us introduces a very considerable tilt in the balance between conservation and control, away from the former and towards the latter. If this Bill is to command confidence among all those different competing interests which are involved, as surely it must if it is to be a success—I mean legitimate interests but not easily compatible or reconcilable ones—some tilting of the balance back towards the former is necessary. I suspect that my noble friend on the Front Bench will have detected that theme already.
It would be a mistake to go into too much detail now. We shall have plenty of time to do so. Indeed, if the 1982 Bill was anything to go by we shall certainly need that time to explore the detail. However, in order to illustrate some of my concerns now it is necessary to look at the Bill in a little detail. Clause 1 deals with the functions of the Deer Commission for Scotland. I support the change of name, although I seem to be eating the words that I uttered on Second Reading of the 1982 Bill. One of my concerns about Clause 1 lies with the major addition to a substantially reworded Section 1 of the 1959 Act in referring to the "sustainable management" of deer. That has been touched on by others, most notably by the noble
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Lady, Lady Saltoun. I am not clear about what it means. Does it mean that the management is sustainable—that the management of deer on any land is sustainable—or does it refer to the sustainable management of a habitat? Perhaps my noble friend will explain the matter further because it is unclear to me.
That, in a sense, goes to the heart of the Bill because the great change since 1982—let alone since 1989—has been the passage of the Natural Heritage (Scotland) Act and the powers it contains and how the Deer (Scotland) Act must inevitably fit in with it. During the passage of the Natural Heritage (Scotland) Act, many of us in this House forecast something of a conflict if its interests were to ride roughshod, or look as though they were likely to do so, over the interests of deer management, deer welfare and the interests of landowners. When I see that,
"the Commission, in exercising their functions, [shall] take such account…of…the size and density of the deer population and its impact on the natural heritage",
I am hardly surprised. I have no real difficulty with the concept of that, being balanced as it is with the needs of agriculture and forestry and the interests of the owners and occupiers of land, with all that that means for sporting interests and the welfare of those employed in that regard and the economy that flows from it. Where I part company with the Bill as it is now drafted is in the new formation of the commission to undertake those functions and to take account of the features that the Bill names. The Bill states that:
"the Secretary of State may appoint [to the commission] any person who appears to him—
(a) to have knowledge or experience of one or more of the following matters—

(i) deer management;

(ii) agriculture (including crofting);

(iii) forestry and woodland management; and

(iv) the natural heritage".

But why, as the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, asked, does the list exclude anything about owners or occupiers or sporting interests in deer?
I suggest that it would be perfectly possible to fit all four categories with people who have knowledge or experience—although I must say that I think that it would be a considerable improvement to have both qualities—without them having any real understanding of the practicalities of ownership, the sporting interests that goes with that, and other features best known to those who deal with and regularly live and operate on the land concerned.
Therefore, it seems to me that we go straight into a conflict between Section (1A) and (3A). I hope that my noble friend will address carefully what appears to be a manifest anomaly when he winds up the debate. If the Bill cannot be made clearer in that respect, there is a real risk that confidence in it, the commission and its membership could be severely impaired because it is a major departure from the representational elements contained in the 1959 Act.
The same principle should apply to deer panels referred to in Clause 2. I am all in favour of increasing the size of deer panels. Deer management groups and

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deer panels have, in their separate ways, both been a great success over the years. But there seems little logic in so loosely drafting the requirements for membership and I believe that that should broadly follow the earlier clause.
I turn now to the powers of the commission which are dealt with in Clause 3, which amends Section 4 of the substantive Act. I have very real worries about the power that that would confer on the commission to conduct,
"any experiment, trial or demonstration, relating to the conservation, control or sustainable management of deer, or to any other aspect of the Commission's functions".
What sort of experiments is the commission considering and for what purpose? Why is it necessary to widen to such an extent the existing Clause 4 powers? I hope that my noble friend will be able to give reassurance.
If ever there was a topic which generated heat, light and not a little steam during the 1982 Bill, it was the subject of marauding deer. I shall always remember the amusing anecdotes of the late Lord Massereene and Ferrard on that subject. But this Bill seems to introduce a real anomaly. If deer maraud, they are going somewhere where they should not be or where people do not want them to be. The dictionary definition is that to "maraud" is to make a plundering raid; to go about pilfering. Those are well-known qualities of deer in search of food and they do that in ways which often disadvantage those who own that food. That is exactly what deer do. But how on earth can they maraud on any land, even if qualified by the wording of paragraphs (i), (ii) and (iii)?
Again, that seems to be inequitably tilting the balance towards protecting the natural heritage in a way which, frankly, drives a coach and horses through the carefully qualified conditions in Section 6 of the 1959 Act.
I hope that my noble friend can see that the effect of that could be understood to be, in effect, a back-door route to some type of unapproved control scheme. It would be a control scheme in all but name and without the safeguards that control schemes enjoy. Unless the Bill is reworded to meet those concerns, to that extent I find it very unpalatable.
There are other issues surrounding public safety, the driving of deer by aircraft, close seasons and perhaps the need for refining the drafting of the Bill at which we shall look in greater detail in Committee. But here we are dealing with the principles and it is those principles which need to be addressed. The new proposals seem to be a significant shift which could impact seriously on the welfare of deer, the interests of landowners and economic viability.
Of course the natural heritage must be protected. My noble friend Lord Woolton made that point admirably and I do not dissent from that one bit. None of us disputes that. But the powers which this Bill seems to introduce could discriminate overwhelmingly in favour of that one aspect. The Bill, as welcome as it is, can be improved. I wish it well and I look forward to its later stages.
4.35 p.m.
Lord Forbes: My Lords, I am delighted to add my congratulations to my noble friend Lord Woolton on his splendid maiden speech made with great eloquence and with considerable knowledge of deer in Scotland.
In 1958, some 37 years ago, I had the privilege to introduce and steer through your Lordships' House the Deer (Scotland) Bill which became an Act in 1959. It was not a Private Member's Bill but a government Bill.
Although the legislation has been twice amended, it is now necessary to bring it completely up-to-date. Because of that, I welcome this Bill. Indeed, there have been many changes over the years. One change which has certainly intrigued me is that the Deer (Scotland) Act 1959 cost ls.3d., whereas the Bill introduced today by the Minister costs£3.80, which is quite a difference.
In 1958, the main problem was poaching and cruelty to the deer. There were gangs of poachers going about, mainly in the north-west of the Highlands, who were acting like commandos. They had all sorts of weapons, including automatic weapons. They had rubber boats so that they could approach the deer from the sea. They operated largely at night, and human lives were at risk because stalkers went out to try to get to grips with the poachers and at times they were fired on.
Another aspect was cruelty. For every stag or hind that was shot, there were almost certainly two or three others which were wounded, and possibly worse still was when a hind with a small calf was shot or killed and the calf was just left to die because the calf was too small to fend for itself. It was the poaching and the cruelty which sparked off the need for the 1959 Bill.
It was then decided that it should be a comprehensive Bill dealing with deer control and conservation. Today, in spite of the present legislation, there has been a marked increase in the number of deer. If my memory serves me correctly, in 1959 it was reckoned that there were 150,000 red deer in Scotland. Today that figure has more than doubled. One of the reasons for the increase has been the remarkably mild winters that we have had during the past decade.
Too high a density of deer can cause considerable damage. Heather is eaten out, grass comes in; and in some cases, even bracken comes in. Then, if there is not enough food for the deer, they go marauding on arable land. Furthermore, too many deer lead to soil erosion. Too many, feet going down one track lead to erosion.
I mentioned heather. Heather, as well as forming part of the feed for deer, is also essential for grouse. I believe it is unfortunate that grouse are declining while deer are on the increase as grouse are more important to the Scottish economy than deer. It is grouse that attract more people, and their money, to the moors from various parts of the world. There are many reasons for the decline of grouse. It is a complex subject. Over-grazing by deer is just one of the many factors.
Too many deer also prevent natural regeneration of trees, including the magnificent Caledonian pine trees which once made the landscape of Scotland so beautiful. The big problem is how to reduce deer numbers and keep them at a sustainable level. Culling is not easy.

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The season is short and often the hind culling season is cut short by atrocious weather. Skilled stalkers are needed to do it. The price of venison also comes into it. If the price of venison is high, it encourages owners and managers of deer forests to cull. If the price is low, it is a disincentive for extra culling. Only a few deer are culled by nature. A hard winter may account for some of the old and the weak. In Africa it is the predators which reduce the gazelles and other antelopes, but not in Scotland—as my noble friend the Minister pointed out—where there are no predators. Culling must be done by man.
It is much easier to determine how many deer should be culled than to say how it should be done—that is the real problem. In that respect I believe that the Bill will be helpful. For instance, Clause 3 deals with research and experiments. I believe that research will be necessary to determine the best way to reduce numbers. Clause 5 deals with consultation on close seasons. Altering close seasons can certainly be looked at, especially as regards the culling of hinds.
I wish to say a few words about Clause 7 which deals, among other matters, with restrictions on shooting at night. In my view shooting at night simply must be kept to a minimum. Some people may not know whether the shooting is being carried out by authorised people or by poachers. Furthermore, it is dangerous. People go onto the moors when it is dark, especially when there is good moonlight. I might recommend to your Lordships that going out onto a moor in the moonlight can be revealing if one is interested in wildlife. Apart from deer, one sees all kinds of other animals such as foxes and badgers looking for worms and berries off the rowan trees. One may see otters near little streams, and even the wild cat.
It is of paramount importance that there is no cruelty during culling. I believe there is a lesson to be learnt here from some of the seal culling that has taken place. Some of the seal culling was carried out by people with little experience of the job. They used various weapons to shoot the seals and they even clubbed pups to death. Quite rightly in my view this aroused public indignation. As a result of that people are against any culling of seals for any reason, even to protect our valuable salmon stocks. It is essential that we do not get into the same situation as regards deer culling. Deer culling must at all times be humane, otherwise there will be public outcry and it will be stopped for all times. I congratulate my noble friend the Minister for introducing this Bill, and I wish it a speedy passage through your Lordships' House.
4.45 p.m.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, I should start by declaring an interest as the largely absentee owner of a west Highland sporting estate. Like most other such owners I am absentee because the estate is not exactly self-financing and to support it I have to spend most of my time away from home. Unlike many such places, however, it is indeed my home. I spent all of my school holidays on the place and I have run it without a factor for the past 25 years. Therefore I think I can claim to
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have had what may be unusually close contact with the land in question, and with its problems, for more than 40 years.
It is this experience which gives me the temerity to try to set this Bill against a slightly wider context than has been attempted by my noble friend on the Front Bench this afternoon. To do this I would remind your Lordships briefly of some of the salient points in the broad history of the Scottish Highlands as they affect this Bill.
Your Lordships will recall that in Roman times the Highlands were so densely afforested—and, it must be admitted, so savagely populated—that the mighty Roman Empire had to build a wall to mark its boundary. Your Lordships will know too, that that forest was then diminished by man for hundreds of years, so that the trees had mostly gone by the time of the infamous Highland Clearances some 200 years ago. That is when people with their subsistence farming and their soil enriching cattle left most of the land, to be replaced by huge numbers of sheep which were soon joined by large herds of deer. Your Lordships will appreciate too that acid rain started to fall soon after the clearances, the effects of which we are at last trying to monitor and control.
So it was that in 1954 Sir Frank Fraser Darling so wisely wrote:
"The bald unpalatable fact is emphasised that the Highlands and Islands are largely a devastated terrain; any policy which ignores this fact cannot hope to achieve rehabilitation".
Alas, we have indeed ignored that unpalatable fact and so the degradation of the soil and the terrain have continued for another 40 years. The question before us this evening is whether this Bill as drafted will do anything to reverse that process with any degree of harmony. I fear that it will not.
The brief history that I have mentioned has led to a number of understandable tensions, some of which lie in the background to this Bill, and appear to have at least partly inspired it. Broadly speaking, these controversies stem from what a landowner or occupier may want to do on his land, and what others think should happen on it. Let me refer to three areas where there has been, or is, disagreement of this kind: sites of special scientific interest, public access, and grazing pressure. Your Lordships will recall that the Bill which set up Scottish Natural Heritage in 1991 ran into difficulty in your Lordships' House principally over a landowner's ability to avoid the imposition by SNH of an SSSI with which he did not agree on scientific grounds. Your Lordships insisted on a new scientific committee under the auspices of SNH to which landholders could appeal if they did not agree with a particular designation. At the time this was highly unpopular with many of our conservation bodies, which feared that there would be so many appeals to the new committee that SNH would not be able to function. The wicked landlords in your Lordships' House were accused of deliberately frustrating the work of SNH.
Well, my Lords, the good news is that the very existence of the new committee appears to have removed any excess of zeal by SNH to designate

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unnecessary SSSIs. There have only been two appeals to it, both of which were adjudicated in favour of SNH. The better news is that a new era of harmony has broken out in the Highlands between SNH and landholders. Much of the credit for this must go to SNH's chairman, Sir Magnus Magnusson, and his team, and to SNH's local boards, which are starting to collaborate fruitfully with landowners all over Scotland.
Nowhere perhaps is this new harmony and collaboration more beneficial than in resolving the very delicate problem of public access. The Association of Deer Management Groups, speaking for virtually the whole landmass of the Highlands, is close to agreeing a new concordat, now in its eighth draft, with all the access and amenity interests. This agreement should meet the aspirations of all those who rightly enjoy the beauty and tranquillity of our hills, while at the same time it should safeguard the employment of those who earn their living from our wild deer. I need hardly remind your Lordships of the vital economic importance of the latter, especially in our remotest areas.
And so I come to grazing pressure, which is really what this Bill is about. The Bill, as drafted, is not about the welfare and harmonious existence of our largest wild mammals. It is a blueprint for their destruction. Like the original SNH Bill, it is a sop to the wilder, more aggressive elements of our conservation movement, and it could do enormous damage to the Highlands if enacted in anything like its present form.
To justify that allegation I must ask your Lordships to appreciate that those wilder elements wish to see the numbers of deer in the Highlands reduced to a level where the ancient Caledonian Forest might regenerate, without deer fencing (which it would not, but that is another matter). When I finish I shall press my noble friend to tell us exactly where the Government stand on this issue.
Those who wish this to happen would be quite happy to see a 95 per cent, cull and the obliteration of deer forests as we know them, which is, of course, the object of their exercise. I fear they are reliving and attempting to revenge the Highland Clearances, to nobody's apparent benefit and certainly to the detriment of our deer and natural heritage. I should add that it was this same lobby which wanted to abolish the Red Deer Commission in 1991 and give the powers envisaged in this Bill to the fledgling SNH.
Of course, I do not suppose that many of us would object to the Red Deer Commission, as presently composed, having these powers, because we trust it, as we trust SNH. Through our Deer Management Groups we are already collaborating to reduce deer numbers where most people agree that they are excessive. But Scotland appears to be an uncertain place politically at the moment, and we must, however reluctantly, consider what a Secretary of State sympathetic to the wilder elements could do with this Bill. Armed with Clause 1 he could appoint a commission consisting entirely of such people, and under Clause 4 that commission could send out the helicopters to drive deer into large corrals for their subsequent massacre. That is, in fact, the only
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efficient way to get rid of deer on a large scale permanently. He could do that without a public inquiry and without compensation.
Before leaving grazing pressure, I must point out that it is not entirely honest to attempt to deal with overgrazing in the Highlands without being prepared to talk about sheep and to see what might be done to reduce their numbers. It is true that a deer is reckoned to eat two-and-a-half times what is eaten by a sheep, but there are about 200,000 deer in the Highlands and at least 2 million sheep, which means that the sheep are eating four times as much as the deer. Furthermore, the unhealthy numbers of sheep are positively encouraged by the subsidies which are paid on the ewes. This means that people keep more ewes than their ground can sustain.
I therefore have a suggestion for the Government, if they really want to reduce grazing pressure in the Highlands sensibly. Subsidies should be taken away from the ewes, and should be granted instead on the lambs. The present level of any farm subsidy should be paid only on the second lamb, or twin. This would have the effect of dramatically reducing today's unhealthy stocking rates, which make good lambing percentages impossible. At the same, time this system would safeguard the incomes of hill farmers. I hope that the Government will give the idea some thought.
To return to the Bill itself, I welcome the intention to allow the Secretary of State to vary the close seasons when deer may not be shot. If it were legally possible to shoot hinds earlier in the year—say in September—I suspect that much of the problem of any overgrazing by deer would soon go away naturally. Estates could earn a useful income by letting their hind shooting in the longer, warmer days, and a much larger cull could be complete by the new year, with higher income from the better quality meat. However, it cannot be right that the Secretary of State should be free not to set any close seasons at all, as envisaged in Clause 6, thus relegating deer to the category of vermin. I join with other noble Lords in saying that that clause must be amended.
I am disappointed to see that the Bill does not contain a statutory requirement for carcass tagging. I understand that a Red Deer Commission working party has concluded that this would be both desirable and feasible. It should be centrally administered, perhaps by the commission, and could be financed by the industry, at a cost of about 30p per carcass. It seems to me essential to any deer management policy to know not only how many deer we have, but also how many we are shooting. Only then can we gauge the effect of a shooting policy on any piece of land. Good progress is being made towards accurate counting as part of the developing collaboration between the Red Deer Commission and deer management groups, which I have mentioned, but we are still a bit in the dark about how many deer are being shot and exactly by whom. So I hope that the Government will be prepared to discuss this further.
Perhaps I may end by pressing my noble friend on the Front Bench to make clear exactly what is meant by Clause 1 of the Bill. What exactly does the

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"sustainable management" of deer mean? And when we come to the duties of the commission, I note that these are:
"to take such account as may be appropriate in the circumstances".
I am advised that this is a very weak form of duty. I do not know what paragraph (a) of subsection (1A) means. That reads:
"the size and density of the deer population and its impact on the natural heritage".
Who decides what that impact is? Who decides what the condition of the natural heritage should be? Does this include reducing deer to a level where the ancient forest can regenerate without fencing? It is most important for us to know this fact. I look forward to my noble friend's answer in the hope that I am being extremely over-pessimistic about the whole matter.
4.58 p.m.
Lord Burton: My Lords, first, I should like to add my sincere congratulations to my noble friend Lord Woolton. I hope that we shall hear him many times in the future.
I was interested to hear the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, say that he had difficulty getting hold of a copy of the Bill. I thought that perhaps I was alone in that, but I am delighted to hear that so eminent a person on the Front Bench opposite should have had the same problem. That caused me some difficulty because I only received a copy of the Bill at 11 o'clock this morning.
There has obviously been anxiety that the deer herd has been increasing markedly over a number of years. However, apart from the East Grampians and the Angus glens, much of that increase has come from the colonisation of new areas. Perhaps the legislation has been influenced by the situation in the Grampians and the Angus glens, whereas in other areas the situation has been very different.
It was estimated that some 50,000 of the increase in deer, from 200,000 to 300,000, was in new woodlands, many of which were at the thicket stage. After all, our deer are basically woodland animals and their adaptation to the open hill was only brought about by the scarcity of woodland in the Highlands, as my noble friend Lord Pearson mentioned. Now our red deer have no peace on most of our open hills. They are harried day after day by hill walkers. It is not surprising, therefore, that they now find shelter in our new woods.
The Minister referred to the reduction in the deer range by the extension of the woodlands. However, can we not take a leaf out of the book of our continental neighbours whose woods are used as a habitat for deer which are considered a major asset there? We could learn much from the Continent on how to manage our woodland deer.
Many of our traditional deer forests have been almost completely depleted of deer. There is a great lack of knowledge in Scotland on the management of our woodland deer. There will be no proper control as long as the deer are harried around day and night. The
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spotlight makes them more frightened than anything. Perhaps I may give a practical example. Last winter, with rather limited time, I managed to get about 55 animals—hinds and calves—on about 2,000 acres. That was done by nipping them out here and there during the hours of daylight. That 55 was about 25 per cent. from a total population of between 180 and 200; and, furthermore, there was some degree of selection. Night shooting is indiscriminate. I believe that the less night shooting there is, the better.
Having stated those generalisations, and I hope in some way dispelling the idea that the whole of the Highlands is grossly overpopulated with deer, I must say that, regrettably, I find little that I like in the Bill. However, the provision in Clause 1(1)(a) is obviously sensible. It merely changes the name of the commission. After that there appears to be little, if anything, for the welfare of deer. The proposals will undoubtedly bring about many abuses of the legislation, and increase the mismanagement of deer. The proposals seem to make unnecessary changes which are not warranted. If the machine is not broken, why mend it?
However, the manner in which the legislation is operated will depend greatly on the commission. I was pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, and my noble friend Lord Glenarthur, refer to this point; it is possibly the biggest worry in the proposals before us today. I refer to the composition of the commission. The current commission has on the whole worked well for 36 years. It has worked well because there was a balance among the members of the commission between those who saw the deer as an asset to be managed—our largest wild mammal and, among other things, a tourist attraction—and those who believed that the only good deer was a dead one. I know that from time to time certain foresters, and one or two others on the commission, were not keen to see any deer. However, that is by the way. There was a balance; that was the important thing.
The new proposals could completely disrupt that balance. It is a dangerous situation. There is nothing in the Act to state that the Secretary of State cannot appoint a commission nominated completely by Scottish Natural Heritage. I find that a terrifying thought.
I turn now to the functions of that body. The noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, and other noble Lords referred to sustainable management. Surely the existing Bill already provides for that in referring to conservation and control. Surely proper conservation and proper control is sustainable management. I suggest that if the word "sustainable" is wanted it should be inserted in new Section 1A, which refers to the duties of the commission. Paragraph d could refer to the management of a healthy, sustainable population of deer.
Several noble Lords asked what criteria are to be taken as regards the impact on the natural heritage. I hope that my noble friend will be able to tell us. I do not believe that the wording is satisfactory. Who will judge that impact? Will the deer commission consider the advice of the Scottish Natural Heritage to be paramount in judging how the natural heritage should be protected?

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What is "serious" damage? The deer legislation states that any animal in the middle of a stubble field could do potentially serious damage. The interpretation of "serious" in the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 is very different. It is difficult to obtain a licence to kill anything, however serious the damage it creates. But one deer is all that is necessary in the deer legislation. To have the same word interpreted so widely in two pieces of legislation is not satisfactory. The legislation refers to serious damage. I was delighted to hear the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, say that there was damage in only one or two places. At least the reference should he to serious damage if not to something more prominent. Perhaps there should be a definition of "serious" in the Bill.
No reference is made in the Bill that steps to protect one's crops and woods are necessary before one can start shooting deer at night or out of season. Proper steps should be taken to try to protect crops or woods. The commission could decide whether it is reasonable to have a proper fence. I know of places where crops are planted to lure the deer into fenced fields. The gates are deliberately left open, then shut at night, and the deer on the crops are slaughtered. That is not good management and not what the Bill is intended to provide for.
I do not believe that where there is improper fencing the forestry interests should be permitted to go battering away at the deer night after night with spotlights. Those people are not keen to put up fencing; it is expensive. If they can kill the deer simply by driving around with a spotlight, and obtain some value for the venison, that is what they will do. That is what they are doing and it should not be permitted.
The close season has been referred to. I know that there are large herds of stags on the hill ground during the winter in Angus and South Perthshire. It may be difficult for the commission to give permission at present for anything to be done about those large herds of deer because it would be out of season. However, I do not see that that is good reason for changing the season. There is no reason why the commission should not be given powers in such an instance. The situation does not occur in many places. The commission could easily be given powers to permit what it considers to be reasonable culling.
I do not like the idea of a Secretary of State being given power to change the close season, which has stood for a long time. I do not see what is wrong with it. It will be quite wrong to permit the shooting of hinds earlier than, say, the middle of October. They are still heavy with milk and unless one shoots the calf first one cannot guarantee that one will kill the calf as well as the hind. The calf may well run away with the main herd and be extremely difficult to pick out. Alternatively, if it is in woodland, it can quickly disappear. That makes the culling of hinds quite difficult; in the woods in particular The close season could be extended, possibly in February. However, the Deer Commission likes that time for counting. Also the hill hinds are by then in bad condition. If it is necessary to have a longer season for
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killing the hinds in any specific area, there is no reason why we should not give the commission the power to arrange that, but not to change the seasons generally.
I turn to safety on public roads, which has already been mentioned, and what is involved in protecting the public. In places like Drumochter enormous numbers of deer will frequently be found in hard weather down near the road. However, they get wise to the roads. The main problem of large animals being hit at night was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy. Often they come down to turnip fields, which are not that big. I have found that we can keep them out with electric fencing.
There is one further point. I do not know whether the Minister noted that owners are not allowed to shoot deer at night unless they happen also to be occupiers. It would often be more appropriate for the owner to kill deer on a tenanted farm than for the tenant. I have had trouble with that. I do not know what has been killed. The countryside has been littered with wounded animals and orphaned calves. I do not believe that that is to be encouraged. I am not keen on night shooting anyway, but I believe that owners should be allowed to do it rather than occupiers, or both.
We shall no doubt have an interesting Committee stage, when we shall return to other points. I hope that I have given enough food for thought today, but I welcome my noble friend's offer of consolidation of deer legislation. That is most important. I have been asking for the Scottish salmon legislation also to be consolidated and perhaps he will lend his weight to that as well.
5.11 p.m.
The Earl of Lindsay: My Lords, this has been an interesting, constructive and stimulating debate. Possibly one of the highlights was the maiden speech by my noble friend Lord Woolton who, as we anticipated, spoke with great experience and knowledge on the subject of deer management. He has had many years of having to deal with the problems which deer pose and the House must be grateful that he shared his knowledge with us tonight. I also admire him because some of us rushed into our maiden speeches, producing what could only have tasted like young wine. However, my noble friend ensured a vintage performance by allowing a maturing process before delivering the product. His was a useful contribution.
My noble friend Lord Woolton stressed two essential truisms on the subject which will have helped us. His first point was that the red deer range in Scotland is both reducing and moving. It is the pressure of a reducing and moving red deer range that is causing some of the friction and stresses with which we hope the new Bill will deal.
The other excellent point which my noble friend made is that deer management must at all times be proactive rather than reactive. I hope to return to that subject when we discuss sustainable deer management, which confused some noble Lords. My noble friend Lord Woolton pointed out that he was conscious of the daunting list of speakers with distinguished qualities. So

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am I, with former Secretaries of State and two Ministers of State, both involved in deer legislation. We have heard from a large number of noble Lords with great expertise who know their wild deer and the issues which surround them intimately. I also am conscious of the weight of accumulated knowledge that we have heard in the debate.
Perhaps I may say at the outset that with this Bill we have time now and while we go through the Committee and Report stages to discuss all the issues which have arisen tonight. We have time to discuss all the suggestions which have been made by those who reckon, on their experience, that there are different ways of approaching some parts of clauses. I shall welcome the opportunities, both within and outside the House to discuss many of the points which have been made.
I am therefore grateful that noble Lords taking part in the debate prepared and brought forward their experience and expertise. I am glad that most welcomed the generality of the Bill. Even my noble friend Lord Burton welcomed the first subsection, with the name change, even if not the rest of it. However, given the time we have available, I hope that we shall be able to alter the Bill as noble Lords seek who feel uneasy about it.
The issues which deer and deer management raise are many and varied. The noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, referred to sheep and rabbits and their marauding qualities. It is a serious issue and there are other forms of browsing and damage caused by animals other than the wild red deer in Scotland. However, it is only the wild deer and the problems that they create that are the concern of the Deer Commission. Therefore, that commission will not be able to authorise any of the actions that the Bill will provide for, unless it is satisfied that the problem being tackled is created by wild deer.
My noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy raised the interesting issue of contraceptives, be it pellets or by employing the hunger of deer in winter and some method of marinating forage in a contraceptive substance before the forage is put out for consumption. The important point that that raises is connected with the provisions we are putting in Clause 3. We want the Deer Commission to be able to indulge in research, experiments, demonstrations and so on. Therefore, if there are new methods and options for deer management which are being worked on by scientists or land managers, we shall welcome the fact that the Deer Commission can take an interest and if necessary promote the new methods.
I know that contraceptive pellets are being considered in seal management and my noble friend Lord Forbes raised that awkward issue. I was speaking to some Canadians recently who told me that they are getting closer to delivering pellets to seals and therefore there may be a way of delivering contraceptive pellets to deer. However, a huge amount is not yet known. For example, how long will the pellet be active and would one change the social patterns of a herd once hind stock are no longer properly coming into season? There are probably more questions as yet unanswered than there are answers.
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I am not sure for what reason but my noble friend Lord Glenarthur was worried about Clause 3 allowing the Deer Commission to take part in experiments, research and demonstration projects. Whether we are talking about new management techniques based on science or on land management, we hope that the Deer Commission will take on that research.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, if my noble friend will allow me to intervene, I certainly do not disapprove; nor do I believe that there is no need to carry out some experiments. However, it seemed to me that the phrase in Clause 3:
"any experiment, trial or demonstration",
without it being qualified in some way, seems extraordinarily wide. That is the point on which I need reassurance.
The Earl of Lindsay: My Lords, it would possibly be best if we discussed the matter before the next stage. We do not wish to fetter the commission's discretion to pursue research which could have a useful application to deer management. My noble friend Lord Forbes stressed the importance of research, and we hope that it could become an important part of the commission's work.
My noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy also raised the public safety issue, which is a new feature of this Bill compared to the 1959 Act. In my opening statement I mentioned airports, but we do not anticipate roads being within the purview of the commission. We do not believe that the many roads that cross the red deer range in Scotland, many of which are unfenced, could possibly be seen by the commission as part of its responsibility. Therefore the Tomintoul road, for instance, will not be policed by deer commission marksmen going about their duty. That is beyond the remit of the commission. Quite apart from wild deer straying on to airports, we are taking a fairly long-term look at deer management through this Bill. As my noble friend Lord Wootton said, if the deer range is moving and reducing, deer may be driven on to school playgrounds and perhaps into other parts of communities where, rather than just being a nuisance, they could be construed as a danger. We want the commission to have the ability to respond to those sorts of dangers.
My noble friend Lord Woolton used the phrase, "the spotlight on country life that is currently being applied by society at large". That is an important aspect. It raises the welfare issue, to which a number of noble Lords alluded in different respects. The noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, reported the response of the SSPCA, and the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, also raised welfare, as did the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, and the noble Lord, Lord Forbes.
The important point is that the conservation and sustainable management of deer cannot in any way incorporate practices that do not take account of welfare. If there is abuse or cruelty to deer, that would not qualify under the terms of the Bill as being part of their sustainable management or indeed anything to do with conservation. The issue of the close season has possibly split contributors to the debate. Some, such as my noble

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friends Lord Woolton and Lord Forbes, have welcomed it whereas my noble friend Lord Burton is worried. I can say to my noble friend Lord Burton that close seasons will continue to represent a valuable protection for deer, especially for hinds and calves during the calving season and indeed later when they are still heavy with milk. They will also continue to form a part of the general framework of the controlling and taking of deer. But there may well a need, given the very large upward trend in deer numbers in Scotland, at some stage and in some cases, to adjust the seasons for reasons of sound management. That would not be done unless there had been consultation with all who had an interest. It would also require an order of the Secretary of State. Therefore there would be a procedure allowing plenty of opportunity for those who were uneasy about it to make their case. Welfare is central to the Bill. The word itself may not be on the face of the Bill, but it is written through the Bill in a wide number of respects.
The noble Lady, Lady Saltoun of Abernethy, hit on the most successful part of the commission's record to date and on the key to the commission's future success when she said that it must have the effective support and confidence of all those involved. Indeed, as was acknowledged at the start of the debate, if land managers do not have confidence in the commission and in the management systems proposed by the commission, or indeed in the potential of deer management groups, then the deer problem in Scotland will not be solved. In government we recognise that the commission must engender confidence. We must achieve the era of harmony to which my noble friend Lord Pearson referred when speaking of his old friends in SNH. I cannot be nearly so pessimistic as my noble friends Lord Burton or Lord Pearson about the provisions of the Bill and the way in which the deer commission will interrelate with other land users and land managers in the future. There is, as I hope my noble friend Lord Pearson appreciates, a very explicit balancing duty written into the Bill in Clause 1. The interests of owners and occupiers are a balancing duty which has not to date existed in the operation of the Red Deer Commission. Therefore, in the future, all the commission's decisions will have to take account of the wider implications of reactions set out by the balancing duty.
The new provision for the appointment of commissioners is also intended to seek that balance. A number of noble Lords are uneasy about the new provisions in this area. We are conscious that there has been a relatively inflexible situation developing whereby the choice of potential members of the commission is restricted to the nominees of certain organisations. There are many more organisations now with a genuine and legitimate interest in deer management than there were in 1959. We ate conscious that good and contributing as members of the commission have been to date, there have been moments when there were people better able to serve on the commission but who could not be appointed because of the constricting procedures that exist at present. We want to maintain a balance and make sure that landowners and people whose primary interest is the sporting side of deer management, as well as those
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involved in agriculture, forestry or natural heritage, can all have their interests properly represented on the commission. The Secretary of State will seek a balanced commission that reflects expertise, experience and knowledge across those four broad areas.
I am conscious that many noble Lords have today expressed different depths of misgiving and have also contributed one or two suggestions about the way in which Clause 1 allows the Secretary of State to appoint the new commission. I promise that we shall read those remarks with great care in Hansard to see whether there are any adjustments we should like to make or consultations that we should like to carry out with any noble Lords here.
My noble friend Lord Glenarthur was worried about the way in which local panels could be appointed under Clause 2. The clause is designed to reflect the widely varying circumstances that might pertain to any particular situation. We are not sure where a panel might be needed. No local panels are in existence at the moment. We are not quite sure why a local panel might have to be set up and what problem it might address. Therefore, we do not want to prescribe to the commission exactly what sort of panel it has to be until the nature of the problem is evident. The strong likelihood is of course that the composition of the panel will be very similar to the composition of deer management groups but perhaps incorporating an interest to account for a particular circumstance.
In relation to Clause 4, the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun of Abernethy, and two or three other noble Lords asked about either the right of appeal or the definitions involved. Clause 4 on marauding deer is primarily geared to an emergency situation. That is the difference between Clause 4 and the control agreements that are needed to solve long-term problems. Clause 4 is meant to be a device to be applied reasonably quickly. The commission must take all steps to inform all those whose land might be involved. Also, the authorisations in Clause 4 that might be given by the commission are time limited. What Clause 4 cannot do is create a longer-term situation that is entirely against the wishes of a landowner or land occupier in that area.
The definitions of "serious damage" are important. I make the same point as I made a moment ago to my noble friend Lord Glenarthur; namely, to prescribe "serious damage" or what the word serious might mean without knowing the area of Scotland, the sort of habitat one addresses and the sort of land uses that might also be part of the equation, is difficult. We fully expect that the composition of the commission, with its balance of expertise and knowledge, and the ability of the commission to draw on outside expertise—it might be SNH or another body of expertise—should provide a definition of "serious damage" that will pertain to the circumstances that it seeks to address. To try to define "serious damage" for a country as diverse in its landscape, topography and land use as is Scotland would be unnecessarily constraining and could be very counterproductive.
I should point out that the control schemes which are the compulsory arrangements are only able to be instituted where serious damage is not only occurring

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but continuing to occur. That is an important definition which may be of some comfort to those who fear the ability of a compulsory arrangement to interfere with normal land management techniques.
The noble Baroness, Lady Robson, asked about following deer onto other land during control agreements. The assumption that I make would be that they are injured, which necessitates, as it were, an act which would otherwise be a transgression on to someone else's private property presumably without any agreement. In normal terms, one would expect the Deer Commission to seek the agreement of all landowners likely to be affected by voluntary control agreements. Under Section 15 of the 1959 Act, the commission has the power to enter onto any land in pursuance of a control scheme but has to give at least 14 days' notice. In emergency circumstances, which may be what the noble Baroness has in mind, such as those involved in following injured deer, we should expect the stalker upon the ground to use his or her discretion, including, where possible, consulting the neighbouring land owner/occupier to ensure that a deer which is in distress is put out of its misery as soon as possible.
We shall look again at the word "exterminate", which the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, and the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, quite rightly drew to my attention. It may be a word which perhaps in earlier legislation caused less concern than it does today. There are other phrases, such as that suggested by the noble Lady of reducing numbers. We shall want to consider that matter very carefully.
The noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, my noble friend Lord Forbes and other noble Lords brought up the new provisions and removal of the exemptions on night shooting. We have thought about the issue very carefully. We are convinced that what we are doing is the right way to go forward in this difficult area. As I said, it involves animal welfare, public safety and law and order issues. The need for all those who want to night shoot to obtain authorisation from the commission should solve many of the problems that have been developing.
The definition of "vehicles" has caused some concern among noble Lords and the fact that it could include helicopters has provoked comment. I stress that once again the Red Deer Commission quite rightly assumed that it would not have another opportunity for primary legislation in this century and that we should be into the new millennium before being able to write a new Bill. I feel that it was taking a long-term view of some of the deer management problems which may occur in the next decade or two.
There is a realisation in the red deer range in Scotland that, over very large areas of terrain, there may be a very fast build up of deer numbers and that the only effective management technique may be somehow to move those deer to a point where they can be better managed. It has nothing to do with sporting purposes, as I said. There is no way that from a helicopter, for instance, one could seek to discharge a weapon at a deer. It would be controlled by a code of practice and would only be in very exceptional circumstances. The
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commission itself would have to be convinced that something which is bound to arouse public interest is justified by the management problem that is posed.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I wonder whether my noble friend could give us some reassurance on that point. He referred to the code of practice in relation to vehicles, including aircraft. Can he say whether or not that code of practice will be available during the passage of the Bill?
The Earl of Lindsay: My Lords, I feel that it might be best if I were to write to my noble friend on that point. I hope that the timetable on this Bill will allow for as much useful information as possible to come forward. If it can be made available to noble Lords, I should certainly be very happy that that should be the case.
I must not detain noble Lords much longer. There are issues which I have not had time to address in depth. I am conscious that my noble friend Lord Pearson of Rannoch brought up the case for carcass tagging. That is a subject which needs more than two or three sentences. It involves the provision of information to the Deer Commission, there are some hygiene aspects and there are some poaching dimensions to the whole subject of carcass tagging. I do not want to fail to do the matter justice. Perhaps I may seek a meeting with my noble friend so that we can look at the wisdom of addressing that subject further.
I trust that the answers I have had time to give will go some way toward explaining the rationale behind the Bill. Following this debate, I shall make available some Notes on Clauses which will give further clarification on the details of the Bill. I look forward to discussing the Bill at all stages with noble Lords, especially given the weight of considerable expertise in this House on such matters. We want to create a revised legislative framework which will give the Deer Commission and deer managers the powers that they need for the new century to ensure that wild deer in Scotland can continue to live successfully as an integral part of our natural and cultural heritage, in harmony with other land uses and with their habitat.
I refer my noble friend Lord Glenarthur and the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, to that sentence when they read Hansard as our definition of what sustainable management of deer involves. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate and commend the Bill to the House.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Deregulation (Building Societies) Order 1995
5.35 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish)The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish) rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 16th October be approved [17th Report from the Select Committee].
The noble Lord said: My Lords, as your Lordships may be aware, the Government completed their wide-ranging review of the Building Societies Act 1986 in February this year. The review was in two stages. At the end of the first stage, the Government announced three specific measures to extend societies' powers by first, allowing them to make loans to businesses, without the security of a mortgage on land; secondly, allowing them to own general insurance companies writing buildings and contents insurance and mortgage payment protection policies; and, thirdly, increasing from 40 per cent. to 50 per cent. the maximum limit on funds they can raise in the wholesale market.
The first of these measures came into force in April this year. The second will be contained in an order under the Building Societies Act, which it is intended will come into force in July next year. The third is one of the measures contained in this order.
Many of the findings of the second stage of the review are reflected in a draft Building Societies Bill, which is to be published for consultation early next year, with the aim of introducing new legislation during the life of this Parliament.
The Government are keen to promote economic growth, widen competition and enhance the future for building societies, by removing rules and regulations which place unnecessary burdens on them. The Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 contained a number of useful amendments to building society legislation, allowing societies to issue deferred shares at a premium; to lend on security of land owned by a third party; and to participate in syndicated lending directly, rather than through a subsidiary.
This is the second order to be debated in your Lordships' House which has been made under the general order-making powers in the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994. It represents a significant improvement in our ability to bring forward speedy legislation to ease the regulatory burdens on business.
The order has been comprehensively examined since it was first laid in draft form before both Houses of Parliament in May. The scrutiny committees examined the proposals most carefully and the Deregulation Committee in another place took evidence from government officials. We owe to the Deregulation Committee the amendment to Article 5(2)(a), which makes it clear that the day referred to in that article is the one on which Article 5 of the order comes into force and not the day on which the rest of the order does. Your Lordships will see that Article 5(2)(a) of the draft order has been amended accordingly. Both the Deregulation Committee and your Lordships' own Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee have since reported that they are now content with the order and made no further proposals for amendment.
Turning to the detail, Article 3 will remove the restriction on building societies acquiring and holding premises outside the United Kingdom for the purpose of the business of a subsidiary or other associated body.
Article 4 will increase from 40 per cent. to 50 per cent. the maximum limit on a building society's non-retail funds and deposits. It will also give building
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societies the power to exclude certain liabilities such as permanent interest bearing shares, which may be aggregated with reserves for capital adequacy purposes, from the calculation of this limit.
Article 5 will remove the statutory obligation on building societies to meet the liabilities of their subsidiaries and certain other associated bodies incurred on or after the date on which the article comes into force; it does not affect those relating to obligations entered into before that date.
Article 6 will remove the current requirement for the auditor's report to be read before the annual general meeting of a building society.
Article 7 will remove the duty on the seller of land mortgaged to a building society to send the particulars of the sale of a mortgaged property to the mortgagor, where it has reason to believe that he will not receive it. If the mortgagor has left a new address, there will be no problem. But if he has not and the society knows that he no longer lives at the address of the property it has just sold, there is no point in sending a letter.
All of those proposals are sensible in themselves and together they add up to a worthwhile package of measures which will enhance the efficiency with which societies can go about their business. I commend them to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 16th October be approved[17th Report from the Select Committee]. —(Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish.)
5.45 p.m.
Viscount Chandos: My Lords, I welcome the introduction of this order by the Minister. These are modest measures to amend and update the 1986 Building Societies Act, an Act which your Lordships may conclude has been generally successful. In the past decade building societies have been allowed to adapt, modernise and compete in the fast-moving retail. financial services industry of the time. But we have successfully avoided any replication of the disasters that occurred in the United States savings and loans industry in the previous period. Your Lordships may be interested to know that the costs borne by the US Government of bailing out the savings and loans industry exceeded, at least in nominal terms, the cost of fighting the Vietnam war.
There is widespread popular support for building societies from people as both depositors and members. Even after the Abbey National converted to a PLC and became an authorised bank, it was careful not to include the dreaded word "bank" in its name for fear of driving away potential customers.
There is particular support for building societies from these Benches, first, because of the diversity of the status of the business provided by a mutual society. Corporate status has much to recommend it, but it is not the only status that can lead to the efficient management of business. It is worth noting that mutuality for a building society is not necessarily as easy to justify in terms of the benefits provided to members as is true in the case of life assurance societies where the long-term

865
nature of the contract that applies between the company and the policy holder or member of that society more easily benefits from the mutual status and the absence of third party capital. To protect the mutual status of building societies therefore may require specific effort. But ownership by the customers for the customers is a principle to which these Benches adhere particularly strongly and one that is supported by the country at large.
Almost the most important benefit in the building societies industry at the moment is the great regional strength that exists among societies. Unlike so much of the rest of the financial services industry, which is concentrated first and foremost in London and then to a considerable but lesser extent in Edinburgh, the building societies industry has enormous strength, particularly in the North East. Therefore, while we support in principle the continuation of mutual status, we are in no way opposed to change in the light of the rapid changes that we see in the retail financial services industry.
Building societies must be allowed to change and they should then take advantage of deregulation. A degree of consolidation among societies is necessary and desirable to create institutions of a size able to compete effectively with banks and other corporate entities. The paramount objective that we would seek in any new measures to regulate or deregulate the building societies industry would be, first, the fostering and promotion of competition and, secondly, the maintenance and enhancement of the regional base of the industry.
If we test the changes proposed against those objectives, the most important measure is that contained in Article 4, which would permit the wholesale funding that may be undertaken by building societies to increase from 40 per cent. to 50 per cent. and the exclusion of capital instruments such as permanent interest-bearing shares from the calculations. The creation of PIBS was crucial in allowing the maintenance of mutuality in many cases as a source of third party capital to allow societies to maintain their growth without conversion to public limited company status.
The second most important change is that contained within Article 5; that is, the repeal of Section 22 of the 1986 Act to create a level playing field between the building societies and the banks that have corporate status to allow the subsidiaries of the building societies to stand on their own feet. It is worth bearing in mind in this case that there would remain tight controls over the type of business that may be undertaken by those subsidiaries. At the same time there would remain the strong moral obligation to support those subsidiaries that apply to companies, even if there was no legal obligation to support them.
The other issues are even less controversial. The ownership of land overseas is a reasonable step to allow building societies, to the extent that they wish, to develop business outside the UK. The article which allows the auditor's report not to be read at the annual general meeting reconciles the practice for building
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societies with those applying to limited companies under the 1989 Companies Act. While that is a sensible development in formal terms, one hopes that it in no way reduces the concentration of the boards of building societies or their members on the rigorous auditing of the societies' activities.
Finally, while the requirement to notify mortgagors of the sale of land may give cause for some concern that it may disadvantage the consumer, I believe that the Building Societies Commission will take care to ensure that consumers are adequately protected.
This modest measure has the support of the Opposition Benches and we commend the order to the House.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, has said that this is a modest measure. Indeed it is. It is also a desirable measure. It has been examined by the Deregulation Committee of the House of Commons and by the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee of this House. They have seen no objection to it. That being so, it has our blessing.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for their welcome to this measure. Modest though it may be, it is also important. Perhaps I may welcome the noble Viscount once again to the Front Bench. I am not sure that we are going to make a habit of meeting across the Table almost on a weekly basis—I suspect that we may be. We perhaps did not agree last week, but I am delighted that we are agreeing this week.
The most important point is one which the noble Viscount made. These measures—or at least some of them—help to ensure that the building societies will not be placed at a disadvantage when competing with the banks. Building societies have undoubtedly performed a major role so far as concerns customers by, for example, being much more competitive in their opening hours and therefore allowing their customers to get at them much better than the banks at least used to do, although I think the banks are changing their policy in response to the competitive pressures from the building societies.
The noble Viscount said that Article 5 in particular deals with the question of a level playing field between the two. Currently banks do not have an obligation to stand behind associated bodies. This article will put building societies in the same position although, as he rightly also pointed out, in practice the good name which the bank or building society may wish to retain will probably mean that they will wish to stand behind subsidiaries, at least in most cases.
There is also tight control about what type of subsidiaries they can have. As the noble Viscount pointed out, although Article 4 extends from 40 per cent. to 50 per cent. the amount of capital that can come from elsewhere, it ensures that at least 50 per cent. of the capital continues to come from the members. That is an important aspect of building societies. I am grateful to both noble Lords for their welcome to the order. I commend the Motion to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Dangerous Dogs (Amendment) Bill [H.L.]
5.53 p.m.
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
A debate in your Lordships' House without the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, necessarily loses some of its colour. It is rather like having a general debate about boxing without Henry Cooper. I use that comparison advisedly because they are both heavyweights in their fields. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, has on three separate occasions before today presented to your Lordships' House Bills to amend the Dangerous Dogs Act. The Bill which I introduce today on the noble Lord's behalf is a simple one, although perhaps deceptively so. It attacks what is seen to be the main fault of the dangerous dogs legislation, which was introduced in 1991, and it seeks to restore to the judiciary the discretion which is normal in almost every other form of jurisprudence in our land.
When the original Dangerous Dogs Bill first came before Parliament, it was welcomed in certain ways but viewed with some suspicion. It went through as quickly as the Government hoped at that time. A great deal of public concern had been brought about by attacks on members of the public, particularly children, by certain breeds of dog. The Government chose to target one specific breed. The word "breed" is important because it implies pedigree. The Government sought to target the pit bull terrier, or more correctly the American pit bull terrier, for what appeared to be good reasons—the attacks that I have mentioned but also the fact that the dogs were being used for fighting, a barbarous and archaic sport which is rightly banned within these shores. The American pit bull terrier was specifically bred for fighting. That was one of the main arguments put forward for the emphasis on the pit bull terrier.
Those of us who were familiar with the world of dogs knew that the pit bull terrier, or the pit bull terrier type, as the Government preferred to call it—they used that term in their legislation—was by no means the only or indeed the main offender in attacks on children, members of the public and the police. The legislation was hurried through. There were misgivings; but perhaps those misgivings were not voiced satisfactorily. As the months and years have gone by since the Act came into force, it has been what I would hazard to suggest as one of the most unsatisfactory pieces of legislation on our statute book. I can think of only one other piece of legislation during my time in your Lordships' House which is as unsatisfactory. I refer to the Government's Football Spectators - Bill, but fortunately for the country its provisions have never been fully implemented, for reasons which it would be inappropriate to dwell on here.
The noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, has taken up this cudgel with such force and—he will not mind me saying so—at such length because he feels not only that the legislation has been 'unfair and unjust to dogs and dog owners but also that it is constitutionally
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unsatisfactory in that it introduces a mandatory sentence, deprives the judiciary of their normal role and implies that they are unable to carry out that role. The House will know that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, has not been in good health for the past weeks. I am sure all noble Lords will join me in wishing him a complete return to good health. The noble Lord has sent me a note which cheers me. The note wishes me luck and suggests that I might point out that these proposals are before the House for the fourth time and that the Bill might therefore be described as a well-seasoned one in your Lordships' House.
The main issue is the mandatory destruction of dogs without the court having a discretion. Because of the haste with which the Bill was brought in, that aspect has probably done just the opposite to what the Government intended at the time. They probably thought that it would reduce court time, simplify court measures and meet the anxieties of the public, the press and the general mood of the time in 1991 when the legislation was introduced. In fact it has done just the opposite. The Government did not seek advice from the right quarters and did not define the kind of dogs which they intended to curb, and indeed to annihilate—it has been said many times by members of the Government and their supporters that they wished to eliminate the pit bull terrier completely as the breed or type was a menace to our society. They brought in statutory measures which had to be met by the owners of these dogs, and your Lordships are familiar with them. It meant registration, muzzling in public, and chipping and castration where appropriate. A reasonable amount of time was given in which the dog owners were expected to comply with those requirements.
The problem has been that when the law came into force, predictably a number of people had not met the requirements. The police went about their normal duties and took into custody a number of dogs, which appeared to be what the Government describe as the pit-bull type. No doubt other noble Lords will be going into that in much more detail than I shall. These dogs were immediately taken before the courts and the only sentence was mandatory destruction. The courts became reluctant to convict; appeals were set in motion and the result was that many dogs were put into kennels for lengthy periods at great cost to the taxpayer. The chaos which ensued and which still exists, brought that law into considerable disrepute.
There are many anecdotes with which I shall not bore your Lordships, about the way in which the law has not worked or that it has worked unfairly and indeed tragically to dogs and their owners. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, has related some of them to your Lordships many times. There have been many strange muddles in the courts. Indeed, the Home Office has been encouraging the prosecution services to use the 1871 legislation, amended in 1989, wherever possible, rather than the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. In many cases that has not happened. That may be because the circulars which the Home Office sent out have not been read or fully understood.

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We continue apace and the police go around apprehending dogs that they consider should be put into custody. That creates a prolonged and distressing problem. A rather timely article appeared in the Daily Telegraph on Saturday. It summarised a recent case in the High Court before Mr. Justice Rougier. He saw fit to order the release of a dog which is well known. It has a name which is almost as well known as that of the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby. It is called "Dempsey". Mr. Justice Rougier said that the Act bore the hallmarks of a badly thought-out piece of legislation and was no doubt drafted in haste in response to pressure groups. He added to that by saying that observant and zealous policemen were going about their duties sending perfectly inoffensive animals to their deaths and that,
"It would take the pen of a Voltaire to do justice to this situation".
It is unusual for a judge in court to make such a swingeing attack on a piece of legislation of this kind. So it is not just an emotional outcry by a lot of dog lovers and people who feel that they prefer dogs to human beings, or who are soft in many ways or have no sympathy with those who have suffered serious injury from attacks by dogs in the past. Anyone who reads the newspapers knows that dog attacks continue.
Other issues are perhaps not as well known. Some dogs are kept in custody for months and months. I believe that Dempsey ran up kennel costs of £60,000 before his order for release. That is not unusual, as arguments rage about the identity of a dog. Some dogs even find themselves in a sort of limbo. They are taken into custody by the police and orders are given by the court for their release or there may be technical reasons why the case cannot go ahead. But the police feel that they cannot release the dogs so they stay in custody. It is a most incredible result arising from hastily conceived and drafted legislation being put on the statute book. Yet the Government remain adamant.
The noble Earl is a relative newcomer to this subject and perhaps he has not heard some of the much more eloquent speeches than mine which have been given in this House by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby. Perhaps I may return to the boxing analogy. The noble Earl and myself are relative lightweights, although not physically, but certainly as regards the affairs of dogs. The noble Earl will have his brief and I am pretty convinced that I know what he will say. He will say what has been said before and perhaps tell us that the legislation was conceived as necessary to save the lives and physical wellbeing of children, and that something had to be done. He will no doubt say that it was necessary to reduce the number of these dogs in these islands as quickly as possible.
In Saturday's Daily Telegraph there is another interesting article. Although one seldom believes what one reads in the newspapers, on this occasion I believe that one can. The Home Secretary who introduced this legislation, Mr. Kenneth Baker, wrote his autobiography. I must confess I have not yet got round to reading it, but I look forward to it. It is called The Turbulent Years, and was published in 1993. He took a
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rather cavalier view about the legislation which he had chauffeured through Parliament. I had not thought of this particular point and noble Lords may take it whatever way they will. He admits in the book that class played a part. He said that Rottweilers, Dobermanns and Alsatians were examples of the dogs which were causing a great deal of the concern as regards everyday attacks on people.
He said,
"To put Rottweilers, Dobermans and Alsatians in the same category as pit bulls …would have infuriated the 'green welly' brigade.
He added:

"However, the 'pit bull lobby' came to my aid by appearing in front of TV cameras with owners usually sporting tattoos and earrings while extolling the allegedly gentle nature of their dogs, whose names were invariably Tyson, Gripper, Killer or Sykes".
Admittedly, Dempsey does not fall out of that group of names—
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, Jack Dempsey!
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, yes, exactly. Joking apart, does not that suggest to your Lordships that pit bulls were an easy target for the Home Secretary at that time? That need and feeling of having to do something that appeared strong was at a time when the Conservative Party was beginning to doubt its own strength, although we did not doubt it. Certain doubts were beginning to show among Conservative ranks at that time, and he needed to show what he thought was strength. This legislation was a result of that move. Although we must allow the Home Secretary some licence for being jocular in his book, his words show the lack of seriousness behind the legislation. There certainly was not seriousness to the degree that was needed to produce decent and effective legislation.
The reasons and complexities behind the objections to this legislation—the discretion of the courts is only one concern—are obvious to all of us. Almost all magistrates and judges express their absolute contempt for the Act. I have not yet met one magistrate or judge who has had to deal with a dog case who does not find it risible that this law continues on our statute books in its present form. However, the legislation is still on the statute book and I have no doubt that the noble Earl will tell us that it is still the intention of the Home Office to stick to its guns.
Therefore, the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, thought that the only way in which he could give this important subject the right kind of scrutiny was to submit it to a Select Committee of your Lordships' House. I believe that that decision is right, but more of that anon, and I hope that your Lordships will agree with us on that.
Little is known about dogs generally in this country. We have no foolproof system of knowing the number of dogs in the country. We certainly do not know how many dogs are being held nationwide. We have had some indication from the Home Office, under pressure exerted by my noble friend Lord Harris of Greenwich and others, of the costs of keeping dogs in custody while appeals are going through, while vets argue one way or

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the other and while experts and groups get more and more het up about the condition of the dogs and the state of their owners. In the answer to my noble friend's question, it was revealed that the cost to the electorate in the Metropolitan Police area alone has been £2.8 million since the legislation was introduced. If one extrapolates that to give the cost to taxpayers around the country, one sees that it is a considerable figure and a high price to pay for this hurried legislation.
I shall not go further because other noble Lords will have interesting and informed speeches to make. Noble Lords who are not speaking in the debate should not be misled by the small number of speakers. All those who have put down their name to speak are experts and are familiar with the subject. I am sure that they will follow excellently the framework that I have introduced.
However, perhaps I may draw your Lordships' attention to something which most people do not take sufficiently into account, especially those who are not pet owners. I refer to the effect of the legislation on those who have suffered because of it. I am not talking now about the dogs, but about dog owners. Anybody who knows about pet owning, and particularly about clog owning, knows of the close relationship that builds up between an owner and their pet. There is a terrible effect on an owner when their dog is taken away, killed, destroyed or run over—let alone trapped by a policeman with a long pole with a noose on the end who then takes it away for a period. The psychological effect of that on owners has been drastic. It is well recorded in the NHS that doctors have had to refer for psychiatric treatment dog owners who are showing signs that one would normally associate with bereavement. That situation is often forgotten.
It is not just a question of dealing with dogs which are dangerous or with people who sometimes appear ill-equipped to deal with their dogs—and there are plenty of those. We are talking about people and their pets and the emotional effect of depriving someone of their pet or of accusing them, perhaps unjustly, of certain behaviour with their pets. That is often resented and can have deep psychological effects. Other noble Lords may not mention that point, but it is something about which I am concerned.
Finally, perhaps I may thank all noble Lords who have put down their name to speak. I hope that the points that I have made will be fleshed out so that we can reinforce the case against the Act which the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, has made so powerfully over such a long period. On his behalf, I introduce this minor amendment which will have such a fundamental effect upon the legislation. I commend the Bill to the House.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(The Viscount of Falkland.)
6.15 p.m.
Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior: My Lords, it is a great pleasure to support the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, in what I understand is his fourth attempt to amend the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 and in his attempt to commit the Bill to a Select Committee. It is
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also a pleasure to thank the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, for eloquently taking the lead in this debate during the ill health of the noble Lord, Lord Houghton.
Much has been said about the unfortunate Dangerous Dogs Act of 1991. If there was ever a piece of legislation which started off in good faith and with approximately 85 per cent. of the public in support of it but which in four years has come to the point where 85 per cent. of the public are against it, it is the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. The public are not against the intent of the Bill, but they are against the way in which it has been used. The administration of it has run into great difficulty.
As the noble Viscount said, most recently Mr. Justice Rougier, who ruled that the dog called Dempsey should be reprieved after being in detention for three years under the death sentence, said:
"It needs the pen of Voltaire to do justice to the situation".
The position was also put succinctly by Mr. Paul de Vile, the senior vice president of the British Veterinary Association, who said:
"Buster dies—Dempsey lives—sums up the inconsistency, muddle and distress caused to humans and canines since the Act came into force in 1991".
The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, has clearly delineated the reasons for the original Act. I shall not bore your Lordships by rehearsing them again. What is asked of this amending Bill is a simple thing; namely, that magistrates be given the discretion to decide whether an animal accused of being a dangerous dog should be destroyed or whether alternate measures should be taken against it. I assure your Lordships that there is no intention of weakening the Act. There is no intention of lessening the protection of the public against truly dangerous dogs. The Bill rightly allows that to happen. Like many of us, I believe that the Bill would strengthen the Dangerous Dogs Act while allowing for the dispensation of justice with wisdom and compassion. It is wisdom and compassion which many people, including the judiciary, the police and the owners of pets which are not dangerous dogs, perceive as lacking from the Act.
Of particular importance is one of the alternatives to mandatory destruction. It is described in Clause 1(1)(b), and it allows the offending owner of a dangerous dog to be disqualified for having custody of a dog. Many will argue that it is not the dog which is at fault but the dog's custodian, who, in many cases, is responsible for the offence committed by the dog under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. I have long argued that a system of licensing owners as custodians of dogs would be a most effective way of controlling many aspects of dog nuisance, including dangerous dogs.
Much of the criticism of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 has been rehearsed in previous debates. I shall not try your Lordships' patience by going on again at length. I wholeheartedly support the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, who moved the Second Reading, and the Motion that the Bill be committed to a Select Committee.
6.21 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, your Lordships will be pleased to know that in addition to the letter which the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, has received, we have good news of my noble friend Lord Houghton of Sowerby. He is in St. Thomas's Hospital. It has been discovered that what was wrong with him was caused largely by anaemia, and blood transfusions have made him very much better. He has written to my noble friend the Chief Whip saying that he expects to be here and on his feet for his 100th birthday which is in less than three years' time.
When the Bill was debated in the previous Session, I took a certain amount of stick from my noble friend because I had to say—it is still the case—that when it comes to sympathy between a species, I am, on the whole, very much on the side of the human species. I have no particular affinity with dogs. I needed to be convinced that the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 was working or not working. To be convinced of that, I needed much better statistics than had been made available. When I explained that in more detail to my noble friend, we resumed our normal affectionate relationship, and any bad feeling between us was quickly dissipated.
The result was that the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, the Minister responsible, wrote to me on 20th March this year and gave me all the statistics available on the subject. The trouble is that the statistics are grossly inadequate. There are some statistics on the number of people, in particular children, injured by dogs, but very little information on the breed of those dogs. There are some statistics from some police forces on cases dealt with by the police and brought before the courts under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, but not all police forces have collected the evidence. Most of the evidence comes from the Metropolitan Police and a few other police forces; we lack national figures.
On this matter, as on all Private Member's Bills, I am of course speaking for myself and not for my party. It seems to me that four years after the passage of the Act there should now be a substantial reduction in the number of cases of injuries caused by dangerous dogs, a reduction in the number of dogs requiring treatment under the Act, and a reduction in the number of dogs held in custody pending appeal against their destruction. From the statistics that the Minister gave to me and other people, that appears to be the case. There appears to be a reduction because the dogs which were alive in 1991 are four years older, and the older ones are presumably dead. So that would happen of its own accord.
Therefore, in a sense, if the Act is working, each year that we go on debating it the problem becomes that much less acute. I do not know whether the statistical information available since then bears out what would seem to be a natural progression over a period of time. In any event, if we start from the position that mandatory sentencing, whether for human beings or dogs, imposed upon magistrates' courts or any other part of the judiciary is of itself undesirable and has to be thoroughly justified, and we carry on to question
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whether the mandatory sentencing imposed by the 1991 Act is justified, we lead ourselves rapidly to the conclusion that the noble Viscount is right to propose that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee rather than be dealt with in a Committee of the Whole House. Above all, we need valid, reliable information about the whole country on the operation of the Act, and, in particular, the mandatory destruction element of the Act, which is the part which is in question now.
I welcome the Bill. I welcome the fact that it is to be referred to a Select Committee. I hope that the Select Committee will, once and for all, uncover the facts about the treatment of dangerous dogs and come to a rapid and final conclusion.
6.26 p.m.
Baroness Wharton: My Lords, I too thank the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, for introducing the Second Reading debate in place of our friend, the noble Lord, Lord Houghton. Discounting the original debate we had on the workings of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, this is the third time we have had a Second Reading debate on the Bill which has so far been unopposed in the House. There have been one or two amendments to it along the way.
As noble Lords will be aware, all the Bill seeks to do is to restore discretion to the courts by removing the sentence of mandatory destruction. I know that the Home Office has made repeated attempts to encourage the use of the Dogs Act 1871, but the message does not appear to be getting through to the courts or the police.
Dogs other than pit bulls are locked up under the 1991 Act, with their owners having little or no access to them. As the noble Viscount and the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby, said, some dogs are in a legal limbo: not identified conclusively as pit bulls and not charged because they have not committed any offence. In such situations, the police have no power to release or to destroy them. It is a most unsatisfactory situation for all parties involved.
The sheer inflexibility of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 creates confusion and distress to all concerned. Judges and magistrates are now beginning to ask questions about its operation. Arrests by over-zealous policemen for minor offences and charging owners under Section 3 of the Act rather than using the Dogs Act 1871 only create more confusion because, under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, the unfortunate dog is not usually released. The release of Dempsey whose muzzle was removed to allow him to be sick restores some sort of sanity to the legal process but that took three years which is a long time for an innocent dog to be locked up. I hope that the CPS will not decide to pursue court proceedings against that dog and its owner. If it did, it would bring the law into disrepute. It would destroy much of its credibility. There are many cases of dogs having been seized as a result of mistaken identity. They have attacked no one. They are held for months before their cases come to court. Their condition deteriorates. I sometimes doubt whether there is any proper concern for their welfare. Let us hope that at this third attempt to restore justice and common sense the Government

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will think again. The public know that this amendment Bill does not take away their protection. They wish justice to be restored to what before 1991 was man's best friend.
6.30 p.m.
Lord McConnell: My Lords, I wish to make only a few short points. First, I wish to join other noble Lords in saying how much we look forward to seeing the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, return soon to his accustomed place in the House.
The Bill does not apply to Northern Ireland. However, if precedent is followed, a similar order will be made on similar terms applying to Northern Ireland. Therefore, from our point of view and from the point of view of those in Northern Ireland, it is essential that the Bill is passed. Indeed, I wonder whether it should contain some provision to allow the making of an order amending the 1991 Northern Ireland order on dangerous dogs, which more or less repeats the 1991 Act.
I am not against the destruction of really dangerous dogs. We have heard of horrendous cases and we all support the destruction of dogs who do such damage and viciously attack human beings, in particular children. However, it is wrong to put so many different dogs into the same category. I object to mandatory sentences, whether in the Dangerous Dogs Act or any other Act. They are seldom included in an Act of Parliament. Indeed, nowadays there is talk as to whether the mandatory nature of life imprisonment for murder should be done away with and left to the discretion of the court. Certainly, as regards dogs, it is absurd to have mandatory legislation. It is a function of the courts to apply the law to the facts and then to impose an appropriate penalty. It is ridiculous that that discretion should be taken from them.
Section 1(2)(d) of the 1991 Act provides that it is an offence to have one of the prescribed types of dog in a public place without a muzzle and without being kept on a lead. If the muzzle is taken off, as was said to be the case with Dempsey, but the lead is still on to restrain the dog, the court must order the destruction of the dog. That seems to be a quite inappropriate penalty.
Furthermore, Section 5(5) of the 1991 Act provides that if the prosecution alleges that the dog is one to which Section 1 applies, that is presumed unless the accused proves otherwise. In other words, the normal onus of proof in any prosecution is reversed and the onus of proof lies with the owner of the dog. That shifting of the onus of proof is most undesirable in any prosecution. I support the Bill and commend it to the House.
6.34 p.m.
The Earl of Courtown: My Lords, I wish to associate myself with the comments which have been expressed about the noble Lord, Lord Houghton. I am glad to hear the news of his improving condition. We all hope that he will be back with us again very soon. The whole House acknowledges his commitment to the cause of animal welfare.
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I should also say that my noble friend Lady Blatch has asked me to say how sorry she is not to be here for this debate. She too shares my hope that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, will be back with us soon.
The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, in introducing the Bill on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, has explained that its objective is to lift the mandatory destruction provisions of the Act and to give the courts discretion in sentencing where there is presently none. Additionally, it enables the courts to give convicted owners the opportunity for late registration on the Index of Exempted Dogs and to review all current cases where a destruction order had been made but not yet carried out.
Your Lordships will recall the shocking events which led the Government to bring forward the Dangerous Dogs Act and the very wide support which the proposals received. Our belief was—and remains—that there is no place in our society for fighting dogs and that the existing generation of such animals should be the last. The principal provisions of the 1991 Act were all designed to achieve that object. Under the Act, owners of pit bull terriers and other dogs bred for fighting were allowed to keep their animals on condition that they complied, by 30th November 1991, with the stringent conditions set out in the legislation. The mandatory destruction order applies where the owner of a fighting dog has failed to comply with these requirements or fails subsequently to keep the dog muzzled and on a lead in a public place, and where a dog of any type or breed causes injury to a person. In these cases, magistrates have no option but to order the destruction of the dog.
I have to tell the House that the Government's view is that the provisions in the Bill would have two undesirable effects. First, they would undermine the incentives which the Act provides towards responsible dog ownership and, secondly, they would risk the perpetuation of fighting dogs in this country. In our view, they would amount to a weakening of the protection which the Act affords.
The decision to deny the courts discretion in sentencing was quite deliberate. Section 1 was designed to face owners of fighting dogs with a clear choice: comply with the registration and associated requirements of the Act by the due date, or (if caught) face the certain destruction of the animal concerned. Section 3, which applies to dogs of any type, contains an equally clear message. An owner whose dog commits an aggravated offence—that is, being dangerously out of control and attacking someone—will, if convicted under this legislation, face the certain destruction of his or her pet. These are very tough incentives. And the provisions ensure, furthermore, that dog owners who fail to act responsibly do not have any chance of regaining charge of their animals. There would be wide criticism if an owner who had ignored the provisions of the legislation were to regain custody of the dog concerned—especially if that dog were subsequently to injure any person.
The Bill before the House gives the courts a discretion on sentencing in relation to both pit bulls and dogs of any type or breed which are dangerously out of

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control. As regards the former, it recognises that allowing discretion in the case of conviction for non-registration is pointless if the dog concerned cannot be got onto the index. So the Bill provides for the courts to direct a convicted person to register his or her dog. In essence this would amount to the re-opening of the Index of Exempted Dogs for an indefinite period, albeit only in regard to certain dogs.
I do accept that under the proposal in the Bill such dogs would continue to have to be neutered and so on. I have to say, however, that to allow those owners who originally failed to register to do so now would suggest that Parliament was no longer committed to ensuring the elimination of pit bull terriers since there would be nothing to prevent fresh dogs, imported into this country or bred unlawfully here, from benefiting from this method of retrospective legislation. It would be a dangerous invitation to some people to risk bringing new dogs into this country, knowing that there was a back door route to registration if they were caught. It would mean, perversely, that to legitimise one's position as an owner of an unregistered dog one would first have to be prosecuted and convicted of owning it unlawfully. Section 4 of the Bill would go further by enabling the court to review all current cases where a destruction order had been made but not yet carried out.
The Government accept that mandatory destruction is a severe measure but we do not believe that this is any less important now than when the Act was passed. Pit bulls and other dogs which go dangerously out of control and injure a person are no less a threat today than when the Act was introduced.
I shall now try to deal with some of the specific points raised in the course of the debate. The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, asked why pit bulls have been singled out. All dogs are unpredictable, but the reports of dog incidents and the reports received by the Home Office suggest that pit bulls are especially so. They are also extremely powerful as they were bred for fighting. I am sure that noble Lords do not need reminding of the horrific picture of injuries caused by pit bulls. The 1991 Act also deals with dangerous dogs of any breed, but the particular provisions in relation to pit bulls were and are necessary to deal with the dangers caused by that breed of dog.
The noble Viscount referred also to criticism by the judiciary of the 1991 Act. We are aware of comments in a few cases about the operation of the Act. However, Parliament decided to eliminate pit bull terriers and to make owners more responsible for their dogs.
The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, and the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, also mentioned the case of Dempsey. I understand that in a judicial review of the case on 22nd November, the High Court' upheld the conviction of the person who had been in charge of the dog at the due time but decided that natural justice had been denied to the owner because she was not told of the original hearing and was not able to make representations before the destruction order was imposed. The destruction order was quashed and the dog was ordered to be returned to its owner. The Crown Prosecution Service, which has been given liberty to
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restore the hearing in the magistrates court, will decide what further action, if any, to take. In the circumstances, it would not be sensible for me to say more on that subject.
The noble Viscount referred also to the cost of operating the Act. Those costs will vary considerably from case to case. Many cases have gone through the courts without undue problems and with prosecution costs amounting to no more than those for other cases of comparable gravity. I understand that the cost to the Metropolitan Police of keeping dogs has reduced from £1.3 million in the 1992–93 financial year to £0.5 million in the last financial year.
The House has agreed in principle that there should be a Select Committee on this Bill. I therefore invite the House to agree with that Motion.
The noble Baroness, Lady Wharton, and the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, mentioned also prosecutions under the 1871 and 1991 Acts. In the past three years, there were 1,972 prosecutions under the Dangerous Dogs Act and 2,051 prosecutions under the 1871 Act.
The burden of proof centres only on one simple fact: is the dog a pit bull terrier or not? That is not the same as in some other criminal offences where the burden of proof placed on the accused goes beyond facts to questions of intent and motivation. I do not think that there would be an injustice in requiring the owner rather than the prosecution to prove that question of fact.
This is the third occasion on which a Bill amending the Dangerous Dogs Act has been presented to the House, all in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Houghton. As I indicated at the outset, in introducing the Dangerous Dogs Act the Government were responding to very real anxiety about the presence of fighting dogs in this country as well as to broader concerns about dog attacks generally. The Act was a responsible recognition that something had to be done to meet that widespread concern and to protect the public. As I have made clear, the Government consider that the mandatory description order and the one-off nature of the registration scheme are matters which are integral to the provisions of the Act and to the objectives to which Parliament agreed. The Act remains relevant and necessary. The Government cannot support the Bill although, as is the convention as regards a Private Member's Bill, we shall not seek to vote against it.
6.44 p.m.
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, I do not know that I am in the same world as the Government on this subject. I listened to the noble Earl. He read out his brief to us. I do not know what he thinks personally about this matter and I do not know whether he has given any thought to the issues behind this amendment Bill.
I thank all noble Lords who have spoken. They have made out a case for taking a strong view about the Bill as a whole, which can be done on a Second Reading of a Bill. They have also given very good reasons for supporting the concept of submitting the Bill to a Select Committee.

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It is rather strange for the Government to seek to justify their actions by saying that the popular press was demanding this kind of legislation. I remind the Minister that those same newspapers are now condemning the legislation with double the vehemence which they used when it was introduced because of the unsatisfactory events which have taken place during the past four to five years.
I believe that the Government should have introduced a Bill to deal specifically with fighting dogs. That would have been a sensible course of action. There is no disagreement that dog fighting is an abhorrent sport, if it can be called that. American pit bull terriers were bred for that sport. At the time that the legislation was introduced, there was perceived to be a problem emerging in various parts of our country and that was something that we wished to eliminate. That could have been dealt with. All the concerns relevant to that particular subject could have been considered. Expert advice could have been sought. The Government have never been good at seeking or heeding such advice, but they could have done that.
Attacks on children receive the most publicity and there were some terrifying attacks on children. But those attacks can be made by any breed of dog. My vet tells me that when a dog comes in through a door he does not look at the dog but at the owner. He says that if he receives a bite from a dog, which is normal in his day's work, he may have to take a couple of hours off or he may be uncomfortable for a few days. But if he is bitten by a dog with massive muscle structure, such as a pit bull terrier, he will be off work for a fortnight. Therefore, he takes a very careful look not at the dog but at the owner. Experienced people know well that dogs behave according to the homes from which they come and the care which is given to them by their owners.
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The Select Committee will consider all those matters. This is a very simple Bill. I am not a lawyer but this Act seems to be a reversal of the normal practice of jurisprudence in this country. It imposes a mandatory penalty of destruction on dogs found to be of a type. It is as vague as that. I can hardly think that any lawyer in the land would believe that a dog should be described in that way. A mandatory penalty is imposed on dogs which have caused injury, however minor, to a person, and quite irrespective of the circumstances. The courts cannot do anything about that. That is the only sanction that they have. It is no wonder that so many courts are now seeking to avoid at all costs imposing that mandatory sentence. The costs and the heartbreak that go with those procedures are terrifying to consider.
The reversal of the burden of proof is not satisfactory. I thought that the noble Earl's explanation was particularly limp. Is it really reasonable to expect an owner to prove that his dog is not of the type which the Government perceive to be so dangerous that it is to be obliterated from the dog life of our country, rather than expecting the prosecution to prove that it is the type, if it must be called that? I hope that the Select Committee will be able to consider those matters and that we shall have this nonsense put right once and for all.
It is this reversal of the normal practices of justice in this country, quite apart from the problems of dogs and their owners, which is so distressing. There is a complicated business behind the seemingly simple front of this Bill. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, on thinking that the best way of dealing with the matter for the good not only of dog owners and dogs but really of the country is to put it to a Select Committee and leave it, as it were, to a jury of people who can consider it objectively. I seek from your Lordships a Second Reading for the Bill.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Select Committee.
House adjourned at nine minutes before seven o'clock.

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