Sitting of 15 February 1995

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

Drug Abuse
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Lightbown.]
10.4 am
Mr. Nigel Waterson: I am most grateful for the opportunity to raise this very important subject today and to be part of establishing a new tradition, only recently started, of Wednesday morning debates.
I want to discuss the size of the problem of drug abuse among young people. It is notoriously difficult to get accurate statistics, but Home Office figures suggest that, of young people living in inner-city areas, some 42 per cent. of 16 to 19-year-olds, and 44 per cent. of 20 to 24-year-olds, have taken drugs at some time. We had a recent reminder of that in my constituency, with a haul of £25 million of drugs on board a catamaran that was towed into our new Sovereign harbour, and another reminder when there were some expulsions from a prominent local public school.
The figures vary quite dramatically. Home Office figures show that the total number of drug offenders has risen by 190 per cent. since 1983, in a 10-year period. Of course, the Home Office also makes the point that there is likely to be a significant understatement of the figures of drug addiction and drug use. In a survey in 1993, it was said that only 52 per cent. of boys and 57 per cent. of girls had not been offered any of the named drugs in year 11, aged 15 to 16. Those are, on any view, dramatic figures.
Nor, indeed, are the problems limited to urban areas. The East Sussex Drugs Advisory Council—ESDAC—produced the statistic that the incidence of drug taking in the north Wealden district of east Sussex was almost the same as that of Brighton, and that more than one fifth of 14 and 15-year-olds had tried an illicit drug, and, of those, 5 per cent. were likely to develop problems because of drug abuse.
I am particularly grateful to Mrs. Penny McKay, of the Eastbourne community drugs team, for producing other figures, such as those from the South Thames (East) regional drug misuse database, which suggest, for example, that the average age of first use of cannabis is under 15 years old. There is evidence that young people most often experiment with substance misuse between the ages of 10 and 14. For example, solvent abuse is the highest cause of unnatural death between the age of 10 and 16, after road accidents. We must ask ourselves why. What is the attraction?
The British Medical Journal, in its own investigations, felt that the most common reasons cited were
"to feel big, show off, look grown up … because friends do, trendy."
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I should like this morning to concentrate only on cannabis, the most widely used of the so-called "soft" drugs. As the Government consultation document, "Tackling Drugs Together", said, the burden is on those who wish to legalise or decriminalise soft or hard drugs. One of the arguments that is made for legalisation or decriminalisation is that those drugs are no worse than alcohol or tobacco. That is rather a bleak argument. I am particularly impressed by something that was said by Detective Chief Superintendent Des Donohue, head of Dorset CID, who, a few years ago, received a Churchill fellowship to study the police response to drug abuse. When the point was put to him, he said:
"If I had been a bobby in the 16th century I would have nicked Sir Walter Raleigh for the illegal importation of drugs.
We are stuck with the social problems of drink and tobacco but that's no reason to legalise cannabis."
Another argument often used is that legalisation would reduce the criminality that tends to surround the use and supply of drugs. Of course, if one legalised burglary, the crime statistics would doubtless improve. But that is not the way to tackle that particular problem.
There are also some practical difficulties. First, how could a workable system be established that distinguished between possession of drugs for personal consumption and possession for trafficking purposes? Secondly, I assume that even those who advocate legalisation would want a system to protect children and young persons. Thirdly, how would we deal with the question of driving under the influence? There is much evidence to suggest that driving under the influence of cannabis, which can take a week or so to leave the human system, is rather more dangerous than driving under the influence of alcohol.
Mr. Nigel Evans: Would not the legalisation of so-called soft drugs such as cannabis act as a gateway to harder drugs such as heroin, and would not that be extremely damaging? The best idea, surely, is to introduce drug education into as many schools as possible to show our youngsters at an early age how damaging the use of cannabis can be.
Mr. Waterson: My hon. Friend is right. I shall develop the "gateway" or "pathway" argument shortly.
Legalisation would also involve Britain's withdrawal from the United Nations convention on narcotic drugs, thus risking our international isolation. It has been argued that legalisation would reduce the allure and attraction of drugs, but I consider that argument flawed. I also think that comparisons with tobacco and alcohol are meaningless, as those substances are not legally restricted in any real sense except in respect of minors.
Why should drug barons and others who currently make a good living from organised crime not seek to control an ever-expanding market, albeit a legalised or decriminalised one? As for the "libertarian" argument—the John Stuart Mill approach—I fear that we are dealing with the real world, not that of philosophers.
It is interesting to note that even the Dutch Minister of Justice recently announced to the United Nations that his country was reviewing its so-called "coffee shop" policy, whereby cannabis dealing and use are tolerated at certain outlets, because of a perceived sharp increase in the availability of drugs.

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Let me deal next with the arguments against the legalisation of cannabis. The argument about its effect on human beings has raged for many years, but there is no conclusive proof that so-called soft drugs are non-addictive or completely harmless. As the Royal College of Psychiatrists put it,
"There can be no reasonable dispute that cannabis can cause acute mental impairment in terms either of intoxication or a transient but very bizarre and worrying psychological experience."
There is a growing body of medical opinion on other physical effects. A recent article in The Big Issue—not a publication renowned for its slavish support for pro-establishment views—set out some of the evidence that is emerging, particularly in America, of damage caused by cannabis or marijuana. Apparently, research shows that it can damage the human immune and reproductive systems and the brain. There is also strong evidence that the drug is more carcinogenic than tobacco. According to Professor Sridhar of the university of Miami's cancer research centre,
"Cannabis smokers develop cancer 15 to 20 years younger than you would expect. I am convinced it is a highly dangerous drug."
Mr. Oliver Heald: At a time when most commentators agree that there is a need for even more health education and even more effort by those leading social policy to persuade people to give up substances such as alcohol and tobacco, would it not be wrong for hon. Members or anyone else to 'be seen to endorse a product that involves many of the same difficulties? It would run contrary to all the current social thinking.
Mr. Waterson: My hon. Friend is right. The fact that we allow the legal consumption of alcohol and tobacco does not mean that, if we started with a clean sheet in respect of both commodities, we would find ourselves in our present position.
Cannabis is very much an unknown quantity. It took some 50 years and literally thousands of research projects, papers and investigations to discover that smoking tobacco causes cancer. I believe that there are about 100,000 tobacco-related deaths a year in this country alone. It is hardly surprising, however, that cannabis is harmful: it contains more than 400 compounds that convert to over 2,000 chemicals when it is ignited.
The element THC, which is the main ingredient of cannabis, is important in terms of its strength in a given dose and the way in which it builds up in the body over long periods. Some scientists estimate that the present levels of THC in cannabis are some 16 times higher than at the time of the Woodstock festival, which some of the older hon. Members present may remember. There are also suggestions that cannabis can reduce fertility, as well as weakening the immune system and the body's protection from infection. Studies show that cannabis smokers are up to six times more likely to develop serious mental illnesses.
Mr. Nick Hawkins: In my constituency, as in my hon. Friend's, the problem of drug abuse among young people is particularly serious. The effect of cannabis consumption on health has been particularly marked in Blackpool, and Dr. Mohammed
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Musa, who works in my local drug advisory clinic, strongly believes that it adversely affects the general health of all drug users in the town.
Mr. Waterson: I am not surprised. I do not know whether Dr. Musa has a view on the issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans)—the extent to which the use of so-called soft drugs leads to the use of so-called hard drugs.
Picking one's way through the mass of literature on the subject, it is difficult to arrive at a clear, definitive medical answer. It would be dishonest not to accept that opinions vary, but I stress what I said at the beginning of my speech: the burden of proof must be firmly on those who wish to legalise or decriminalise those substances.
Mr. Hartley Booth: Even the Government now state that, as well as affecting psychotic illnesses and lung diseases, cannabis affects the user's judgment, leading to pregnancy and numerous other spin-off problems.
Mr. Waterson: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the most dramatic illustrations of that point is contained in research into road and train accidents, particularly that conducted in the United States.
According to the Royal College of Psychiatrists,
"It is clear that a person who uses cannabis is statistically more likely to try other illicit drugs than one who does not."
Mr. Tony Banks: The argument that the hon. Gentleman is about to deploy is a familiar one, but what he has just said is unexceptional. Obviously, someone who starts using cannabis is statistically more likely to move on to another substance; but it is equally true that someone who drinks a dry sherry is statistically more likely to end up as a total alcoholic. What point is the hon. Gentleman trying to make?
Mr. Waterson: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was at Woodstock. I was about to deal with his point, which some experts call the "pathway" argument. I am not saying that everyone who tries cannabis will move on to something harder, and I do not entirely disagree with what the hon. Gentleman has said. A number of studies show that, as people become adjusted to a drug such as cannabis, there is a tendency to increase the dose, or to move on to something that is somewhat stronger.
Mr. Richard Spring: Is my hon. Friend aware that there are now variants of cannabis that can cause hallucination, so the idea that cannabis is some sort of safe drug with a recreational flavour is inaccurate? Skunk, a variant of cannabis, is imported from the Netherlands. Such variants can cause hallucinations that can drive people on to experiment with harsher drugs.
Mr. Waterson: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that information. I know that he has made himself very much an expert in those matters, and that he has spent a great deal of time and effort in his constituency trying to combat drug abuse problems, especially among young people.
Another argument is that, if cannabis is legal, in a sense, it loses the attraction of being out of bounds, especially to young people, and they may choose to move on to something that appears to have a more superficial romance about it because it is illegal. The hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) talked about

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pathways. It is true that many addicts, perhaps even most addicts of, for example, heroin have previously used cannabis. Some of the studies that I have read show that it is equally true that alcohol is a pathway. Children who start drinking alcohol at a young age—and it is surprising how many do nowadays—will graduate to the other drugs that I am talking about. That is an important point.
The next argument against legalisation is that it reduces social disapproval of the use of those drugs. People may argue that drugs should be legal, but I doubt whether many people argue that they are positively beneficial. By legalising them, one would send a confusing message to our young people, a point made by Sir Paul Condon recently, when he said:
"By continuing to debate the possibility of legalisation we are diminishing the dangers of drugs in the eyes of the young. We must take the utmost care not to make drugs appear attractive."
Merely by debating the possibility of removing legal constraints, we may unwittingly be encouraging their use.
Another argument often put forward is that legalisation would reduce the street price. Again, the evidence is clear that, if the availability and ease of access to drugs is increased, one will increase use and abuse, especially among young people. As Professor Griffith Edwards of the National Addiction Centre said,
"access to drugs has been proved significantly to encourage use of drugs."
There is abundant research evidence from America, both in the medical profession and among American ground troops in Vietnam. In both situations, for different reasons, drugs were freely available and there was a much higher level of addiction than among the rest of the population.
On health costs, I have said that there is no conclusive proof that cannabis is non-addictive. There is ample proof that it damages health. If one considers the problems that we have in society with alcohol and tobacco, which are already legal, one may realise the sort of difficulties that a massive expansion, potentially, of drug use would cause, plus other costs to society.
What I call the social effects are often ignored. The regular use of drugs often involves a surrender to unreality, a retreat into a world that has neither pain nor achievement. That has a long-term effect on any society.
The evidence, therefore, is clear. I feel that no responsible group or political party would advocate legalisation or decriminalisation, except possibly one. As you will know, Madam Speaker, the Liberal Democrats voted to decriminalise cannabis at their last party conference. I see hon. Members shaking their heads. I am willing to give way on that point.
Mr. Simon Hughes: I hope that I might catch your eye later, Madam Speaker, to explain that the Liberal Democrats did not vote for that. I spoke in the debate and I shall ensure that the House understands exactly what we did vote for. We voted for a royal commission to consider a range of issues, including whether there should be a change in the legal position. That is clear and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will no longer misrepresent what we decided.
Mr. Waterson: I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman. This is an important and disturbing issue, which surfaced in my constituency. I have taken great trouble to ascertain the true facts about the wording of the
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motions, and the two separate votes that took place. The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) is free to say whatever he wishes in the Chamber, but some of the points made by his friends in my constituency border on the libellous. They are certainly attempts to rewrite history. For the record, let me assist the House.
There was a separate vote to refer these matters to a royal commission. It is probably not unusual for a Liberal Democrat party conference to pass motions that are contradictory because, after all, it does the same thing every day of the week in this place. However, it had a vote and then a separate vote, where conference called for
"The decriminalisation of the use and possession of cannabis in order that the police and Customs and Excise are able to target their resources on the vital battle against the use of hard drugs."
The vote on that was 426 in favour and 375 against.
Mr. Hughes: Only because the hon. Gentleman is being so misleading, I should point out that he read part of a sentence—I have the motion as passed here. I hope that he will listen and not misrepresent the position again. The wording of the sentence is:
"Conference calls for the establishment of a Royal Commission to investigate and consider strategies for combating drug misuse, including"
and there is a list of six things, of which the last is the question of decriminalisation. The royal commission, therefore, would consider six issues, one of which is what the legal position should be. For heaven's sake, the hon. Gentleman must not lie in the House.
Madam Speaker: Order.
Mr. Hughes: I am sorry, Madam Speaker. I withdraw. The hon. Gentleman must not misrepresent our position in the House.
Madam Speaker: I am obliged, of course.
Mr. Waterson: I did not intend to spend a long time on this and I am running rather late, but it is time to nail that gross misrepresentation by the Liberal Democrats. I do not blame them for being embarrassed by the vote. Their leader was extremely embarrassed. I seem to remember that he stormed off the platform. They should be embarrassed. This is a disgrace.
As the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey is so much in love with the facts, and I am looking at the Liberal Democrat agenda paper for Monday 19 September last year—
Mr. Hughes: We were there.
Mr. Waterson: I sometimes wonder. I have already accepted that that conference passed a separate motion by a separate vote to refer the matter to a royal commission, but, at the same time, it passed by another vote a separate motion. I have already read out proposal 6 in Amendment 1, put forward by the Saffron Walden constituency and moved by Alan Dean.
Lest the hon. Gentleman would try to persuade the House either that black is white and white is black, or merely that this is a brief aberration on his party's part, let me remind him of his own words in his role as community affairs spokesman. He said:
"Lots of absolutely perfectly respectable, normal members of society take drugs as normally as many of their fellow citizens smoke, drink beer or have sex."

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If the hon. Gentleman wants to withdraw those words, I am happy to give way.
Nor was that vote just an aberration. At the Scottish Liberal Democrat annual conference in 1993, delegates also voted to decriminalise the possession of cannabis. I draw a line under that part of my speech.
Mr. Gary Streeter: Will my hon. Friend join me in condemning not only the Liberal Democrats' vote at their party conference to legalise cannabis, but the vote to make contraception available to 11-year-old girls without reference to their parents? Did he share my horror on reading in The Times this morning that this year they are going to debate euthanasia? What is happening to the Liberal Democrat party?
Madam Speaker: I hope that the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) will not pursue that line of argument. It is not part of the Adjournment debate.
Mr. Waterson: I had no intention of doing so, but I shall make two points. First, I would not wish to remind the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey of more than one issue on which his party is attempting to distance itself from the actualité. Secondly, has my hon. Friend read the comments of Mr. Alan Hope—Councillor Alan Hope, I beg his pardon—of the Monster Raving Loony party who, after the Liberal Democrat conference, said:
"They are becoming loonier than we are. We are being out-loonied by the Liberal Democrats …We can't believe some of the loony policies they are advocating—legalising cannabis, condoms for 11 year olds and abolishing the monarchy. You can't get loonier than that"?
Mr. Hughes: He got his information from The Sun, like the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Waterson: I was quoting from the Western Daily Press. Let us move on now that I have put the record straight. The next time a Liberal Democrat councillor or spokesman in my constituency accuses me of lying or falsehood, as has happened here today, I shall take action. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to repeat what he said outside the House, we shall get to the heart of the matter. I am conscious of the fact that time is moving on. I have accepted many interventions and been provoked beyond what is reasonable.
What are we doing to deal with the problem? As a country, we spent more than £500 million on the problem in 1993. I have already mentioned the excellent work of the community drugs team in my constituency. The Seaside centre in my constituency has also done excellent work under the leadership of Pat Armstrong. ESDAC draws together all the threads of information and policy to combat drug abuse in east Sussex. I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Mr. Rathbone), who has been stalwart in his fight to increase awareness of those problems in east Sussex and in his support for organisations such as ESDAC.
The Sussex police have been active in many ways, especially in providing schools with liaison officers. I had a letter from Peter Westcott, the deputy chief constable, which sets out in detail the measures in which the police have been involved. It is estimated that in the country as a whole some 1,300 police officers are involved solely with drugs work.
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Of course, health education is very important and some excellent leaflets have been produced by the Department of Health, East Sussex county council and many other bodies. Hon. Members may have seen the draft circular on this subject from the Department for Education, which makes excellent reading. Drugs education is now firmly a part of the national curriculum.
I believe that the formation last year of the central drugs co-ordination unit, under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Lord President, has done much to focus attention on the problem. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister will have much to say about the impact of the consultation document, "Tackling Drugs Together". It contains many useful ideas and focuses commendably on the importance of educating young people about the dangers of taking drugs. It is interesting that that very detailed document firmly rejects arguments for the legalisation of drugs. In fact, in a sentence that sums up the theme of my speech, it states:
"So, in general terms, the strongest arguments against legalisation of controlled drugs are the risks of wider use and addiction; these are very serious risks which no responsible Government should take on behalf of its citizens."
I agree. The Government must promote responsible policies that educate our young people about drug abuse.
In conclusion, the last thing that we want is the crackpot policy peddled by the Liberals, which would merely encourage drug abuse by our nation's young.
10.34 am
Mr. Simon Hughes: I am grateful for being called to speak and I welcome the debate on this matter, not least because it is the first since the Government published their Green Paper entitled "Tackling Drugs Together" to which the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) referred. My colleagues and I were under the impression until today that only politicians of our hue debated this issue, so the hon. Gentleman has done his party a service by putting it on the agenda.
It is perfectly obvious that the topic is hugely important. It is generally accepted by police forces across the country that two thirds of thefts are drug related. In a recent sample taken in the north-west, 95 per cent. of young people convicted of criminal offences admitted to using drugs.
I shall deal with, but not linger on, the point that clearly obsesses the hon. Member for Eastbourne—what is and should be the legal position of drugs. For a long time, there has been a debate about whether there should be decriminalisation or legalisation of any currently illegal or criminal drugs. Many people such as members of the judiciary, police officers and academics agree with those Members of Parliament who support the proposition that the law should be reformed. The tragedy has been that, until now, the debate has taken place not among elected representatives of the people but in the media, which have often misrepresented it—although that is not true of the serious press, which has dealt responsibly with the issue.
Legalisation or decriminalisation is certainly on the agenda in the country at large. According to some opinion poll soundings, more than 30 per cent. of the people support the argument for decriminalisation. If one walks around the streets of an urban constituency such as mine and talks to young people, one of the first issues that they raise is this very question because, as the hon. Member

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for Eastbourne said, many young people not only talk about drugs but often turn to them as their first choice recreational activity. That may apply more often to 15-year-olds, but also much younger children are involved, including those in primary schools.
Let me make it absolutely clear once and for all, although I am prepared to debate the matter with the hon. Gentleman in the House, in Eastbourne or anywhere else, that my party and, as it happens, I personally, have not been persuaded to support legalisation or decriminalisation. We believe, however, that there should be an informed and objective debate.
Mr. Heald: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hughes: No, I am trying to be brief and I wish to make this point categorically.
There are, of course, strong arguments against decriminalisation and legalisation, some of which the hon. Member for Eastbourne outlined. It is reasonable to argue that, if one alters where the line is drawn between what is forbidden and what is legal, the subsequently forbidden fruit is the fruit which is potentially more dangerous. Decriminalisation or legalisation may make it more likely that drug addicts or drug users will move here, as they have previously moved to Holland, a country which, I accept, is rethinking its position. Legalisation might not necessarily cut crime because crime would simply be connected with more serious drugs.
I disagree fundamentally, however, with the idea that having a debate determines whether more young people use drugs on the street. That is nonsense. Huge numbers of youngsters use drugs and they think that we are completely out of touch because we do not discuss the issue, and they do not understand why not. I am also not persuaded that the price goes up rather than down if drugs are legalised or decriminalised.
The Green Paper stated every reason against legalisation because its brief was to do so. That is not good enough. The matter must be looked at independently. Lord Nolan and his committee are respected because they take an independent view of matters of major public concern and everyone is looking forward to hearing what they conclude, because it is authoritative and not party political. If standards in public life can be the subject of objective analysis, recommendation and conclusion, exactly the same can be done with another central issue in today's modern society: how to deal with the amount of drugs in our society and on the streets. The Green Paper says:
"it is clear that the debate can be conducted in good faith by responsible people who can respect each other's views."
Amen to that. It means that the hon. Member for Eastbourne and his colleagues must not misrepresent what is decided in a democratic party, where, unlike them, we have the right to vote and debate amendments to motions.
Mr. Waterson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hughes: No, I shall not give way.
The motion that was finally agreed by last year's Liberal Democrat conference says:
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"Conference calls for:
The establishment of a Royal Commission to investigate and consider strategies for combating drug misuse, including:—

1. Greater resources to be given to HM Customs & Excise …

2. The police to be given more resources …

3. All schools to be obliged to offer advice and guidance to all pupils …

4. Immediate action to set up rehabilitation centres throughout the country;

5. Much stiffer penalties for all convicted drug dealers;

6. The decriminalisation of the use and possession of cannabis in order that … Customs & Excise are able to target their resources".

That is the list that we want on the agenda of a royal commission, and the items are of equal importance.
Mr. Streeter: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hughes: No, I shall not give way because I am trying to be speedy.
The motion was clear, but, of course, must be read as a whole. The Liberal Democrat party and the responsible members of the press who were at the conference understand that. Other politicians have understood that, too. Yesterday, the 'Prime Minister confirmed that he is not yet persuaded, but thinks that there should be a general debate on the single European currency. Equally, there should be an independent and well-informed debate on drugs. That is where we stand.
My hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mrs. Michie), who is on the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs, has also made it clear that the Liberal Democrats' Scottish conference voted, on an advisory basis, in favour of decriminalising cannabis.
Mr. Heald: That is all right, then.
Mr. Hughes: No. The Scottish conference does not make policy for the federal party, because the legality of drugs is a United Kingdom matter. Federally, the party made its decision at last year's federal conference.
In 1984, the Government set up an Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which recognises the need for effective, broad-based education programmes. The Department of Education and Science, as it then was, provided £4 million to fund the appointment of drug education co-ordinators for each local education authority in England and Wales. They did very well and worked with schools and the youth service, but that initiative has fallen by the wayside and funding for those preventive health education workers ended in 1993 and was switched to schools.
Co-ordination through local authorities is far more effective than trying to get the work done with small amounts of money in individual schools. The Secretary of State acknowledged the key role of health education co-ordinators, but only £32 million was provided between 1986 and 1993 for that project. Moreover, it is not to be repeated. An average LEA with about 300 schools now receives about £30,000, which means that each school is expected to provide training for a total of about £100. With only that sum, teachers cannot be properly trained and equipped to deal with such a huge issue.
The Green Paper and the Department for Education's draft circular "Drug Prevention and Schools" have some encouraging aspects. The emphasis has changed from an uncompromising search for total abstinence, which was the original Home Office position in 1989, to acceptance

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that substance abuse has become a part of modern-day society and that education should concentrate more on constraining its expansion and lessening suffering.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Michael Forsyth)indicated assent.
Mr. Hughes: I am glad to see that the Minister agrees. Schools have been encouraged to develop a repertoire of responses to drug-related incidents. The Office for Standards in Education has been instructed to inspect the quality and effectiveness of schools' drugs policies as part of its school inspections. Alcohol and tobacco are also now in the DFE's draft circular, although they were not mentioned in the Green Paper. If we are to discuss drugs abuse among young people, the misery caused by the long-term health problems of alcoholism and tobacco addiction should be included.
It is important to discuss how we should persuade young people to make the right decisions. Given that the figure for illegal drug use among 14 and 15-year-olds is thought to be between the 14 per cent. that is given in the Government's document, albeit without statistical back-up, and the much higher and more realistic figure of 36 per cent., we must ask why young people decide to take drugs. A prevailing view seems to be that it is because they are under pressure, yet professionals on the subject say that it is because young people want to try drugs, as they want to try all sorts of other things. The Green Paper does not seek to tackle the root of the problem. Yesterday, we debated poverty and unemployment. Many issues contribute to young people's use of drugs, but poverty, lack of social activities, the rundown of the youth service, lack of work and broken homes are among those issues. We must tackle the causes that lead young people to make those decisions, and I hope that we shall do so.
The debate on this subject has only just begun in the country. I am glad that the Government are beginning to enter the mainstream of the debate, but we should have an objective assessment of the position for the future. My colleagues and I have argued for that and the Nolan committee shows that it is worth while. I hope that the Government will not now have a knee-jerk reaction, suggesting that only they and their advisers can get the matter right. Let us have a royal commission—even a standing royal commission—but, for the present, let us give education authorities the resources to co-ordinate dealing with the drugs problem in schools throughout their areas and the youth service the resources to work on the ground. We must be tough with dealers. We must recognise that young people know more about what is going on than older people, so we must take their advice and listen to them. We shall then understand how to deal effectively with drugs, which often harm their lives.
I hope that this is the beginning of an important debate that will be objectively carried on outside this place from now on.
10.47 am
Mr. Tim Rathbone: I join other hon. Members in welcoming the debate and in thanking my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson), for initiating it.
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I find myself in complete agreement with many of the points made by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes), but I do not agree with his attitude to legalisation, to which I shall return in a moment, nor with his statement that the issue has not been debated. It has been much debated both within and between our parties. Most significantly, it was debated by the Council of Europe three years ago when it had 23 member states, and every representative of every party of every member state unanimously supported a motion against legalising drugs. To say that the debate has not begun is misrepresenting the pace. Today's debate is a useful continuum.
The fact of the matter, as is accentuated in the Green Paper, is that cannabis as well as other more serious drugs is harmful. As my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne pointed out, it is harmful to the heart, the nervous system and the reproductive organs, particularly those of young girls. It is also harmful because of its influence on a number of psychoses. It is a tragedy that those who argue for the legalisation or decriminalisation of cannabis play down those harmful effects, so that young people who are tempted to try cannabis and other drugs are reassured by those people's belief that it is harmless. That idea must be scotched and I hope that the debate will contribute to that.
Mr. Booth: The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) suggested that the young know a lot about drugs, but does my hon. Friend agree that the medical evidence that he and my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) have quoted demonstrates that young people do not have access to that evidence?
Mr. Rathbone: I agree absolutely with my hon. Friend and I thank him for reiterating that point. Every doctor with knowledge about the problems of drug misuse has accentuated and reaccentuated the possible dangers of a drugs habit. We must do the same in the House and outside.
Legalisation would be harmful. Those who support it have conceded victory to drugs users—the weak-willed members of society and those people who feed that habit. That defeatist attitude sends exactly the wrong, negative message to our youth and that of the world.
The black market exists because demand exists. It will continue to exist whether cannabis is legalised or not as long as that demand exists and until more is done to reduce it. Legalisation of cannabis, should it ever happen, would inevitably lead to more frequent misuse of drugs and the mental and physical suffering that goes with that—just as we have found with alcohol. Alcoholism is still a far greater problem in this country and around the world than drug misuse because alcohol is readily and legally available. If we cannot learn from the problems of alcoholism and apply them to drugs, we are denying history to the detriment of the current generation and future ones.
I welcome the Green Paper, which accentuates the importance of demand reduction and the need for ever-greater emphasis on health education and prevention. We await keenly the Government's reaction to the consultation period, which has recently finished. Perhaps my right hon. Friend the Minister will offer us a keyhole insight into the Government's likely reactions.

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I have the honour to be the chairman of the all-party parliamentary drugs misuse group. We put together a precise submission to the Government and I should like to stress two elements of it. The first is the hoary old question of funding, which must be considered. It is crucial that the necessary funds are made available to pursue the policies outlined in the consultation document. I agree with the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey that funding should be available to teachers to educate young people about drugs. It should also be available for better treatment of drug addiction within the national health service. The list goes on. Allocating the necessary funds for the Government's eventual plans to be published in their eventual White Paper will require some hard bullet biting.
My second point relates not to funding but to strategy. The Government have set their way by publishing the consultation document. They have drawn together the various Government Departments in England and they must now continue that co-ordination by including Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. I praise the co-ordination unit and all those who work in it, which is chaired by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, but that co-ordination is required in strategic terms across the country. In this united kingdom we still fall down because we do not have a United Kingdom strategy to further the Government's efforts in every part of it and their contribution towards the fight against the problems of drugs misuse worldwide.
10.55 am
Mr. Tony Banks: I, too, welcome the debate that has been initiated by the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson). I endorse what the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) said about the need for a continuing debate on a subject of great social significance in this country and around the world. We should debate politically sensitive matters in the House without predictable knee-jerk reactions.
I have considered this matter for some considerable time and I have personally come to the opinion—I stress "personally"—that we should legalise so-called soft drugs such as cannabis. I proposed that a royal commission should consider all the possible options for tackling the drugs problem long before the Liberal party did so. The evidence of medical people and those involved in enforcement should be further scrutinised to see whether we have got it right in Britain and whether people have got it right anywhere else.
I hasten to add that my call for the legalisation of cannabis is dictated by my own views and is not in any way connected with the policy of my party, which remains as determined to resist legalisation as the Conservative party. Our Opposition Front-Bench spokesman will make that quite clear today. I should also say that I am speaking for no more than a minority of Members who agree with me. Many hon. Members are prepared, however, to consider that possibility more openly.
It is worth dealing with the point about establishing a pathway, because I am quite certain that some hon. Members have used cannabis in the past. A number of hon. Members have told me privately that they have done so, but that they are not prepared publicly to endorse the use of soft drugs or any other drugs because of the political implications of doing so. They have not turned
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into potheads or ended up mainlining heroin any more than anyone in this House who has had a dry sherry in the past has turned up as a hopeless alcoholic in the Strangers Bar or anywhere else. Certain people will, of course, naturally move on from drinking sherry to alcoholism or from using cannabis to using heroin. That will happen naturally to some people, but the vast majority do not make that progression and that must be recognised.
Mr. Booth: The crucial argument is that medical evidence suggests that at least 4 per cent. of the population—it could be more than double that—are prone to become addicts. We do not know who they are, but we must protect them.
Mr. Banks: The hon. Gentleman could be correct, but he is being imprecise when he says that it could be 4 per cent. of the population or double that. I should like to deal with precise facts rather than anecdotal evidence. That is the important point. I agree that there are obsessive people in our society, as there are anywhere else, who will progress from one particular habit to another. Someone who starts by a turning a car over and stealing a radio might eventually become a serial killer—there would be a connection—but, for the vast majority of people, that causal link simply does not exist. I am simply asking the House to be prepared to consider coolly and rationally a subject as significant as the one that we are discussing, and not to rely on anecdotal evidence and knee-jerk reactions.
Human beings have used drugs and alcohol since time immemorial. Many of the so-called "illegal substances" that we call drugs, which we now ban, used to be freely available to people and were prescribed by doctors, even to members of the royal family. The Balmoral records, which were made available a year or so ago, show that laudanum and opium were prescribed for Queen Victoria's pre-menstrual tension. We have changed our attitude towards the use of drugs but, throughout history, human beings have used alcohol and have used drugs. It is simply that there are prevailing moods in societies that cause us to say at some moment that we do not like what is being done, which is why America moved to prohibition in the 1920s. We know about the chaos that that caused.
I feel it necessary to put on the record, as I have to do regularly when I become involved in this fairly politically sensitive area, that I have never used cannabis or any other illegal substance. I do not say that from any moral point of view, as the permissive 1960s appear to have passed me by altogether when I was at university—a matter of profound regret in my old age. I have tried to make up for those things that I missed in the 1960s, but. I hasten to add that one of the things that I have not tried to make up is the use of drugs.
The fact that I won a competition recently on a television programme to roll the longest joint, in which I beat a number of prominent pop stars who readily confessed to using the stuff, was merely a sign of my proficiency with nicotine in my earlier years when I "rolled my own". I still have that skill, although I no longer smoke nicotine.
The hon. Member for Eastbourne mentioned 100,000 or so smoking-related deaths. From a health point of view, it is far more damaging for people to smoke cigarettes or to drink alcohol than to use cannabis. Many of the

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health-related side-effects of using cannabis occur because cannabis is mixed with nicotine. That is the important thing. If someone were to take cannabis in a "space cookie" or a cup of tea, some of those medical side-effects would not be present.
Mr. Waterson: I remind the hon. Gentleman that I argued that it took a long time, a great deal of use of cigarettes and nicotine and a great many studies to discover that nicotine was harmful—indeed, deadly—and we are much less far down the road in terms of cannabis. If use of cannabis were widespread, one might discover, some years on, exactly the same or worse effects.
Mr. Banks: Tobacco companies continue to resist the link between nicotine and lung cancer for straight economic reasons. I am happy for those matters to be considered, which is why I spoke about a royal commission. There is conflicting medical evidence, but if one is able to lay it out, as it were, and we are able to approach it objectively as legislators, and if, in the end, it is our considered opinion that the medical side-effects of using cannabis overwhelm any freedom arguments, of course it would be right for us to reaffirm our political position with regard to the enforcement of cannabis as an illegal substance. I am simply asking the House, as it is perfectly proper to do—unusual, perhaps—to examine the facts before adducing the arguments.
The title of the debate on the Order Paper is "The abuse of drugs by young people". It is right to link those two together. There are obvious links between the circumstances in which many young people find themselves and their use of illegal substances. The Cambridge study that was published today, which received considerable coverage on the radio and in the newspapers, shows that the link between unemployment and crime cannot be denied, however much Ministers might like to do so. They are responsible in great measure for high unemployment, so, for God's sake, they do not want to be linked with the fact that crime has also increased. We know that it has. One can no longer deny that link.
Many young people are using drugs because the use of drugs is linked with ignorance, with poverty, with the absence of hope and with unemployment. As the hon. Member for Eastbourne said, drugs offer relief—an escape from reality. Reality is harsh and unpleasant for many people, especially young people, and they want relief. It is escapism. It does not work, because one has to return to reality. It is the people who do not want to return to reality who tend to move on to harder and harder drugs, seeking a bigger and bigger fix because they cannot bear to accept reality.
The reality for many of our young people is one of hopelessness in our society. Where are drugs most readily available, and where is all the criminal activity associated with a supply of drugs rampant? The answer is, in the black communities, especially in the United States and indeed in this country, because those communities make up the social group that finds it most difficult to secure a stake in United States society or in this society. I do not want to make too much of that in a short debate, but a royal commission should be prepared to consider those issues.
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We have a drugs problem in my constituency and in the borough of Newham. Newham is the most deprived local authority area in the country, so it tends to fit in with the image that I am describing, but the problem is not of cannabis as much as of solvent abuse—glue-sniffing. The substances that are used are not illegal as such. They are freely available in shops and people are able to buy them. In many ways, we tend to be sidetracked in the House on to issues such as cannabis, but there is an awful lot of abuse of substances that are available in shops which inflict far more damage on young people's health than cannabis would ever do. That has not been mentioned until now.
I say without fear of contradiction that drug abuse is a serious social problem in this country and elsewhere, and I think that it has two main causes: first, drugs are illegal and, secondly, large numbers of people use drugs. When it comes to it, what are we going to do with the 3 million to 5 million people in this country who use cannabis? Are we going to put them all in gaol? It will not work. One can no more ban the use of cannabis in this country than one could ban prostitution.
We have taken a step to regulate and control prostitution. I think that that is the way forward for the use of cannabis—regulation and control. When we do that, through legalisation, we shall be able to tackle the serious social problems that the use of illegal substances poses to our society.
11.6 am
Mr. George Howarth: I join other hon. Members in congratulating the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) on raising this important subject and in hoping that it promotes a wider debate on some of the issues. It is important also for another reason. The problem is not confined to inner-city areas. It affects outer estates, such as those that I represent, and rural market towns. Every part of Great Britain is affected to some extent by the abuse of drugs by young people. It is important, therefore, that we discuss those matters in the House and develop strategies for tackling those problems.
I start by setting the record straight on the position of the official Opposition on the legalisation of cannabis. My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) characteristically and generously said that the opinions that he expressed were very much and distinctively his own, not those of the Labour party, and I can confirm that that is precisely the case. I might say of my hon. Friend, for whom I have boundless affection and respect, that, in relation to that issue, although perhaps not to many others, he shows an uncharacteristic attachment to market forces. However, no doubt he will reconcile that apparent contradiction in the fullness of time.
Mr. Streeter: The hon. Gentleman has mentioned the legalisation of cannabis. Does he hold an opinion on whether the clear vote at the Liberal Democrat conference to legalise cannabis was helpful or unhelpful?
Mr. Simon Hughes: The deputy leader of the Labour party said that it was helpful.
Mr. Howarth: I shall come to that point. The hon. Gentleman is trying to prompt me into saying what the deputy leader of our party may or may not have said. I can hold a speech together without the hon. Gentleman's help.

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I shall come to the Liberal Democrats in a moment. The Labour party believes that, whatever the merits or otherwise of cannabis, the party would send out entirely the wrong message to young people if it were to subscribe to the legalisation argument. The real crisis in our society at present is that too many young people become involved in the drug culture, for many different reasons. It is not appropriate for an official, a political party or the House to send out a message in favour of the liberalisation of any drug laws—particularly those regarding cannabis, which is commonly available. We do not support the legalisation move.
I have listened to the various exchanges between the hon. Members for Eastbourne and for Southwark and Bermondsey, but I am none the wiser as a result. Whatever happened at the Liberal Democrat conference, the impression created —
Mr. John Whittingdale: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Howarth: I shall finish the point that I am making and then give way, although my speaking time is limited.
Whatever the precise wording of the motion that was passed at the Liberal Democrat conference, the message that went out to young people in particular is that the Liberal Democrats condone the misuse of certain categories of soft drugs. I understand that the Liberal Democrats were attempting to have a serious debate and I am not knocking them for that. However, we must be very careful about the messages that we send to young people. I shall now give way to the hon. Member for Colchester, South and Maldon (Mr. Whittingdale).
Mr. Whittingdale: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I shall try to help him in his confusion about Liberal Democrat views. Does he agree that the Liberal Democrat conference voted clearly for an amendment in favour of the decriminalisation of cannabis which made no mention of a royal commission? Does he agree that that was deeply irresponsible?
Mr. Howarth: I do not wish to follow that path. I want to make some serious points—I am not saying that the hon. Gentleman is not making a serious point—but, to be honest, I have not read the text of the amendment or the motion, as the hon. Gentleman has clearly done. I do not want to get involved in trying to confirm what did or did not happen at the Liberal Democrat conference. It is probably the most irrelevant of all events in the political calendar.
Mr. Paul Flynn: Does my hon. Friend agree that of more relevance are the two reports that were published last year—one from a right-wing think tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs, and another from a left-wing think tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research—both of which concluded that ending the prohibition of soft drugs will cut the profits made by the people pushing those drugs, reduce consumption of those drugs and also reduce drug-related crime?
Mr. Howarth: My hon. Friend has known and trenchant views on that matter. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West, he shows an uncharacteristic faith in the ability of market forces to resolve the problem. I do not subscribe to that view. I think that I have dealt sufficiently with the issue of the legalisation of cannabis.
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In talking about young people and drug misuse and abuse, it is important to differentiate very clearly—as the hon. Member for Eastbourne has done in choosing the title for the debate—between younger people who use drugs and older drug users. The problems of each group are different and therefore must be dealt with differently.
Young people often first use drugs experimentally—that does not excuse it; I am simply commenting that it happens. In most cases, a brief period of experimentation with drugs is followed by abstaining from any drug misuse. Although most young people who experiment with drugs do not misuse or abuse them in later life—we are dealing with the pathways argument—a minority move on to addiction and the misuse and abuse of often harder drugs. We must be concerned about that pathway which exists, albeit in a minority of cases.
Mr. Waterson: On that point, is the hon. Gentleman aware of the statistics in the House of Commons Library research paper which show that 40 per cent. of deaths due to solvent abuse in 1991 resulted from apparent first-time drug use?
Mr. Howarth: That is another kind of abuse of substances which are readily available in high street stores. It is a serious problem and one about which we must be equally concerned. I am conscious of the fact that, because I have given way so much, I have taken up more time than I should have. I shall try to move towards a conclusion.
The Green Paper entitled "Tackling Drugs Together" is very welcome. I wrote to the Lord President on behalf of the Opposition and, despite a few criticisms, I confirmed our support for the approach taken in the Green Paper. We must try to build a consensus across the Floor of the House and within the Government themselves: first, that the problems of drug misuse and abuse must be dealt with; and, secondly, that they should not be tolerated.
On that point, I do not believe that the case for reducing the number of customs control staff has been established properly. The Labour party and those who work in the service fear that the Government's recent announcement about redundancies in that area may curtail the ability of Customs and Excise to intercept—as it has done so successfully in the past—the illegal importation of drugs. I hope that the Minister will give more attention to that matter.
It is important that we send out two messages to the community: first, drugs are harmful and wrong; and, secondly, there is a growing consensus that the problem must be dealt with as part of mainstream politics and government. Those messages should be upheld at every opportunity.
11.16 am
The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Michael Forsyth): I do not often have the opportunity to welcome a consensus approach in the House, but I welcome the offer by the hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth) on behalf of the Opposition for a consensus approach to this matter. I also welcome his positive response to the Green Paper.
As for the hon. Gentleman's point about customs officials, the Government intend to target their effectiveness and we do not wish to see their excellent work in seizing illegal drugs undermined in any way. I

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welcome the hon. Gentleman's opposition to the decriminalisation of cannabis as a way of tackling the scourge of drugs. I hope that members of the Liberal party will come to their senses and join in that consensus in the House so that we can send the clear message that we will have no truck with drugs in our country.
Mrs. Ray Michie: The Minister is being uncharacteristically unfair. Surely he must understand by now exactly what occurred at the conference when we asked that a royal commission be set up to consider six matters, one of which was the decriminalisation of drugs. That is a most serious matter. Is the Minister suggesting that we should not have discussed it and opted in favour of establishing a royal commission?
Mr. Forsyth: I do not know whether the hon. Lady remembers how previous Governments set up royal commissions in order to kick problems into touch. Royal commissions take a very long time to consider matters and we must deal with the serious drugs problem immediately.
The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) distanced himself from the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mrs. Michie) when he said that the Scottish Liberal conference had voted for decriminalisation and added that, of course, in our federal system it does not make policy for the United Kingdom as a whole. The hon. Lady speaks for the Scottish party and she must take the consequences of what her party members voted for at that conference. It would send out a very positive message if she were to confirm that the Liberal Democrats will join the Labour party and the Government in denying that decriminalisation of drugs is the way forward. I shall happily give way to the hon. Lady to allow her the opportunity to do that now.
Mrs. Michie: As the Minister invites me to intervene, let me explain again that the Scottish Liberal party made a decision that was supported by a majority, although many voted against it, including me. Is the Minister saying that we are not allowed to discuss such a serious matter and reach a conclusion? The conclusion that the Scottish Liberal party reached was that a federal United Kingdom Parliament would then legislate on such matters. That was the conclusion of the Scottish Liberal party, to which the federal party then has to listen.
Mr. Forsyth: Of course I am not saying that the Liberal conference in Scotland does not have the right to vote for the decriminalisation of cannabis—I am most grateful that the hon. Lady confirmed that it did so—but it is a thoroughly irresponsible message to send to the country and the Liberal party must take the consequences for what its members decide. It is no good Liberal Members coming to the House mealy-mouthed, trying to distance themselves from their decision. If the Liberal party is serious about tackling the problem of drugs in the country, it ought to join the Government and the official Opposition in having no truck with decriminalisation as a way forward.
Mr. Raymond S. Robertson: Does my hon. Friend find the hon. Lady's intervention rather strange, given that, as a member of the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs, which discussed drug abuse in
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Scotland, she voted for the Labour chairman's draft report which called for the decriminalisation of cannabis and voted against an amendment by my hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Kynoch), seeking to remove that from the report?
Mr. Forsyth: Like all of us in the House, the hon. Lady is entitled to take a view. It is clear that the Liberal party sees decriminalisation as the way forward. We do not.
Mrs. Michie: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Forsyth: As I referred to the hon. Lady, I shall give way once more to her.
Mrs. Michie: That is kind of the Minister. If he speaks to the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Robertson), he will find out exactly what happened in the Scottish Affairs Committee when I was not allowed to move an amendment on the Chairman's report, so it was put out lock, stock and barrel.
Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Lady is stuck with a party which has voted for the decriminalisation of cannabis, and all the protests, floundering and flummery we have heard this morning show that, in their hearts, she and her colleagues know that it is an absurd policy. I feel very sorry for them and hope they will use all the power and rhetoric at their command to get the policy changed. It is deeply irresponsible and underlines more clearly than anything else how unfitted the Liberal party is to hold any office or responsibility in Britain.
Ms Liz Lynne: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He must realise that we voted to set up a royal commission, and the party political posturing by his party does him no justice whatsoever. Drug abuse is a serious issue and everyone in the House should be working towards eradicating it.
Mr. Forsyth: If it is such a serious issue, it is a pity that the hon. Lady was not here to hear the excellent debate, instead of cruising in at the end of the debate. If she considers it to be so serious, I should have thought that she would want to hear the excellent speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne. I congratulate him on choosing this topic.
It is particularly difficult to assess the extent of drug misuse among young people, not least because it is a clandestine, illegal activity. However, all the evidence shows that drugs are a growing menace, particularly among the young.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne said, in the inner cities 42 per cent. of 16 to 19-year-olds and 44 per cent. of 20 to 24-year-olds have taken drugs at some time. Drugs are not restricted to inner cities; they afflict rural communities as well. There is not a community or school that is immune from the menace, nor is drug misuse a problem peculiar to Britain; all the indicators show it is a growing problem across Europe.
Whatever the experience of others, however, we must be concerned about what is happening in Britain. Why do youngsters get involved in drugs? For many teenagers, any illicit drug use tends to be occasional or experimental rather than habitual. For those young people who at the weekend take cannabis, LSD, amphetamines or other drugs, it is no longer a conspicuous statement of anti-authoritarianism; indeed, it is much more a matter of fashion, of "picking and mixing" among licit and illicit

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intoxicants, in the words of Professor Howard Parker of the university of Manchester. Some of the key leisure industries of our time—popular music and, above all, television, provide the necessary backdrop by placing drug misuse prominently in the fast lane of soap opera life. Key developments in the popularisation of drug use include its spread among young people of all social classes, coupled with the growth of an extremely pervasive black market.
Drug misuse attacks the fabric of our society and the welfare of individuals in different ways. We know that drugs may directly cause or contribute to other criminal behaviour. Without doubt, a proportion of all acquisitive crime is committed to obtain the funds to purchase drugs, but those funds also come from a wide range of sources—legitimate earnings, state benefits, prostitution, begging, and so on.
Drug addiction is a serious health problem in Britain. Addiction or experimentation with drugs has serious and dangerous physical effects. Young people need to know that they can never be sure what substance they are taking, how strong it is and how their minds or bodies will react. The deaths of young people who have taken Ecstasy at raves, perhaps for the first time, are all too tragic a reminder of the ultimate price which is paid.
As well as the physical consequences, drug misuse can have a devastating effect on a young person's life at school and college and in employment, training and personal and social relationships. Taking drugs is illegal and there is a real risk of prosecution or even imprisonment. Family life may be disrupted by the worry that children may be involved in drugs. Families can be thrown into turmoil when a young person is found to have a drugs problem.
On a wider scale, drugs can harm entire communities. The greatest concern is crime committed by addicts to pay for drugs. Drugs misusers, particularly those dependent on drugs such as heroin or crack cocaine, can become involved in committing acquisitive crimes to help to fund it.
Drugs are a threat to the whole of society, but the young are particularly at risk. Our first response to the problem must be to reduce the supply of drugs as much as possible. There are three essential elements to our fight against the dealers and traffickers who supply drugs to young people. First, we must have effective, vigorous enforcement action. Secondly, genuine tough penalties must be available to the courts to deal with those whose involvement in that evil trade is established. There was
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consensus in the House today that the pushers and traffickers of drugs should be given no place to hide. The legislative framework is already in place. Trafficking in drugs such as cocaine and heroin carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Thirdly, we must ensure that the courts have the powers to seize drug traffickers' ill-gotten assets, and we introduced that power in the Drugs Trafficking Offences Act 1986.
I believe that, with concerted and innovative action on the prevention and education front, we can have a positive influence on young people's attitudes and behaviour. We have examples that such changes can be made: witness the 60 per cent. reduction over the past 10 years in the number of fatal and serious road casualties involving drink driving—a reduction due in no small measure to the publicity campaign which started in the late 1970s.
We have heard today about the terrible threat posed by drugs. Drugs are widely available and young people are experimenting with them and putting themselves at great risk. Those who get hooked risk their health, the well-being. of their families and their lives. Drugs also generate crime and damage the lives of many innocent people in the process.
We must tackle drugs misuse together. We look to the police and customs to continue their vital work in tracking down the traffickers and dealers and in intercepting the drugs being targeted at us.
We look to the courts to punish severely those found guilty of trafficking and dealing. But we must all become involved to protect our young people from the scourge: parents, teachers, youth workers, police officers, probation officers and representatives of all the other agencies involved must work together with young people, with sensitivity and understanding, to inform and educate them about the dangers of drug misuse. Co-operation and partnership are the key.
The Green Paper contains our strategic plan, which proposes the most far-reaching action plan on drugs. It focuses on what the Government and other agencies, nationally and locally, can do over the next three years to tackle the problem. The strategy is founded on the principle of partnership. At the heart of that strategy are proposals to help young people to resist drugs. I am sure that the House would wish to do all that it can to achieve that important goal. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne on raising the subject in today's debate and welcome the Labour party's constructive approach to the issue.

Breast Cancer Services
11.30 am
Mr. Malcolm Chisholm: I shall first explain why I am introducing a debate on this distressing subject. First, in purely chronological terms, an all-party group on breast cancer was formed about one year ago today. The hon. Members—including my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) and the hon. Member for Rochdale (Ms Lynne), who are present—who were instrumental in setting it up were rightly determined that the group should not consist only of women. I think that that is why I was urged to attend meetings and was installed as secretary.
I have attended all the group's meetings. A string of experts have talked to the group over the past year to explain the problems and issues involved in breast cancer. We have all been struck by the unanimous message given by those experts, and it is that message that I and others want to relay today.
The second reason for the debate is a particularly Scottish one. Half way through last year, a campaign was formed in Scotland called the Scottish Breast Cancer Campaign. It has been a truly remarkable campaign; it was begun by a woman of tremendous drive and determination called Audrey Jones. With great energy and organisation, she created a network throughout Scotland that has campaigned on breast cancer services and research. It is on those two issues that I want to focus this morning.
The network's efforts culminated last Tuesday in a magnificent lobby of Parliament and a march on Downing street, with a petition of more than 200,000 signatures, obtained in less than six months. That was merely the end of the first phase of the campaign and the group is now determined that the campaign should link up with groups in England—it wants a United Kingdom campaign. That is why I am pleased that today's debate is on not just a Scottish issue, but a United Kingdom one. The problems and challenges are the same in Scotland, England and Wales.
Dr. Norman A. Godman: I fully accept what my hon. Friend says about this being a United Kingdom-wide debate, but is not it deeply disappointing that there is no Scottish Office Minister present to listen to it?
Mr. Chisholm: I would have to agree with my hon. Friend on that, but we shall see what the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Sackville), says. I wrote to the Scottish Minister responsible for health, who is in another place—which always creates problems during Scottish health debates—and suggested that he should have a word with the Under-Secretary of State. I hope that he has managed to give at least a brief message to the Minister who is to reply.
As I learnt more about the subject, I became more aware of the scale of the problem. I was immediately struck by the horrendous statistics on breast cancer in this country. I learnt that one in 12 women is likely to develop it and two thirds of those women will die. According to the chief medical officer, the survival rate here is worse than in other European countries and north America. The mortality rates for breast cancer in the United Kingdom
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are the worst in the world. Another stark fact that drives the message home is that breast cancer is the single biggest killer for women between the ages of 35 and 54. A sobering and shocking thought is that, in the course of today's one-and-a-half hour debate, three more women will die of breast cancer.
It is not just the statistics that are horrendous—we have all heard terrible stories about the contrasts in treatment that women receive. We hear of misdiagnoses, long waiting times for women being referred for initial diagnosis and inadequate treatment. Balanced against that, we also hear of excellent treatment in many of the breast cancer units, such as that in my home city of Edinburgh.
The stories about things going wrong are not just media scare stories. The fundamental message given to the group by the experts was that there is a tremendous unevenness in the treatment received by women. That is the key message that the experts have given to us—they want something done, and it is up to us as politicians to take up that message and do something about it.
One of the experts who spoke to us was Professor Karol Sikora, professor of clinical oncology at Hammersmith. He has expressed the problem as follows:
"Britain's high death rate for breast cancer is not due to lack of medical knowledge, but to bad management. America has a higher incidence of breast cancer—one in eight of the female population. But proportionally a staggering 50 per cent. fewer women die. The difference is that in America diagnosis and treatment are organized better.
In Britain, surviving breast cancer is a lottery. The recent mortality-rate 'atlas' released by the Department of Health shows shocking geographical variations."
The problem can be considered in terms of when people are referred for treatment and, more importantly, where people are referred for treatment. There was an example of the time problem in Scotland recently at Ninewells hospital in Dundee. Due to a staff shortage, some women had to wait three months before they were seen for an initial diagnosis—because of the campaigning in Scotland, that problem appears to have been sorted out. Women must be referred promptly once there is a suspicion that something is wrong.
The issue of where women are referred is even more important. According to the experts who talked to us, the key issue is whether women go to a specialist unit where there are experts who deal with breast cancer on a regular basis. The experts said that the most alarming factor was that so many women are still referred to general surgeons or medical staff who do not deal with the specific problem for a great enough proportion of their time. The experts explained that that was the fundamental problem in the organisation of breast cancer services.
I was alarmed by the statistics for some—I think, two—Thames regions. Only 20 per cent. of women referred for breast cancer surgery went to hospitals where more than 100 women were operated on in a year. Some 25 per cent. went to hospitals where between 75 and 99 women were dealt with, 20 per cent. went to hospitals where between 50 and 74 women were dealt with and 22 per cent. went to hospitals where between 25 and 49 women were dealt with. Some 9 per cent. went to hospitals where between 10 and 24 women were operated on for breast cancer.
I asked for figures for the whole of England and Wales this week, but was told that they were not available. I received figures for Scotland and they show that the scale of the problem is not quite so dramatic there. However,

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we know that many women in Scotland go to general surgeons who are not used to dealing with people who have breast cancer.
It is the experts who are telling us all that. Some medical practitioners are saying that some of their colleagues should not deal with breast cancer because they do not spend a sufficient amount of their time dealing with it. We are told that half of women are referred to general surgeons when they should be referred to specialists. That is the core of the organisational problem that has to be tackled. One result of that is that the treatment that women receive is not as good as it should be. Without getting too technical, I can give one example of that.
I am told that when women are operated on, lymph glands should be sampled routinely. It is staggering that 50 per cent. of women under the age of 50 who should have such sampling do not get it. We hope that that will change. We are told that women under 50 should be given chemotherapy routinely, but the experts tell us that that often does not happen. The problem has been graphically described to us.
The answer has to some extent been taken on board by the expert advisory group on cancer set up by the Government. It has come up with the model of cancer services centralised in cancer centres, of which 20 are proposed for England and Wales, and cancer units, of which a much larger number is proposed. I thought that the same model was to be introduced in Scotland, but when I wrote to the Minister of State, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, about the matter, he said that the model might not be appropriate. At present, we have five cancer centres and no cancer units. I believe now, however, that the Scottish Office is beginning to take the problem on board. In Scotland, we certainly need a large number of cancer units to complement the five cancer centres.
Dr. Godman: I am given to understand that Lord Fraser, who is the Scottish Office Minister with responsibility for health, is to appear before members of the Scottish Grand Committee to he questioned on health matters. Perhaps that would be an appropriate moment to question him more closely on this important subject.
Mr. Chisholm: My hon. Friend's point illustrates to our colleagues the difficulties that we have in Scotland in questioning the Scottish Minister responsible for health.
The best general structure of cancer services has been agreed, but specialised breast units are needed within it to complement the cancer centres. The British Breast Group has published a study and argued for specialist breast units. It said that they should be located either within the cancer centres or within the cancer units. So everyone knows what the correct model is.
Within the specialist breast units, surgeons, radiologists, oncologists, nurse specialists and others would all work in co-operation in teams. It has been agreed that that is the correct model, but implementation of the model may well be another matter. There are two sets of problems with implementation. They are resource problems and problems connected with the internal market. We do not want to be too party political on this issue, but we must face up to the fact that the internal market creates obstacles.
Mrs. Alice Mahon: My hon. Friend was at the same meeting that I attended, at which consultants and
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professors told us that the abolition of the regional health authorities was a great worry because they had played such a crucial role in setting up the screening programme. The internal market is fragmenting the programme.
Mr. Chisholm: I am glad that my hon. Friend has raised that purely English issue. I have had correspondence with the British Medical Association about the effect of reorganisation on screening. I hope to read some of its letter later to convey that particularly English problem.
Professor Karol Sikora has said that about £300 million would be needed to provide the required number of specialists, including breast care nurses, and additional equipment for the units. That nettle will have to be grasped if the model is to be implemented. As for the internal market problems, Professor Sikora made the point that the development of the internal market meant that purchasers were less likely to buy from specialist units because they tended to be more expensive. That issue will come up next week when the Cancer Relief Macmillan Fund brings out a directory of services to be provided to GPs so that they can refer patients to the best unit. There will be a problem in whether health boards have contracts or would be willing to have such contracts with those units.
There are also problems on the provider side. Many provider units may not want to lose their breast cancer work as part of their general surgery. In a private conversation, a leading consultant told me that, particularly in England, many general surgeons wanted to keep the work because it was part of their private practice. That is another issue that will have to be tackled. It is important that breast surgery and breast cancer treatment should be on separate contracts. They should not be part of general surgery contracts. They should be contracted for separately. That is another recommendation of the British Breast Group report.
We are told that one of the differences between Britain and other countries in its provision of breast cancer services is that we have far fewer oncologists, both clinical and medical. That is another funding issue, which is also connected to the issue of special units. I have been told in answers to parliamentary questions to which I have received replies this week that the number of oncologists has not increased very much. There are slightly more for the whole of the United Kingdom. We now have 272 clinical and 68 medical oncologists. To put that into perspective, I am told that there are 2,500 medical oncologists in France.
We have also been told that each clinical oncologist in Britain sees 560 new patients a year. The recommendation is 350. We are told that in America they see 200 and in Norway they see a staggering figure of only 75. So there is the problem of the number of oncologists, who are essential to the work of breast cancer units and general cancer units and centres.
Apart from the problem with the number of oncologists, there is a problem with their funding. That became an issue in Scotland last year. As a result, I tabled a question about the matter. I was told that seven out of the 11 medical oncologists in Scotland last year were funded by charity. I was not being mischievous when I tabled another question last week. I simply wanted to know how much the position had changed by now. I am told that the Government think that five are funded by charity out of

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12. Something strange is going on there which will have to be investigated. At least the Scottish Office had an answer. The English Department of Health does not know how many oncologists are funded by charity. We have been told by the experts who came to our group that it is a large number. That is a scandalous position, given the key nature of their work in the model of cancer treatment that is proposed.
Apart from their work in treating breast cancer and other forms of cancer, medical oncologists are essential for research. Research is the second aspect of today's debate. Once again, we are confronted by the two problems of resources and the internal market. On the resource side, the experts—I keep referring to them deliberately because all that I know has been told to me by the people who know about those matters—are unanimous in what they say. They tell me that in Britain uniquely a large proportion of cancer research is funded by charity.
We have been shown graphs, which show that in other countries research is funded mainly by Government money, with a little charity money. In Britain, it is the reverse. That is a fundamental problem, not only because it is the Government's responsibility to fund research, but because charitable funding in the nature of things is short term. The experts say that they need long-term funding. Charitable funding also fluctuates. I noticed recently that the funds of one of the cancer charities fell by £6 million last year. That creates problems for research.
I have tabled some questions on breast cancer research in particular. It appears that there was an increase in funding between 1991–92 and the following year. Some money—about £700,000—came from the Department of Health and less than £100,000 came from the Scottish Office. Proportionately, however, that was a greater contribution than that of the English Department of Health. The Medical Research Council money, being the main source of Government funding, was £1.6 million in 1991–92 and £3.1 million in 1992–93, which appears to be progress. However, I note that last March the Minister responsible for science said, in referring to the £3.1 million:
"Included in that figure was £836,000 which was directly related to basic laboratory research into cancer."—[Official Report, 29 March 1994; Vol. 240, c. 680.]
Of course, that is vital work, but I wonder whether the basis for the figures has been changed from year to year.
I do not want to quibble, but we need to put into perspective what £3.1 million means compared with the sort of money that is needed. A graphic illustration of that is the fact that the Royal Marsden hospital is trying to raise £15 million for just one project. Professor Baum, Marsden's professor of surgery who deals with breast cancer, told us that that research was absolutely essential. He said that it was to look at the molecular biology of normal cells and the genetic defects that result in their transformation into cancerous cells. He said that that was the most hopeful area for a research breakthrough. The context, therefore, is that £15 million is needed just for the one project, yet total Government funding for breast cancer amounts to only just over £3 million. There is obviously a funding problem.
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There is also an internal market problem with research. An article in the British Medical Journal on 13 August 1994 by the United Kingdom Co-ordinating Committee on Cancer Research showed the results of a survey of contributors to clinical trials in breast cancer. The survey found that half had difficulties, many of which sprung from the nature of the internal market in the health service.
The article stated:
"The financial imperative from a market based NHS to avoid the 'unnecessary' expense in undertaking a trial is the basis of real conflict. If, for example, clinicians really are uncertain about which of two treatments is best, why not settle for the cheaper? But the NHS has a commitment to improve treatment. This requires a commitment to undertake and complete trials, accepting that such a strategy carries financial implications …A problem now being encountered"—
and this repeats something that I mentioned in a different context earlier —
"that is a direct result of the new purchaser-provider agreements is that patients are being treated in local hospitals rather than being referred to specialist centres. In recent years several studies have shown that there is a survival advantage if treatment is given at a specialist centre, and this advantage will be lost if contracts are increasingly given to local hospitals that lack specialist cancer services. Also, as it is generally the specialist centres which enter patients into trials a decrease in referrals to cancer centres means that there is a reduced pool of patients being invited to participate."
The article explains that there are also problems because of the new set-up with trusts relating to insurance, the storing of samples and increased paperwork. Leading British clinical researchers have expressed concerns about the new health service set-up as well as about the underlying funding problems.
I wish briefly to raise two aspects related to research. One area where research is required is screening. That has already been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax. There are many issues relating to screening. A British Medical Journal article just two weeks ago said that it is time for Britain to screen women over 50 every two years. Research has shown that, among women being screened in their third year, the number found with cancerous growths was much the same as the number among the unscreened. In other words, those women should have been screened after two, not three years.
Mr. Bernard Jenkin: Surely even every two years is not adequate for screening. What is really needed is a comprehensive public education programme so that women constantly screen themselves. A lump in a breast can become fatal within a few weeks of it first appearing. We need a huge public education programme to raise the profile of the issue, so that women constantly screen themselves. There is no substitute for that.
Mr. Chisholm: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has a point, but it cannot replace the screening programme. We should follow the example of other countries where a two-year interval is normal for women over 50.
The article said that better results would be obtained if two mammograms were taken—indeed, a 20 per cent. improvement in the detection rate. It said that there would be another 15 per cent. improvement if two radiologists read the results. The article also said that considerable financial and staffing implications were involved in bringing about such improvements.

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Another issue is screening of the over-65s. That matter is often forgotten. Although the largest number of women who develop breast cancer are over 65, there is no routine screening for them. There is also the issue of high-risk young women. I am aware of the debate about screening young women—I will not go into that now—but something must be done to ensure that such women are looked after properly.
My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax mentioned the effect of the Health Authorities Bill on the screening programme. I feel duty bound to read out a brief excerpt from a letter from the British Medical Association:
"We remain unclear on how the programme will operate after HA reorganisation …All cancer registrations and efficient data handling depend upon integrated computer systems. The complexities and financial implications of replicating this at district level are considerable. Devolving the programme down to local level will demand many more personnel in order to make medical and clinical audit meaningful. It is unlikely to be cost-effective at local level and clinical audit between health authorities and providers is bound to be compromised."
There is great concern about the environmental causes of cancer. A recent television programme featured the pesticide lindane. I and other hon. Members wrote to Ministers about that. Lord Fraser, the Scottish Minister responsible for health, said that the Advisory Committee on Pesticides was currently reviewing lindane's agricultural uses. I hope that the review will be completed speedily, because organochlorine pesticides are banned in most countries. Lindane is the only one still widely used in this country. Indeed, its use has doubled during the past seven years. I hope that the experts will speedily look at the evidence from Israel, which was presented in the television programme, and also at evidence from America, which suggests that lindane stimulates the production of a hormone that damages DNA.
I want to explain how America has dealt with the problem of breast cancer. Figures that I gave earlier show that although breast cancer occurs more frequently in America—one in eight women rather than one in 12—proportionately, 50 per cent. fewer women die. Yet America, with a so much better record than Britain, had an enormous campaign. I like to compare it with our Scottish campaign, although it was on a different scale. Proportionately, of course, the two campaigns are quite similar because the American campaign collected 2.5 million signatures, while the Scottish campaign has already collected 200,000—so in terms of population, the Scottish campaign has probably done better.
The American campaign was thrown on President Clinton's desk and he took action immediately. His Health Secretary convened a conference, which established a national action plan for breast cancer. My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax may say something more about that later. Part of that action plan was a shifting of $210 million from the defence budget to breast cancer research. The British Government should look to that example. This country's problem, as I have explained, is more serious than America's, so a correspondingly greater response is required of our Government.
The Scottish campaign and its members are my inspiration and guiding light on this issue. Their petition asked for more resources for specialist units and for more Government funding for breast cancer research. They are determined to continue their campaign and to extend it
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throughout the United Kingdom. With the help of several hon. Members, that is what they intend to do in the months ahead.
I know that there is a great deal of activity on this front. The Select Committee is investigating the matter; my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax will introduce a Bill on this very subject. We are determined that this most distressing issue gets the response from the Government that it most assuredly deserves and requires.
12 noon
Mr. Piers Merchant: I compliment the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Chisholm) on drawing the House's attention to the serious subject of breast cancer. As he rightly said, the incidence of breast cancer in England and Wales is the highest in the world; it is in fact five times as high as in Japan, causing about 15,000 deaths a year. It is interesting to note the distinctly different impact of breast cancer on the various socio-economic groups in this country: there is 50 per cent. more breast cancer among group 1 women than among women in groups 4 and 5.
The hon. Member for Leith was right to draw attention to the need for improved breast cancer services. I entirely agree with that objective. He was also right to draw attention to the problems that there have been with treatment and care. We should not, however, underestimate the difficulties of judging the best course of action at any particular time. Many of these problems have arisen simply because of a lack of knowledge or because of faulty medical judgments—entirely understandable, but based on limited scientific knowledge of the illness.
The hon. Gentleman was right to juxtapose the issues of services and research, because the former so crucially depend on the latter. It was to be regretted that he did not draw enough attention to the real progress that has been made and to the distinct improvement in the services that are available. First and most important is the national screening programme. This country was the first in the European Community to bring in comprehensive national screening—an important international first, and a sign of the importance that the Government attach to dealing with the problems posed by breast cancer.
The hon. Gentleman also did not draw enough attention to the Calman report, published last year, which stressed the need for reorganisation and a national programme to ensure that the swiftest, most effective forms of treatment were brought to bear on women who were found to have developed breast cancer. The report distinguished between three important levels of care. First, it stressed primary care; secondly, the need for designated units; and, thirdly, the need for designated cancer centres. Speaking about the importance of specialist centres, the hon. Member for Leith did not give sufficient emphasis to the relevant part played by primary care services and by the designated units at a more local level, which are an important part of the process.
The hon. Gentleman was right to stress the need for similar standards of care throughout the country. He was right to focus on the deficiencies in that area, but I was not sure that his simple emphasis on centres of excellence was necessarily the best approach.
The Calman report's conclusions have already been acted on in many areas. I should like to draw the House's attention to the real progress that has been made in the

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Bromley area, which includes my constituency. Bromley hospital is starting its first breast care clinic later this month. It will be a multidisciplinary clinic, and there will be one surgeon who is already there and a new one who is a specialist in breast cancer. At the same clinic there will be a breast cancer specialist oncologist, and a nurse counsellor who has been specially trained for the purpose. Finally, there will be a personal prosthetics expert on hand to help women who may need support.
All that specialist provision will be available at one local clinic. That is a big step forward. It is important to ensure that, while the regional centres of excellence are available when needed, there are also local, accessible services to provide a quick response for women who have tested positive or who have been referred on by their GPs. This saves waiting and anxiety, because it enables testing and results to be acted on locally and swiftly.
I am pleased about this step forward in my area, and I hope that it will be repeated across the country. Apart from producing a great improvement in care, it will also enable much of the later treatment to be carried out locally in a co-ordinated fashion. There will be facilities for performing chemotherapy and some surgical procedures, but when necessary patients will automatically be referred to one of the nearby regional centres of excellence.
There is no question of any patient being given second-rate treatment or being diverted to some secondary, poorer tier of service instead of to the regional centre if that centre is the right place for the patient. The clinical judgment on where a patient should be treated, however, will depend on how her form of cancer has presented. As most people involved in the field will know, that will vary considerably from one case to another.
I should like to refer briefly to the important screening programme. The Forrest committee reported in 1987 that screening was the single most important way of reducing deaths from breast cancer, and predicted that as many as 25 per cent. of deaths from it could be prevented by the year 2000, giving an average 20 years more life to the people who were afflicted. If everyone called attended screenings, 40 per cent. of deaths could be prevented. That was why breast screening was introduced nationally.
I should like to enter a few words of caution, although I do not want them misinterpreted, because I fully support breast screening and believe it to be important. It would be wrong to think that screening is a panacea and that no problems will result from it. There are four or five areas of difficulty, of which the first is false expectation. The fear is that, with the availability of universal screening, people will relax and think that the problem has been solved: because screening is available, early detection is possible, so a cure will follow. That is of course not correct. A cure does not always follow, even with very early detection. There is of course a much greater statistical chance of a cure, but it is still limited.
Secondly, there is the difficulty of unnecessary treatment. Any suspected form of cancer detected at an early stage is the subject of medical uncertainty as to whether it will develop into malignant cancer or turn out to be benign. There is thus the danger of unnecessary treatment following on from mass screening. More research needs to be done on that; it would certainly not he beneficial to put women through the trauma and pain of treatment if that treatment is later found to be entirely
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unnecessary. It is also a complete waste of resources when money and expertise are devoted to putting right a problem that was not there in the first place. Important research is required in that respect. There is always the problem of cancers being missed because of technical limits on screening processes. However efficient they may be, because cancer varies from individual to individual some cases will be overlooked. Serious failures can occur in the computerised administration and follow-up systems, and much attention should be paid to making them as perfect as possible. We must be realistic, however, and accept that perfection cannot be achieved in dealing with so many people, and that there will always be an element of failure.
The extent of screening, medical judgment, the age of screening, and how frequent it should be—a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, North (Mr. Jenkin)—type of screening, the radiation and other risks and other forms of care should be researched. Over the years, experts have changed considerably their assessment of appropriate treatment—whether there should be minor or major surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy and, if so, which comes first.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Chisholm) was right to stress that research is the most important factor in tackling breast cancer. Research will dictate the most effective action in detection and treatment. Let us hope that it will ultimately produce answers to the causes and development of breast cancer, and that steps can then be taken to prevent it. After all, prevention is always better than a cure.
12.11 pm.
Mrs. Alice Mahon: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Chisholm) on securing his Adjournment debate. He is a hard-working member and secretary of the all-party group on breast cancer. I am joint chair with the hon. Members for Rochdale (Ms Lynne) and for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton). Its members have been on a learning curve for 12 months, but the group is a success.
I became more interested in the subject in 1992, when I was visited by two breast care nurses who were worried about the care and service given to suffers in the Yorkshire region. I commissioned a survey of the 12 regional health authorities in England to obtain a better picture. They were asked to provide details of the number of their breast clinics, breast care nurses and support groups by district, to assess provision and the contribution that each region was making to the national screening programme.
It is important to understand the scale of the problem. The British Breast Group's latest statistics show that the incidence of breast cancer in the UK is 25,000 cases per annum, which is among the highest in the world. Mortality is also high, at 16,000 deaths a year. Apparently, the survival rate in this country is poorer than in other European countries or the United States. The cause of high incidence and poor survival is unknown, but the latter may partly be attributable to poor management of the disease, which should be seriously examined.
According to research, the death rate from breast cancer has remained virtually unchanged over the past 50 years, and women are paying the price. They are the foot soldiers of that dreadful disease. Their suffering is

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matched only by that of their families after the premature death of a sufferer. As my hon. Friend said, it is important not to view breast cancer as just a woman's disease because it brings devastation and grief to families affected by a sufferer's early death.
I pay tribute to Jacqui Bokowsky and my hard-pressed staff for their work on my report, which left me convinced that the screening programme saved lives because the Government acknowledged the importance of funding it and set aside £25 million.
The other important aspect was the national nature of the programme. There is great concern about the disbanding of regional health authorities, which played a crucial role in screening. They acted as the strategic authorities and did a superb job. I do not want to seem grudging, because I congratulate the Government on implementing that programme, which was an important step forward. I should like it to be extended to provide screening every two years and for the over 65s.
Unfortunately, four regional authorities did not complete the questionnaire and so our data are not comprehensive, but it was still a worthwhile exercise. The Library also provided statistics. Our findings were shocking. Some regions provided an excellent service while others were poor. It became clear that the service was fragmented, and geographical location had a bearing on the treatment that patients received. As one might expect, public transport problems and widespread poverty in some regions prevented some women from taking full advantage of the facilities on offer. As my hon. Friend said, some treatments vary widely.
In some inner cities, the only provision was the local out-patients department. The north-west region had breast clinic provision for only 0.29 per cent. of women per 100,000 population. In the Yorkshire and north-west Thames regions, the figure was 0.85 per cent. The survey also revealed that breast care nurses—one third of whom are provided by the Macmillan fund—form the mainstay of care groups and after-treatment. Their work is vital in providing continuing care to patients in hospital, but also in the community—to patients, their husbands and families. Those nurses are highly valued by women. Members of Bosom Friends, a support group in Bradford—some of whose members are very young—told me that their breast care nurses, in particular Norma Russell, make a tremendous difference to their lives. She works hours of overtime for nothing. Should we skimp on such a valued service?
Cuts have been made in the service, even though the incidence of breast cancer is as bad as ever. The working party's report was endorsed by the British Breast Group in July. It is adamant that services could be improved by grouping them together in specialist units. It states that all patients with breast disease should have access to the highest-quality care. It emphasises the importance of accurate and timely diagnosis, appropriate treatment and follow-up, effective communication, which means breast care nurses being in place, access to other specialist facilities and the provision of high-quality services between specialists from different disciplines. They include surgery, radiology, pathology, medical, clinical oncology, nursing and palliative care. It is essential that those multidisciplinary teams are at set up together in specialist units.
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There will be a problem, because purchasers might be tempted to buy from a provider who is buying in the service of an oncologist for just a few hours a week. It will be nothing like as good as a specialist team. We know that because of the experience of the specialist hospitals in London, which are funded only in the short-term and are worried about their future. For anyone with an interest in the subject, the working party's report is well worth reading and it contains excellent recommendations.
Next week, I shall introduce a ten-minute Bill. It is an attempt to persuade the Government that we need a national action plan, such as that in America, to tackle this killer disease. The all-party group has had tremendous help from specialists in the past 12 months and, above all, from the women who have suffered from this dreadful disease. They want and deserve a national action plan. I hope that, when I present my Bill next week, the Government will take note of what they are saying to us.
12.21 pm
Lady Olga Maitland: Last week, I visited the Cancer Research Institute, which has a world-class reputation for research and is based in my constituency. It works in close partnership with the Royal Marsden hospital.
I was given a guided tour by Professor Peter Garland, the chief executive of the institute, who leads 600 staff, making it the largest research institute in the world dedicated to the conquest of cancer. In particular, it has done excellent work in connection with breast cancer. It has recently pioneered important genetic work allowing it more accurately to identify those women at risk from breast cancer, who would consequently need special screening and preventive measures. It has been discovered, for instance, that some women are likely to have more than one gene, inherited from the family, which predisposes them towards the development of breast cancer. Indeed, it has been found that such genes are responsible for 5 to 10 per cent. of cancers, or about 1,000 of the 15,000-plus people who die each year in the United Kingdom from that disease. Perhaps a woman who has been identified as being at risk from breast cancer could be put on a trial new drug called Tamoxifen. It is part of a large, international trial, which, I hope, will substantially prevent the disease from starting in the first place.
The institute has a very exciting programme of work in curative measures for other areas of cancer: ranging from treatment of testicular cancer, 90 per cent. of which is treatable; to tremendous advances in treating ovarian cancer; to developing a vaccination to prevent and eliminate cancer of the cervix; to treating childhood leukaemias, and much other work. One will understand why I am so enormously proud that the institute is in my constituency.
The tantalising thing about success is the intense frustration which is felt: in wanting good work to continue, work which, of necessity, is held back through the constant battle against other competition for more resources. The real question that I ask the Government is: are they really giving essential research the full support that it undoubtedly deserves? I congratulate the Government on making the United Kingdom the first country in the European Union to develop and introduce breast cancer screening, but it is no use embarking on further major cancer screening programmes if the follow-through, in terms of research and treatment, is not

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given the fullest possible back-up, otherwise one will be faced with only half a loaf—the cancer identified but not adequately treated. Successful treatments come about only by a heavy commitment to research.
The Medical Research Council works wonders, but it has a finite budget of around £210 million and must cover all diseases. The MRC is excellent for fundamental work, much of which is generic, but quite simply it does not have the resources to carry everything through to application. The university sector is mainly supported in terms of educational activities. Cancer is but one subject or specialty among many, and few universities can put together a critical mass for research.
The cancer charities raise and spend some £200 million a year, mainly on research but also to improve services. Without them, the quality and extent of research and service in the United Kingdom would be greatly weakened. I am not at all happy at the thought of cancer charities substituting for, rather than complementing, Government support. In the case of the Cancer Research Institute, £25 million is required to run 600-plus staff.
The Cancer Research Institute receives just £2.5 million from the Higher Education Funding Council for England; even it recognised, by its own calculations and procedures, a shortfall of at least £2 million, but it has refused to do anything about it, except for vague promises in the future. It is not acceptable to argue that if the council allocated more resources to the institute, it would be to the detriment of other universities, the great majority of which, by the HEFC's own assessment, rate less well, often markedly so. That shortfall is a substantial handicap to the institute's work. It makes up the shortfall with charitable moneys, which go towards heat, lighting and sundry expenses rather than the direct research for which it is intended. More than that, the HEFC is contradicting its own stated policy. It should be buying the very best research that it can. The fact is that it declines to do so in the case of the institute.
As Sir Peter Swinnerton-Dyer, the former chief executive of the Universities Funding Council, said:
"Within each subject, it must therefore be right to concentrate most of the research funding in those departments that are likely to provide the best value for money."
In my view, he is absolutely right. It is very short-sighted to set up a ambitious screening programme without a fully supported research programme to give the very best possible treatment to all patients, otherwise one would be putting the cart before the horse by screening without the back-up research facilities to ensure that a sick woman becomes well or that we can prevent cancers from developing in the first place.
12.27 pm
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: I shall be brief, as hon. Members wish to speak in the debate.
We should all put on record our thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Chisholm) for securing the debate and for speaking so well on the subject. As the report of the British Breast Group working party said:
"Breast cancer mortality in the UK is the highest in the world. The reasons for this are poorly understood, but the wide dispersal services for breast cancer patients may be a contributing factor and certainly impedes clinical research."
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If ever there were a brief description of the horrendous problem and of the need for the Government to introduce a national programme as quickly as possible, that is the summary of it. I hope that, next week, the ten-minute Bill to be introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) will get a clear run in the House, and that for once a ten-minute Bill will be successful in changing policy.
The reasons for breast cancer are poorly understood and are not evenly shared between different socio-economic groups. Indeed, if anything, it appears that the higher income groups suffer slightly more greatly from breast cancer, but they also have greater longevity anyway, so there may be a connection there. The incidence is much higher in western Europe and north America than in what we choose to call third-world countries. There may well be environmental and dietary connections. There are an awful lot of possible connections that need to be examined as rapidly as possible. In the United States, President Clinton responded quickly and magnificently to the request for a national action plan, and that is something for which ire—as must all the men and women throughout the United States who campaigned for it—be applauded. President Clinton should also be congratulated on the fact that he was prepared to shift money from the defence budget to a national action programme. I would love to think that the British Government will see the error of their ways in financing yet another Trident submarine and start shifting those resources into health care; we should all be better off as a result.
The seminar held in the House in December was, I think, very valuable: I could not attend, but I have read reports of it. A recurring theme was the need for multidisciplinary teams to work together from a single specialist centre. All the evidence suggests that the dispersal of services and the lack of centres of excellence lead to inadequate care. Moreover, they lead to differing standards of care: the system that decides to whom a patient is referred is almost a lottery.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leith cited the Thames regional health authority. There is no earthly reason why the health authorities—all surrounding London—should not be able to look to one or two centres of excellence; that, surely, would be better than dispersal of services among certain hospitals. After all, one in 12 women in this country are likely to develop breast cancer, but only 40 per cent. of patients will be able to see specialist oncologists. The average number of patients seen by oncologists in the United Kingdom is 560—the highest number in Europe. The recommended number is only 350. That means that oncologists are overworked; the resources must be spread, and I hope that the Government will act.
One of the problems is that surgeons often have little experience of breast cancer. It is difficult for hon. Members who are not medically qualified to hold forth about the way in which patients are treated by individual doctors, but I feel that there is an overwhelming case for demanding specialist treatment. A surgeon who is a "generalist" is unlikely to have the time or the inclination to become a specialist. Far too many women are having mastectomies which could possibly have been avoided if treatment, or even screening, had been provided earlier.
There are also serious problems with radiotherapy. They have been highlighted by Radiotherapy Action Group Exposure—also known as RAGE—a group of women who have been given radiotherapy for breast

949
cancer. The organisation has heard from 1,400 women; some of the letters that it has received came from the families of women who died not from cancer but from the injuries caused by their treatment. In many instances, it appears that overdosing and serious side-effects were involved. I hope that the Minister will say that his Department is prepared to take an interventionist line, and set up a national action programme that will direct research appropriately and establish regional centres of excellence.
We have been considering the resources that should be made available to women suffering from breast cancer. As we are now in the age of the charter, let me suggest some services that should be available under such an arrangement. First, general practitioners should be able to refer patients promptly to a team specialising in the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer, including a consultant. The GP should not have to think, "Goodness, what do I do now? Where can I find a specialist?"
Secondly, the patient should be given a diagnosis within four weeks of being referred to a hospital. All too often, GPs in my community tell me that they spend hours on the telephone every day simply trying to refer patients to hospital. My main local hospital, the Whittington, can deal with no new cases—other than life-and-death emergencies in the local population—until April, because of inadequate funding. That in itself is a serious problem.
Patients also need a confirmed diagnosis before they consent to treatment, including surgery. There is still an information barrier between the patient and the medical professions. Every woman should be fully informed of all the implications of every kind of treatment that is available—or not available—before surgery. Patients should have access to specialist breast care nurses who are trained to provide information and psychological support: psychological support is vital to the person concerned, who is undergoing a very traumatic experience.
The national health service should enable patients to meet others who suffer from breast cancer. Too many people must deal with the horror of cancer in isolation. I have encountered cases of people who do not want to tell their families that they are suffering from such a disease: they are unable to share the experience with anyone. Although any promotion of such discussions between sufferers by the Department of Health would not be a medical action as such, I consider that the opportunity for sufferers to meet other patients and former patients is very important—as is the provision of information about support services for patients and their families, who can at least give them support and some understanding.
Breast cancer is a crucial issue on which this country has a dreadful record. We have had a short opportunity to raise that issue today; I hope that the Government will respond by devoting real resources and real action to it.
12.35 pm
Mr. Bernard Jenkin: I greatly appreciate the opportunity to speak, and congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Chisholm) on securing the debate. I also congratulate him and other members of the all-party breast cancer group—to which I belong—on the work that they have done. They have brought much into the open during the debate, and I endorse much of what has been said. As a result, this has been a very useful debate; perhaps we should discuss the subject more regularly.
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It is difficult to imagine a disease that touches the lives of so many of our constituents. Every Member of Parliament has a direct interest in ensuring that the dreadful figures that have been given are improved. I want to enlarge on points that have already been raised—including, notably, the need for a national plan not just on screening but on research and treatment, along the lines of the model set out in the United States National Cancer Act of 1971.
It is interesting to note that the President himself has a cancer panel, such is the priority that the American Administration attach to the problem. It is, in fact, due to the still rather unfashionable President Nixon that the panel exists; President Clinton merely used legislation that was already on the statute book. We lack any legislation of that nature with which to tackle this huge disease. 'We probably spend less time discussing cancer than we spend discussing AIDS, which—in terms of the number of deaths that it causes—constitutes a tiny fraction of the problem created by breast cancer.
I want to concentrate in particular on the unfortunate group of women who belong to Radiotherapy Action Group Exposure. I became involved in the subject because one of my constituents suffered serious injury as a result of radiotherapy. We are fond of thinking that people who have been cured of breast cancer are fortunate, but a sizeable group of them have been afflicted by appalling and painful injuries of which they were given no warning when they were considering what treatment they should accept and what hope they had of a cure. Something must be done. The injuries occur at different rates, and at different treatment centres. That underlines what the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) said about treatment being a lottery: there is a lack of consistency between different centres and different parts of the country, and the chances of injury at some hospitals are far greater than at others—I shall not name any hospitals. No one seems to know why that is.
The women concerned are suffering from very disabling effects. Some, like my constituent, are in constant pain, often so bad that they seek amputation of a limb. The radiation damage to their bodies often requires such amputation, or causes death. No Member of Parliament who has listened to the stories of those women can underestimate the pain and suffering that they experience.
I am able, however, to congratulate the Government on setting up a proper inquiry into the matter. Following meetings with the chief medical officer, the president of the Royal College of Radiologists, RAGE and Professor Karol Sikora, the Under-Secretary of State, my noble Friend Baroness Cumberlege, authorised an audit of brachialplexus neurologically related injuries, to be conducted by Dr. Thelma Bates and Dr. Richard Evans. It started on 1 September 1994 and its aim is simply to find out what has happened and why.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will continue to respond to RAGE's representations. I congratulate the Select Committee on Health on inviting RAGE to give evidence to its breast cancer inquiry. Let us hope that the Select Committee will continue to return to the subject on a regular basis.

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We are fortunate that we are a generation that talks about the disease, which is prepared to discuss it and to raise its profile. I hope that the Government will continue to respond positively to the representations that are made to them on this subject.
12.40 pm
Mr. Eric Illsley: I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Chisholm) on securing a debate on this important subject, on which a tremendous consensus appears to exist. I congratulate the all-party breast cancer group on its work. As we have heard, breast cancer is a common and, far too often, fatal disease. The statistics have been rehearsed already, but it is worth confirming that we have the highest breast cancer mortality rate in the world—its incidence is five times greater here than in countries such as Japan. One woman in 11 will develop breast cancer. Sadly, between 25,000 and 29,000 new cases arise every year.
Unfortunately, the reason for the high incidence of breast cancer in the United Kingdom is not fully understood. Obviously, further research is needed into the causes. It would appear that the disease is associated with western developed countries. There are high incidence rates in the United States of America, in Canada and in Europe, and some social and environmental factors have been stated as possible causes, including high-fat diet, hormone treatment, oral contraception, alcohol and stress, to name but a few.
Sadly, as the House has been told, each year between 13,000 and 15,000 deaths occur as a result of breast cancer. That is a grave cause for concern. It is the sixth commonest cause of death in the UK, and the commonest cause of death for women aged between 35 and 54. Clearly, we must address ourselves to prevention, to early diagnosis and, as we have heard, to better treatment. We should also, however, look towards researching the causes of breast cancer. I was interested to hear the comments of hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland). The position is so bad in this country that we must deal with it. We cannot rely on charitable funding for research.
Breast cancer was recognised by the Government and included in "The Health of the Nation" White Paper. A target was set to reduce the breast cancer death rate in the population invited for screening by 25 per cent. by the year 2000. The rates have varied from 95.1 deaths per 100,000 of the population in 1990. The target is to reduce that figure to 71.3 deaths per 100,000. Problems still surround the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer, despite the setting of that target; hence the Government's expert advisory group on cancer, which reported in May last year.
Various opinions exist on the value of a screening programme. The British Medical Journal view of "The Health of the Nation" doubted the efficacy of screening and described the White Paper's targets as optimistic. In 1985, there were 98.3 deaths per 100,000 of the population; in 1990 the figure had reduced to only 95.1 per cent. So there could be some difficulty in achieving the target.
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The journal suggested that the Government should take other steps. With an eye to this Friday's debate in the House, it stated:
"Above all else, it"—
that is, the Government—
"should make it clear that it is willing to reduce smoking through legislative means. Only then are screening, diet, information, and counselling kept in proportion."
Suggestions have been made that the screening interval is too long, and that an age limit set at 50 is too high. I accept that it has been found that the screening programme is more effective for post-menopausal women—hence the setting of the age level at between 50 and 65. Studies have been conducted, however, into what are known as "interval" cancers, which occur within the three-year screening time. According to a study in the North Western regional health authority, an increased number of interval cancers occurred between screenings.
I acknowledge that, in a circular in January this year, the Government set out guidance on screening, and required screening units to take two X-rays to try to ensure a more efficient screening programme, but perhaps we should begin to consider whether those interval cancers are "new" cancers, or existing cancers that have been misdiagnosed.
Sadly, errors of diagnosis have been made. It seems that errors occur with all screening programmes. In May 1994, all 90 screening units were required to check their clerical systems because of errors. Some 30 per cent. of the cancers highlighted in the study of interval cancers undertaken in the North Western regional health authority were subject to misdiagnosis.
It is clear that the treatment of breast cancer has not been as good as it could be. Many of the problems have been acknowledged—inequalities of treatment, geographically and economically; the low number of cancer specialists; the internal market; the purchaser-provider split and how that impacts on the purchase of cancer care; and women treated by specialists who perhaps have inadequate training or experience in particular cancers, especially breast cancer. We have heard from hon. Members about delays in referrals.
The women who are diagnosed as suffering from breast cancer deserve sympathetic and expert treatment from specialists who are experienced in the disease. The inequalities were exposed by the Thames cancer registry recently. Health Service Journal stated in September 1994:
"The Thames study highlighted 'variations and inequalities' in treatment and said the chances of a woman surviving the disease were 'likely to depend on where she lives and how well off she is'."
That is a disgraceful position, which must be dealt with, and which I understand the Government will deal with when they respond to the expert advisory group.
We have heard that the abolition of regional health authorities will bring about an uncertain future for many screening programmes and cancer registries. I hope that the Minister will assure the House that screening programmes will continue, and that the registries will be able to continue their work under the new regime. That information is crucial to research in this matter.
It is sad that, in this country, five-year survival rates can vary by almost 20 per cent., depending on how affluent the area is where a person resides. That was brought out by the regional health authority study. One

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can only guess at the variations in affluence that might occur between various parts of the country, north and south. My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) mentioned the problems that she had trying to find out what treatments were available in Yorkshire.
I have of necessity to be extremely brief, but I wish to refer quickly to the Macmillan cancer care fund, which last year issued a 10-point programme for breast cancer care. It will also announce an initiative next week which, I hope, will prove successful. As we have heard, the expert advisory group will set up primary care centres and designated cancer units and centres. I hope that the Government will respond as soon as possible to the consultation, which has now concluded. I understand that their response is due early this year.
I hope that, with the Department of Health's initiative and with the various charities involved in research, we can look forward to a comprehensive system for the treatment of breast cancer, something that the country greatly needs.
12.50 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Tom Sackville): I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Chisholm) on his eloquent appeal for the highest quality of care and service for women with breast cancer and thank all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. I share the hon. Gentleman's regret that there is no Scottish Minister here, but I am glad to hear that he will have the opportunity to question the relevant Minister in detail. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Scottish Office Home and Health Department—like the Department of Health—is committed to reducing deaths from breast cancer as part of the aim to reduce cancer mortality overall.
The hon. Gentleman has very ably led the parliamentary all-party group on breast cancer, which has done so much to make its presence felt in lobbying on behalf of the thousands of women who contract this terrible condition. I therefore appreciate having this opportunity to set out briefly the Government's commitment to providing the highest quality of prevention and treatment.
We are, I hasten to say, neither complacent about nor ignorant of the very real threat that the disease poses to public health and to individual women. No Government could underestimate the seriousness of a condition that affects so many and results in so much suffering and so many deaths each year. My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, North (Mr. Jenkin) mentioned the wider problem of the damage unwittingly done through the use of excessive radiation in treatment. I assure him that there are initiatives to minimise the risk of any further slip in quality assurance and plans are in hand to ensure that all radiation units are subject to the strictest guidelines so that the unnecessary and disastrous damage to which he referred cannot occur in the future.
It has been pointed out that we have made breast cancer a central element in "The Health of the Nation". Our goal is to cut the number of deaths among women invited for screening by 25 per cent. by the end of the decade. However, it is a tragic fact that breast cancer is still on the increase in this country and abroad. We do not know precisely why that is so, but several social, environmental and genetic factors are at play. Apart from age, factors
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that appear to increase the risk of breast cancer include late childbearing, the early onset of the menopause, obesity and ionising radiation. They may also include diet, the prolonged use of hormone replacement therapy and a number of other elements into which further research is needed. Given that background, let me summarise what the Government are doing.
It goes without saying that there is a wide network of cancer treatment facilities around the country although, of course, I can necessarily speak in detail only of those in England. However, 7 per cent. of all national health service expenditure goes on the treatment of cancer. Many new units and facilities are being created, and I mention in particular the soon-to-be-opened breast care clinic at Bromley hospital in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mr. Merchant), which is typical of the new facilities coming on stream.
We have established a national population-based breast screening programme for all women aged between 50 and 64 in support of which new guidelines have been issued to ensure that screening is as effective as possible. We have provided significant funding for research which is supported by, but in no way dependent on, considerable help from major cancer charities. We have also funded the promotion of health material to increase awareness and to encourage women to come forward for screening and to report symptoms.
In the short time remaining, I shall take up the references to the steps taken in the United States. Mention has been made of the apparent switch in spending from defence to health in America. There is no doubt that the defence budget, like many budgets, is stable or dropping while the health budget in this country continues to increase considerably. There has been a 4.4 per cent. increase to all the regions this year, which is well ahead of inflation. I have no doubt that there will continue to be an increase in the share of public spending going on health. A substantial proportion of that will be spent on new cancer facilities because, as has been mentioned, there is too much inequality in provision around the country for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
It is well known that too many cancer sufferers, especially women with breast cancer, are not diagnosed swiftly enough. They are not seen sufficiently quickly by people with the appropriate level of expertise, which means that treatment can be delayed. Whatever the clinical effect of waiting for diagnosis and then waiting for treatment may be—it can be serious—the emotional effect is clearly considerable and we need to take action.
Hon. Members have mentioned the chief medical officer's expert advisory group's report. It is a very important document that will change the way in which we examine cancer and its treatment. The fundamental idea is that we must be clear about the different levels of expertise needed in diagnosing cancer. General practitioners need to be absolutely certain how and where to refer patients. If patients are or might be suffering from rare cancers, it may not be appropriate to make a final diagnosis or offer treatment in district hospitals, so there need to be three levels of involvement: the GP, the district hospital and a cancer centre—at least one in each region but perhaps more than one in some—where the most difficult and rare cancers can be treated. There is no point in sending cancer patients to see consultants or doctors who seldom see rare cancers. The expert advisory group's report will ensure the proper referral of cancer patients

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and that the proper resources are invested to ensure that the appropriate specialty is available for every cancer patient.
Again, I congratulate the hon. Member for Leith on his eloquent speech on what I regard as the most serious problem that faces the health service.

Army Base Repair Organisation, Ashford
12.59 pm
Sir Keith Speed: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise an important subject which affects the future of more than 200 families in my constituency and an important workshop which has served the British Army well for a number of years. Last year, the director of the Army Base Repair Organisation referred to it as the "jewel in the crown". ABRO took over the workshops of various support units which serve the Army and its vehicles, renovating various vehicles coming from Europe or wherever.
The Ashford workshops, in common with many other ABRO workshops, have been examined as part of a Ministry of Defence and ABRO study of workshop overcapacity in Britain. Given the cuts in the Army, Navy and Air Force, we know that support services must also be cut back. Indeed, announcements were made today for cuts in some Navy store support services in the west country.
An additional complication has arisen in this case, as one of the main workshop sheds is directly in the line of the channel tunnel rail route announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport in April last year.
The study of overcapacity has been going on for a considerable time. Last October, when I was in Moscow on parliamentary business, my right hon. Friend the Minister took considerable steps to explain to me by telephone, that it was proposed, as part of the study on overcapacity, that the Ashford workshops should be closed. He agreed over the telephone that the rail link through the site was not a key factor in the decision to close the workshops. He further agreed to meet a delegation from the work force in my constituency.
Accordingly, on 12 December I met my right hon. Friend with such a delegation. My right hon. Friend was extremely courteous and heard what we had to say. One of our main complaints was the lack of market testing of the workshops in Ashford so that it was difficult to see precisely how good or bad they were, although I and the work force believe that they are very good and have served the Army well. A few days later, my right hon. Friend went to Ashford and saw the workshops for himself. As a result, he wrote me a letter just before Christmas saying that he had asked for a further investigation into the various proposals that had been made, not least the investment options. He said that there would be an extended period for consultation and that he would be in touch with me again in due course. So there was a short temporary reprieve.
At the end of December, however, both the work force and I were concerned and felt some consternation when Brigadier Drew, chief executive of ABRO, replied to a number of my constituents who had written to him. In a letter dated 20 December 1994 he said:
"The decision to recommend the closure of ABRO Ashford results from a number of factors. A rationalisation study commissioned by the organisation identified significant overcapacity within our workshops. For those workshops, such as Ashford, providing a service to Army units within their geographical area, the study team recommended that the overcapacity should be addressed via the market testing process (that is in the preparation of a bid in competition with industry to provide the service to the

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Army). The team was also asked to consider the impact of external factors on rationalisation and the intended use of the Ashford site for the high speed rail link was taken into account. In order for the closure of the Ashford workshop to be effected in time to meet Union Rail requirements, the existing workshop site must be excluded from the market testing options."
That letter went down like a lead balloon with all concerned, as it seemed totally to foreclose any conclusions that my right hon. Friend the Minister might make. It appeared to say that the considerations for Union Rail, which is currently responsible for the channel tunnel rail link, were more important than considerations for my constituents, ABRO or the British Army.
Consequently, I wrote to my right hon. Friend what I hope was a courteous though terse letter expressing my concern about those matters. That resulted in a meeting between us and others of the ABRO team at headquarters last week. Indeed, it has resulted in today's debate. So far, no final decision has been taken.
Over the past month or so, the workshop has provided headquarters with information, as a result of which it has been proposed that there should be either 70,000 man hours work district load, plus an additional 35,000 hours special project work from the workshop or, alternatively, just a 70,000 man hours district load, which would reduce by 2,000 or 3,000 hours with the closure of the Queen Elizabeth military hospital in Woolwich in a few months' time. Currently, the workshop does some 200,000 man hours and the work force believes that market testing would show that it could more than meet that job. For example, as the Minister and I have seen, the workshops do a good job on Land Rovers for the Army. I have been told privately that they are probably the best Land. Rover service and refurbishment centre in the world, not just the United Kingdom. Be that as it may, if the workshops were able to market-test against Rover, we could find out whether they were as good as they and I think they are. The 200,000 hours may not be pie in the sky.
Proper consultation has not been carried out between the management teams in Ashford and ABRO headquarters. If everyone's heart was in the right place, efficiencies could have been found just by sitting, round the table and discussing the matter. It is a pity that some of the information technology that Ashford requires to make itself more efficient has been withdrawn for other parts of the system in recent months.
If the national market tests are as important as the brigadier said, why was the decision taken even before the workshops were given a chance to market-test? Why was the investigation appraisal not carried out as part of the market study? That would have made a lot of sense. My constituents sent in information on how they could cope with the various loads and make further efficiencies.
ABRO considered that on some of those matters, such as staff costs, contracted-out services, costs of utilities, property management, equipment costs, vehicle maintenance and petrol-oil lubricants, my constituents had been over-optimistic. It therefore scaled them down in the investment appraisal to the tune of some £100,000 a year, which is significant in view of the possible savings that may be made. I do not know whether such scaling down is right, but it would have been helpful if the management team in Ashford could have discussed the matter with the management team at ABRO headquarters. We would then all have had a clearer idea of what was going on.
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There is no question that the existing "A" workshop will have to be demolished. That leads on to the question of replacement. My right hon. Friend has confirmed in writing and verbally—there is no dispute about it—that the cost of replacement of the workshops will be borne by Union Rail or the company who build the high-speed rail link in precisely the same way as they will provide compensation or cost of replacement to various other companies within my constituency that will be similarly affected.
As a result of investigations, two excellent possible replacement sites are available at Sevington. They have been produced by Eurotunnel developments and would offer brand new, energy and utility efficient sites, properly laid out with excellent access. They are being built at the moment and will be ready soon. The total cost, which will be borne, once again, by Union Rail and not by the Ministry of Defence, would be about £5 million.
Another alternative site, which is even nearer home—just across the road from the current workshops—is the former East Kent Bus depot. With a little refurbishment and modernisation, that would provide an energy efficient replacement workshop at a total cost of about £1.5 million.
Alternative sites for the workshops are therefore readily available at costs within the terms of the compensation that Union Rail would be prepared to pay. Those sites would be available for the market testing that my constituents are keen should be conducted. They would provide an excellent relocation site for the workshops if, as I hope, they are reprieved by my right hon. Friend.
The crunch behind the country-wide exercise is what money will be saved. There is no point in embarking upon such an exercise, the result of which may mean that many people will lose their jobs and commerce in the area will be badly affected, if the savings achieved are minimal or even non-existent.
Other workshops have been closed at Donnington and Old Dalby and the savings achieved, if not huge, have not been insignificant. In cash terms, the savings over the long-term costing period, which I understand is 10 years, range from £18 million to £35 million. In net present value terms over the LTC, long-term costing, the savings range from £14 million to £27 million. Those are considerable sums of money and were no doubt taken into account when considering the future of the organisations at Donnington and Old Dalby.
According to ABRO's own figures from headquarters, given to me by my right hon. Friend, the likely savings to be achieved at Ashford work out at a different level. If one takes the first option of the 70,000 man hour load plus the 35,000 hours special project work, one finds that the cash saving over the 10-year period is about £300,000 a year and the NPV, net present value, saving is about £250,000. Those sums are arrived at either by comparing the cost of transferring all the current work to a new-build workshop provided by Union Rail or by closing the ABRO workshop and transferring the work to other ABRO facilities, for example, to Aldershot and to contract repair.
If one takes the largest option, covering the 35,000 hour special project work and the 70,000 man hour load, one is talking about savings of between £200,000 and £300,000 whether that is worked out in cash or NPV terms. If one considers the 70,000 man hours option and none of the

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special work, the figure saved is even lower at about £210,000 in NPV or about £260,000 in cash a year over the 10-year period.
That is not the end of the story, because on top of that one must add the redundancy and replacement costs of all those affected—some 200 people gross or perhaps 150 net given the mobility of some of the work force and the redeployment of others. According to my sums we must be talking in terms of £3 million for the first cash redundancy payments alone. That is more or less equivalent to the projected entire savings over the 10-year period. That £3 million, however, is up front and is not spread over 10 years. I am aware that that cost does not fall upon the budget of the MOD, but I am a Member of Parliament and a taxpayer and my right hon. Friend is a member of the Government, so we must be interested in the taxpayer and public expenditure as a whole.
We must also accept that some people will not be able to rush out and get a similar job, so we must remember the on-going costs of unemployment, income support, the loss of income tax paid and national insurance and other contributions. We soon find that huge sums are run up. Are we really to deny the Army of a facility that has worked extremely well and efficiently—the nearest facility to continental Europe and to the channel tunnel—in exchange for an overburden on and increased cost to the taxpayer?
I speak as a former Defence Minister and, in terms of MOD figures, when we talk of savings of between £200,000 and £300,000, that is the equivalent to washers. Such sums are within the calculating errors that may occur. If my right hon. Friend wants to save that sort of money I can point him in various directions where I am sure he knows that more than that money could be saved.
The proposed closures are not worth the candle at the end of the day. Alternative premises could be made available at no cost to the MOD, which would be more efficient than the current premises. If that happened we would retain a workshop for the Army that does extremely well and which could then be market-tested against anyone else. My constituents are more than confident that they would emerge triumphant from that test. In any event, the financial argument in favour of closure does not stand up.
I know that my right hon. Friend goes carefully into such matters. I hope that, with all those facts in mind, he will be able to tell me and my constituents, if not necessarily today, certainly within a few days, that he has examined the figures and looked carefully again at the possible alternative sites that I have mentioned. I hope that he will say that it will be possible for the jewel in the crown to remain the jewel in the crown of ABRO.
1.16 pm
The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Mr. Roger Freeman): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Sir K. Speed) not only on his robust defence of his constituents, in the best interests of the town of Ashford, but on succeeding in raising the matter on the Floor of the House. A formal Adjournment debate can serve many purposes and at least one of them is to ensure that the facts are properly available to everyone.
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I shall certainly study the record of what has been said, although my hon. Friend will not expect me to answer all his questions today. I do not intend to take a decision today or next week, because the issue needs to be subject to proper analysis. The Ministry of Defence is considering several dozen proposals for rationalisation, all of which affect jobs. Approximately, in the decade 1985 to 1995 the defence budget has fallen by 25 per cent. in real terms, with a much sharper fall in recent years for the support services. We are wrestling with the need to reduce support costs by up to £750 million per annum by 1996–97, which presents difficult choices.
One thing is clear: every decision must be taken in a proper, rational fashion which in turn can be justified in a robust fashion to the House. We are certainly not in that position yet regarding Ashford. It might help if I sketch in some of the background and answer some of the points that have been raised.
We are talking about the district workshops and not the base repair workshops, such as those at Bovingdon, which were market-tested. The in-house team won that contract for the repair of tanks. On 31 January, I announced the decision to withdraw work, sadly, from Old Dalby and to concentrate it, for planning purposes, on Donnington. In due course that site will be subject to exposure to competing for quality, which may include market testing. I hope that the private sector and other parts of the MOD will take the opportunity to present proposals for tackling some of the work packages at Old Dalby rather than letting them go to Donnington. That must be a more efficient option than that work going to Donnington.
Dr. John Reid: On Old Dalby, is the Minister absolutely convinced that the figures on which he is working are accurate? According to the figures that I have seen—I accept that they have been produced by people who have a direct interest in and would suffer the consequences of any changes at Old Dalby—the rationalisation plans, far from achieving any significant savings, may result in insignificant savings, have a deleterious effect on Old Dalby and cost the MOD in the long run. Can the Minister say anything about those figures?
Mr. Freeman: I should be glad to go through the figures for Old Darlby, either in writing or in a briefing to the hon. Gentleman. I am sure that the margin of savings there, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford said, is of a different order of magnitude from the margin of savings for Ashford. I am cautious about Ashford at this stage for the reason that my hon. Friend outlined—the fact that some of the figures bear thorough analysis, and I do not think that we have reached that position. There was an extensive survey for Old Dalby. Even making assumptions—perhaps taking into account more pessimistic assumptions about transport costs of moving equipment—I am satisfied that the decision on Old Dalby was robust and sensible. However, if the hon. Member for Motherwell, North (Dr. Reid) wishes me to pursue that another time, I shall be glad to do so.
Why have we proceeded to consider Ashford prior to, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford describes it, a market test for the district workshops? We need to rationalise now before the market test for all the district workshops, which will be done nationally. We are market-testing the service of the district workshops—not

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the sites—and therefore we are testing the alternatives for providing immediate support to the Army in terms of repairing vehicles.
Why do we seek some rationalisation now? The Army needs some savings in its votes, and it is easier to market-test if one is able to offer the private sector a clear and sensible range of services and, indeed, current workshop sites. It is more difficult to market-test if there is any serious doubt about where the locations will or will not be.
We have overcapacity of about 40 per cent. in our district workshops. That is a function not only of the run-down in the size of the armed forces but of the fact that rationalisation has not occurred in the past. Prior closures have included York, Bridgend and Liverpool, all in 1993. Therefore I believe that it was sensible for ABRO to consider Ashford now, to discover whether there was a case for closure of that workshop.
Why select Ashford when there are other workshops? There are three reasons, all of which are sensible. First, Ashford is not a garrison town and, compared with Catterick, Colchester, Aldershot and Warminster—other district workshop locations—there are relatively few Army units in the area. The location of the channel tunnel is not so relevant as might at first have been thought, because heavy equipment will enter the military port of Marchwood and then be sent for onward transmission to the appropriate district or base workshop. The existence of the tunnel and the rail link, projected and present, is not so relevant to the issue as some people might initially have thought.
The second reason for selecting Ashford is that the site is obviously affected by the route of the channel tunnel rail link. Indeed, I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford for not drawing attention to the obvious fact, which I want to put on the record, that I was the Minister who announced the route through Ashford. However, I assure him that I now discharge a different function and approach my job on behalf of the Ministry of Defence. I am not trying to justify the implications of that original decision.
The routing of the channel rail link is not a compelling reason for closure in itself. It is relevant only for the reason cited in Brigadier Drew's letter, which my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford quoted: the existence of the site right in the middle of the proposed channel tunnel rail link means that one cannot market-test that specific workshop on that specific site. He did not mean to say—I am happy to correct the position—that that would preclude considering the reprovision of the workshop, either within the specific army property where it is located in Ashford, which contains several other units, or elsewhere in Ashford.
The third reason for selecting Ashford was the declining workload. It is an efficient operation and we pay tribute to the work force. However, efficient labour productivity should not be confused with an inefficient work site, which may be a function of the excessive size of the premises and the overheads that go with guarding, maintaining, heating and lighting a very large workshop. The men are obviously efficient; the site may not be, even without the impact of the rail link, and even without the impact of the need to rationalise the district workshops.
Those were the reasons for selecting Ashford. Incidentally, I should put on record that it is proposed to enter into a direct exchange scheme for Land Rover
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engines. That has not happened, but I am advised that that is proposed, and that it should provide greater efficiency. I say, "should"; it needs to be tested, and argued rationally in ABRO, before ABRO decides to proceed, but it intends to proceed with that scheme to improve the efficiency of engine repair.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ashford was right; consultation papers went out on 27 October 1994, a delegation visited me on December 12 and I visited the workshops on December 15. I then asked for a fresh appraisal to be done because it had not been assumed that the workshops—indeed, smaller workshops—would be reprovided by Union Railways, either in the premises owned by the Army or elsewhere in Ashford, and I am happy to confirm that the new investment appraisal assumes that. There is, at worst, a nil effect on the appraisal because of the assumed reprovision. As we have assumed reprovision at someone else's expense, the running costs of the new workshop will fall. It will be smaller and will be more efficiently heated and lit. I understand that it will be cheaper to run by about £6 million, expressed in net present value terms, over 10 years. That saving is not taken into account in the investment appraisal.
No decision has been taken, but I will repeat the facts for the record. The appraisal assumes 70,000 man hours per annum of what is called district load—regular repair work to vehicles, and so on. In addition, it assumes 35,000 hours of special project work. That is work which can be directed by the ABRO organisation from anywhere in the United Kingdom specifically to Ashford—for example, the demountable rack offloading and pickup system vehicles used in Bosnia to move ammunition and other supplies.
The net present value cost, a standard way of conducting an appraisal, discounts the stream of cash costs of running the operation into present-day pounds. If one stays in Ashford, in a new building, the net present value cost to us will be £13.9 million. If one closes Ashford and moves 50 per cent. of the work to Aldershot—at marginal cost, simply because Aldershot has the capacity to do the extra work—and 50 per cent. of the 70,000 man hours of district load are contracted out into the local community, to local engineering and shops and garages, at local rates, the net present value cost will be £11.4 million. That is a saving of £2.5 million in net present value terms.
However, there are redundancy payments. My hon. Friend the Member for Ashford was right to mention those. We have assumed that 192 staff would be affected. Twenty-one mobile grades would be redeployed, leaving 171 staff who might be eligible for redundancy payments.
Some redundancy will happen anyway as, irrespective of whether one moves work from Ashford, one needs to slim down the activity. I have assumed that that would cost about £500,000. If one moves the special project work elsewhere, the total redundancy bill could be about £1 million in any case; that would affect about 60 jobs. If one closes the whole of Ashford, the full bill would be about £2.7 million for those 171 people. That is a very

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significant sum, and it is up front, as my hon. Friend fairly said. So the saving of £2.5 million that I referred to earlier—
Dr. Reid rose—
Mr. Freeman: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I must finish and I have only two minutes. The saving of £2.5 million in net present value terms is substantially reduced, perhaps by as much as £1.7 million, which is the additional incremental redundancy payments that would be involved in closure in addition to that which might happen anyway. One is left with a margin of perhaps £750,000, as the net present value—that is a lump sum, not expressed on an annual basis—of the closure. Obviously, it is finely balanced, which is why no decision has been reached at present.
I conclude by putting on the record two factors that would support closure. I would welcome further comments, not only from my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford, but from representatives of the work force at Ashford. If we look over 20 years, for example, the savings will grow even larger because of running cost savings, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out. Even if we discount that stream of saving, the total value of savings will grow over 20 or 30 years.
Some local employment will be created by withdrawing from Ashford, although is difficult to estimate how much. However, I estimate that 35,000 man hours of work will be created through contracting out, as well as a couple of dozen jobs which either will not be lost or will be created in the engineering works in Ashford.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford not only for his courtesy but for his thoroughness in raising the issue. I assure him that the Minister of Defence will reflect on what has been said today and it will continue its appraisal of the proposal to close Ashford and concentrate work within the district workshops in order to reach a sensible conclusion.

Religious Education
1.30 pm
Mr. Michael Alison: In 1988, Parliament strengthened the law on a daily act of worship in maintained schools by an overwhelming majority of 264 on a free vote. It followed widespread concern that worship was becoming a secular ceremony in too many schools. Broadly Christian worship was made the norm in the Education Reform Act 1988, but non-Christian faith communities were given extensive rights to worship according to their own faith. In the other place, the reforms were welcomed by the then Chief Rabbi Lord Jacobovits. At the time of the debates, the present Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, said that
"if Christianity suffers, so, in a curious way, does every other faith as well … Might not teaching children their own traditions"—
that is, Christianity—
"do more for tolerance, and for faith than teaching them everyone else's?"—[Official Report, House of Lords, 3 May 1988; Vol. 496, c. 420.]
Why is education in worship so important? The reason is that education is not really complete without consideration of the spiritual and moral dimension. That dimension is now statutorily enshrined as an essential feature of school life.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has given his strong support to the present law. He put the case very well in his letter to me of 13 December last in response to an approach from a Selby constituent. He said:
"Schools are required by law to provide a daily act of collective worship for all pupils. This should provide the opportunity for them to worship God and explore their own beliefs. It will also contribute to the development of community spirit, promote a common ethos and shared values, and reinforce positive attitudes. Collective worship in non-denominational schools is required to be wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian nature … Schools should make every effort to secure the support of parents and the wider community for the values which they espouse."
A circular from the Department for Education matches the Prime Minister's admirable reflections and it rightly emphasises that Jesus Christ is to be given a special status in Christian worship.
We should remember that experience of worship can provide a life-long spiritual resource. My friend Baroness Cox recently said, rather pertinently:
"Anyone who has contact with the people who are in extremis, as I have as a nurse, knows how often they find comfort in the scriptures and in the prayers and hymns learnt in childhood. To deny our young people this experience and this knowledge is an ultimate betrayal."
Christianity, like leaven in the lump in Christ's famous parable, has worked its way deeply into the British character and attitude to life. The publication British Social Attitudes—probably one of the most academically respected surveys of public opinion—found in its 1994–95 report that 87.6 per cent. of our population claim to have been brought up in the Christian faith, with more than 57 per cent. still seeing themselves as belonging to a specific Christian denomination. Just under 20 per cent. of the population say that they go to church at least once a month, but 27 per cent. of the population say that they pray every week. Only 3.7 per cent. claim to have been brought up in a non-Christian faith.

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That last statistic should help us to keep a sense of proportion about schools. It is commonly accepted that fewer than 300 schools, out of a total of 25,000, have significant numbers of pupils from a non-Christian background of faith.
British Social Attitudes found that the overwhelming majority of the population—some 70 per cent.—want schools to offer a daily act of collective worship, with fewer than 10 per cent. strongly opposed. Against that background, it is certain that neither Parliament nor the nation's parents are seeking to abandon daily Christian worship in schools. However, the same cannot be said of some union leaders and teacher trainers.
The secular eduction system in France and the United States has recently been praised by a number of union leaders, including Nigel de Gruchy of the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers. He has called for the scrapping of the present legislative arrangements. The leadership of the National Association of Head Teachers has also made clear its opposition to the 1988 reforms.
Last May, that union carried out a survey of all of its members. On 28 May, The Times reported that the survey showed that 87 per cent. of secondary and 65 per cent. of primary heads believed that they could not meet the law's requirements. I am convinced that that was a bogus survey and it is worth putting some facts about it on the record.
Of the 32,412 survey forms sent out by the NAHT, only 1,747 were returned from members in county schools—that represented fewer than 6 per cent. of all United Kingdom schools. That is a tiny, wholly unrepresentative sample. In its desire to yield a favourable outcome to the secularist cause, the NAHT appears to have sent questionnaires as far afield as Gibraltar, Hong Kong and Cyprus. Head teachers in those far-flung parts of the globe and in Scotland and Northern Ireland were asked their views about legislation that affects only England and Wales.
There are factual errors throughout the survey. For example, one question attempts to gauge whether the Education Act 1993 has had an impact on the number of teachers who are unwilling to lead worship, but that Act made no changes to the law on school worship. Professor Kevin Glazebrook of Newcastle university has said that
"it is not possible to draw any conclusions"
from the NAHT survey. I note that the Christian Institute, which has helped me in the preparation of my speech, will soon publish a shocking report citing serious arithmetical and other errors in the NAHT survey.
Far from 65 per cent. of all primary schools breaking the law on worship, as the NAHT would have us believe, the chief inspector of schools commented in his latest report to Parliament that "virtually all" the nation's 20,000 primary schools comply with the law. In a whole year of inspections, Ofsted could not find a single English primary school which broke the law.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Alison: I am afraid that I have very little speaking time left so I must ask my hon. Friend to forgive me. I will give way to her later if there is any time left.
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The situation with the 5,000 schools in the secondary sector is very different. Ofsted has reported that there is basic compliance with the law in 60 per cent. of secondary schools but that even those schools are not perfect.
On that point, I wish to raise one particular issue with my hon. Friend the Minister. Inspection reports tend bluntly to state whether a school complies with the law. That information is far too limited. Some schools may be almost complying, others might be nowhere near it. One school might be holding assembly on four days a week, another on only one day.
Some schools are being criticised by inspectors for holding Christian assemblies. One school was told that its assemblies should be more multicultural. In another large urban secondary school, staff are determined to meet the law's requirements. Assemblies are held in the assembly hall for three days a week and in form classes for two days a week, yet the school was told that it had failed to comply with the law on a technicality. That inner-city school should be commended rather slated on a minor technicality.
Let us be clear about the issue. Do we want a secular education system? We should take careful note of what happened in the United States. The Supreme Court banned school prayers and religious teaching in 1963. Since then, teachers have been dismissed for allowing prayer in school and parents have had to resort to legal action so that bible clubs or Christian Union groups can meet on school premises.
There have been 25 bleak years of secular dominance, but in the past few years things have been changing. One recent Gallup poll found that the Supreme Court ruling banning prayer is being flagrantly broken in 75 per cent. of high school graduation ceremonies. Three states have passed laws guaranteeing the right to have religious teaching and worship in schools. In the recent congressional elections, the Republicans stood firmly on the school prayer ticket and everybody knows with what results. Even President Clinton has now declared his support.
The Christian Action Research and Education organisation, representing 100,000 church members, recently concluded that in the matter of school worship:
"We judge that the alternative to the present position, with all its imperfections and ambiguities, would lead inevitably to a thoroughly secularised system.".
If we should ignore the secular voices, we should also ignore those teacher trainers who call for cultural anarchy. In his recent lecture at the Royal Society of Arts on 12 December 1994, Professor John Hull of Birmingham university called for the complete repeal of section 7 of the Education Reform Act and for the term "collective worship" to be abolished in favour of "collective spirituality". That new term is reminiscent of 1960s new-age hippy culture and has distinctly left-wing overtones. The suggestion that all religions are to be harmonised into "collective spirituality" is nothing less than a call for the restoration of the full-blown, multi-faith mish-mash that was so vigorously criticised when the 1988 Act was put on the statute book.
I know that my hon. Friend the Minister will resist the call for collectivisation, as he so ably resists all other calls of such character. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for making it clear that the Government stand firmly behind the present arrangements for school worship.

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I am also grateful to the Archbishop of Canterbury for his public comments in support of daily Christian worship and to my distinguished constituent the Archbishop of York for the admirable letter to The Times on 9 January outlining some clear, realistic and perfectly attainable aims for school worship in non-church schools. Other bishops and officials in the Church of England should take heart from the lead given by the two archbishops and march confidently behind them.
In respect of teaching or leadership resources, my friend, Mr. Clive Calver, general secretary of the Evangelical Alliance, in a letter published in The Times on the same day as Archbishop John Hapgood's, referred to the resources lying potentially available from 5,000 evangelical churches and 700 member societies that are affiliated to the Evangelical Alliance.
Secondary schools need to be encouraged to establish closer links with local churches. In far too many cases, schools are refusing offers of help from the community.
Secondary schools would do well to learn from our primary schools, which have a superb track record in keeping the law on school worship and in securing the support of the local community. Undoubtedly, there should be more research on the issue. How is it that some secondary schools keep the law while others do not? It cannot be just a matter of accommodation, as some allege.
Dr. Carey recently said:
"There is a danger in giving the impression that secularism is all dominant in our society. Most people still have some links to the Church, however tenuous those may be."
The Archbishop pointed out that one quarter of the population went to church last Christmas. He went on to say that the
"establishment does not equate with privilege but with responsibility."
Churches need to be mobilised to offer support to schools. A major effort is needed here, particularly by the Church of England. Strenuous efforts should be made to make the law work in secondary schools as it already does in primary schools. Let us see the Church once again, in the words of the Anglican prayer book, as the Church militant rather than the Church hesitant. I have 30 seconds to give way to my hon. Friend.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: I wish simply to confirm that the standard of religious education in my local primary schools is excellent. It is also very good in my local secondary schools. Not long ago, I visited a school in my constituency where the headmistress gave the best exposition of the trinity I have ever heard from anyone, even from a church minister. Fortunately, we are not lacking in either of those sectors.
Mr. Alison: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reinforcing the evident scope and capacity for building on what is already good and solid ground.
1.46 pm
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr. Eric Forth): I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Alison) on obtaining this Adjournment debate and very much welcome his choice of subject. It is a matter in which the House knows he has sustained a great interest over a long period. We know
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that he plays a very distinguished part in Church matters and the important relationship between the Church and the House.
I immediately welcome my right hon. Friend's support for collective worship in schools. As he reminded the House, the Education Reform Act 1988 requires the curriculum to address the
"spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development"
of pupils and, as such, in the Government's view collective worship has a vital role to play.
Her Majesty's chief inspector's report for 1993–94 confirms that collective worship and religious education make a powerful contribution to a pupil's spiritual development and the sharing of moral values. Surely all that must be central to a school's efforts to establish its own distinctive ethos that will underpin all its activities and, most important, will be seen in the relationships and expectations within the school community.
The wording of the 1988 Act and the words of HMCI reflect closely the basis and thrust of my right hon. Friend's argument in this short debate. I should also confirm that the Government have no plans to change the legal requirements for collective worship, which give schools considerable flexibility in their arrangements for worship, not least because I agree with my right hon. Friend in his estimation of parental expectations in that regard. It would be a foolish person indeed who, given the strength of evidence that my right hon. Friend has brought before the House today, would seek to make some case for a radical change in the legal requirements and arrangements that are in place. In my view, we can continue to build on them.
As my right hon. Friend pointed out, the legislation rightly has Christianity at its heart, but it recognises that worship in schools will necessarily be different from worship in a community with beliefs in common. It does that by referring to collective rather than corporate worship.
The overall aim of the legislation is to offer pupils from a variety of backgrounds the opportunity to worship together wherever possible. It then gives flexibility—rightly, in my view—in the organisation of worship. Acts of worship need not be first thing in the morning but can be organised at any time during the day. Nor is there a requirement that the school should worship as a single group. It is open to a school to provide worship in separate age or class groups. The content of the worship in county schools and the equivalent grant-maintained schools can reflect faiths other than Christianity as long as the majority of the acts of worship over a term are wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character. That gives the right balance and sufficient flexibility to those in different communities.
My right hon. Friend mentioned 300 schools of an overwhelmingly non-Christian nature. I will not argue with that figure, but flexibility in the arrangements is necessary to give cognisance of such schools and allow them to arrange their collective worship in the most appropriate way, bearing in mind the fundamental requirements of the legislation.
The detailed requirements for collective worship are spelt out in the Department's circular 1/94, which was—logically—published in January 1994. It does not contain proposals for change, as some have suggested, but offers guidance on the existing requirements of the Education

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Reform Act and the Education Act 1993 for religious education and collective worship. It contains no new requirements beyond those of the Acts. The basic requirement for daily collective worship flows from the Education Act 1944, as does so much of our education system.
I am gratified that my right hon. Friend chose to quote from the evidence in Her Majesty's chief inspector's report. That showed that the picture on compliance with legal requirements is not as bleak as is sometimes suggested. The evidence is worth repeating. As my right hon. Friend said, nearly all primary schools were found to provide a daily assembly and about 80 per cent. were judged to be complying with the detail of the law.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) confirmed that in her constituency—to no one's surprise—her excellent schools are doing even better. Her view is that her primary schools and secondary schools are complying with the requirements. Regrettably, that is not necessarily so everywhere, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Selby said. The chief inspector's report stated that the majority of secondary schools did not provide daily collective worship for all pupils, but it said that worship, where it took place, was frequently of good quality and made a good contribution to pupils' spiritual and moral development.
It is right that Ofsted should monitor the provision of collective worship at school level. The new inspection regime ensures that arrangements in every school are inspected. Ofsted then comments on whether the statutory requirements are being met. That information is made available to parents and the public, as is the action plan, which schools are required to publish, showing how they intend to remedy any shortcomings. The schools are primarily answerable to parents on that matter and many parents, rightly and understandably, attach considerable importance to that sphere of school life.
My right hon. Friend has quoted some highly relevant statistics from the British social attitude survey to bear that out. A poll conducted by The Independent in 1993 found that about 70 per cent. of parents wanted their children to say prayers at school. As in so many other sectors of education today, if parents are not satisfied with the arrangements made by the school their children attend, they have access to the local curriculum complaints machinery established by the 1988 Act or they can take up the matter through the school governors. Parents with pupils at county schools can take up the issue with county councillors. If parents cannot satisfy themselves in those ways, the matter can ultimately be referred to the Secretary of State. However, it should be possible to resolve problems well before that. I urge all parents who are not satisfied with that important part of the provision in their child's school to take up the matter vigorously with the head teacher, parent-governors or other governors to ensure that the opinions quoted by my right hon. Friend and borne out by The Independent survey are properly reflected in the arrangements made by primary and secondary schools.
I note my right hon. Friend's remarks about the need for Ofsted reports to go beyond a simple statement of whether a school is complying with the law. Ofsted is aware of the importance of commenting, too, on the positive contribution that a school's collective worship provision makes to pupils' spiritual and moral
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development, even if it is not meeting the letter of the law. Her Majesty's chief inspector's latest annual report does just that.
Many schools are doing valuable work in that sector and we should recognise and acknowledge their achievements. Ofsted's draft revised framework for inspection, published yesterday for consultation, proposes that, where inspectors find that a school is not meeting the law on collective worship, the report should give the head teacher's stated reasons for failing to do so.
I support what my right hon. Friend said about the importance of establishing links with churches and other places of worship in the local community—an important element of the argument. Although teachers, including head teachers, have the right to elect not to participate in collective worship for reasons of conscience, it remains the responsibility of the head to ensure that the statutory requirements are met. It is open to head teachers to invite members of the community, including religious leaders, to help to conduct collective worship, if they are able and willing to do so. Many schools have built up worthwhile relationships of that sort—with local clergy regularly making stimulating contributions to the schools' programme of collective worship.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster said that that was the case in her constituency. If it can be demonstrated that it is possible in Lancaster, one is forced to ask why it cannot be done more readily and systematically in other parts of the country. We must urge not only the schools but local churches to see what can be done—in co-operation with each other—to try to ensure that, where heads and teachers have a genuine difficulty in meeting the requirements of the law, they can call on the support of local religious communities and leaders to help schools to comply with the law.
Mr. Peter Bottomley: My hon. Friend the Minister has made a point that is worth emphasising. It should not be just up to the school and those responsible for religious education and worship to take the initiative and contact churches. Churches must take the initiative and contact schools to offer them help and show interest in what they are doing. Does my hon. Friend agree that, as we have just passed education Sunday, February might be a good time for each church and parish to contact all their schools—secular as well as denominational—to ask what more they can do to help them in their important work?
Mr. Forth: That was a typically positive and helpful suggestion from my hon. Friend. There must be more scope in local communities for that sort of co-operation between schools and local churches. I hope that we shall see much more of that so that assistance can be given to those heads and teachers who, for a variety of reasons, have difficulty in meeting the requirements of the law. I am sure that that would be widely welcomed. Schools that experience difficulty in meeting the legal requirements can turn to their local standing advisory council on religious education for advice. That is a local permanent body with responsibility for supporting the provision of both religious education and collective worship in the area.
There is no doubt that the subject is of the greatest importance. My right hon. Friend has expressed consistent views in the House over many years and has highlighted the importance of the subject. He has allowed us briefly

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today to demonstrate not only the importance of the subject but the ways in which schools can be helped to comply with the law, which is not going to be changed. We want greater compliance—happier compliance—with the law so that we can ensure that the great religious tradition of this country can benefit pupils up and down the land, regardless of their personal, parental or family religion. Pupils must benefit from the core beliefs of the Christian religion, which is, and continues to be, so important to our society and our education system. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and hope that the few words that I have been able to say today have given him the reassurance that he sought in bringing the subject before the House.

Prescribed Disease D4 Claimants
1.58 pm
Mr. Bill Etherington: Like many other Opposition Members, before the Christmas recess I voted against what were loosely called the Jopling proposals for the so-called modernisation of Parliament. However, I am pleased to take part in today's debate, because I regard these debates as perhaps the only positive thing that came out of the decision taken before Christmas.
I notice that my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon) is present. I am pleased about that, because the subject about which I intend to speak affects many of his constituents as well as constituents in the whole of the former Tyne and Wear metropolitan authority area.
It does not give me any joy to have to raise this subject today. There are many disturbing aspects on which I hope the Minister can reassure me. Although the prescribed industrial disease, mucous membrane disease, has been with us for a long time, only in relatively recent years—from about 1990—has it become better known, as medical knowledge of it has improved.
There are various welfare rights agencies throughout Britain. I am sure that they do a good job in advising people on how to claim benefits and find their way through the maze of legislation. I imagine that there is none better than Sunderland centre for the unemployed, run by Dave Towler. I have the utmost admiration for him. He has done a tremendous job for the people whom he represents. He will always have my support whenever he requires it, because I am aware of the quality of his work.
There is a close relationship between the Liverpool centre for the unemployed and the one in Sunderland. In many ways, there is an interrelationship between the industrial backgrounds and heritages of Merseyside and Wearside and Tyneside. In April 1992, it was agreed that there would be a mass campaign to make claims in respect of prescribed disease D4, or mucous membrane disease.
After a few months, a total of 18,000 claims had been made, of which 5,000 were from Merseyside and 13,000 from the Tyne and Wear area. Early in the campaign, it became obvious that there was a tremendous disparity between the decisions made in Liverpool and those made in Sunderland. For example, we found that at the level of the adjudicating medical authority—which sounded much better when we called it a medical board—85 per cent. of those who claimed in Liverpool received satisfaction while in Tyne and Wear fewer than 1 per cent. did so. We are not talking about some inconsequential difference. There is a tremendous disparity. It begs a question that until now certainly has not been answered.
Many of those who underwent medicals for the adjudicating medical authority had received reports from ear, nose and throat consultants that they were suffering from the disease; yet the general practitioners employed by the DSS largely disregarded those reports. We found that somewhat unusual. I have always understood that a consultant's report should take precedence over what a GP might think on a subject of which he probably does not have so much knowledge.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) and I wrote joint letters to Mr. Tinnion, regional chairman of the independent tribunal service, Judge

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Thorpe, who was in charge of the national tribunal system, the Secretary of State for Social Security and the Lord Chancellor. We drew attention to the disparity. The replies that we received suggested that there was nothing to worry about; indeed, they appeared to deplore any parliamentary interference in their jealously guarded system of justice.
Following that response, Sunderland centre for the unemployed commissioned a statistical survey by Dr. Peter Kelly who lectures in statistics at Newcastle university medical school. The aim was to find some pattern between what happened in Liverpool and in Tyne and Wear. We have all the information, which I shall be only too pleased to make available to the Minister should he require it in order to take some action.
The survey highlighted the fact that, following the refusal of either the industrial tribunal service or the Department of Social Security to take action on the matter, some of the medical appeal tribunal consultants in the Tyne and Wear area began to be more favourable to appellants, even though we were told that there was nothing wrong and nothing needed to be changed.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South and I wrote again to the various authorities that I mentioned. We received much the same sort of response. The fact that things seemed to have improved was ignored. Eventually, the various advice centres and Sunderland centre for the unemployed decided that the only way ahead, in view of the response that we had had—to say that it was tardy would be to suggest that it was rather better than it was—was to make use of the proper procedures of the full majesty of the law.
Between 150 and 180 appeals made from various offices were sent to the social security commissioner. The commissioner considered two cases. They are known as the Greer decision and the Blackwell decision. The decision was almost unprecedented for the commission. I shall read it out in full. It said:
"The medical appeal tribunals who re-hear the cases should be composed of a different Chairman and different members all of whom have never sat on a medical appeal tribunal in Tyne and Wear in relation to the prescribed disease D4."
It is fair to say that, despite all the reassurances that my hon. Friend and I received from the various bodies, the commissioner most certainly thought that there was something wrong which needed to be put right.
Mr. Chris Mullin: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the odd things about the case is the way in which the decisions made by medical people, who are presumably there as scientists rather than politicians, appear to reflect the political needs of the hour rather than the actual condition of the people whom they are supposed to examine?
Mr. Etherington: My hon. Friend makes a fair point. I am afraid that I am too cynical an individual to give him the answer that he requires. It should be surprising. Unfortunately, I do not find it surprising. The point that he makes is one of which the Minister should certainly take note.
The commissioner was saying that there was something sadly wrong with the system in the north-east. The decision dealt with both adjudicating medical authorities and the medical appeal tribunals—two bodies which are
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supposed to be completely independent in every way—yet it would appear that the commissioner was not prepared to accept that they were independent.
I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I must use so many terms in the debate. It must be perplexing for people who are trying to follow the debate. It is easy enough for the likes of me, the Minister or other hon. Members who know the system well. There are so many sets of initials. It is sometimes difficult to keep up. It had been stated consistently in writing by the Benefits Agency medical service that no research had been done into mucous membrane disease, except the research that involved chromate-related damage to the mucous membrane. That is not true. A great deal seems to have been overlooked by the Benefits Agency medical service, certainly in the north-east of England.
Consultants acting on behalf of appellants throughout the sorry saga were so worried about the matter that a symposium was held on 20 June 1994 in York. It was attended by many ear, nose and throat consultants from Britain. They were addressed by eminent colleagues from Scandinavia and the United States who had carried out in-depth research into mucous membrane disease.
The symposium concluded that there was a condition called industrial rhinitis. I was pleased to have the privilege of attending that symposium. I do not pretend that it is a subject about which I know very much. I found the symposium enlightening but disturbing in some ways in view of what had happened before it took place. In attendance at the symposium was a representative from the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council who later advised the Secretary of State on the list of prescribed diseases. Following the symposium and as a result of information that had been sent to the council by consultants, trade unions, and so on, in September 1994 the IIAC recommended to the Secretary of State that mucous membrane disease, prescribed disease D4, should be broadened to include industrial rhinitis. Out of this whole sorry saga, that is the one consolation.
I should be pleased to give the Minister all the information that I have in my possession—much of which came from his Department. A number of questions need to be answered. Those with the disease in the north-east have suffered an injustice and we want that to be put right along the lines set out by the commissioner. That has not yet happened and it shows no sign of happening.
My first point is how do the Government explain the difference between Liverpool and Tyne and Wear when the industrial backgrounds are the same? Secondly, we have proof that the full-time medical adviser gave misleading information to the Wearside adjudicating officer's department. I am pleased that one of my constituents, Brenda Jackson, has given me permission to use her name. Obviously, I will not name the doctor concerned. That is not for me to do; it is for the Department to find out and do something about him. I would never say anything in this place that I was not prepared to say outside it. However, the information is available if the Minister wants it. There has been a similar occurrence with a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Washington (Mr. Boyes), with which I have no doubt he will deal in due course. I have appraised him of the situation. It is believed that my hon. Friend's constituent lost his case because of misleading information.

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Thirdly, the adjudicating medical authority is still not complying with the commission's written directions. When can we expect some progress on that? Fourthly, how can an organisation such as the DSS, with all its resources, not fund research, yet advice centres and independent consultants—sometimes even charitable bodies—seem able to do some research and produce tangible, worldwide evidence on the disease?
Fifthly, in some agreed minutes between the DSS and the advice centre in Sunderland about a meeting held on 3 August 1994, it was recognised that there was a need for uniformity in decision making. It was said that training was required, through the Benefits Agency, of the Department's general practitioners—the majority of whom are either part time or retired. Why has that not been done?
Sixthly, why are consultants' reports treated with such disregard—I might almost call it disdain—by those general practitioners? If they were in the mainstream of medicine and referring their patients to consultants, they would abide by the consultants' opinions. Why are there different standards?
Seventhly, because of fresh evidence supplied to the DSS and because of the threat of advice centres pursuing the matter to judicial review, has the DSS now agreed to review all prescribed disease D4 cases?
Eighthly, after the re-boarding of medicals there is documented evidence that appellants were deemed by the adjudicating medical authority to be suffering from various forms of rhinitis at their original medicals two years ago. As those decisions would now be brought within the commissioner's interpretation of prescribed disease D4, the review medicals by the same general practitioners show that those people are suddenly not suffering from any form of rhinitis.
Ninthly, boarding doctors are refusing to abide by even DSS policy division directives on how they are to proceed at review medicals. Doctors are refusing to examine appellants on review.
The impression that I get—I say this with some sadness—is that there is a force of opinion within the medical section of the Benefits Agency medical service in Tyne and Wear that has taken it upon itself to ensure that, come what may, appellants suffering from distressing conditions do not get their rightful entitlement. We can reach no other conclusion.
Mr. Ronnie Campbell: Is there a case for sending the evidence to the ombudsman? It appears that there is some malpractice which should be investigated.
Mr. Etherington: I have to give my hon. Friend a somewhat cautious reply. So many things are wrong that I can honestly say that I do not know what is the best way forward. I hope that today's debate is the best way. I am just sorry that it has had to come to this.
I want to refer to the proceedings of a social security appeal tribunal held on 31 January, which involved my constituent to whom I referred earlier. I shall read out the relevant passage about misinformation from a doctor employed by the Benefits Agency. It states:
"Mr. Towler invited clarification about document 28"—
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which is the misleading document. It continues:
"He submits that Mrs. Jackson has clearly not been examined by Department of Social Security consultants, only doctors of GP status. To this extent the document carries a wholly false (not just misleading) impression."
Miss Guthrie, the adjudication officer, conceded that point. It is a sorry state of affairs when I have to come to the House and report something that is basically the equivalent of perjury.
I know that the Minister is a sympathetic person, because of his involvement with bronchitis and emphysema. I hope that he will ensure that my constituent and the other 13,000 people in the north-east who are claiming in respect of the disease will have their claims reheard and that they will receive the same sort of justice as that received by the people on Merseyside.
2.16 pm
The Minister for Social Security and Disabled People (Mr. William Hague): I congratulate the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Etherington) on securing the Adjournment debate. From the presence of several of his hon. Friends, I recognise that there is widespread concern that goes beyond his constituency alone. I appreciate his concerns and I am aware of his active interest in this matter over a considerable time.
The prescribed disease in question, known as prescribed disease D4, has a long history and raises some difficult issues. I should like briefly to explain the background. The origins of the present prescription are to be found in the Workmen's Compensation Act 1906. It provided, from 1907 onwards, for compensation for ulceration of the mucous membranes of the nose and mouth. The original occurrence which led to the condition being added to the list of diseases at that time was the adverse effect—bleeding from the gums—found to be experienced by men unloading a certain type of iron ore.
It was recognised even then that because the condition prescribed was common among the general population, a clear link with a particular job could not be assumed in the individual case. The burden of proof that the disease arose as a result of work was, therefore, always left with the worker.
When the industrial injuries scheme was introduced in 1948, the present PD D4 was included as part of the adoption of the prescribed list of occupational diseases used by the Workmen's Compensation Acts, which the new scheme replaced. The disease is presently defined as:
"inflammation or ulceration of the mucous membrane of the upper respiratory passages or mouth produced by dust, liquid or vapour".
The occupational requirements are:
"any occupation involving exposure to dust, liquid or vapour".
It can be readily appreciated from what I have just said that both the disease and the occupational cover are in very general and wide terms.
One of the major problems with the present prescription of PD D4 is that the signs of the disease, such as running nose, feeling of nasal obstruction, occasional bleeding and loss of smell, are extremely common among the general population and have a multitude of possible causes. The disease is usually short-lived and generally causes very little disability of any serious or lasting nature. Furthermore, it can be extremely difficult to identify the specific cause of the condition. There are many different causes and other general factors, such as smoking or the

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drying effects of central heating, which can worsen it. It is not surprising, therefore, that consistent diagnosis of the condition is very difficult; making a clear link with an occupational cause is even more difficult.
Until fairly recently, as the hon. Gentleman said, there were in fact very few claims made each year for PD D4. Then, in the spring of 1992, local trade unions and unemployment centres in the north-east of England mounted a campaign to encourage people to claim for the prescribed disease. The campaign subsequently spread to the north-west.
It was the increased number of claims received as a result of the campaign which highlighted the very general nature of the prescription and the difficulty that it presents in deciding claims. This, in turn, raised questions about the precise nature, causes and effects of the disease, since, if they could be laid down more precisely, much of the confusion to which the hon. Gentleman referred could perhaps be avoided.
My predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Sir N. Scott), looked into the problem in 1993 and rightly decided in September 1993 to ask the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council to consider and advise on the question of whether the present prescription of PD D4 should be changed and, if the council concluded that it should, to ask it for recommendations on revised terms of prescription. The council is the independent, expert body which has the statutory role to provide such advice; Ministers rely on it for advice. It has examined all the relevant scientific evidence that was available—the hon. Gentleman referred to members of the council taking an interest in these matters. The council completed its report towards the end of last year.
My officials are considering the implications of the council's findings. I expect to receive the report shortly and will respond in due course. However, any changes proposed by the council will not have retrospective effect and current claims must be decided on the basis of current legislation.
I should like at this point to explain the decision-making process for industrial injuries claims, because the hon. Gentleman asked several questions about that matter. The first question, which is decided by an independent lay adjudication officer, is whether the claimant satisfies the prescribed occupational requirements. Because the present prescription covers any occupation involving exposure to dust, liquid or vapour, few claims for PD D4 fail at this stage. Claims which satisfy the occupational requirements are then referred for medical examination. In the north-east, these examinations have been carried out by medical practitioners with higher qualifications in the specialty of ear, nose and throat surgery.
If the examining medical practitioner considers that the claimant is suffering from PD D4, he then acts as an independent adjudicating medical authority and assesses the degree and likely duration of any resulting disability. Where a prescribed disease has been diagnosed, adjudicating medical authorities also give advice to the lay adjudication officer on whether they consider the prescribed disease is due to the nature of the claimant's occupation. For most prescribed diseases, if the claimant satisfies the occupational test and is diagnosed as suffering from the disease, it is presumed that the disease was caused by the relevant occupation, if the claimant worked in it shortly before developing the disease. But as
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I explained earlier, there is no such presumption for PD D4, because of its very common nature, and the link between the occupation and disease needs to be proved on the balance of probability in each case.
The claimant has a right of appeal to a medical appeal tribunal against the decision of an adjudicating medical authority, and to the social security commissioner—but only on a point of law. The adjudicating medical authority may review the decision if it is satisfied by fresh evidence that the original decision was given in ignorance of a material fact or was based on a mistake as to a material fact. I shall say a little more about that later.
I should make it absolutely clear to the House, especially in view of the intervention by the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin), that the adjudicating authorities, both lay and medical, are entirely independent. Neither Ministers nor officials can intervene in their decisions.
As I have already said, the characteristic features of PD D4 are very common indeed among the general population. Sometimes, it is not an easy task to determine whether these symptoms are due to a specific agent when they occur so commonly and widely. In these circumstances, diagnosis and clinical assessment are not an exact science; it is a matter of clinical judgment by the experienced independent doctors dealing with the cases who take account of the facts in each individual case.
Comprehensive training and continuing medical education programmes are pursued by Benefits Agency medical services to ensure that their doctors are expert both in the legal aspects and in the disablement assessment issues of all prescribed diseases. The training received for assessing PD D4 is part of that.
Doctors who serve as members of the adjudicating medical authorities are also trained by senior Benefits Agency doctors according to a well-established programme. Senior managers in Benefits Agency medical services regularly undertake quality assurance of the work of adjudicating medical authorities and set standards of performance.
Since 1992, as far as I know, there have been more than 8,000 claims for PD D4 in the north-east. In the vast majority of cases, the adjudicating medical authority has not found the claimant to be suffering from PD D4. Even where the disease has been diagnosed, in most cases the degree of disablement assessed has been below the 14 per cent. threshold which qualifies for payment of disablement benefit. On the latest figures available, less than 0.5 per cent. of the north-east claims have attracted an assessment of 14 per cent. or more.
The hon. Gentleman asked about differences between the north-east and the north-west, mentioning Liverpool in particular. Even in the north-west, fewer than 1.5 per cent. have had an assessment of 14 per cent. or more. In both cases, the proportions are very small. This low success rate reflects the fact that the disease is not generally very disabling. It is true that there is some difference between the level of diagnosis of PD D4 in the north-east and that in the north-west. This is a sign of the difficulty that medical authorities have had in deciding claims, for all the reasons that I described. That is why we asked the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council to review the present prescription.
I mentioned earlier that reviews of medical authorities' decisions may be sought on the basis of fresh evidence. Last April, the Sunderland branch of the Trades Union

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Congress, acting on behalf of claimants, sought fresh evidence reviews of a number of such decisions on the basis of a series of research papers from abroad. As from May, instructions were issued to all Benefits Agency medical service doctors on the interpretation of what constitutes fresh evidence. This information has been imparted to all authorities. I understand that the authorities have accepted that there is fresh evidence, enabling a review of earlier decisions. On review, however, in most cases they have not found that the earlier unfavourable decision should be revised.
The hon. Gentleman explained the principles laid down by the social security commissioner in two cases, and referred to the ruling given last November. The commissioner set out how, in his view, the medical adjudicating authorities should proceed when considering the diagnosis of PD D4. The Benefits Agency medical service issued guidance to adjudicating medical authorities on 19 January, four weeks ago, in the light of the commissioner's decisions.
Review cases still held at the medical board centre in Newcastle or at district offices in Wearside awaiting action will be scrutinised by the BAMS and any decisions that do not appear to comply with the principles laid down
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by the commissioner will be referred to a fresh adjudicating medical authority for consideration of review on the ground of error of law. Where the fresh evidence review decision has already been communicated to the claimant, it is open to him, if he is unhappy with that decision, to apply for an error of law review or to appeal to the tribunal. Redress is available if people feel aggrieved, but I do not want to raise undue hopes that, as a consequence of further reviews, significantly more cases will result in payment of benefit, because—for all the reasons that I gave—occupational cause of the disease is difficult to demonstrate.
I assure the hon. Gentleman that the BAMS will continue to monitor the situation. I particularly welcome the good local liaison arrangements that are in place, particularly with Sunderland TUC. I shall ensure that the hon. Gentleman's concerns are brought to the attention of the appropriate people in the Benefits Agency, and I shall bear in mind his remarks when I consider the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council report in the near future.
I believe that the hon. Gentleman asked nine questions, I shall read the debate in Hansard, to make sure that I answered them all. If I have not, I shall write to the hon. Gentleman with the answers.
It being half-past Two o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, pursuant to Order [19 December].

Oral Answers to Questions
  ENVIRONMENT

    Local Government, East Sussex
    Mr. Waterson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what representations he has received about local government reorganisation in East Sussex.
    The Minister for Local Government, Housing and Urban Regeneration (Mr. David Curry): We received some 800 written representations, and Ministers also received four deputations.
    Mr. Waterson: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer and for giving a sympathetic hearing to the delegation from my constituency, which I led. Although I am aware that he is still considering those complicated matters, will he give every weight to the strong support expressed by members of the delegation, who represented all shades of opinion in the town, for a unitary authority, so that the town can revert to running its own affairs as it did before 1974?
    Mr. Curry: My hon. Friend brought an effective delegation to meet me. It was led by business people, with the council taking a relative back seat, which was sensible. I will examine the intrinsic merits of my hon. Friend's objective together with the position of the residual county, in the context of the powers available to us.
    Sir Timothy Sainsbury: My hon. Friend will be aware of the results of the household survey by Hove borough council, which had a remarkable 33 per cent. response rate. It revealed that 77 per cent. of respondents opposed the joining of Hove with Brighton. I have received almost 600 individually written letters, all but six of which also opposed union with Brighton. Will my hon. Friend take into account evidence of public opinion on that important issue?
    Mr. Curry: We take into account all representations concerning reorganisation projects.

    Sustainable Development
    Miss Emma Nicholson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what assessment he has made of how planning policies can be used more effectively to meet the objectives of sustainable development.
    The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. John Gummer): We have revised our planning policy guidance so that sustainable development is at its centre.
    Miss Nicholson: In my constituency planners are under external pressure to develop green-field sites, which is unpopular with local people. Will Government guidelines be applied fiercely to ensure that infill and derelict sites are used first, and that guidelines are strictly enforced in green-field areas?
    Mr. Gummer: My hon. Friend is right to point out that it is often easier to develop a green-field site than to reuse previously developed land. Every effort is made to ensure that the balance is firmly in favour of the reuse of old sites and the redevelopment and regeneration of city and
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    town centres. There will be occasions when a green-field site is most appropriate, but the case for that would have to be extremely well made out.
    Mr. Bennett: The Government's revision of planning policy guidelines 6 and 16 is welcome, but will the right hon. Gentleman consider regional guidance? Is he aware that there is still pressure on local authorities in north-west England in particular to identify green-field sites for the development of business parks and similar projects? Is not it high time that all the emphasis was placed on regenerating inner-city derelict land and that local authorities were discouraged from making planning proposals for green-field developments?
    Mr. Gummer: I am a little worried when I am asked to put all the emphasis on particular areas. Planning should not be about insisting on a prescriptive answer in every circumstance, irrespective of the position. The hon. Gentleman may agree that there are many instances in which business parks have brought jobs to the north-west and elsewhere in the UK. A proper decision should be made in each case, but we should be clear that the bias is towards the redevelopment of old land and the regeneration of city and town centres. The hon. Gentleman has my support in putting pressure on local authorities which sometimes do not exhibit as much urgent concern as we do.
    Sir Kenneth Carlisle: Does my right hon. Friend accept that those of us who represent city constituencies are very concerned that their centre should retain their vitality, and that we very much welcome the change of emphasis-to restore them? Will he ensure that the policy that he has proposed is carried through to effective action?
    Mr. Gummer: There is no doubt that there is a very good example of partnership in the city of Lincoln between the private and the public sector. That is the way forward for regeneration generally. We are putting into place the planning environment to help that. I wish that some local authorities, which still prefer to provide car parking as a means of raising money rather than invigorating the town centre, would take up the challenge, because car parking is much better provided by private enterprise—it tends to be rather less smelly apart from anything else.

    Water Leakage
    Mrs. Helen Jackson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what are his latest estimates of water leakage.
    The Minister for the Environment and Countryside (Mr. Robert Atkins): There is a level below which it is uneconomical to make efforts to reduce water leakage. That said, the latest estimate, based on information from the water companies, is around 29 per cent. We expect leakage to be reduced by around 20 per cent. over the next 20 years.
    Mrs. Jackson: Is the Minister aware that 29 per cent. leakage is quite unacceptable? Is he aware of the view of the National Rivers Authority, which says that action by the water companies to halve that figure would make it quite unnecessary for them to go in for the unhealthy and

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    dangerous practice of compulsory water metering, which puts the pressure on the customer rather than the company? Will he take steps to ban that practice, so that pressure for investment is put on the companies to deal with that leakage?
    Mr. Atkins: I would like the House to know the facts. First, most of that water leakage comes from domestic pipes, not company pipes. Secondly, there is a level below which it is uneconomical to go—that figure is of the average of 15 per cent. Thirdly, water companies have already spent some £3.7 billion on infrastructure support over the past few years, designed to cope with some of the problems. Fourthly—ironically, in view of the hon. Lady's obsessive campaign against water metering—the increased incidence of water metering will help to solve the problems of leakage.
    Mr. Rowe: Is not it self-evident that if individual households have a clear desire and interest in reducing the leakage from their own premises, that they will do? There is no substitute for individual responsibility. Does my hon. Friend agree that that principle of individual responsibility about leakage could equally well be applied to the Cabinet?
    Mr. Atkins: My hon. Friend's point is apposite in relation to what Opposition Members are saying. They, supposedly, sign up to the principle of sustainable development, but when faced with a situation in which individuals, as well as others, are encouraged to take notice of leakage and the problems of maintaining water—a resource that we must watch carefully—they seem to avoid the practical realities of it. My hon. Friend is quite right to point out that problem.
    Ms Glenda Jackson: What does the Minister think about the announcement by Thames Water only this week to renege on a commitment of £2.1 billion over five years in capital investment, which was reflected in an agreed price rise, and of its announcement that that capital investment programme will be reduced by £350 million, but that there will be no concomitant reduction in charges to householders? On average, domestic bills could be reduced by £10. Thames Water also announces with some pride that it will take a very tough line on non-payers in relation to disconnections. Surely that is not a state of affairs that the Government should allow to happen now or ever again in the future.
    Mr. Atkins: I cannot comment on the detail of the case, which is a matter for the Director General of Water Services. In general terms, Thames Water provides the cheapest water anywhere in the nation, and does so extremely well. I am delighted to hear that it is putting pressure on bad payers. The number of disconnections has decreased year on year, and to have that power in reserve is popular with the users of water throughout the country. All the indications are that that power in reserve is necessary and is supported by those who normally pay—the vast majority of the users of the commodity.

    Housing Transfers
    Mr. Whittingdale: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many large-scale voluntary transfers of local authority housing stock have been completed; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Curry: Thirty-six local authorities have transferred almost 162,000 dwellings. We are working with metropolitan authorities to identify ways of taking the policy forward there as well as in the shires.
    Mr. Whittingdale: Will my hon. Friend congratulate the tenants of Maldon district council, 80 per cent. of whom voted in favour of transfer to the Plume housing association? Is he aware that that transfer will raise some £22 million, which can be used for the benefit of residents of the district? Will he, or one of his colleagues, consider accepting the council's invitation to attend the transfer ceremony?
    Mr. Curry: Maldon has done very well. There was a high turnout, and 82 per cent. voted for the transfer. Tenant consent is at the heart of our policy.
    We expect the local authority to complete its negotiation with the housing association shortly. That will clear the way for my right hon. Friend to make the final decision. My colleagues and I are always anxious to visit our hon. Friends' constituencies; indeed, I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, West (Mr. Jones), the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, plans to visit the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, South and Maldon (Mr. Whittingdale) shortly.

    Revenue Support Grant, Essex
    Mr. Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what representations he has received on Essex county council's revenue support grant settlement.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Robert B. Jones): We received no representations from Essex county council during the period of consultation on the proposed revenue support grant settlement. The council did query data on pupil numbers with the Department for Education during the consultation period, and wrote to my officials on 31 January on the same matter.
    Mr. Amess: Does my hon. Friend share my disgust at the fact that, despite substantial reserves and one of the best-ever settlements last year, socialist-controlled Essex county council's social services department ran out of money in October, blocking 79 beds at Basildon hospital, increasing waiting times at the accident and emergency unit and lengthening hospital waiting lists? Does he agree that, in the light of such incompetence, those socialist county councillors should resign or we should impeach them?
    Mr. Jones: My hon. Friend rightly stresses the difference between socialist-controlled councils and others, but there is a wide variation in the effectiveness and efficiency even of councils not controlled by the Conservative party. For instance, Hertfordshire county council—whose area I represent—did not run out of money for that purpose, because it managed its money properly.
    Mr. Dobson: Does the Minister accept that, as a result of a local government grant settlement that does not meet the cost of pay increases, a number of services in Essex will he reduced—including police and schools provision—and the council tax will generally rise? Does that not confirm that in the coming year, in terms of council tax, Essex man and Essex woman will be paying more and getting less?
    Mr. Jones: What happens in any local authority depends very much on the effectiveness and efficiency of that authority. What my right hon. and hon. Friends have been asking local authorities to do is precisely what businesses have to do year in, year out: become more efficient.
    Dr. Spink: Is my hon. Friend aware that, as a result of its profligate and wasteful policies, Liberal and Labour-controlled Essex county council has lost £8.5 million? The cuts that it has made to recover from those losses have affected the most vulnerable members of society—the old, the disabled and the young. Will my hon. Friend call on the council to use some of its £28 million reserves to restore the amount lost through those cruel cuts?
    Mr. Jones: The management of the county council's finances is a matter for it, but I certainly urge all local authorities to examine ways in which they can become more efficient and to consider how they can use their reserves most profitably.

    Rent-to-Mortgage Scheme
    Mr. Bill Michie: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his estimate of the likely take-up of the rent-to-mortgage scheme in 1994–95 and. 1995–96.
    Mr. Curry: Returns so far received from local authorities for the period to 31 December 1994 report that five sales have already been completed, and that almost 100 more applications have been accepted under the scheme.
    Mr. Michie: This is yet another case of the Government getting themselves into a fine mess. Why do not they accept that the scheme is not working and that it has been expensive—the cost is estimated to be about £400,000 of taxpayers' money, which is not helping the cause? Why do not the Government admit that Labour predicted that? Instead of messing about with half-cocked schemes, the Government should start investing in new and refurbished homes to get our people off the streets and into decent housing.
    Mr. Curry: As the scheme is part of the right to buy policy, I am sure that people will be interested to hear the hon. Gentleman refer to it as a half-cocked scheme. Giving people the opportunity to buy their own homes, whether through the right to buy or rent-to-mortgage schemes, gives people what many of them want. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman does not believe that that is a valid objective.
    Mr. Matthew Banks: Does my hon. Friend agree that the relatively low take-up is not the point? The Government give people choice. The Labour party would take it away.
    Mr. Curry: The relatively low take-up is due to two things: first, the scheme has been in existence for 18
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    months only; and, secondly, the relationship between house prices and rents. The economic circumstances have meant that, for many people, it has made more sense to take advantage of the right-to-buy scheme, which is still yielding some 46,000 sales a year. That is what roost people want. We should ensure that they have the opportunity. I am surprised that the Opposition do not believe that that should be the case.
    Mr. Raynsford: Does the Minister recognise that this is an issue not of choice, but of integrity and a sense of probity in public life? The Government have wasted £414,000 promoting a scheme that the Opposition warned in Committee would be a costly flop. Does the Minister now recognise that, with a rate of one taker every three months, and with a cost, as I estimate it, of £83,000 for every person taking up the scheme, it is high time that the matter was referred to the Public Accounts Committee?
    Mr. Curry: The hon. Gentleman appears to be enunciating the somewhat curious doctrine that we should introduce a scheme and then ensure that no one knows about it. If one introduces a scheme, one publicises it. This scheme is in its early stages. It is intended to be an adjunct of the right-to-buy policy. No one expected that major volumes would arise from the scheme, but it is a useful way for people in particular circumstances to have access to buying their own homes which they might not otherwise have. It is, therefore, a sensible part of a poky that is highly successful, and which the Opposition parties have opposed during the past few Parliaments. People will remember that.
    Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Will my hon. Friend accept that another acceptable method of choice would be introduced if his Department accepted the proposal of Wyre borough council to transfer its stock to a housing association, and to consult, and ballot, the tenants?
    Mr. Curry: That is a sensible way of diversifying tenure because it rests on tenants' consent. It liberates resources for the refurbishment of houses that are transferred to the housing association, and it liberates resources for the local authority to use to maintain properties that remain in its possession. Everyone gains, therefore, from a sensible policy, and I commend it to the House.

    Housing Renovation Grant
    Mr. Pike: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he now expects to announce his Department's changes in the housing renovation grant system.
    Mr. Hinchliffe: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the provision of disabled facilities grants.
    Mr. Robert B. Jones: An announcement about any changes arising from the review of the house renovation grant system, including disabled facilities grants, will be made in due course.
    Mr. Pike: Ministers have been saying for nearly a year now that the answer on the consultation will be given "shortly". Can we take it that the Minister now recognises that the biggest problem is not the scheme, but that councils have insufficient money to meet their legal

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    obligation to make a mandatory grant? Instead of changing the scheme, will the Government make more money available to local authorities?
    Mr. Jones: We have had a number of representations, some of which have been in favour of changing the scheme—the most recent came from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) during an Adjournment debate—and some of which have been on the subject of resources. Some authorities clearly needed more money to fulfil their obligations, but others have underspent the money that we have allocated to them. That matter must also be dealt with.
    Mr. Hinchliffe: During the review of disabled facilities grants, will the Minister consider in detail the operation of the means test? Is he aware that, in many instances, local authorities are having to lend individuals and families money to pay their contribution under the means test, and that there is no way in which people can repay those loans? Is he aware that, in some circumstances, people have given up the ghost because they simply could not afford to make their contribution under the means test? Will he deal with that matter as the matter of urgency?
    Mr. Jones: We shall certainly examine the points that the hon. Gentleman has raised. I know that he has taken an interest in the subject for a long time. I must point out that 80 per cent. of these grants now involve no contribution from the applicant and that in other cases topping-up money is sometimes made available from local authorities' social services departments. However, I shall examine the matter carefully.
    Sir Anthony Durant: I thank my hon. Friend for the extra tranche of money given to Reading borough council for the renovation grants. When considering future grants, will he bear in mind the state of the housing stock in a town such as Reading, which contains a great deal of pre-war property that is deteriorating badly?
    Mr. Jones: That is one of the points that we take into account in the allocations each year, in addition to the effectiveness of the local authorities' renewal strategy. However, it is not only my hon. Friend's constituency that benefited from the extra tranche. The hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) will know that we were able to give an extra £400,000 to his local authority in the second tranche and will increase the allocation for next year still further.
    Sir Donald Thompson: Does my hon. Friend accept that it is a very valuable scheme? Will he allow local authorities to cap the amount of grant that they give so that they can be made to fit local needs, prices and priorities?
    Mr. Jones: My hon. Friend makes a valid point about the need for flexibility, which has been stressed to me many times by the members of local authorities whom I have met during the housing investment programme round and on other occasions. We shall be taking that idea into account before we announce our final decision on the system.
    Mr. Wigley: May I press the Minister further on the position of disabled people who need grants for certain facilities but who are means tested? I draw his attention to the case of a father with a severely disabled son. He
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    has an income of only £200 a week and faces enormous costs because of the son's disability, but is required to pay a contribution of £10,000 towards downstairs facilities, a sum that he and his family cannot afford. Will the Minister reconsider the way in which the formulae are worked out so that such difficulties can be avoided?
    Mr. Jones: I promise the hon. Gentleman that I shall examine the case. It would be sensible for him to send me details of the case so that I can give it particular attention.
    Mr. Harry Greenway: Is my hon. Friend aware that a recent survey in Ealing showed that 70 per cent. of disabled and able-bodied people are highly dissatisfied with the speed and quality of the repair service offered by Ealing council? That is a very high figure and it is still rising. Will he do something to put a bomb under Ealing's Labour council to make it improve this most important service to its people?
    Mr. Jones: My hon. Friend has proved time and again that he is one of the most effective bombs that one can put under an inefficient local authority.

    Job Creation
    Mr. Burden: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many new jobs have been created through regeneration policies since April 1992.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Sir Paul Beresford): Since April 1992, my Department's policies have created or safeguarded 340,000 jobs.
    Mr. Burden: Is the Minister aware that one way in which regeneration policies could create jobs and meet a major social need at the same time is through investment in housing? Is not it therefore pretty scandalous that the amount of money available under regeneration policies for housing has been cut with the single regeneration budget and that in Birmingham not one penny has been made available for the major housing project proposed by the council? There are 17,000 people on Birmingham's housing list, so is it not time that the Government adopted regeneration policies that are worthy of the name, created jobs and gave people the homes that they need?
    Sir Paul Beresford: The hon. Gentleman will reflect that the single regeneration budget operates on a partnership basis, and the make-up of the bid was Birmingham's choice. In respect of housing, I remind him that in 1995–96 Birmingham will receive more than £22 million from the estate action programme, £12 million for Castle Vale housing action trust, £8.5 million for Heartlands urban development corporation, which includes some housing, £7.7 million for city challenge, which also includes housing and, as we ought to reflect unemployment, £1.25 million for the task force.
    Mr. Key: Does my hon. Friend agree that, although regeneration policies are normally associated with the large industrial conurbations of the north, which receive most taxpayers' money, there is not a market town in the south of England or, for that matter, anywhere else in the country, that would not benefit from concentrating on urban regeneration schemes that would shift the centre of gravity of our towns back to the centre?
    Sir Paul Beresford: I agree with my hon. Friend, but we should reflect on the converse of that. Many of the

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    areas that need urban regeneration are under Labour or Liberal control, with poor quality services and high taxes imposing a burden on local businesses and the local community.

    Out-of-town Shopping Developments
    Mr. Keith Hill: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many new out-of-town shopping developments await planning approval subject to appeals to his Department.
    Mr. Gummer: Eighteen, Madam Speaker.
    Mr. Hill: Will the Secretary of State reaffirm his policy of halting the spread of out-of-town supermarket developments, which have wreaked havoc on many local shopping centres such as Streatham high road in my constituency, where one in five shops now stands idle? To show that he is earnest in his intent, will he ensure that all appeals against such developments are now upheld?
    Mr. Gummer: The hon. Gentleman will know that I cannot possibly prejudge any appeal now before me. The case of a site adjacent to Streatham is in that position, and I must therefore look at it carefully. I cannot say that all appeals will be turned down, as that would be wholly improper. I must look at each case, and sometimes the circumstances will be such that it is right to allow something which, in general, I seek to discourage. That is bound to happen. I can think of a number of cases on which the hon. Gentleman would probably agree with me, but I look at each case separately. I have made it clear to those who make such proposals that the priority is regeneration in our city and town centres and the liveliness of those centres, and I shall need extremely good proof that such a proposition does not detract from important city centre priorities before I grant permission for such developments to go ahead.
    Mr. John Marshall: Will my right hon. Friend remember, when listening to the siren voice of the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Hill), that the consumer likes choice and parking facilities, and she is more likely to get those out of town than in Streatham high road?
    Mr. Gummer: I shall not be drawn on Streatham high road. It is essential for the regeneration of our city centres that provision for parking is made, that parking is properly run and that people are given the opportunities that they expect in out-of-town centres. I agree that people like choice and they must therefore have the choice not to use their cars if they do not want to or cannot, and they must have an opportunity to choose between shops, which is what city centres offer. Choice is not enhanced by destroying town centres where comparative choice and shopping is much easier.
    Mr. Vaz: We welcome the Secretary of State's recent conversion to supporting town and city centres. Why is he so afraid to be clear about whether the Government support or oppose out-of-town shopping centres? How does he propose to deal with the hundreds of outstanding planning permissions granted for those monstrous sheds which, if implemented with his approval, would destroy his planning policy?
    Mr. Gummer: Given the long list of Labour-controlled local authorities that have destroyed their city centres by damaging businesses within them, having taxed them out
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    of existence and ensured that, whenever business men wanted a new scheme, they turned them down, the whole country is littered with the results of bad local planning by Labour councils. The Labour party has done more to damage Britain's city centres than any other single force since the war. That is the problem that we face. The hon. Gentleman, who has not yet been converted to any planning policy and is in no position to say whether I have, should contain himself. Our policy supports city and town centres and the growth of the kind of life that we want there. Those who have already gained planning permission for a site will be able to retain it, because, unlike the Opposition, the Government do not go back on their promises.

    Revenue Support Grant, Bedfordshire
    Sir David Madel: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he is planning to make any further statement on the revenue support grant for Bedfordshire for 1995–96.
    Mr. Robert B. Jones: On 1 February, the House approved the Local Government Finance Report (England) 1995–96, which specified the basis of the revenue support grant for each authority. We have no plans to make any further statement on that grant for the coming year.
    Sir David Madel: My hon. Friend will be aware of the representations that I have made to the Government about the spending limit of Bedfordshire for 1995–96. Will he confirm that Bedfordshire county council still has time to make a case for raising its spending limit for 1995–96, but that it is also within its power, and it is perfectly capable of doing so, to protect school budgets next year?
    Mr. Jones: What my hon. Friend says about the proposals is perfectly true. I find it difficult to understand how the Labour and Liberal majority on Bedfordshire county council can possibly translate what is an allowance to increase its spending into an attempt to impose cuts on schools. That simply shows how antagonistic it is towards education.
    Mr. Dobson: Does the Minister accept that the local government grant settlement, for which most Bedfordshire Tory Members voted a couple of weeks ago, will mean cuts in expenditure by Bedfordshire county council and Bedfordshire districts, such as Luton? The settlement: threatens £9 million cuts in Bedfordshire's schools, while at the same time forces up the council tax. Does that not mean that people in Bedfordshire, like people in Essex, will be forced to pay more and get less?
    Mr. Jones: I must repeat what I said to the hon. Gentleman earlier, because he obviously did not listen the first time. Businesses in this country, whether small or large, have dedicated themselves to becoming more and more efficient year in, year out. I expect Bedfordshire county council, like other county councils and borough councils, to do the same.
    Sir Graham Bright: Does my hon. Friend agree that before Bedfordshire county council, led by the Liberals and the Labour party, starts criticising and cutting, it

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    should look at its own efficiency—in particular, at the fact that it is carrying about 16,000 surplus places within its schools?
    Mr. Jones: My hon. Friend makes a valid point about the need for local authorities to re-examine continually their spending priorities and their efficiency. I am struck by the fact that Bedfordshire county council, almost alone among county councils, has failed to supply its manpower figures to the Department for the past two years.

    Job Creation
    Mr. Milburn: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what estimate he has made of the number of new jobs which have been created through regeneration policies since April 1992.
    Sir Paul Beresford: In view of the close similarity to Question 8, I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave a few moments ago.
    Mr. Milburn: Is the Minister aware that competition between areas for single regeneration budget funding has produced a dog eat dog scenario, where there are many more losers than there are winners? What assurances can he give the House that areas such as Darlington, which have so far not qualified for funding for regeneration schemes, will do so in the future?
    Sir Paul Beresford: The hon. Gentleman should reflect on the fact that the competition has generated better partnerships and better services. As for Darlington, we must ask the hon. Gentleman to stop whingeing and to get back there to help it put a decent case together, so that it can win next time.
    Dr. Twinn: Is my hon. Friend surprised to hear the whingeing about Birmingham and Darlington today? Is he aware that the help that the Government have given towards job creation in north London, the Lea valley, Tottenham, Enfield and Edmonton is greatly appreciated and is already creating new jobs?
    Sir Paul Beresford: Yes, I am aware of that. It is also important to stress that urban regeneration means just that. Job creation represents just one part of that regeneration, the rest relates to housing, education and infrastructure. That is the point of offering a urban regeneration package.

    Social and Economic Inequality
    Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment which of his Department's policies are designed specifically to relieve (a) social and (b) economic inequality in urban areas; and how successful they have been.
    Mr. Curry: My Department's aim is to promote sustainable communities through economic, social and environmental policies.
    Mr. Hughes: I am delighted to hear from the Minister about the Department's aim. Given that the Rowntree report produced last week—I know that its findings are contested—shows that the gap between the bottom 20 per cent. and the top 20 per cent. has more than doubled in the past 15 years, does he accept that the reality of Government policy, including those of his Department, is a nation of two cities—the haves and the have nots? Will
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    he undertake to review all his Department's policies to create something like the policy in which the Prime Minister says the Government believe, but which is not being delivered on the ground?
    Mr. Curry: As the hon. Gentleman says, the Rowntree report obviously asks questions, and one can interpret those questions in different ways and give different answers to them; that is part of normal political debate. The number one recommendation of the Rowntree report is that priority should lie in education and training. It is interesting to note, from the first round of our single regeneration budget bids, that that is precisely where the local partnerships have put their priorities. That demonstrates that local partnerships are identifying education and training as the seedcorn for regeneration policies. The hon. Gentleman and I can agree with that.
    Mr. Robert Ainsworth: If the policies of the Government are as the Minister has said, what will the Department of the Environment do about Westminster city council, which has systematically engaged in a policy of gentrification, social cleansing and homes for votes? The Department has sat and done nothing while those policies have continued, month on month, year after year.
    Mr. Curry: In so far as there are any proceedings taking place about any actions in Westminster city council, it is for those proceedings to continue. In so far as Westminster city council runs a very efficient council in London, I commend it to many of those inner-city councils which have a great deal to learn from it.

    Government Regional Offices
    Mr. Denham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to make the Government offices of the regions more accountable to the people living in those regions.
    Mr. Gummer: Government offices are already directly accountable to Parliament through me and the other Ministers to whom they report.
    Mr. Denham: Is the Secretary of State aware that the decision last year to refuse a partnership bid to bring improved heating and insulation to the 1,000 people on the Holyrood estate in my constituency was taken, to all intents and purposes, by unelected and unaccountable officials working in the Government office of the south-east? Is it not the case that those officials are only part of a pattern of regional English government that spends and allocates nearly £6 billion a year and influences far more? As we have English regional government, is it not high time that English regional government was made accountable to the people that it serves?
    Mr. Gummer: First of all, all decisions are advised by civil servants but agreed by Ministers, including the decision relating to Southampton. Secondly, as I understand it, the hon. Gentleman is asking for a bit more clarity from the Labour party. He has fought for a unitary authority for Southampton; now he wants to take that unitary authority away and have a regional government.
    I understand also that the difficulty for Conservative Members is that the Opposition spokesman has one policy on regional government, the previous spokesman had another policy, and it is difficult to discuss English

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    regional government in the House when the person who makes the decisions is not here, but speaks to the television and radio, saying that the Opposition have now put off regional government, because they have suddenly discovered that it would mean five tiers of government for large numbers of people, which people do not want and do not want to pay for.
    Mrs. Lait: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in the south-east there are already improved communications between local bodies and central Government? Is he further aware that the regional office now has a much clearer picture of local needs than it did, and is hence much more likely to match the needs with grants? Does he agree that a regional assembly or, even worse, control by local councillors, would be the last thing to generate the growth that is needed in the south-east of England?
    Mr. Gummer: First, I hope that my hon. Friend will agree that the Labour party supported the idea of bringing together the various local offices of Government, so that we had a common view throughout a range of things, and there was a holistic answer and not individual sectional answers.
    Secondly, it is a very odd world, is it not, where the Labour party is now telling its supporters in the counties that, if Labour returned to power, it would cancel, ban and stop all county councils. The Labour party has decided on the abolition of the county councils, irrespective of the fact that all the county councils controlled by the Labour party are fighting for their continuance.
    Mr. Hardy: Does the Minister agree that the Government cannot have their cake and eat it? A few questions ago, the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, West (Mr. Jones), gave a favourable and sympathetic answer to the hon. Member for Calder Valley (Sir D. Thompson), who called for local accountability—in effect, devolution. The Secretary of State then poured scorn on those of us who believe that a much more efficient and just administration can be provided with a much greater level of devolution than that which the Government are prepared to consider.
    Mr. Gummer: The hon. Gentleman is suggesting to the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) that, far from getting the local accountability which comes from unitary authorities, Southampton should turn it down in favour of a new tier of local government which is called regional government. People in England do not want regional government, and people in Scotland and Wales do not want regional or national government.

    Area Cost Adjustment
    Mrs. Angela Knight: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what proposals he has to review the area cost adjustment.
    Mr. Curry: We will carry out research to improve the geographical basis of area cost adjustment. One possibility is to use travel-to-work areas as the basis for the adjustment.
    Mrs. Knight: Is my hon. Friend aware that, whereas there is real understanding that some parts of the country face higher costs than others, there is also real concern about the method of distribution of the area cost adjustment? For example, it allocates more than
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    £200 per child to the education SSA in Hertfordshire, yet it allocates nothing to Derbyshire. Will my hon. Friend address those disparities in his most welcome review?
    Mr. Curry: As my hon. Friend knows, the area cost adjustment recognises the additional total labour costs in the south-east. The problem is that, as it is constructed at the moment, the south-east alone is eligible for it, and there are very good reasons for that.
    However, I wish to examine whether we can change the basis of distributing the area cost adjustment by looking at travel-to-work areas, so that the whole country can be eligible for it. If that proves to be a more robust method, we will adopt it. If it does not, I am not prepared to make a change unless I am sure that it will be an improvement which I can defend as being totally impartial.
    Mr. William O'Brien: When considering any changes to the system, will the Minister have regard to the authorities in the Webber Craig group, including Wakefield, which are at a disadvantage because of pupil-cost ratios? A few weeks ago I also raised with the Prime Minister the matter of cuts to the fire service in that area and the costs involved. Will the Minister lake seriously the representations from Wakefield and West Yorkshire about those issues?
    Mr. Curry: The Webber Craig group of local authorities has been very effective in bringing forward ideas—for example, its idea of compensation for employment and health problems—which are now part of the distribution method.
    Central to the question is the fact that, if local authorities believe that there are issues which must be addressed, we shall examine them, together with my own agenda of matters that I intend to review in the course of the year. The procedure is conducted with the co-operation of local authority associations, which enables us to arrive at a method which everyone subscribes to as being as fair and objective as possible.
    Mr. Clifton-Brown: I recognise the need for the area cost adjustment, because some areas face higher costs than others, but can the Minister not find a better system of tapering out those areas of high cost? For example, Oxfordshire receives area cost adjustments whereas Gloucestershire does not receive anything. Would it not be fairer to taper it off gradually to nothing throughout the country?
    Mr. Curry: It would be quite difficult to measure additional costs in the south-east if we went as far as Berwickshire to judge them. We have clearly improved the taper in the south-east and I am now satisfied that it works within the confines of that method. If we are to try to move to a nation-wide system we shall have to look for an alternative method, and in that context we are now considering travel-to-work areas. I hope that that will work, as it will enable me to use a system which I believe that all people will perceive as being fair, objective and universally applicable.

    County Hall, London
    Mr. Tony Banks: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make an official tour of County hall, London SE1.
    Sir Paul Beresford: My right hon. Friend has recently visited County hall.
    Mr. Banks: I urge the Minister and his colleagues to take a very close interest in what is occurring at County hall. It is becoming clear that neither the London residuary body nor the Secretary of State's predecessor, the present Home Secretary, studied the bid from the cowboy organisation, Shirayama. There is a scandal in the making at County hall. Ministers may not feel that they owe it to themselves to examine it closely and take direct action, but do they not owe it to the people of London to do so?
    Sir Paul Beresford: I have considerable respect for the hon. Gentleman's interest in County hall because it was his political nursery. The preparatory work that is going on there is being watched and inspected carefully—particularly by English Heritage, which was there some two weeks ago.
    Mr. Jacques Arnold: If the plans for County hall, involving a hotel complex and other such proposals, were not to go ahead, would my hon. Friend consider proposals to place the London School of Economics there? That would be far better than a bloated and expensive bureaucracy at the expense of people of Greater London, as proposed by the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks).
    Sir Paul Beresford: There is no evidence of any need for that. I understand that the most recent comment by Mr. Shirayama, while viewing his earthquake-destroyed property, was that he was working on a property in London—County hall.

    Waste Strategy
    Mr. Bennett: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement about the Government's waste strategy programme.
    Mr. Atkins: Last week we issued for public consultation a draft waste strategy for England and Wales. It aims to use the principles of sustainable development to provide a coherent framework for waste management policy and practice. Copies of the document are available in the Library.
    Mr. Bennett: I thank the Minister for that reply. Could he clear up a question about green taxes? He will appreciate that many people are campaigning that Britain should follow that line. Does he accept that there is a dilemma with the green tax? Although it discourages environmentally unfriendly activity, Governments can be hooked on the income that it raises. Are the Government introducing the landfill levy primarily to increase funds for the Government, or to discourage the use of landfill sites for waste disposal?
    Mr. Atkins: The levy will not increase funds directly to the Government. The whole idea of it as an economic instrument is to make people think through their waste strategy in companies or local corporations. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would also like to address his
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    concerns to my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who ultimately is responsible for these matters.
    Mr. Ian Bruce: My hon. Friend will know that the Government have been under great pressure to stop waste dumping and the burial of waste. Is he aware that in many cases, such as Dorset, the supposedly greener option of waste to energy has been wholly unacceptable, as it has to my constituents? Are we going in the wrong direction in trying to press those solutions when the green lobbies themselves are saying they are worse than waste dumping? Perhaps we should go back to the old technology.
    Mr. Atkins: As it happens, yesterday I was at the Henry Doubleday Research Association, which does much work in composting and the recycling of organic waste. I was taken to Leicestershire to see a particular site that the county is operating. Many other waste authorities are also recycling and composting green waste. In the future that is likely to happen more often than not. If my hon. Friend has problems in Dorset that he feels that I can address, I shall be more than happy to help him and my other hon. Friends.
    Mr. Beggs: Has the Minister considered giving any incentive to encourage waste burning to create energy as opposed to supporting landfill?
    Mr. Atkins: My hon. Friend will be aware that some councils in Northern Ireland have done some really remarkable work on waste to energy. Down is the case in point, but I know from my former incarnation as a Northern Ireland Minister how much work was being done on alternative sources of energy. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman directs his question to the Minister responsible for such matters in the Province. I am trying to do my best over here on the basis of the good knowledge and experience that I gained in Northern Ireland.
    Ms Ruddock: Further to that answer, what is the Minister's response to the report in The Observer last weekend that some municipal incinerators were emitting dioxins at a rate of more than 300 times the Government's safety limits and that Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution believes that they should be reduced by 90 per cent? What are his plans on the landfill levy in respect of local authorities? It appears to us that it would be a diversion of money from council tax payers straight to the Treasury.
    Mr. Atkins: I never make the mistake of reading The Observer, so I cannot comment on that particular report; however, I understand that the serious issue underlying the hon. Lady's question is worth pursuing. I shall certainly ask HMIP exactly what the hon. Lady is referring to and ask for a report on it as soon as possible. Question Time is perhaps not the time to discuss the detail of the landfill levy, but I can assure the hon. Lady that we have many more policies relating to waste disposal than ever she does.
    Mr. Gamier: I thank my hon. Friend for visiting the constituency factory to which he referred. Do not his

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    interest in that factory and his visit to Leicestershire demonstrate the Government's attitude towards private and Government partnership in that sector?
    Mr. Atkins: I am only sorry that the Whips did not allow my hon. Friend to be with me yesterday when I visited his constituency. He is right—the issue is all about partnership between the private sector and local authorities, as well as making companies recognise what can be done. Above all, the message that I would ask my hon. Friend to take back to his attractive part of Leicestershire is that domestic users of green waste from the garden can have it recycled and use it again for compost to benefit their gardens—it is a good system.

    Local Authority Services
    Mr. Mackinlay: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what measures he proposes to allow local authorities to extend and improve their services.
    Mr. Robert B. Jones: Since 1979 we have taken, and are continuing to take, a range of measures and quality initiatives for improving the value for money in local authority services, including establishing the Audit Commission, compulsory competitive tendering and introducing the citizens charter and performance indicators.
    Mr. Mackinlay: Does the Minister understand that Essex county council's ability to improve and extend services is substantially hindered by the unfair rate support grant settlement? Will he consider the accuracy of his earlier reply, when he told the House that there had been no representations from Essex about rate support grant? There have been representations, and on 1 February a letter was sent to the Secretary of State complaining about the alteration without consultation of the demographic data relating to education services. Has not my county been disadvantaged by the inefficiency and bureaucracy of the Department? When will the leader of the council receive a reply to his letter of 1 February addressed to the Secretary of State?
    Mr. Jones: If the hon. Gentleman had been listening, he would have heard me say that there had been no representations in the period up to the laying of the order before the House. Of course, representations after the order has been laid are too late—the point that has been made to Essex county council.
    Mr. Thomason: Does my hon. Friend agree that compulsory competitive tendering has contributed considerably to the improvement of local government services? Will he consider possible ways of extending that system? The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) seems to want to terminate it, much to the horror of many Labour council leaders.
    Mr. Jones: My hon. Friend is right. Compulsory competitive tendering has resulted in substantial savings for council tax payers and a substantial improvement in quality in many cases. It is fascinating for Ministers talking to Labour-controlled councils about CCT for housing management—they find that those councils are, for the first time, discussing with their tenants what should be provided and at what quality.
    Mr. Tony Lloyd: Does the Minister not understand that, in places like Shropshire and Oxfordshire, parents,
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    governors and even Tory county councillors are up in arms about the Government and are clearly saying that they want better services and are prepared to pay for them? They do not want a Government who tell them to pay more and get less.
    Mr. Jones: As the hon. Gentleman raises the issue of Shropshire, it may be relevant to remind the House that Shropshire local authority employs 32.7 staff per 1,000 of the population, whereas Gloucestershire employs 21 staff per thousand of the population—the local authorities are not that dissimilar. Shropshire and other councils should consider their manpower levels and start saving.

    Council House Repairs
    Mr. Carrington: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what steps he has taken to ensure that council tenants can get repairs carried out quickly.
    Mr. Curry: We introduced the new right-to-repair scheme on 1 April 1994. That gives tenants the right to have certain urgent repairs done quickly and at no cost to themselves.
    Mr. Carrington: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that answer, but will he consider the other problems with council repairs: their cost and their quality? My hon. Friend should look seriously at the need to give council tenants and council leaseholders a vetting power over the cost of council repairs and the standard to which they are done. Council tenants and council leaseholders pay for the repairs.
    Mr. Curry: The law gives leaseholders protection against unreasonable service charges. Landlords can recover the charges only if they are reasonably incurred and the work is of a reasonable standard. Leaseholders have the right to be consulted, to inspect accounts on which charges are based and to challenge unreasonable charges in the courts. I should be pleased to receive information from my hon. Friend about the specific problems brought to him by his constituents.

    Compulsory Competitive Tendering
    Mr. Fishburn: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what assessment he has made of prospects for the development of compulsory competitive tendering on housing management.
    Mr. Robert B. Jones: We have put in place the legislative framework extending compulsory competitive tendering to housing management. The first contracts are due to be in operation from April 1996. I am pleased to say that local authorities are making good progress with their preparations.
    Mr. Fishburn: As competitive tendering always produces cheaper, more efficient and more humane management of the public housing stock, can my hon. Friend tell me why so many people on the Opposition Benches remain opposed to it?
    Mr. Jones: I think that they approach the matter with political dogma rather than adopting a flexible approach such as that taken by the Government. No local authority in history has done everything by direct labour. No local authority in history has done everything by private contractor. The proper thing is to draw a boundary—not

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    on the basis of political whim and dogma—and to use a process of competitive tendering against a specification, invite tenders, judge their quality and award the contract.
    Mr. Skinner: Now that it is known that more than £50 billion is spent by the quangos that have been set up by the Tories, what steps have the Government taken to ensure that quangos use compulsory competitive tendering?
    Mr. Jones: Non-departmental public bodies are encouraged to go through a process of tendering as much as any other body. Competitive tendering has brought a great deal of benefit, for example, in the health service. It has been possible to feed those benefits through into patient care.

    Out-of-town Shopping Developments
    Mr. Sutcliffe: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many new out-of-town shopping developments await planning approval subject to appeal to his Department.
    Mr. Gummer: Eighteen.
    Mr. Sutcliffe: How does the Minister intend to stop abuses by property speculators such as Spring Ram Corporation in my constituency, which blackmailed the local authority into providing planning permission in green-belt areas by promising jobs and then set up a retail development? How will that assist local authorities such as Bradford, which suffer blight in their city centres?
    Mr. Gummer: The hon. Gentleman will know that I have made it clear that there can be no movement from a non-retail operation to a retail operation. There have been many occasions on which people have pretended that they were doing something different. I have insisted that the decision be made on the proper planning grounds. If the hon. Gentleman would like to bring that case to me, I will examine it carefully.
    I hope that the hon. Gentleman supports me in putting pressure on local authorities to recognise that if we are not to have out-of-town shopping centres which will mar the countryside, they must make the inner cities and the towns much more attractive to business and to shoppers. Therefore, the next stage must be a real reaction of support from local authorities. I am getting such support from some local authorities of all political parties.
    Mr. McLoughlin: Will my right hon. Friend acknowledge the outstanding contribution that out-of-town shopping centres have made in enhancing facilities for disabled people, in making it more pleasurable to go shopping and in making local authorities
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    question carefully how they develop town centres, so as to attract shoppers rather than, as has happened so often in the past, discourage them?
    Mr. Gummer: I agree that much of the improvement in city centres and town centres, particularly those run by Labour authorities, has been the result of the development of out-of-town shopping centres and the fear that unless standards are raised it will be impossible to stop people moving to the out-of-town centres. I hope that we shall see an increasing willingness to provide the same quality and choice in our city centres as is available outside.

    Water Leakage
    Mr. George Howarth: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what are his latest estimates of water leakage.
    Mr. Atkins: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer that I gave earlier.
    Mr. Howarth: I did not have the benefit of hearing the Minister's answer on that occasion, but having heard similar answers on many other occasions, I am sure that it was up to his usual inadequate standard. Is not the important point that a great deal of water could be conserved if the Government, in conjunction with the water companies, embarked on an active campaign to stop the leaks and conserve water?
    Mr. Atkins: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman could not be here earlier; I am sure that he had a good reason for that. What I said to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mrs. Jackson), which I reiterate, is that much of the wastage is from the domestic, rather than the company, source. Companies are already spending a large sum dealing with the problem.
    However, generally speaking, the hon. Gentleman's point is right. That is why I was associated with the Water Services Association launch of a detailed technical document dealing with the problems of leakage. I shall be delighted to ask the association to send the hon. Gentleman a copy, which will make good reading for him.
    Mr. Fabricant: I want to take up the point about water wastage at domestic level. My hon. Friend will he aware that Armitage Shanks is based in my constituency. Will he resist the growing pressure in Europe for the European method of flushing toilets, which causes a great deal of water leakage, to be adopted in Britain? Our system uses a vacuum siphon method, which prevents water leakage.
    Mr. Atkins: I shall do my best to prevent a chain reaction.
    Madam Speaker: Order. On that note we shall move to the private notice question.

Regional Electricity Companies
3.31 pm
Dr. John Cunningham(by private notice) asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement about Government policy on the future ownership of regional electricity companies in the light of his decision not to refer to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission the bid by Trafalgar House to take over Northern Electric.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Corporate Affairs (Mr. Jonathan Evans): It is Government policy that the ownership of the regional electricity companies should be decided by the market and should be subject to normal merger control procedures. Yesterday's decision by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade was fully consistent with that policy and with the Government's long-standing policy that mergers should be referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission primarily on competition grounds.
The Director General of Fair Trading, in his statutory advice, said that the merger did not raise any competition concerns and that the wider public interest issues raised by Northern Electric and third parties did not warrant reference to the MMC. The President agreed with that advice. In addition, however, the President noted the regulatory concerns of the Director General of Electricity Supply and obtained assurances from Trafalgar House to address them. The DGES is currently discussing with Trafalgar appropriate amendments to Northern Electric's licence. They will ensure that he can continue to regulate effectively to protect customer interests in the event of the takeover proceeding.
Until 31 March 1995, the Government retain a special share in all the regional electricity companies, which effectively prevents a takeover. Trafalgar must therefore wait until after that date to obtain control of Northern Electric—assuming, of course, that the shareholders agree the bid. The same is true for bids for any of the other regional electricity companies.
The Government made it clear in 1990, at the time of electricity privatisation, that the special shares would be redeemed and that from that date the regional electricity companies should be exposed to the normal disciplines of the market.
As I made clear, it will now be for Northern Electric shareholders to decide whether to accept Trafalgar's bid.
Dr. Cunningham: Is not it clear from the nature and the length of the Minister's reply that this is a major policy decision, which should have been the subject of a statement in the House by the President of the Board of Trade in the first place? Is not the President taking a rather curious view of his responsibilities when he says that he cannot answer questions before making his decision, yet apparently does not want to answer questions after he has made his decision either? The right hon. Gentleman is not usually reticent about his role in Government policy.
Does the Minister recognise that when he talks about decisions being taken by the market, regulated, private enterprise, monopoly regional electricity companies are not normal market companies, but something very different?
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Is the hon. Gentleman aware that we believed—as did many other people—that there were strong grounds for a reference of this issue to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission? Has not the public interest been ignored by the President in not making such a reference?
Can the Minister confirm that it is true that the Securities and Futures Authority and the Securities and Investments Board are both raising important questions about insider dealing and dubious City practices connected with the role of the Swiss Bank Corporation in this affair? Can the Minister assure the House, if the Trafalgar House bid is successful—or if other bids for other RECs are successful—that properly transparent accounting practices will prevail in the future management of the regional electricity companies; and that they will not simply be used as cash generators for their new owners?
Is not it clear that the regulator has serious doubts about the proposed takeover in respect of his own powers and of the effectiveness of regulation under potential new ownership? Can the Minister say whether the so-called behavioural undertakings imposed on Trafalgar House will be legally binding? As the industry regulator apparently pressed for a referral to the MMC, why was his advice rejected?
Is it at all likely that the free-for-all that is about to ensue in the ownership and control of private monopoly regional electricity companies will ever produce the best solution or the best way of providing a rational structure for the electricity supply industry, to the benefit of its consumers and its employees?
Mr. Evans: Yesterday's statement by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade followed the usual practice of the Department of Trade and Industry when considering referrals to the MMC. In this instance, there has been no departure from the usual practice.
It has been suggested that the President should have waited to make the announcement until his return from India where, as the House will know, he is leading a trade delegation in the interests of developing the economic prospects of this country. He is due to return tomorrow. It was of course the right hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) who insisted on a response to his question in the House today, in full knowledge of the whereabouts of the President of the Board of Trade. His remarks in that regard should be seen in that light.
Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman's statement that the privatised electricity companies are not normal companies offers us some understanding of his outlook. We have consistently argued that, subject to the regulatory concerns that all in this House share, they are indeed normal companies, operating in the private sector. It was the very regulatory concerns outlined by the right hon. Gentleman when he asked me questions about the matter on Wednesday last week which were dealt with in the assurances given by Trafalgar House to the President of the Board of Trade, and which are referred to in his statement.
The right hon. Gentleman ignores what both I in my statement and the President in his have clearly stated, in two material particulars. The Director General of Fair Trading advised the President of the Board of Trade, first, that there were no competition concerns that would, in the

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circumstances, merit a reference; secondly, he also advised the President against a reference on public interest grounds.
The right hon. Gentleman carted into his remarks the accusation of, as he put it, "insider dealing". He should reflect on the clear statement already made by the President of the Board of Trade to the effect that the appropriate authorities are already looking into that. Yesterday's decision by the President was entirely unconnected with any matter to do with that continuing inquiry.
The right hon. Gentleman asked for transparent accounting practices. Clear reference was made to that matter in the statement of my right hon. Friend the President, in relation to assurances that he received from Trafalgar House. As to the concerns outlined by the Director General of Electricity Supply, the regulator's representatives were present when those assurances were received. There is continuing dialogue between Trafalgar House and the regulator.
The concerns expressed by the right hon. Gentleman clearly demonstrate his lack of understanding of the marketplace. My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade reached his decision entirely in accordance with the interests of the electricity industry.
Sir Anthony Grant: Is not it perfectly sensible that the management of newly privatised companies should be kept on its toes by the threat of takeovers by companies and owners who will bring improved management? Is not efficient management in the direct interest of consumers?
Mr. Evans: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Many Opposition Members fail to understand the operation and discipline of the marketplace. It is surprising that so many Opposition Members spend time complaining about the remuneration of senior managers and directors in privatised utilities, and then present the argument that they should be insulated from the pressures of the marketplace.
Mr. Nick Harvey: What was the purpose of the golden share, if the Government treat like any other takeover the first hostile bid for a public utility? The golden share may expire at the end of March, but public interest will not. What advice have the Government received from the regulator? Have not they pulled the rug from under the regulator's feet? What is the Government's assessment of the extent to which the bid is driven by the tax advantages that the bidder thinks will result?
Mr. Evans: The hon. Gentleman should know that Parliament decided that the golden share would expire in March this year, not continue indefinitely. The purpose was to allow electricity companies time to establish a track record in the marketplace. The hon. Gentleman is entirely wrong to assume that the golden share was to continue indefinitely and that the companies would always be insulated from the prospect of takeovers.
I have little to add to my comments about the regulator. The regulatory concerns outlined by the Director General of Electricity Supply were, in the Government's opinion,
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addressed by the assurances received. We are confident that current discussions between the DGES and Trafalgar House will ensure that regulatory concerns are addressed.
Mr. Bob Dunn: Will my hon. Friend confirm that all licence holders, whoever owns them, must abide by their licence obligations?
Mr. Evans: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The requirements placed on licence holders remain entirely unaltered by my right hon. Friend's announcement yesterday.
Mr. Richard Caborn: If anybody in the House shows marked ignorance, it is the Minister. I do not know of any private company that legally has total control over the domestic market, as regional electricity companies have, until 1998. Will the Minister comment on suggestions in the press today that takeovers would change the industry's structure, and that it might revert to the pre-privatisation vertical stream structure—which could be totally in the private sector and foreign owned? Is the Minister saying, on behalf of the President, that the criteria used in the present takeover bid will apply even in the case of money invested from abroad?
Mr. Evans: I am saying that it is the policy of the Government to decide each issue on its merits as it comes to the Department of Trade and Industry to be judged. There is no circumstance in which this is any sort of precedent. Each case must be judged on its merits. The hon. Gentleman, as Chairman of the Trade and Industry Select Committee, well understands that it is not the case that there is no competition in the market. There is already competition; from 1998 there will be a whole lot more.
Mr. Tim Devlin: How will the assurances from Trafalgar House to the Secretary of State be enforced by the regulator, if they are not kept?
Mr. Evans: The position is that the assurances will be monitored by the regulator himself. The regulator has already indicated, in a statement that he issued yesterday, that he was beginning discussions with Trafalgar House to bring about amendments of the licence to that effect. I am sure, as my hon. Friend knows, that there is power within the Electricity Act 1989, if the regulator so considers, to have a matter referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: If insider dealing is found and difficulties arise over prosecution—as happened in the case to which I am unable to refer today—can we then be assured that the law on insider dealing will be reviewed, so that we can have some successful prosecutions?
Mr. Evans: I think that the hon. Gentleman will already be aware of a statement that was made by the Securities and Investments Board in relation to the issue of derivatives lately. I can tell him that, within the sphere of my own responsibilities on the operation of companies law, the issue of derivatives in that area is a matter of on-going examination.
Mrs. Angela Knight: Further to my hon. Friend's earlier answer, can he confirm that, in the event of Trafalgar House breaching its assurances, the Director

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General of Electricity Supply can refer the matter to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission under the Electricity Act?
Mr. Evans: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is very important, in the context of some of the remarks that have been made, to underline the fact that that power resides with the Director General of Electricity Supply.
Mr. John McWilliam: Will the Minister tell me where I and my constituents can buy our electricity other than from Northern Electric? If he cannot, will he admit that it is a monopoly and see it as being different?
Mr. Evans: As the hon. Gentleman should know, for commercial customers there is currently a degree of competition in the market, and from 1998 the Government will ensure that that competition is more widely available, so that the domestic customer is able to take advantage of competition as well.
Mr. Peter Atkinson: If Trafalgar House succeeds in its takeover bid for Northern Electric, will my hon. Friend ensure that the company's capital programme on upgrading and renewing the overhead power lines continues? Reliability of supply is very important, particularly in rural areas, where the cables are subjected to the vagaries of the weather. Will my hon. Friend make sure that the agreement between the regulator and Trafalgar House ensures that Northern Electric will continue to spend that money and upgrade its programme?
Mr. Evans: For my hon. Friend's benefit,, that is one of the specific areas covered by the assurances given by Trafalgar House, and is subject to the discussions to which I referred.
Mr. Alex Salmond: Would the Minister like to reconsider his rather foolish comment that these are just normal companies? How on earth is it not a precedent? Will it not effectively be open season on the other regional electricity companies? What talks has he had with the Secretary of State for Scotland about the implications of the non-decision not to intervene for the two Scottish electricity companies? Does he not understand the anger that would be felt in Scotland if the independence of Scottish Hydro-Electric or Scottish Power were compromised by that foolishness?
Mr. Evans: In the circumstances, the hon. Gentleman misses the point concerning the advice given by the Director General of Fair Trading. This is a case in which the Office of Fair Trading, through the director general, is in a position to offer advice to the President of the Board of Trade. Both in the statement that was made yesterday and in the statement that I have made to the House today, it is absolutely clear that the decision that has been reached by the Government is in accordance with that advice: in terms of competition and of the public interest, there were no grounds for the matter to be referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. Moreover, as I have already made clear, my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade has secured the assurances to which he referred in his statement and to which I have referred today. We have also made it clear that any other bids will be considered by the Department in the usual way.
Mr. Jacques Arnold: Does my hon. Friend find it odd that, having spent the past few weeks
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condemning the pay and conditions and professionalism of the boards and management of the regional electricity companies, the Labour party should condemn a proposal to subject them to the professional direction and management of a well-tested international British company? Does not that suggest double standards?
Mr. Evans: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We do not believe that management or directors should be insulated from the pressures of the market. We believe that the customer's interest needs to be protected, and will be protected, by the terms of the announcement that has been made; but we believe that there should be no insulation beyond that. I am rather surprised—well, perhaps in the circumstances I am not so surprised—that Opposition Members seem to believe in such insulation.
Mr. David Clelland: Is the Minister aware that, at a special meeting in Newcastle this morning, the votes of private and individual shareholders were heavily outnumbered by the proxy votes of the big institutions? Does not that demonstrate that, despite what the Government have said about wider share ownership, the City is still in the driving seat? Given that the Conservative party is very much in the City's pocket and has demonstrated its dislike of regulation, what guarantee have we that the long-term security and interests of the consumer will be considered?
Mr. Evans: As I made clear in my statement, it is now for the shareholders of Northern Electric to decide the issue. The Government do not take a view as between one bidder and another; the shareholders must exercise their judgment in the circumstances. All that is meant by my right hon. Friend's statement is that he has decided in the circumstances—on the basis of advice received from the Director General of Fair Trading relating to both competition and public interest—that there are no grounds for a reference to the MMC.
Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: I welcome yesterday's announcement by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, and recognise the consistency of the advice that he takes from the Director General of Fair Trading. Will my hon. Friend confirm, however, that those who own the companies will be subject to the same regulatory regime? Will he also give us an idea of the views of consumers? How will they benefit from the takeover?
Mr. Evans: As I said earlier, the issue of whether the bid proceeds successfully will be a matter for the shareholders. It is not for me, or for the Government, to advise shareholders on whether to accept a bid. I can say, however, that under the Electricity Act individual companies with licences are subject to regulation in the terms of those licences, which are unaffected by today's statement.
Mr. Ronnie Campbell: Surely the Minister is aware—the question has arisen before—that the taxpayer will lose £223 million because of the bid. The loss of tax revenue could be compounded by takeovers of other companies such as the Yorkshire Electricity Group, Midlands Electricity and perhaps even

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London Electricity. It has been one big rip-off. Can it not also be said that Tory party funds will benefit from the Trafalgar House bid?
Mr. Evans: I do not know where the hon. Gentleman gets his figures, but if he is concerned about a rip-off, let me remind him that since the privatisation of the electricity companies, there has been a steady reduction in the price of electricity. That has been the effect of introducing the disciplines of the market.
Mrs. Jacqui Lait: As a number of Opposition Members are clearly concerned about the effect on the consumer, will my hon. Friend confirm that, should the merger go ahead, Northern Electric's customers will enjoy a substantial bonus?
Mr. Evans: I understand, because I read about these things along with everyone else, that Northern Electric customers have been offered a certain financial bonus by Trafalgar House. As I said, however, that is entirely a matter for the shareholders to judge, and not a matter on which the Government take a view.
Mr. Jack Thompson: Does the Minister recognise that other responsibilities exist in relation to the northern region? There are 18,000 shareholders living there who are also consumers. I assume that they have been to the meeting this morning and that they have been outvoted. Those are the people who have an interest in the northern region. Does not he recognise that a social involvement exists in exercises such as this, and that my hon. Friends who live outside the northern region also have an interest in what is happening, because it will happen in their regions?
Mr. Evans: I make it clear to the hon. Gentleman that the decision that has been made is entirely consistent with the advice offered to the Government by the Director General of Fair Trading. The hon. Gentleman is saying that there should be a preferential voting system, in which one shareholder is entitled to more of the vote than another. I cannot go down that route.
Mr. John Marshall: I congratulate my hon. Friend on accepting the advice that I gave him at Department of Trade and Industry questions last Wednesday. Will he confirm that consumers in the north will receive a bonus of £30 as a result of the takeover, if it goes ahead? Will he also confirm that the institutional investors disliked by the Labour party are the pension funds that guarantee occupational pensions, and the life insurance companies that give decent bonuses to people with with-profits policies? They include the majority of our constituents.
Mr. Evans: My hon. Friend will recall that, when I responded to him last week, I said that I did not think it wise in the circumstances to comment on his specific advice. I adopt a similar stance in relation to his comment about the bonus to be offered to Northern Electric customers. This is entirely a matter for the shareholders to judge. The role of the Government is to consider whether competition or public interest grounds exist for interfering
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in the situation. On the basis of the advice of the Director General of Fair Trading, we have judged that, in this instance, no such grounds exist.
Mr. Chris Mullin: I do not suppose that the decision has anything to do with the fact that, since 1979, Trafalgar House has contributed £600,000 to Conservative party funds, does it—or am I being naive?
Mr. Evans: I am not sure that anyone, in the circumstances, would accuse the hon. Gentleman of naivety, but he is incorrect.
Mr. Ian Bruce: Does my hon. Friend believe, as I do, that consumers throughout the country will be better off if electricity companies get the message that, if they want to defend themselves against unwanted takeovers, they should reduce the price of electricity to their consumers, and the wages being paid to chief executives?
Mr. Evans: It is especially interesting that the first correlation to be drawn in that way comes from the Conservative Benches rather than the Opposition Benches. It sets in context many of the remarks that we have heard from the Opposition Benches in the past few weeks. It is clear that the regional electricity companies cannot be insulated from the disciplines of the marketplace. In this instance, having judged those factors, and having taken into account the advice received, the Government have decided that this particular electricity company cannot be put into an insulated position.
Mr. Jim Cousins: What legal force will the assurances that were given to the President of the Board of Trade have? If those assurances are breached in any particular, will that mean that he will reconsider referring the matter to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission?
Mr. Evans: Perhaps I can assist the hon. Gentleman. I presume that he heard the beginning of my statement, so he will recall that I said that the Director General of Electricity Supply has the power to refer the matter in any event—[Interruption.] Will the hon. Gentleman please hear me out? The Director General of Electricity Supply has the power to refer the matter under the Electricity Act 1989 should he so wish. In this particular case, he is at this moment engaged in a dialogue with Trafalgar House. If the bid proceeds and if there is subsequently a takeover, the Director General of Electricity Supply will bear those factors in mind if there should be any breach of the assurances. The position adopted by the Government is that to have a statutorily enforceable undertaking beyond the assurances that we have received, would have required a situation in which the Director General of Fair Trading considered that such assurances were necessary. We received no such advice in this case.
Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Will my hon. Friend confirm that the shareholders of Northern Electric have already benefited to a considerable extent, that customers will benefit to a considerable extent from the £30 bonus and that employees will benefit from increased investment by Trafalgar House? Does he agree that as this is the takeover of an electricity company by an engineering company,

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there are no competition or public interest issues involved, so my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade has made absolutely the right decision?
Mr. Evans: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend's comments about competition and public interest. I do not think that he would wish me to comment on whether the bid should be successful as that is a matter for the shareholders to decide.
Ms Hilary Armstrong: Does the Minister accept that Northern Electric's customers do not share his colleagues' enthusiasm for the takeover, but regard it with great concern? Does he realise that, having heard him today, they will be even more afraid that the rumour about the propensity of Trafalgar House to asset-strip any firm that it takes over is really what this is all about?
Mr. Evans: I hope that the hon. Lady has seen the statement issued yesterday by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade and the precise terms of the assurances received because they deal precisely with the issue that she raised.
Ms Ann Coffey: Will the Minister tell me to whom the regulator will be accountable if at some future date he decides to refer, or not to refer, the bid to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission?
Mr. Evans: The regulator is, of course, independent. It is a matter for him to decide in the circumstances whether he wishes to refer the bid. I find it odd to hear concerns raised about the position of the regulator because, as I said, when the assurances were given by Trafalgar House, representatives of the regulator were present.

Personal Statement
4.2 pm
Mr. Clive Soley: With your permission, Madam Speaker, I should like to make a short statement. Following the successful defence by The Guardian of a libel action relating to malice in reporting a story about Conservative party funding, I am happy to be able to put the record straight in respect of an intervention that I made on the Floor of the House on 22 June 1993.
On that occasion, I read from a letter sent to me by an Arab whom I had known for many years and who related in his letter an alleged conversation between the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and Prince Bandar. On the same day, The Guardian had reported that allegation as it tended to confirm other reports that had emanated from an entirely different source. Like The Guardian, I fell that this was an important matter that deserved examination. As far as I am aware, no dishonesty was involved by any party, including none by myself. I was reading from a letter written by someone whom I believed to be acting in good faith, and I was not lying.
I was, however, wrong to name the Secretary of State for two reasons. First, he had just suffered a serious heart attack. Secondly, he could not speak for himself. At that time, I believed that it was the responsibility of the Tory party to respond as the allegation was that money was being paid to the Tory party.
I would therefore like to take this opportunity to apologise to the Secretary of State and his family for my insensitivity in relation to his illness at that time arid to put it on record that, although I know the allegations to have been made in good faith, I am now satisfied that neither the Secretary of State nor Prince Bandar was involved in such a conversation. I am also happy to extend my apologies to Prince Bandar.
Sir Norman Fowler: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Obviously, it would be wrong to seek to ask questions on a personal statement—[Interruption.]
Madam Speaker: Order. I remind the right hon. Gentleman and the House that we make no comments following a personal statement. It is received by the House in silence and we then move on to the next business. 'That has been the custom and practice of the House for many years and I intend to uphold that custom and practice.

Land Registers (Scotland)
4.4 pm
Mr. Bill Walker: I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make prepayment of the appropriate statutory fees a condition of acceptance of writs for recording in the Register of Sasines and of applications for registration in the Land Register of Scotland.
The Bill is neither controversial nor topical. To those not involved in conveyancing in Scotland, it would not be unfair to describe it as rather dull. However, the minor changes to existing legislation which I wish to introduce in the Bill are important to the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland, supported by the Law Society of Scotland, and enjoy all-party support from Scottish parties in the House.
The Bill would enable the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland to move from post-payment to pre-payment of fees for the recording of writs in the register of sasines and for the registration of applications in the land register. It would also provide for the keeper to reject applications for registration in the land register and writs for recording in the register of sasines if those were not accompanied by the appropriate fee. That would be achieved by a short and uncontroversial two-clause Bill.
I do not wish to detain the House by going into great detail about the proposed change. However, it might assist fellow hon. Members, particularly those from south of the border, if I say a few words about Registers of Scotland, the land registration system in place there and the reasons for the proposed change.
In many ways, Registers of Scotland mirrors Her Majesty's Land Registry in England and Wales in being responsible for land registration matters. In Scotland, however, there are two main registers that cover rights and land. The register of sasines dates from the 17th century and records deeds affecting property in Scotland. For more than three centuries, the register of sasines has provided the chief security for title to land in Scotland. It is now being replaced by the land register, which is a state-guaranteed, map-based register of title to land.
The land register became operational in 1981, and Registers of Scotland, in a recent response to the 46th report of the Committee of Public Accounts, has committed itself to completing the extension of the land register to cover the whole of Scotland by no later than 2003. To achieve that challenging extension programme, Registers of Scotland is pursuing a number of initiatives to improve the efficiency of the Department and the service that it provides to its customers. Those initiatives include a move to trading fund status from April 1996, which would bring it into line with HM Land Registry, which has operated as a trading fund since April 1993. Trading fund status will greatly assist Registers of Scotland in planning the necessary finances for extending the land register by giving it additional financial flexibility. Although that will undoubtedly help the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland, the keeper is currently faced with another financial difficulty, which is what my Bill seeks to resolve.
The current system of invoicing customers, who are mainly solicitors, after the work on registration or recording has been completed, is both time consuming
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and expensive in pursuing outstanding fees. That has been particularly so in recent years when the level of outstanding fees has risen significantly. Despite a number of attempts to chase up outstanding debts by Registers of Scotland with assistance from the Law Society of Scotland, some £4.7 million in fees was owed at the end of 1994 to Registers of Scotland, of which some £1.9 million or 40 per cent. was outstanding by at least four months. On a turnover of £30 million a year, that level of outstanding debt is considered to be no longer acceptable by the keeper. He is supported in his view by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Law Society of Scotland.
A move to pre-payment of fees is seen as the solution by all parties. Not only would that deal with the outstanding debt problem, but it would assist the cash flow of Registers of Scotland, enabling it to make savings of about £500,000 per annum on the collection of fees. It would also bring Scotland into line with England and Wales. I emphasise that that would not the effect the level of fees charged by Registers of Scotland. There are, therefore, no adverse cost implications for solicitors or purchasers of property, including house buyers. As a result, the proposed change should not be in any way controversial. The Law Society of Scotland has already confirmed that solicitors are content for the change to be made.
The problem is that the keeper cannot affect that change without existing legislation being amended. Section 6 of the Land Writs Registration (Scotland) Act 1868 provides inter alia that payment of fees for recording writs in the register of sasines should take place after recording. There is no similar restriction in the Land Registration (Scotland) Act 1979, but the keeper would not have the power to reject an application for registration on the land register without an amendment to section 4 of that Act. My Bill therefore provides for the necessary amendments to be made to those two Acts to enable pre-payment and to allow the keeper to reject writs for recording in the register of sasines or applications for registration in the land register when not accompanied by the appropriate fee.
The Bill will also make a minor consequential change by removing the process of notifying that a recorded writ was for ready for delivery in exchange for the fee, which would flow from the change to post-payment to pre-payment.
The Bill is short, non-controversial and narrowly focused, but it important to those concerned. I commend it to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Bill Walker, Mr. Allan Stewart, Mr. Norman Hogg, Mr. Menzies Campbell, Mrs. Margaret Ewing, Mr. Phil Gallie and Mr. Raymond S. Robertson.

LAND REGISTERS (SCOTLAND)
Mr. Bill Walker accordingly presented a Bill to make prepayment of the appropriate statutory fees a condition of acceptance of writs for recording in the Register of Sasines and of applications for registration in the Land Register of Scotland: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 17 February 1995, and to be printed. [Bill 51.]
Orders of the Day

  Licensing (Sunday Hours) Bill
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Madam Speaker: I have not accepted any of the instructions on the Order Paper.
  4.12 pm
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Michael Forsyth): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  The purpose of the Bill is straightforward; it is to rationalise the Sunday licensing hours for off-licences, pubs and clubs.
  The Bill contains sensible measures which I believe will be welcomed by both consumers and the licensed trade. It provides for necessary protection against nuisance and disorder while removing the current unnecessary rules and regulations governing the sale of alcohol on Sundays.
  Clause 1 will enable small shops and off-licences to sell alcohol from 10 in the morning until 10.30 at night. This will bring the law governing Sunday off-licence hours into line with the Sunday Trading Act 1994.
  Since August last year, large stores and supermarkets have been able to open for up to six hours between 10 in the morning and 6 o'clock in the afternoon; yet they have been able to sell alcohol between midday and 3 o'clock only. That has created the absurd situation in which people shopping in supermarkets on Sunday morning for their lunch can buy as much food as they want but no drink to go with it. The Bill will sweep away that pointless restriction.
  Mr. A. J. Beith: Can the hon. Gentleman make it clear that the Bill will have no effect on the Easter Sunday and Christmas day position—that supermarkets are not allowed to open on Christmas day when it falls on a Sunday? Will supermarkets be empowered by the Bill to open solely for the sale of alcohol on those days?
  Mr. Forsyth: The Bill does not mention the opening of supermarkets. That matter has already been before the House. The Bill provides for removal of the anomaly that related to the sale of alcohol in supermarkets, as I have explained. As a result of the Bill, people will be able to buy alcohol in supermarkets on Sunday in the same way and at the same time as they can buy any other goods.
  The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) is right that, in licensing legislation, Easter Sunday and Christmas day have been treated in the same way as normal Sundays.
  Mr. Beith: The Minister has not made it clear; he has made two conflicting statements. Does the Bill allow a supermarket to sell alcohol on Easter Sunday when that supermarket is not allowed to sell anything else on Easter Sunday?
  Mr. Forsyth: If the supermarket is not open, it is not able to sell anything—either alcohol or goods. I thought that I had made that pretty clear to the right hon. Gentleman.
  1014
  I now move to on-licensed premises. Pubs and hotels with bars are allowed to open only from noon until 3 pm and from 7 pm until 10.30 pm at the moment. Clause 1 will remove the afternoon break, so that pubs will be able to serve drinks in the bar throughout the period from noon until 10.30 pm.
  The Government regard that as a sensible and responsible step. It is more than six years since the Licensing Act 1988 permitted pubs and clubs to open during weekday afternoons. At the time, serious worries were expressed about the adverse consequences that all-day opening might have in terms of increased drunkenness, crime and disorder. However, there has been little increase in drunkenness, nuisance or disorder as a result of the changes, and there seems no reason why things should be different on a Sunday.
  Mr. Dafydd Wigley: Will the Minister clarify for the House the position in an area such as Dwyfor in my constituency, where licensed premises do not open on Sundays as a result of the local referendum?
  Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman is tempting me into matters that are outwith my immediate area of responsibility, but I understand the position in respect of Welsh polls to be that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales has said that, after 1996, that system will disappear and legislation would be required for that purpose.
  The Bill creates an opportunity, where opening does take place on Sundays, for it to be extended. I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman will recognise that the scope of the Bill is narrowly drawn to deal with Sunday opening. Although the issue of polls might well be in the scope of the Bill, I understand that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales has said that he will seek a future legislative opportunity to tackle that matter.
  Mr. Donald Anderson: The Minister said in terms that there has been "little" increase in alcoholism or drunkenness because of the operation of the 1988 Act. Will he confirm that, immediately after the 1988 Act, there was such an increase, and that research shows that there has been an increase in heavy drinking following the Act? How little is "little"?
  Mr. Forsyth: I should be very interested to see the evidence on which the hon. Gentleman bases his remarks. The advice that is available to me shows that there has been little evidence of the type that he suggests, but I should be happy to consider it. I was making a specific argument in respect of the consequences of all-day opening, but I should be happy to examine that evidence. I am not aware of any strong evidence to support what the hon. Gentleman says. In considering those matters, we need to balance the rights of the majority of people to go about their business exercising responsible choices, and I believe that there should not be legislative barriers in the way of those people unless there is substantial justification for legislation of that type.
  Mr. James Couchman: It may be helpful for my right hon. Friend to know that my experience as a licensee when the Licensing Act 1988 came into force

  1015
  was that the heavier drinking which followed the abolition of the afternoon break on weekdays lasted for approximately a fortnight.
  Mr. Forsyth: There we have it from the sharp end. It is predictable that people would perhaps take advantage of the longer opening hours for their novelty value. Speaking as a Member who represents a Scottish constituency, I believe that when liberalisation took place in Scotland it was said that the binge drinking which went on at 10 pm when people tried to "get one more in" before closing time was lessened as a result of the longer opening hours. Those who take a different view cite anecdotal evidence to support their position. However, I am not aware of any general research which shows that giving people more freedom of choice results in their being less responsible.
  Mr. Derek Enright: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. As a result of supermarkets opening on Sunday, churchgoers have been prevented from parking outside their church by the local council from 9.30 on a Sunday morning for the rest of the day because it is inconvenient for Sainsbury. That is a very odd thing to do. As a result of pubs opening all day on Sunday, parishioners of St. Gerard's in Featherstone, for example, may now be prevented from parking outside their church because it will inconvenience the pub next door.
  Mr. Forsyth: Parking arrangements are matters for local authorities to decide. The proposals in the Bill are not related to parking arrangements for motor cars. I start from the position that our legislation should allow people to go about their business freely. It is up to them whether they wish to go to church or to the pub with their families. Unless there are very strong reasons for imposing legislative barriers to their doing so, those barriers should not be put in place. I am afraid that I am not able to help the hon. Gentleman directly with regard to parking arrangements, but I shall happily give way to him again.
  Mr. Enright: The Home Secretary, who is sitting next to the Minister, assured us that the Sunday Trading Act 1994 would not have a deleterious effect on churchgoers. I agree that the problems have not resulted directly from any action by the Home Secretary, but will the Minister give an undertaking that he will examine the matter to ensure that churchgoers are not disadvantaged by being unable to park outside their churches as they do now?
  Mr. Forsyth: The Bill deals with the opening hours of pubs and other licensed premises. I do not know what the hon. Gentleman's churchgoing habits are—I appreciate that there are differences between the Church of Scotland and the Church of England—but most church services begin before 12 o'clock when the pubs will open under the provisions of the Bill; so churchgoers will get there first for the parking spaces. I think that the hon. Gentleman can rest easy on that matter.
  Mr. Enright: Not for midday masses.
  Mr. Forsyth: I do not know about day masses—the hon. Gentleman is stretching my knowledge. As for his point about supermarkets, as I have already pointed out to the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, the Bill
  1016
  does not deal directly with the opening hours of supermarkets, as we have already dealt with that matter. We are concerned about whether it is possible to buy alcohol in supermarkets when they are open. Presumably, parking arrangements will reflect public demand for the other goods that are on sale in supermarkets as well as the availability of alcohol. I hope that that point is clear.
  Mr. Lawrence Cunliffe: I am sure that the Minister will agree that a radical and significant measure such as this warrants full consultation with the licensed trade and club associations. The largest all-party group in Westminster is the clubs association, whose offices and membership are shared by all political parties. It has direct responsibility for looking to the interests—not protecting the interests—of consumers. There are 8 million members of the Committee of Registered Clubs Associations. They are extremely concerned that no consultation took place. The matter was first announced by the Prime Minister outside the House, rather cavalierly, if I may say so. I do not expect the Minister to comment on that, but, if we mean what we say about consultation, particularly about involving people in such a great industry, it is imperative that consultation should take place. I hope that it is not too late to invite the associations to respond, especially CORCA.
  Mr. Forsyth: The Prime Minister made the announcement as part of the Government's general determination to remove unnecessary regulation which inhibits people's choices and opportunities. Most people will welcome that and will welcome the measure. The hon. Gentleman used the description "cavalier". Perhaps Cavalier as opposed to Roundhead might be more appropriate. It may be more a Cavalier measure than a Roundhead measure, and puritans may be concerned about it.
  This is a permissive piece of legislation, but nothing in it will compel people in clubs or other organisations to take advantage of it. It is about removing barriers, not imposing requirements, and if clubs feel that it is not appropriate for them to take advantage of the new freedoms that the legislation will provide, they are free not to do so. I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman's protests about consultation are entirely fair.
  Mr. Couchman: My hon. Friend will know that in 1993 his Department issued a White Paper on possible changes to the Licensing Act 1988. There was extensive consultation at that time and the bodies to which reference has just been made certainly had an opportunity to respond to the White Paper.
  Mr. Forsyth: I was not in the Home Office at the time, but I shall take a risk. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. It is certainly true that we issued a consultation document, but I am not sure whether the present proposals in respect of Sundays were included.
  Mr. Cunliffe: They were not.
  Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman, who follows these matters carefully, tells me that they were not, but I can tell the House that we have had representations on the matter. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has responded to those representations and I am sure that the

  1017
  silent majority up and down the country will welcome the measures. I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will rally to support them.
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: Who are those large groups of people who have supposedly made a demand to change the law? In all the correspondence and representations that I receive, no one has ever suggested to me that it would be a great idea. Could it be that the Tory party has responded to the fact that the brewers give large sums of money to the Tory party funds, and that the brewers put forward the idea and the Minister is carrying out their wishes?
  Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman does not seem to notice any demand for anything, unless it is written on placards borne by militants marching towards Hyde park. That is the nature of his politics, but I suggest that he goes back to his constituency and asks people whether they wish to have the opportunity on a Sunday afternoon to take advantage of the new licensing arrangements to allow people to take their children into pubs. If he asks people whether they think it is a sensible measure, he will find that it has considerable support. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman should seek to make such a low party political point on a measure that will command support from people of all political persuasions.
  Sunday afternoon opening fits in naturally with the other steps which we have taken to relax licensing legislation. Until January, children under 14 were not allowed into public bars. The children's certificates which I have just mentioned will change that. Children under 14 accompanied by an adult will be allowed into those bars that serve meals and that licensing justices consider provide a suitable environment for young children. That should help to encourage family pubs, where parents can enjoy a quiet pint in the company of their children. As Sunday is the day when families often go out together, it makes no sense for pubs offering those facilities to have to close on a Sunday afternoon.
  Allowing pubs to open on Sunday afternoons cannot fail to boost tourism. The change will, I am sure, be particularly welcomed by visitors from abroad, to whom the present requirement for pubs to close on Sunday afternoons is simply incomprehensible. I very much hope that the Bill will make rapid progress, so that its benefits can be felt during the summer holiday season.
  The relaxation in Sunday hours will also apply to clubs. A club may sell alcohol to its members or their guests in accordance with the club rules if it is registered for that purpose with a magistrates court. Under the present arrangements, the hours during which alcohol may be sold in clubs on Sundays are the same in total as for pubs, and there must be an afternoon break. However, clubs have more flexibility than pubs over the length of the break and the time that they reopen on Sunday afternoons. Clause 2 will remove those somewhat complicated rules for clubs opening on Sundays. In future, they will be able to open from midday until 10.30 pm. Sunday licensing hours for pubs and clubs will be the same, which is already the case on weekdays.
  I have outlined what the Bill will permit. I know that people of who live near pubs or clubs may be concerned that Sunday afternoon opening will bring problems of noise, nuisance or even disorder. As I have said, there has been virtually no evidence of such problems since pubs and clubs have been allowed to open during weekday
  1018
  afternoons. Nevertheless, there must be some remedy available if such problems arise following Sunday afternoon opening. Clause 3 provides that important safeguard.
  Licensing justices or magistrates courts will be able to impose restriction orders on pubs or clubs where problems of nuisance or disorder have arisen or are likely to arise. A power to make a restriction order was introduced in the Licensing Act 1988 when the weekday afternoon break was abolished. Its effect is to reimpose all or part of the old afternoon break when afternoon opening had or was likely to give rise to annoyance, disturbance or disorder, and the power will be extended to Sundays.
  Mr. Enright: Does that mean that, if the church next to the supermarket that is suffering—and has suffered—disturbance, objects to the sale of alcohol during those periods because it brings more customers, it will be able to appeal under that clause?
  Mr. Forsyth: It certainly means that the church will be able to appeal if, as a result of the afternoon opening, there is annoyance, disturbance or disorder. It will permit the police and people who live or work in the vicinity of a pub or club to apply for a restriction order—a church is included in that category. If granted, the order will require the pub or club to close for all or part of the period from 3 pm until 7 pm on Sunday afternoons.
  Clause 4 is concerned only with consequential amendments as a result of the changes in clauses 1 to 3 relating to Sunday hours and restriction orders. Clause 5 provides that, following enactment, the Bill will come into force on a date specified by the Secretary of State. That flexibility is needed to allow the Home Office to inform the police, licensing justices and magistrates courts about the changes that the Bill will make. We do not expect there to be any significant interval between Royal Assent and the Act—given that Parliament chooses to support the Bill to that stage—coming into effect.
  I believe that Sunday is a special day. For many, it is a family day. Some people choose to go to church, some to play sport and others to have a drink in the pub. It is for individuals—not Government—to make those decisions. The Bill will increase individuals' freedom to choose how they spend their Sundays. It will call time on closing our pubs and clubs on Sunday afternoons. It 'will allow families to spend time together—eating and drinking at the time of their choosing, not the state's. It will ensure that the necessary safeguards exist to protect people from nuisance and disorder. I commend it to the House.
  Mr. Max Madden: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I regret having to raise with you so soon after I raised a similar point of order with you last Thursday the failure of the Government to make a statement on public sector pay, the failure of the Home Secretary to make a statement to the House about changes that I understand he will announce in a press release shortly on the introduction of new restrictive measures that will affect all categories of people seeking permission to remain in Britain, including asylum seekers. It is disgraceful, given the controversy that arose last weekend and this week, that the Home Secretary should not have seen fit to come to the House to make an important statement about matters which are of life and

  1019
  death importance to many people. I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman might find it possible to make a statement at 7 o'clock.
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): The hon. Gentleman has made his point. He knows full well that it is not a matter for the Chair to judge. It is up to Ministers whether they make statements. Those on the Treasury Bench will be aware of what the hon. Gentleman has said.
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Michael Howard): Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I think the hon. Gentleman will find that a written question has indeed been answered.
  Mr. Madden: That is not good enough: make a statement.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. This is interfering with the legitimate business now under discussion.
  4.35 pm
  Mr. George Howarth: As has been the custom on such issues, if there is a Division it will be a free vote for the Opposition. Although in the past I have not voted in favour of any measure that encroached on Sunday, I will vote to give the Bill a Second Reading if there is a Division. We have some reservations, however, with which I shall deal later in my speech.
  In the mid-1990s, there does not appear to be a great deal of moral heat left in the arguments about Sundays. As recently as 1988, when the Sunday hours were extended by one hour by an amendment in the House of Lords, Lord Ferrers, who was then a Minister in the Home Office, declined to support the amendment. He said that he could not
  "support even this modest extension of the licensing hours for the simple reason that the Government have made plain their intention to leave Sunday hours unchanged in this Bill."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 March 1988; Vol. 494, c. 1052.]
  The heat had gone out of the argument by then, but even at that stage it was clear that the Government were not entirely comfortable with exactly how those changes were proceeding.
  Mr. Donald Anderson: As a veteran of the 1988 Licensing Bill, I can tell my hon. Friend that the facts were that throughout the Second Reading debate and proceedings in the Standing Committee, the then Minister of State at the Home Office, the right hon. and learned Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg), gave repeated assurances that there would be no change to the Sunday hours. The gloss on what the Minister now says is that the Government did not support the change when it was made in another place and nor did they oppose it. They did not oppose it, notwithstanding the many assurances that had been given during the passage of the Bill through the House.
  Mr. Howarth: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the gloss that he has added to what I was saying.
  The arrangements for Sunday licensing have in the past been far more hotly contested and controversial. For example, in Wales in the recent past—the Minister referred briefly to it in his speech—the issue was not
  1020
  always so straightforward because there were various referenda, or referendums as we are now told they are to be called.
  Mr. Enright: Referenda—my hon. Friend is right.
  Mr. Howarth: There is controversy even on the name of that subject, never mind the execution of it.
  I have an extract from a House of Lords debate on alcoholic drink as long ago as 1968. I noted an exchange between Lord Maelor and Baroness Phillips. Lord Maelor had asked about the conduct of the referendum that had been held. His response to the answer was:
  "I thank my noble friend for her reply. I am not quite satisfied with the answer because I can give her facts and figures … Is my noble friend aware that in Denbigh there were 470 spoiled votes, and that in fact 1,500 were technically spoiled, except that the presiding officer could presume to know what was the intention of the voter. I must say that I am not surprised. I have here a copy of the ballot paper."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 20 November 1968; Vol. 297, c. 846.]
  The whole debate then proceeded into chaos. Even at that stage, the question of holding referendums on the subject generated a great deal of heat.
  The position in Wales created a series of anomalies. I have an extract from The Times of 6 November 1989. The article is headed:
  "Forecasts of a wetter Wales".
  In my experience, it is often just that. On the question of some counties being wet and some dry, the article stated:
  "To see the consequences this produced you need to stand on a humped bridge over the River Teifi. Behind you is Nellie Griffith's Red Cow. It is shut because it stands on the Cardigan side of the border. By noon a steady stream of young men—many of them the Red Cow's mid-week regulars—has crossed the bridge to drink in the dozen public houses strung through the streets of Newcastle Emlyn, which is in liberal Carmarthen. Nellie Red Cow (locals will call her nothing else) is 75 and has lived in the house since infancy. 'It is not the little bit of lost business that makes me so angry,' she explains, 'it is injustice. The good Lord knows that we are not bad people over here. Peaceful on Sunday? I don't have swearing or fighting any day."
  That sums up the problems and the anomalies.
  Serious issues remain that should be discussed in the debate. In view of those anomalies, it was necessary to have some change. Broadly speaking, there is widespread support for a further relaxation of Sunday hours. I am sure that other right hon. and hon. Members have also received representations from the Consumers Association. It states:
  "From surveys of CA members and the public at large, it is clear that present restrictions are inconvenient and that greater flexibility in opening hours will meet with widespread approval."
  It then states some reservations, which could be appropriately raised at a later stage of the Bill.
  I have also received representations from the Campaign for Real Ale, which also supports the Bill. I suppose that it represents the serious drinking end of the market. Nevertheless, its support should be taken into account.
  As patterns of social life and working life have changed over the years, Sunday has become a day of leisure for most people rather than specifically a day of worship, as some might have maintained 30 or even 20 years ago. Many people—me included—are able to combine both. It is quite possible, as the Minister hinted, to go to church in the morning and to a pub, club or restaurant in the afternoon, and many families do just that.

  1021
  Yesterday, I spoke to the Bishop of Liverpool, David Sheppard, who is also chairman of the board for social responsibility of the Church of England. He said that although he personally regretted the cultural changes associated with what is permissible on a Sunday, he still did not feel it necessary to take a strong line in opposition to the Bill.
  Despite the fact that I shall support the Bill, I should record some of the reservations that people have about it—in addition to those already expressed by some of my hon. Friends. I agree, for instance, with my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Mr. Cunliffe). Even before the Bill goes into Committee, there is a case for further consultation with some of the organisations—[Interruption.] It would be nice if the Minister bothered to listen to what I am saying. If sensible changes to the Bill can be made later, I am sure that my hon. Friends will be willing to propose them.
  Mr. Donald Anderson: There has apparently already been some consultation with the brewers, even if the Government did not think it worth while discussing the matter with club representatives or licensed trade representatives.
  Mr. Howarth: Indeed. I urge the Minister to hold meaningful consultation on all these points.
  To continue my list of reservations: I have with me a Home Office press release published on 3 January and entitled
  "Pubs to Offer a Family Welcome".
  It states:
  "Landlords will be able to welcome families with children into their bars early in the New Year, Home Secretary Michael Howard announced today. Licensees will be able to apply for children's certificates from January 3rd, in time for the major licensing session round in February. The certificates will, for the first time, allow accompanied children under 14 into suitable pub bars where food and soft drinks are served."
  I welcome that announcement, but I fear that all too often pub and club facilities are not family friendly. They are frequently gloomy places that make no concession to families and have no facilities for children. Speaking as the parent of three young children, I am well aware of the changes that need to be made.
  I trust that the certificate procedure will not stop there, and that licensees, breweries and club organisations will be encouraged to carry on the process of making licensed premises more family friendly. If we are serious about Sunday being a day of leisure, such facilities are very necessary ingredients.
  I should like also to put the point of view of those who work in the licensed trade, referring, if I may, to points made by the Transport and General Workers union, the major trade union active in this area. It has five points to make:
  "(i) For any worker not currently working on a Sunday, the decision to do so should be entirely voluntary. Workers should be protected from any disciplinary action or discrimination for refusing to do so."
  The same points were made in respect of Sunday trading; with slight modification, they hold good in this case.
  "(ii) Where a worker already works on a Sunday, any extension of their working hours should also be entirely voluntary and, again, workers should be protected from any disciplinary action or intimidation for refusing to work extended hours. (iii) Any workers who volunteer to work on Sunday, or to work extended hours, should be entitled to enhanced pay based on a minimum of double
  1022
  time. (iv) (iii) above should apply to all workers, whether they be employed for the sole purpose of working on Sunday or in a peripheral activity relating to the business.
  (v) Any legislation in this matter should have universal application and be incorporated into the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act."
  We may not be given full answers to those points, but they should be taken into account.
  It may surprise one or two of my hon. Friends, but I have been lobbied by the British Casino Association, and I promised to put one of its points on record without any commitment by us. It wrote:
  "Whilst the British Casino Association welcomes the further de-regulation of licensing hours under this Bill, this is in stark contrast with the current situation for casinos. Unlike other types of club, some casinos licensed for gaming may supply liquor after 10.30 pm and none may do so after midnight, even though gaming can continue until 4 am in the morning. This is an unforseen side effect of the ban on live entertainment in casinos by regulation under the 1968 Gaming Act, which means that no casino can apply for an 'extended hours order' or for a 'special hours certificate' under Sections 70 and 76 respectively of the Licensing Act 1964."
  The Minister mentioned tourism. The association argues that the restriction affects the tourist industry.
  Mr. Michael Forsyth: Casinos are outside the scope of the Bill, but, as part of the deregulation exercise that produced this child, we are considering casinos and proposals will be forthcoming. I welcome the hon. Gentleman's views on that and other areas where there may be scope for deregulation. I have some sympathy with the association's point on the inability of casinos to sell alcohol after a particular time in the evening. That anomaly is under consideration.
  Mr. Howarth: I hasten to add that I was not pressing that case but merely flagging it. We do not take a particular position on that aspect.
  Mr. Enright: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Howarth: Certainly.
  Mr. Enright: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend because it is most irritating to be interrupted from behind. This seems to be the thin end of the wedge. Will deregulation be extended to racing? Will Pontefract be flooded with race meetings, charming though they are? Will there be further gambling in our pubs, with more gaming machines being installed? That seems the direction in which the Government are moving. I hope that my hon. Friend will impress on the Minister the need to put some stop to these damned proposals.
  Mr. Howarth: It is never irritating to be interrupted by my hon. Friend, whose useful points are always well made. Horse racing is already permitted six Sundays a year. I am sorry to disappoint my hon. Friend, but I understand that further proposals relating to gaming machines are on their way. Mammon is already at the door.
  On balance, and subject to the reservations that I expressed, I will support the Bill's Second Reading. I hope that the issues raised by my hon. Friends and me will be addressed in detail as the Bill progresses. We have serious reservations and want them addressed before the measure reaches the statute book.
  4.53 pm
  Mr. Warren Hawksley: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak early in the debate. I will not detain the House long. I declare an interest, as the Register shows, as joint licensee with my wife of Eoderton hall, which is a hotel and restaurant near Welshpool in Wales. We hold a full licence, so I have experience of the operation of licensing laws. I am also honorary president of the catering industry's liaison council, a trade body in which the industry tries to put forward its views.
  I welcome the Bill wholeheartedly. I believe that it has come out of the Government's Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994, and for that we should be grateful. I hope that there will be much more deregulation. My hon. Friend the Minister was right to agree that the Bill is one of the early benefits to come from that legislation.
  When all-day drinking was introduced, we were led to believe that it would be a disaster. We heard, when the Minister was introducing the subject, that it would be a two-week wonder in certain establishments. It probably lasted that long in my part of the world. There were not the disasters that were forecast. The public were responsible and they could be trusted. In many areas, that piece of legislation was not used. The pubs and hotels had a choice whether to open all day, if they wished. The same is true of the proposed legislation. It does not force people to open.
  Mr. Couchman: My hon. Friend might like to know that a number of establishments did indeed try all-day opening on weekdays, as a result of the Licensing Act 1988, found that it was not to their benefit or that of their customers and exercised their choice not to open. I am sure that the same will happen with the Licensing (Sunday Hours) Bill.
  Mr. Hawksley: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend about the wisdom of giving the licensees and the public the opportunity to show that there is a demand for the services that are offered.
  I look at the Bill as a correction to an anomaly in many ways, because if one thinks of an hotel in a tourist area, or even an off-licence—I think of my part of the country, where the hotel is, and of the many campers and caravaners who visit the area—one will realise how stupid the present law is. Think of the scene in our local supermarket, which is small and is open on a Sunday—it has been for some time—and which has an off-licence. Imagine a member of the staff trying to explain to a foreign tourist why, at five past three, he or she cannot buy a bottle of wine to take back to the caravan, whereas 10 minutes earlier they were allowed to buy a bottle or a can of beer. It is absolute folly. Even if the tourist understood what was being said—with all due respect, somebody speaking in a Welsh accent to a foreign visitor who hardly speaks any English may have some problems—he or she looks at us as though we are mad. I believe that it highlights the folly of the present situation.
  Mr. Donald Anderson: Does the hon. Gentleman, when he and his wife go on holiday to Spain, look at a
  1024
  Spaniard as though he were mad when the Spaniard tries to explain to him about a siesta, saints' days or the traditions of that country?
  Mr. Hawksley: I have never been to Spain and nor has my wife, so that creates a slight problem. I will, perhaps, put it in the context of visits that I have made to France. I never seem to have any problems getting myself a drink in a French establishment whenever I have wanted one, whether or not it was on a Sunday.
  Mrs. Cheryl Gillan: I have seen in my local supermarket on a Sunday, where many retired people and students work, customers abusing and being extremely rude to supermarket staff who are trying to close the section where alcoholic drinks are sold. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill is sensible, because it will free up and remove that aggression from society which is absolutely unnecessary?
  Mr. Hawksley: I have never witnessed that problem, but I can understand it happening and have been told many times that people who serve drinks up until the 3 o'clock deadline have problems when they have closed and people come in and expect to be served. They just do not understand and cannot believe that, in this country and in this day and age, when we have legislated for Sunday trading, we are pursuing that particular policy.
  Mr. Beith: Before the hon. Gentleman gets too carried away talking about foreign tourists, he might reflect that if those tourists come from Norway and Sweden—as many visitors to my constituency do—they will be quite surprised to discover that they can buy alcohol from an off-licence rather than from a Government monopoly, and indeed that they can buy it at weekends at all.
  Mr. Hawksley: I am glad that plenty of tourists visit the right hon. Gentleman's part of the country. The tourist industry is important, and the Bill goes a long way to help it by offering the facilities that are expected by many tourists, if not those from Norway.
  I want to deal with two aspects of the Bill in detail. First, why do we go only halfway? Why do we not bring Sunday hours into line with weekday hours? The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) about supermarkets could also cause a slight problem in pubs and off-licences: local residents may be surprised to find that they shut at 10.30 pm rather than 11 pm on Sundays. I hope that the Committee will seriously consider extending opening time by, at any rate, that half hour at the end of the day, because if the same hours do not operate throughout the week people may be confused. I question the advantage of the hours specified in the Bill; indeed, I suggest that there are no advantages.
  Mr. Michael Forsyth: Did my hon. Friend's suggestion that pub opening hours should be brought into line with weekday hours apply both to the extra half hour at the end of the day and to morning opening?
  Mr. Hawksley: I would prefer to alter the hours at both ends. I appreciate that the Church might object on the grounds that services are still going on at that time of the morning, so I deliberately avoided making the suggestion, but I support the principle. I suspect that, in any event,

  1025
  pubs in areas where many people go to church would not want to open until the service was over, as few people would visit the pub at that time.
  My second point concerns clause 3, which deals with restriction orders. I understand the reasons for the orders, which are similar to those in the legislation allowing all-day drinking. I gather that they are intended to deal with possible problems of nuisance, but I question—with some trepidation, as my own licence comes up for renewal at this time of year—whether we should give magistrates any discretion. I am concerned about the way in which they use that discretion in many cases.
  Let me give three examples to show that giving magistrates the power to respond as they wish may result in distortions across the country. Their interpretation of legislation often varies from one area to another, and often does not correspond with what we intended when we introduced the legislation. I hope that the Minister will not suggest that the safeguard lies in the Crown court. Few licensees will be willing to employ lawyers and challenge a magistrate's decision in the Crown court: the process is very expensive for individual licensees.
  I know of a court which—under the present system, which enables courts to allow extensions on Sunday afternoons—automatically refuses to allow such extensions, on "special occasion" grounds, to christenings. The court has put its reason in writing: it says that children attend christenings. It is indeed quite likely that there will be children at a christening, but surely a christening is a special occasion. If magistrates say no in one part of the country and yes in another, the discretion that they are given will cause a problem.
  My second example relates, I admit, to an application that I made on behalf of a local football club. It was rejected. It was the first time that the Montgomery football club had won the cup—a local cup, I add hurriedly, before anyone forms too high an opinion of what was won. It was by far the greatest day of the club's life, and its members decided to hold a celebratory dinner at the hotel that I own.
  When we applied to the magistrates, they said, "That is not a special occasion. You must finish at 11 pm." In fact, as a meal was served, we were able to give members of the club slightly more time in which to drink; but if we had been in the west midlands nearly every magistrates' bench would have allowed a much longer extension.
  I hope that the Minister will respond in detail to my third example, as I consider it the most serious. If he cannot do so today, perhaps he will do so in writing. We have talked a good deal about the children's certificates that have already been granted under the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994, which have been welcomed by most people as a step forward. I am worried, however. The intention of Parliament and the Minister when the legislation was introduced, as paragraph 12 of the guidelines states, was that the certificates
  "should be introduced with the least alteration to the normal operation of pubs concerned".
  That is fair enough. We did not want too much of an upheaval, and if someone wanted to apply for a children's certificate that was fine. Now, however, we are noticing inconsistencies. In Devon and Cambridge, for instance, licensees are being told that no smoking should be allowed. Parliament did not ask for, or insist on, such a condition. I suppose that on Friday, when we debate the
  1026
  Tobacco Smoking (Public Places) Bill, Parliament will decide whether to legislate in that important regard; but magistrates are currently taking it on themselves to make it a condition of a pub's certificate that there be no smoking in that pub or in the area to which its certificate relates. I accept that that decision could be challenged in the courts, but that would be expensive.
  I am even more concerned by my discovery that the Health Education Authority, a publicly funded body, is writing to magistrates and persuading others to do so. It writes:
  "Magistrates can attach such conditions to these certificates as they consider fit."
  It asks magistrates to make the no-smoking rule a condition of children's certificates.
  We can argue about whether that is right, but I feel that such important decisions should depend on what happens in the House on Friday rather than being left to magistrates. I am particularly worried about the possibility of inconsistency throughout the country: some magistrates will think that the law should be applied as the House intended, while others will go further and try to apply it as they wish it to be applied.
  Mr. Couchman: Hon. Members on both sides of the House said at the time of that change in the law last year that they hoped that magistrates would not attach unreasonable conditions to children's certificates. Examples of unreasonable conditions have occurred in Scotland, where children's certificates have been the order of the day for longer than in England and Wales. It was suggested, for example, that high chairs and children's special toilets should be provided. Such conditions are unreasonable. My hon. Friend's comment about pubs that have smoke-free areas and that seek children's certificates are in the same sort of league.
  Mr. Hawksley: I agree with my hon. Friend. Some magistrates are imposing the condition that nappy-changing facilities must be provided in both male and female toilets. Parliament never intended that such conditions should be put in place. I am concerned, therefore, that we should not allow magistrates to have discretion, unless we are sure that they will use it wisely.
  My hon. Friend's point about Scotland is fair. I gather that, in many parts of Scotland, because of the conditions that are being laid down, quite a few people are not applying for children's certificates. Few applications are being made in some of the larger cities. The reason is not that the licensee does not want children in his premises, or that the public do not want that. It is that licensees know that magistrates will impose conditions that are totally unacceptable to them.
  In his winding-up speech, the Minister should deal with the question of magistrates' discretion, which is being abused in the case of children's certificates. Magistrates should trade in their prejudices. I hope that, if the Bill receives a Second Reading tonight, as I believe it will, the Committee will consider in detail the question of magistrates' discretion as outlined in clause 3. It is wrong that the personal prejudices of magistrates should, in any way, be reflected in the discretion that Parliament gives them. In supporting the Bill, I hope that the Committee will consider that important point. I look forward to supporting the Bill in the Division Lobby if necessary.
  5.11 pm
  Mr. A. J. Beith: Magistrates are not exercising personal prejudice if, in taking into account the appropriate conditions for a children's certificate, they have regard to whether conditions in a room pose a danger to children's health. Now that we know the consequences of passive smoking, that would be the case.
  I insist that the Liberal Democrat party regards this matter as a free-vote issue, as do the other parties. Hon. Members will no doubt have different views about it. High politics is involved in the issue. After all, the Prime Minister chose to make it the subject of a key announcement in a major speech on 24 January at the Inter-Continental hotel.
  I remember the degree of press interest during the early part of the evening, and the number of requests that I had to comment, because Downing street was guiding the press into thinking that a major announcement was to be made. Sure enough, what was that important announcement about? It was about Sunday afternoon licensing. Clearly, therefore, either the Government regard that as a matter of the highest political import, or the Prime Minister was stuck for something favourable to say in one of his many difficult weeks recently.
  The Government had a desire to rush the Bill through, possibly taking all its stages in one day. I am glad that they thought better of that idea, and that they are making arrangements to ensure that the Bill is considered properly and in detail. For the Government, the Bill completes an agenda of making Sunday like any other day of the week, but we have not yet assessed the impact of last year's changes in Sunday trading.
  We have not seen the effect of those changes, or tested the various propositions that were made about the Sunday Trading Act 1994, partly because, before Christmas, we went through a period that was not unlike the previous Christmas, when so many large retail chains broke the law. Since Christmas, the recession has still been biting fairly deeply. Many city centre retail chains have no great disposition to stay open extensively on Sunday. The Act may be put to the test only in the warmer weather as we approach the season when retail chains must attract more people. We have not yet assessed the Bill's impact, yet the measure will add to it.
  The measure is not being taken as part of a general review of licensing and licensing powers. Some of the Bill's supporters, including the Consumers Association, have spoken about the way in which the licensing system now works. The hon. Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Hawksley) spoke about that, too. Some of the instructions tabled were on that subject. I am not yet persuaded by their arguments. I am still happy for magistrates to exercise discretion and to receive advice from the police on disorder problems that they might expect, or difficulties that are associated with particular licensed premises.
  Some people argue that this matter should be dealt with by the planning system, which is more a appropriate system through which to decide whether a premise's long opening hours are an intrusion, for example, on a residential area. It might have been more appropriate, therefore, to consider the extensions as part of a general review of licensing legislation, especially as the Bill effectively gives magistrates important discretion to
  1028
  reimpose the existing Sunday afternoon closing periods if, in their view, it is necessary for reasons of disorder or anything of that sort.
  It is not clear from reading the Bill whether the restriction order that magistrates impose will be peculiar to one set of premises, or to several sets of premises in a given area, but that is an important discretion. The Minister has attached importance to it. Again, it makes one think that the matter should be considered in the context of a more general review of how the licensing laws work.
  Perhaps the most important problem in relation to the Bill, and the biggest anxiety that I have about it, is its total lack of staff protection. Last year, the Government were forced to include protection for staff in the Sunday trading legislation because of pressure from hon. Members. To many of us, however, that protection was inadequate. In the main, the protection was for existing staff. The Bill, however, contains no element of protection for people who are in a demanding trade and whose ability to have time with their families on Sunday afternoons is being taken away.
  I think especially of the effect on licensed house managers and pub staff, but the matter also affects quite a lot of licensees. Some licensees are in favour of the change; others are against it. It will, however, have a powerful effect on the family life of people who cannot afford to employ someone else to do their job on Sunday afternoons. They will lose trade if other premises stay open for the whole afternoon and people choose to go there rather than to a pub that will close.
  Peter Love, general secretary of the National Association of Licensed House Managers, said:
  "This government seems intent on introducing Sunday opening without any consultation.
  The inclusion of Christmas day and Good Friday in these proposals further destroys the family and social life of public house managers."
  No protection exists for people who work in the licensed trade. Their freedom is at stake. The Minister sought to cast the Bill in terms of the freedom that it would give to people. Whenever he does that, however, he ignores the freedom of people who work in the trade to have some time on Sundays with their families and to themselves. He offers them no assistance in securing that time.
  I shall declare a small interest as someone who contributes regularly to the Clubs Journal. My impression is that not much call exists for the change among traditional clubs, but that some of them will feel pressured into Sunday afternoon opening in order not to lose customers to pubs. The Minister said that the Bill would "call time" on Sunday afternoon closures, but what if premises do not want to open and are pressured into doing so because of the competition?
  People responsible for the management of a club have to have regard to its viability. That has been difficult to sustain, especially during the long period of recession. Clubs will not necessarily be able to gamble that they can keep their present trade if pubs in the immediate vicinity open for longer periods. There may not be much choice for them.
  One prominent leader of the club movement said to me:
  "I don't believe our members will want this. It goes against our tradition of supporting families."

  1029
  Generally, I do not detect in the club movement any desire for a change of this sort.
  Greater pressure for change exists in the retail trade and especially among the supermarket chains. I sought to establish from the Minister what precisely was the position with Christmas day when it falls on a Sunday. I am still not sure that that has been made clear. What happens about Easter Sundays?
  There should be no doubt that the recent Sunday trading legislation does not allow for large supermarkets to open on Easter Sundays or Christmas day when it falls on a Sunday. The Bill appears to remove the constraint on the selling of alcohol on those days, but it is not clear how the two pieces of legislation are to interact. It might be possible for a new anomaly to be created deliberately in an attempt to drive another wedge into the law. Some supermarkets might open for the permitted alcohol sales period but then claim that there is an anomaly because their customers can buy alcohol but not groceries. One can imagine the exercise in which they will then become engaged—the very reverse of what they did before. Supermarkets are experienced in public relations and are adept at pursuing their own interests, so let us make it clear that the exemptions applicable when Christmas day falls on a Sunday and on Easter Sunday are to remain.
  Mr. Couchman: The right hon. Gentleman will remember that we were on opposite sides of the Sunday trading argument, but that we were in the same Lobby when debating Christmas day and Easter. I would be equally unhappy if the Bill were used as a wedge to enable supermarkets to open on Christmas day or on Easter Sunday.
  Mr. Beith: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He reflects the views of many hon. Members who favoured more general opening on Sundays but wanted to afford special protection to those two days. However, that leads me to ask why pub Sunday opening hours on Christmas day and Good Friday are included in the Bill.
  Christmas day strikes me as especially difficult for those who work in the licensed trade. We should remember that, for licensees and pub managers, the pub is their home. Their only chance of having some peace on Christmas day to enjoy with their families is when the doors are closed and the customers have gone to their own Christmas dinners. They can then have a little peace and quiet in the place which is their place of work and their home. I am surprised that the Government have hooked Christmas day into this exercise, which is supposedly about Sundays. We should consider during the Bill's later stages whether to take Christmas day out of the Bill.
  I have already mentioned the discretion afforded to magistrates. It is important that we know how clause 3 will work and in what circumstances the Government envisage that magistrates will place restriction orders and reimpose Sunday closing. For example, will those circumstances extend to circumstances in which people who live near pubs experience a great deal of disturbance on Sunday afternoons? I am not talking about real disorder.
  The Minister made it clear that if there is persistent disorder as a result of Sunday afternoon opening in a particular locality, he would expect it to be brought to the attention of magistrates and for them to take it seriously. However, most people experience milder disturbance. Some pubs are situated in residential areas. As happens
  1030
  with Sunday trading, the Bill could mean cars coming and going and doors banging all afternoon. Residents would lose the peace that they want on a Sunday afternoon and some of their liberty would be lost. Will the magistrates' powers be interpreted strictly to cover gross abuse of the Sunday opening provisions, or will they take into account what is perhaps more of a planning argument about whether it is appropriate that a particular activity should continue at all hours of the day and night in a residential area?
  The Bill has support from various quarters. It is supported by the Campaign for Real Ale, the Consumers Association, brewers and some people in the tourist trade. It is a limited addition to the changes already made, but I do not detect a great groundswell of opinion among people who feel that this is an important step that should be taken now. The desire to rush the Bill through without proper consultation and without its being examined in the context of licensing law more generally could lead to our passing inappropriate legislation. I do not believe that it has been the subject of adequate consultation. It could have been dealt with much better as part of a wider review. That is the advice that I offer to hon. Members as they consider it now.
  5.24 pm
  Mr. James Couchman: I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate. Before doing so, I should like to declare a residual interest in the licensed trade. Until 31 October last year, my family had been involved in the trade for 100 years. Until that point, I and my wife ran a small family company operating seven public houses in London, of which I was the joint licensee with my managers. On 31 October, my family's public house operating company was disposed of to another small company. Thus, my very long direct connection with the trade came to an end. I remain for one year, and for one year only, a non-executive director of that company, so I have a vestigial interest.
  I was recently elected vice-chairman of the parliamentary beer club which now has, I think, 160 members and may be rivalling the clubs all-party group for the title of largest group in the House. It is, of course, a non-remunerated position, and Madam Speaker is our president.
  I shall retain my interest in this important sector of the leisure industry. I must disagree a little with my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Hawksley) about magistrates. After 25 years of appearing in magistrates courts for licence changes, transfers and brewster sessions, I have no quibble with the way in which magistrates go about their interests. In that connection, I should add that my wife has served as a magistrate for slightly longer than I have served in the House, so hon. Members will understand my reason for agreeing with magistrates.
  Mr. Hawksley: Does my hon. Friend accept that there are inconsistencies in magistrates' decisions and that it can create problems when different benches make different decisions, especially as the House believed that it was legislating in a particular way?
  Mr. Couchman: I do not disagree with that, because we allow magistrates a degree of latitude and flexibility in the way in which they go about their business. Different

  1031
  licensing benches will be mindful of the different conditions in their areas. It is a difficult issue but we do not want the magistracy to become a rubber stamp. We must therefore allow magistrates to exercise their duties as they see fit. However, perhaps the Home Office could issue guidance in respect of the vexed question of whether the issuing of children's certificates is being constrained by magistrates exercising their discretion in a perverse way. I shall not say too much more about that, but it is worthy of consideration in Committee.
  In response to the comments of the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), let me say that I do not agree that there is any relation between the Bill and last year's Sunday trading legislation, except in so far as supermarkets are affected. Clearly, an anomaly was created last year when supermarkets were allowed to open for six hours between 10 am and 4 pm on Sundays, although their off-license sections were restricted to opening between noon and 3 pm.
  We have lately heard a good deal about the problems confronting the pub trade and off-licenses, especially in respect of the damage being done by the legal importation of duty-paid beer, wines and spirits and illicit liquor sales by bootleggers. There is no doubt that some of the latter trade seems to be organised by gangs of criminal who are driving a coach and horses through the single market provisions, bringing in large quantities of duty-paid liquor from France where the duty is much lower.
  Mr. Enright: Is not more harm done to the licensed trade by its own practice of making huge profits on soft drinks sold in pubs than by the illicit importation of drinks?
  Mr. Couchman: If the hon. Gentleman had come into one of my pubs last year and ordered a pint of beer, he would have enjoyed certain facilities, service and the appointment of the premises. If he entered that pub and bought an orange juice or a lemonade, he would enjoy precisely the same facilities. Pubs sell not only drinks but a service that involves the sale of a drink. Indeed, the retail profit made on the sale of orange or tomato juice is not unreasonable when compared with the profit on a pint of beer. Opposition Members have always got that wrong. I accept that when soft drinks are purchased in an off-licence, there is room for lower prices, but it is different where the on-licensee must take into account the provision of his services and the payment of rents, which have risen tremendously in recent years.
  I was discussing the importation of duty-paid liquor and bootlegging activities. Last week, Customs and Excise gave the Public Accounts Committee, of which I am a member, figures to April 1994 in volume 12 of the 1993–94 appropriation accounts, paragraphs 24–30. They suggest that the Treasury receipts on alcohol and tobacco during 1993–94 fell short by some £200 million compared with the figures for 1992–93, which were already short by a fair margin. We can only estimate the extent of illegal bootlegging, but it may account for a further shortfall of some £35 million. The loss to the retail trade will be several times that sum and may reach as much as £1 billion. That is a huge loss of retail trade to the on-licence and off-licence trade.
  1032
  There is a tendency to blame that serious blow to profits and jobs in the industry on my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. His perverse refusal to narrow the gap between United Kingdom and particularly French rates of duty has contributed to the continuing recession in the licensed trade and it will be a long time before he is forgiven for his change of heart between the November and December 1994 Budgets. However, I believe that the reasons for the continuing mediocre trade, particularly in London and the south-east, are far more complex than simply a loss of trade caused by the importation of liquor from France.
  Drinking habits have changed, even in the 25 years that I have been involved with the public house trade. Let me offer a few examples of why our nation now drinks less. Lunchtime drinking—the traditional pint and a sandwich or shepherd's pie—is now frowned on by many employers, who are intent on getting the same level of concentration in the afternoon as in the morning. Many Irish workers in the building industry who went home during the recession now return to find that health and safety rule supreme on the building site, and any hint of drinking will lead to instant dismissal. No one can disagree with that on safety grounds, but building workers have traditionally been an important source of income to the publican.
  Another example of that practice which, again, one fully understands, is British Rail's setting of a zero limit for its random breath testing of all grades of staff, day or night. Effectively, that means that British Rail employees cannot drink at any time of the working week because of the time that it takes for the body to discharge alcohol. The pub probably no longer represents the warm and comfortable haven from unwelcoming homes that it did in the past. That is certainly the case for many of our citizens. Contrary to the lager lout image of the minority, young people are much less inclined to drink, particularly when driving, than, dare I say, their parents. If they go to all-night raves, they accompany the illicit substances that they take with water, not alcohol.
  The recession has been bad for pubs and the recovery is still elusive for most of them. Pessimists, and I include myself, doubt whether the trade will ever recapture the good days of the mid-1970s and late-1980s. Small traditional pubs in a secondary position, for which catering is unlikely to he more than a small part of their business, have been particularly hard hit by the recession and the fact that strong, usually brewery-managed catering pubs offer much greater facilities.
  Pubs for which catering is a major part of their business can already open during Sunday afternoons. As a result of the 1988 Act, it became possible for pubs that provide substantial food to continue to serve food and drink throughout the afternoon break. That led to an unlevel playing field because small, traditional pubs for which food was a much smaller part of their business and which provided much simpler food did not qualify. That alone is a good reason why the House should give the Bill a Second Reading today.
  Pubs that cannot open on Sunday afternoons are prevented from showing their customers football matches on BSkyB on Sunday afternoons. Many people would like to stay in the pub to watch such matches on television on Sunday afternoons. I agree with the wise words that appeared in The Licensee and Morning Advertiser, the

  1033
  trade paper, on 2 February this year. Mr. Terry Oates, president of the Federation of Licensed Victuallers Associations, said:
  "To show Sky TV, landlords have to pay an extra charge compared to residential users. At the moment Sunday hours require them to close when its main attraction, football coverage, begins.
  The government, along with the federation, is trying to make visiting a pub more family-orientated. Relaxing Sunday hours would allow better trading on what is seen as a day for families."
  Mr. Oates has got that right.
  It is interesting to note that all-day opening will not be compulsory, according to Mr. Oates—he seems to know—and he will not open all day. However, many members of his federation have wanted all-day opening for some time and have been urging the Government to make those changes for the past 18 months. As my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge said, that will be particularly important for pubs in tourist areas.
  The Bill will act as a lifeline for small, traditional British pubs and I shall certainly support it in the Lobby. So long as the landlord, whether or not he is a brewer, is not allowed to insist on Sunday afternoon opening and resists the temptation to increase rents in recognition of a supposed new trading opportunity, as the jargon goes, Sundays may once again become a good trading day for traditional pubs. I am sure that few hon. Members, whatever their feelings about drink and drinking, would welcome the death of the British public house, which is unique in the world.
  As I listened to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister speak to the British Retail Consortium on 24 January and announce his intention to introduce the Bill swiftly, I thought back to my days in a large south London pub, with a disco and functions suite, which I managed for four years. I remembered just how precious was the Sunday afternoon break as an assured break once a week and wondered whether I should support the Bill, but then I remembered how good trade was at that time, even without Sunday opening.
  The House should not stand between a publican and his customers during Sunday afternoons. If I have a complaint, it is that opening time will remain at noon because the best advantage that small, traditional pubs could gain in changing to Sunday hours would be to bring forward opening times from noon to 11 o'clock. My suggestion will no doubt bring howls of derision from certain Opposition Members and will be fought by those who still see that as a conflict with church-going.
  However, people who go to those small pubs frequently go home for lunch, so they will not derive great benefits from the proposed opening hours. They would have derived greater benefit from an earlier opening time that made the 11 o'clock opening standard throughout the week. I recognise that that will have to wait and that those darts club committee meetings that are scheduled to start at 11 am on a Sunday will have to wait some time before they are legitimised.
  Since I came to the House in 1983, we have had many debates on our obsolete licensing laws. In common with the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson), I am a veteran of the Licensing Act 1988. I made one of my first major speeches during the debate on the Consolidated Fund at Christmas 1983, when my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor) and I debated our licensing laws at some length at 7 o'clock in the
  1034
  morning. We both decided that our time would probably have been better spent down in one of the early houses at Smithfield market.
  Since 1983, I have taken part in most of the debates on our licensing law and the Bill is at least the third piecemeal reform of it since then. Today, we should be discussing a more radical change in the law, for example, a later terminal hour for Fridays and Saturdays, which is one of the trade's great requirements and on which it has been consulted, and the question of dual licensing. In that case, people who manage a pub might have a licence of one type whereas the premises could be subject to another type of licence. Should a licensee disappear all of a sudden, that would avoid an immediate crisis over the licence of the premises.
  Like Terry Oates, I welcome the Bill, however limited it is. British pubs are still in grave danger and it behoves the House to support them. That support is offered by the Bill.
  To those who think that the Bill is another step on the road to damnation, let me assure them that, in the past, we were told just that not only by the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson), but by Lord Braine, then my right hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point. He was apoplectic at the prospect of doing away with the afternoon break during week days. Of course he was proved wrong, as was the hon. Member for Swansea, East, because a more civilised drinking pattern has followed the abolition of that afternoon week day break. I believe that its abolition has been of great benefit, particularly to older people who like to go out for a drink, who wanted to extend their lunchtime drinking to perhaps four and five o'clock in the afternoon and then to go home and not come out again. They do not feel comfortable coming out at night and prefer to stay in, in front of the television, but they enjoy the sociability and friendship of the pub during the afternoon for a longer time than was once allowed.
  As my right hon. Friend the Minister has told the House, little increase in drunkenness or crime has arisen out of the changes brought about by the Licensing Act 1988. I am certain that the Bill will have a similar civilising effect and I hope that the House will give it an unopposed Second Reading.
  5.43 pm
  Mr. Donald Anderson: Before I reply to the speech of the hon. Member for Gillingham (Mr. Couchman) and his remarks about damnation, I should pay tribute to the former right hon. Member for Castle Point, now Lord Braine. I recall that when his colleagues gave a litany of their interests in the trade, he would declare but a general interest. I believe that he made a signal contribution to the debates on licensing matters. He is sorely missed. Alas, attendance in the House today is thin, but when he spoke he always attracted a goodly attendance.
  The hon. Member for Gillingham illustrated part of our problem with creeping incrementalism. As he said, we are veterans of the debates in 1988. At that time, he justified the changes to the licensing laws by using the housemaid's argument that the changes went only as far as we wanted to go and that it was only a little baby. He told the House:
  "I should have preferred Sunday lunchtime to be extended from 11 o'clock to 3 o'clock"—

  1035
  to be fair, he advocated that 11 o'clock opening today as well—
  "but if it is to be extended from midday until 3 o'clock I do not believe that the question of licensing hours will return to the House for quite a long time … it will remove the licensing issue from this House for probably a decade. It"—
  this is the key point—
  "the extension had been from 11 o'clock to 3 o'clock, I suspect that it would probably have removed it for all time"—[Official Report, 27 April 1988; Vol. 132, c. 454.]
  Now, perhaps because of the possibility of watching Sky television or other cogent arguments that the hon. Gentleman adduced, he believes that the missing incremental gap should be removed.
  The hon. Gentleman spoke about the advantages of extended licensed hours to elderly people. That is rather like the argument that one hears from Conservative Members about those elderly ladies on fixed incomes in Cheltenham, when hiding behind those ladies are the larger vested interests that those Members represent. The evidence from the Scottish precedent following the Licensing (Scotland) Act 1976 and, as far as we can judge, from the Licensing Act 1988, which covers England and Wales, suggests that those who have taken greatest advantage of the liberalisation provisions have not been elderly folk, but younger folk under the age of 35 and the heavy drinkers.
  If the damnation predicted by the former right hon. Member for Castle Point has not been visited upon society, that has nothing to do with the civilising effects of liberalisation, but rather the recession. If the hon. Member for Gillingham and others believe that the Government's policies will lead to greater national wealth, that, in itself, will lead to greater consumption. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will tell me that the key determinant of consumption is not wealth.
  Mr. Couchman: We discussed earlier whether there was an increase in heavy drinking immediately after the 1988 Act. I stick by my suggestion that it lasted for about a fortnight. The country was hardly in a recession in 1988–90, so one would have thought that that drinking spree would have lasted for two years rather than two weeks if the hon. Gentleman's theory was correct.
  Mr. Anderson: It may have lasted just two weeks in the hon. Gentleman's licensed premises, but the informed view is that it lasted for a year and then the recession took over. The key determinant of consumption is personal wealth.
  Mr. Ray Powell: On the question of vested interests, does my hon. Friend agree that the only communications about the Bill that most hon. Members received were from the Campaign for Real Ale and the brewers? They are particularly anxious because they are losing trade through the import of drinks from Europe. People can now bring back gallons of alcohol in their minibuses, take it home and distribute it locally.
  Does my hon. Friend agree that those vested interests who want to extend the licensing hours on Sunday, yet again, are repeating the Government's wishes on Sunday trading? I know that my hon. Friend was a great supporter of my Bill to restrict Sunday trading. The Government may speak about freedom of choice and extending the
  1036
  rights of the individual, but does my hon. Friend agree that just as the retail companies were the vested interests behind the Sunday Trading Act 1994, so vested interests are behind the campaign to open pubs for longer on a Sunday?
  Mr. Anderson: Of course, brewers have suffered as a result of bootlegging. That is a factor, but, unlike the Prime Minister, I cannot believe that the public interest is synonymous with the interest of the brewers.
  It is highly significant, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Mr. Cunliffe) said, that the proposal to liberalise the hours on a Sunday was pulled out of the hat by the Prime Minister at the dinner of the British Retail Consortium. The context is very important as a clue to the origins of the proposals.
  As a result, as my hon. Friend says, of the recession, as a result of the considerable increase in continental imports, and as a result of the mini-Budget in December, when the Government increased the duties on beer, it was obvious that the brewers were becoming pretty unhappy with the performance of what they deemed to be their Government, and the Government hoped to win back the support of the brewers, which, after all, had provided 10 per cent. of Conservative party funds at the previous general election. Several key brewers, including Allied Domeque—a major contributor to Conservative party funds—withdrew their funding from the Conservative party in 1994.
  The context therefore makes one slightly suspicious of the Prime Minister's motive in producing the proposal out of the hat, with no consultation, as was said earlier, either with representatives of the clubs or with representatives of the licensed trade.
  Historically, the beerage swung from the Liberal party to the Conservative party following Gladstone's Licensing Act 1872. I am rather proud because the Liberal Member—I repeat, Liberal Member—who promoted that Bill, Henry Bruce, was the only other member of my school, Swansea grammar school, ever to have served in the House of Commons. In the 1874 election, as a result, Gladstone complained that he had been washed away in gallons of beer.
  Mr. Bernard Jenkin rose—
  Mr. Anderson: Let me continue, if I may.
  During the debates in the other place on that 1872 Bill, Bishop Magee of Peterborough commented, "Better an England free than an England sober," sentiments that were echoed on 24 January 1995 by the Prime Minister, who clearly considers that social safeguards against drinking are no more than bureaucratic red tape. "Set the people free," says our Prime Minister to the brewers.
  Mr. Jenkin: I intervene simply to point out that, if the hon. Gentleman had met any brewers or publicans recently, he would know that they hardly feel that the Government are in the pocket of the brewing or licensed trades interests. The Monopolies and Mergers Commission review of the brewing industry had them screaming with outrage at the Government. It is outrageous for the hon. Gentleman to suggest that we are somehow in their pockets.
  Mr. Anderson: The hon. Gentleman makes the argument fairly. It was precisely for the reason that the brewers were becoming disenchanted that the Prime

  1037
  Minister felt that he had to give them a sop. I refer the hon. Gentleman to the history of those beer orders, which shows that Lord Young speedily retracted much of the effect when the brewers barked. Does the hon. Gentleman deny that 10 per cent. of the Conservative party's funds at the previous general election came from the brewers? Does he deny that, mysteriously, during that general election campaign, advertising hoardings that were formerly used by the brewers suddenly became available for the Conservative party? If he wants to deny that, I am ready to give way. Those are the facts.
  It was Lloyd George, after all, from the Liberal party, who used the peerage for party purposes; the Conservative party uses the beerage for party purposes. If the hon. Gentleman has any evidence to the contrary, I should be very happy to consider it.
  The only real pressure for longer hours comes from the drinks trade. The only plausible benefit is the increased profits that it hopes to make. That process, as I said to the hon. Member for Gillingham, is incremental. It was forecast, and it is precisely as we feared.
  I recall the broken promise made in 1988, when the then Minister of State, Home Office, the right hon. and learned Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg), said that the Licensing Act 1988 would in no wise relate to Sunday; the Government did not seek to reverse the amendment that had been moved in the House of Lords. Now we know that the Government plan to abolish all limits on Christmas day and Good Friday. In my judgment, that is part of a generalised assault by the Government on our Christian heritage, and an encouragement for increasing humanism and secularisation.
  Mr. Michael Forsyth: From suggesting that the Government are in the pockets of the brewers, the hon. Gentleman now moves to suggest that we are heathen fanatics attacking Christianity. Has it occurred to the hon. Gentleman that many Opposition Members will support the measure, that it is a deregulation measure, which will greatly enhance the quality of Sunday afternoons, and that it does not help the standard of debate in the House to suggest that the measure is being proposed other than on the basis of removing unnecessary controls that limit people's freedom of choice? Why does not the hon. Gentleman meet the argument head on and explain why he wishes people's freedom of choice to be limited by his opinions of what is an appropriate way to spend a Sunday afternoon?
  Mr. Anderson: The Minister must contain himself. I shall come to that.
  I am arguing that the Government intend the natural consequences of their actions, and that the natural consequence of what they have done in relation to Sunday trading is that an assault is taking place on the long-held Christian traditions in this country. This incremental measure may be regarded as part of that.
  I therefore repeat my general arguments in relation to the value of Sundays to families generally, and more specifically to the lives of publicans and their wives, whose working conditions are often appalling, and who need a break. That is not an idea that I have drawn from the air; it is the result of several conversations with licensees in my constituency.
  1038
  I confess that, when I began that telephoned public opinion poll, I did so with some trepidation, as I feared that the answers might not wholly accord with what I hoped they might be, but I was not to be disappointed. I shall give the House an idea of the comments that I received from representative publicans—licensees—in my city of Swansea. One said:
  "I am very much opposed to it. I have only just moved to 3 pm. The family and I now have our lunch at 3.45 pm."
  Another licensee said to me yesterday:
  "I know that this will cream off the licensed trade's leisure hours."
  Another said:
  "Sunday is the only day we have to spend together and sit down together."
  Another, rather bigger, business man in my constituency, who serves perhaps 200 meals on a Sunday, said that he was very keen to clear his public House by 3.45 pm so that at last his family could sit down to a meal together.
  Mr. John Sykes: Can the hon. Gentleman explain to us what in the Bill prevents such a publican from closing his doors at 3 pm?
  Mr. Anderson: It is exactly the same pressure as will come in respect of Sunday shopping; it is market share. People will find that, simply as a result of competitive pressures, they have to move. May I give the hon. Gentleman another response from a licensee in my constituency, the only one who was fairly neutral on the issue? He said:
  "Yes, I shall open during the Sunday afternoon, if only because shall now be able to do legally what my competitors are doing illegally"—
  which surprised me a little.
  Mr. Iain Duncan Smith: In the course of asking the publicans for their opinions on those matters— which is a very good exercise to undertake—did the hon. Gentleman ask them whether their regular customers would be likely to come to the pub at that time on a Sunday? If they did not, would the pubs close as a result? Surely they would not stay open if there were no customers.
  Mr. Anderson: One of the constant themes that came through the survey—it was not selective questioning, in that I already knew the answers—was a general unhappiness about the state of the trade. The cake is only so big and the licensees wondered whether working longer hours would lead to a greater return. Nevertheless, they said that they would feel impelled to stay open for the reasons that I have given. I did not ask the licensees whether people would come to the pubs, because they would not know the answer. But they felt that they had to stay open, if only because of the current economic pressures upon the trade and their wish to compete.
  Mr. Duncan Smith: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Anderson: I have given way once to the hon. Gentleman and I must make progress.
  Mr. Duncan Smith rose—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. It is quite clear that the hon. Member does not intend to give way and, in that case, the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Duncan Smith) must resume his seat.
  Mr. Anderson: I pointed out to the hon. Member for Gillingham that there is a key link between consumption and wealth. Therefore, there is a danger that steadily rising incomes will mean greater alcohol consumption. There is also some linkage between consumption and availability. For example, in Finland the 1969 extension of opening hours and the abandonment of various other restrictions led within six years to the virtual doubling of alcohol-related deaths, the incidence of violent crime and days lost at work.
  The linkage between alcohol availability and consumption was accepted by the right hon. and learned Member for Grantham, the then Minister of State, Home Office, in debate during the proceedings of Standing Committee H in 1987. He said:
  "If the hon. Gentleman then asks whether it"—
  that is, the extra hour's trading—
  "would lead to an increase in consumption if we did seek a relaxation on Sunday, the answer is probably yes because the licensing regime on a Sunday is much more modest".
  He repeated that point about linkage when he said:
  "That will probably lead to an increase in consumption and, if people have to drive there, a risk of increased drunken driving".— [Official Report, Standing Committee H, 26 November 1987; c. 190, 128.]
  My view would be less hostile if the Government's liberalisation measure was accompanied by any evidence of their serious concern about alcoholism and the problems associated with alcohol consumption. Far more public money is devoted to seeking to combat drug abuse and AIDS than to alcohol abuse. The harmful effects of alcohol are clear in terms of road accidents, domestic strife and street violence.
  According to the British crime survey, in about half of all violent crimes, the victims state that the assailant was drunk, and about 25 per cent. of violent crimes occur in, or in the vicinity of, licensed premises. I mention in passing the associated longer national health service queues and the number of working days that are lost every year through alcohol-related absenteeism.
  I concede that there is some evidence that the Government have responded to increasing public concern about the multitude of problems related to alcohol abuse. They released the report "Action on Alcohol Misuse" in 1991, set up the Health Education Authority, and established priority areas in "The Health of the Nation" document in 1986.
  Yet certain Government activity, such as the introduction of the incremental measure today, flies in the face of their attempts to combat alcohol abuse. The grant to Alcohol Concern was reduced last year and the Government are reluctant to adopt a range of policies to improve the situation.
  For example, the Government could introduce a "tax-as-you-drink" system, which would link duty to the alcohol content of drink. They could use taxation to encourage the development of a market for super light beers, with 2 to 3 per cent. alcohol content, and wines, with 4 to 6 per cent. alcohol content. The Government could introduce unit labelling of alcoholic drinks in pubs and retail outlets. In August 1994, the Government issued the "sensible drinking message" that men should drink no more than 21 units of alcohol per week and women should drink no more than 14. Yet brewers have responded by increasing the alcohol content in beer.
  1040
  Other Government measures could include monitoring the effectiveness of alcohol education, allocating more resources for new health centres and random breath testing. Such measures would show that, while the Government are liberalising the licensing laws and thereby allowing easier access to alcohol, they are also aware of the dangers of alcohol misuse and devoting public money and ministerial attention to that campaign.
  The whole point of extending the licensing hours is to increase consumption. The higher running costs associated with longer hours can be paid for only by an increase in sales. The longer-hours lobby has not yet proved that a more permissive regime has any other advantages, whereas the risks are well documented. Tough controls are undoubtedly one of the main reasons why Britons drink less and why Britain has fewer alcohol problems than most western countries. The Prime Minister—a weak Prime Minister addressing the British Retail Consortium and the representatives of the brewing industry—clearly prefers populist gestures to the long-term interests of our nation and a spurious freedom to an attack on the problems of alcoholism.
  6.6 pm
  Mr. Bernard Jenkin: As I listened to the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson), I despaired that we are spending so much time discussing a very small deregulatory measure. Given the tone of his warnings about the risks of a "more permissive regime", one would think that we were considering deregulating nuclear power. The moral overtone in the words "more permissive regime" would be more appropriate to a discussion about the deregulation of pornography.
  In fact, we are talking about the sort of small deregulatory measure that should not be necessary in a modern, mature and democratic society. I believe that adults are quite capable of making decisions for themselves; they do not need to have their lives regulated to ensure that families sit down to a meal together. People should be free to make natural choices.
  The purpose of the debate is to allow people to explore the pace of deregulation and its effects and consequences. Deregulation is sweeping the whole of Europe—the Europe that is so beloved of many Opposition Members. I can see that one, the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Mr. Enright), is about to jump to his feet.
  If Labour. Members were to spend their holidays in France, for example, they would find a complete absence of regulation of licensing laws. One can stop at a roadside cafe at 7.30 am, in the middle of the day or in the afternoon and drink any kind of alcohol. I do not see Frenchmen rolling around the streets drunk, crashing their cars, or divorcing their wives as a result. I give way to the hon. Gentleman with enormous pleasure because I enjoy sparring with him so much.
  Mr. Enright: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. You will have noted, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I did not "jump to my feet". I hope that I rose gracefully to intervene on the hon. Gentleman. Does

  1041
  he recall the halcyon days of "back to basics" when the Prime Minister mused on the traditional English Sunday of ladies on bicycles of willow and of the green?
  Mr. George Howarth: And warm beer.
  Mr. Enright: And warm beer, indeed, as my hon. Friend reminds me. Is the hon. Member for Colchester, North (Mr. Jenkin) now saying, as appears to be the tenor of his argument, that the Prime Minister, in order to prove that he is at the heart and centre of Europe, is turning to the continental Sunday?
  Mr. Jenkin: There must have been some misunderstanding of the Government's "back to basics" policy in regard to Sunday, certainly from the perspective of the hon. Gentleman. The family Sunday was and is intended to be voluntary. There was never anything compulsory or legislated about the family Sunday. Even a Labour Government—who would be committed to much heavier legislation in many spheres of life—might draw back from legislating about family Sunday lunches. We need to keep the matter in perspective.
  The hon. Gentleman did not deal with my point about Sunday licensing legislation or the equivalent on the continent. As he is probably even more committed to being at the heart of Europe than the Prime Minister is, one would have expected him to be more committed to continental Sundays.
  Mr. Duncan Smith: Does my hon. Friend think that people go to church on Sundays only because 'they cannot go to the pub, that they have Sunday lunch with their families only because the pub is a problem for them around lunch time, that they rule themselves by the inability to get a drink and that as soon as it is all deregulated, family life will break apart, lunches will fall to pieces and people will stop going to church?
  Mr. Jenkin: My hon. Friend has inspired me. I have suddenly realised what Opposition policy should be. Pubs should be compulsorily closed between 12 and 2.30 pm to encourage families to go home and have their Sunday lunch. Perhaps that proposal will be made later in the debate.
  I return to the comments of the hon. Member for Swansea, East. He has a paranoic terror of what is motivating the Government. It is either money that was paid to the Conservative party to encourage us to behave in a certain way, or money that was taken away from it that was making us behave in a certain way. He could not make up his mind about that. He seems to inhabit a world in which all kinds of motives are imputed to particular circumstances and individuals.
  It beggars belief that the Government have caused more disruption in the brewing industry than any previous post-war Government because we have attacked its monopolistic tendencies. If we have paid the price of reduced contributions to the Conservative party, so be it, but that shows the Government's objectivity in the matter and not that we are prisoners of the brewing interest.
  We need more deregulation measures. The Prime Minister speaks for the majority of people when he proposes deregulation policies. We should deregulate more retailing and licensing laws in future. It may not be helpful to my hon. Friend the Minister to say that it is
  1042
  likely to happen, but I hold out no long-term prospects for the survival of the present licensing or Sunday trading laws.
  The laws simply freeze in anomalies and unfairness to one group or another. It is far better to let individuals decide when they want to shop and when they want to go to pubs to drink. We should allow the market to decide how best to deliver the services that consumers actually want.
  Let us take as an example the problem of garden centres under the new Sunday trading regime. Most gardeners like to buy their garden produce early in the morning and plant it during the day, but the current regime does not allow them to go shopping until after 10 or 11 o'clock. If they do their shopping at a filling station or another shop that is not principally a garden centre, they can buy the produce at any time, so we are discriminating against garden centres.
  Mr. Michael Forsyth: I know that a number of representations have been made about garden centres in respect of the Sunday Trading Act. My hon. Friend suggested that it might be the Government's fault, but he will recall that it was a matter that Parliament itself determined on a free vote.
  Mr. Jenkin rose—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Before the hon. Gentleman continues, I should say that although I accept passing reference to other matters I hope that he will not expand upon garden centres, remembering the contents of the present Bill.
  Mr. Jenkin: I accept your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I apologise.
  I raised the matter tangentially merely because I have had representations from garden centres in my constituency. My constituents are particularly concerned that on Easter day, which should be their biggest trading day of the year, they are not allowed to open. I welcome the comments of my hon. Friend the Minister and although the Government may not feel compelled to examine the issue, the House will have to examine it al some time and, on a free vote, eventually we will get it right.
  I wish to turn to what are called grey imports in the beverage business and to the serious problem of the differential duties between the United Kingdom and continental Europe. I welcome the Bill as it will help the brewing industry at a difficult time.
  I may be rather unfashionable in this respect, but I think that sooner or later, in order to protect our tax base and ensure that our industry continues to prosper, we shall need to reimpose personal limits at points of entry in the United Kingdom.
  Mr. Enright: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that at one and the same time we should have deregulation of hours but re-regulation of the stuff that is actually drunk? That seems a little odd.
  Mr. Jenkin: There is the small matter of the way in which a country's tax base has developed. The tax base of a nation state represents hundreds of years of inherited

  1043
  cultures and values. It is impossible instantly to harmonise the tax base across the European Union without causing grave disruption.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. We have a long-standing tradition here that the matters discussed should be relevant to the subject of the debate. The hon. Gentleman is now going very wide and I suggest that he draws to a conclusion or gets back to the point.
  Mr. Jenkin: I am grateful to you Madam Speaker, and I can hear the words, "closing time" in my ears.
  Mr. Duncan Smith: Does my hon. Friend agree that the key problem that he is discussing, which is relevant to whether British pubs will be more competitive, is that the Opposition have consistently opposed any widening of the VAT bands? The fact that our VAT bands are narrow along with our other problems may eventually lead to my hon. Friend's proposal.
  Mr. Jenkin: I hear what my hon. Friend says, but I shall not be drawn.
  Mr. Barry Porter: In an attempt to be helpful and to bring the debate back to the original point, my hon. Friend might be willing to hear the history of how Sunday restrictions were introduced and for what purpose. All the original licensing regulations, with one or two exceptions, were the result of an attempt by the Liberal Government—and thereafter a, coalition Government—to stop munitions workers getting drunk during the first world war. The first world war is over and munitions workers are not getting drunk. There is a residual chapel vote, which has just been represented, but there is no reason whatever to have such restrictions.
  Mr. Jenkin: I was going to avoid mentioning the war; it is not helpful to blame the Germans for everything. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the measures have long outlived there usefulness and I commend the Bill to the House.
  6.19 pm
  Ms Janet Anderson: I shall try to be fairly brief. I am the only woman present in the Chamber and I think that it will be self-evident when I finish that women in this place often find it easier than men to make brief contributions.
  I shall first declare a registered interest. The Argyll group, which runs a number of supermarkets, makes a small contribution to the running of my constituency office.
  As hon. Members will know, I have long had an interest in Sundays and legislation affecting Sundays. Sunday is often the only day that I have with my family—it is often my only free day. I welcome the freedom to shop and to engage in as many activities as I choose. Sunday will always a special day for me as it is the only day when I can exercise those choices.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) referred to Sunday as a family day. Families should be free to choose what they want to do on Sundays. One of our favourite family pastimes on a Sunday is to walk in my constituency, through Sunnyhurst woods, up to the Darwen tower, which was built to record Queen
  1044
  Victoria's silver jubilee. It was only possible to build it because, one year earlier, the public gained access to Darwen moors. It is the centenary of the Darwen tower next year.
  Our walk usually takes place after Sunday lunch. We walk down from the tower and reach the Sunnyhurst public house at about 5 pm. There is nothing that we would like better than to stop for a rest and a pint, but we cannot do so because the pub is closed. I am sure that many of my constituents who also enjoy that walk on a Sunday—particularly my good friend and patron of Sunnyhurst pub, councillor David Smith—look forward to the ending of the afternoon break.
  Those opposed to this modest piece of deregulation may console themselves with one thought: if people do not use pubs during the new opening hours on Sundays, there will be no point in opening then and pubs will not do so. If, however, people want to use pubs then, they will continue to open. The House should vote today to give the public the chance to show what they want.
  The hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) mentioned the problems with supermarket staff. I, too, have seen staff on Sundays subjected to aggressive behaviour from customers who have arrived just to late to buy their six pack or bottle of wine. Such scenes could be avoided by removing the restrictions on the sale of alcohol in supermarkets.
  One positive aspect is the gradual erosion of the notion that we have to be controlled and prevented from doing things because they might be bad for us—as if we should feel guilty about enjoying ourselves. It is important—I speak as a mother of three teenage children—for people to have a responsible attitude towards alcohol and its consumption. I hope that the Bill will lead to public houses becoming family friendly and women friendly. I believe that it will have that effect as public houses will seek to compete with establishments such as Harvesters, which serve food all day.
  Mr. Jenkin: Does the hon. Lady share my concern about existing restrictions on families in many public houses? Should we not modernise the legislation so that all pubs are friendly places for families and we do not have the absurd situation whereby publicans have to apply for a special licence to make their premises available to families? If all drinking establishments were naturally family places, would not some of the more rowdy elements naturally be excluded?
  Ms Anderson: I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. It is important that public houses should be welcoming places for families so that children do not regard them as secretive places into which they are not allowed. Such an approach encourages inquisitiveness—children want to know what they are banned from. It would be better if pubs were open and easily accessible. I agree with the hon. Gentleman and thank him for his intervention.
  Many hon. Members have mentioned the fact that we continually return to this place with little bits of licensing legislation. I agree that it would be nice to deal with all of them in one go. My hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth) mentioned one specific anomaly. We are today talking about the deregulation of licensing hours—in stark contrast to the current legislation on casinos.

  1045
  We often think of casinos as places where people gamble for hundreds or thousands of pounds in the plushest parts of central London, but there are casinos all around the country. Many of them are used for pleasure by people on relatively low incomes who like a little flutter now and then. In the main, casinos cannot serve alcohol after midnight—we should consider that restriction. The industry brings in millions of pounds to this country and employs thousands of people. I understand that the Prime Minister was recently dining in a casino and was shocked when his drink was taken away at 12.30 am. Perhaps that is something that the Minister can consider changing—I am sure that he will have the support of the Prime Minister.
  6.25 pm
  Mr. Ray Powell: I regret that I have not been present for the whole debate. I represent a Welsh constituency, Ogmore, which has the largest cell of the Klu Klux Klan in the country. The Anti-Nazi League had a demonstration here in London today, and I had to attend to that. I should like to have been in the Chamber for the start of today's important debate.
  The Minister—I hope that he is listening—sent a short two-page letter on 9 February which seemed to suggest that the Bill was of little consequence to many people. I do not share the enthusiasm of my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Ms Anderson) for the Bill, and she does not share my enthusiasm for controlling Sunday trading.
  I represent a constituency with beautiful views. It contains Ogmore castle and, not too far from it, a pub. Families would probably like to visit the castle and have a drink at 3 pm, when the pub might be closed. Restrictions have been lifted in Wales. Only a matter of years ago, we restricted Sunday opening hours and even prevented a number of pubs from opening at all on Sunday. I well recall going to a pub in Worcester, half of which was open on Sunday and half of which—the part that happened to be in Wales—was closed. If a customer went into one part, he could have a drink on Sunday, hut he could not have a drink in the other half. That was ludicrous and I would not like that to happen today.
  I have a fear, which I think is shared by quite a few Christians in the House and throughout the country. We are allowing licensing freedom on Sunday, which has always been a family day. We are allowing shops to open on Sundays and everybody thinks that that is excellent. As the senior Member sponsored by the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, I know that, since shops have been legally open on Sunday—they have, for a long time, been opening illegally—USDAW members are finding that our predictions about the promises made to them by some large stores about double-time on Sunday and freedom of choice as to whether to work on Sunday have come true.
  The Minister should talk to the licensees who, over the past 12 months, have already suffered the bitter experience of renegotiating their licences with the brewers. They are finding that, even now, they have little time to themselves. It will be worse if they are told that they have to work right through a Sunday. We are talking
  1046
  about giving leisure time to all families, but if licensees want a break to be with their families, they have to ensure that there are staff in the pub so that it can open.
  Mr. Hawksley: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Powell: I do not have much time. I have been given five minutes. I have been told that that is all I have, so I had better not give way. I shall have a job getting what I would like to say into five minutes.
  I can visualise what will happen in my constituency once we tell licensees that they have to open all day. There is between 15 and 20 per cent. unemployment in my constituency, much of it long term. People have been out of work since 1983–84 and the end of the miners' strike: the Government decided to close every colliery in my constituency and declared 12,000 steelworkers redundant. Fathers without a job and without an interest go down to the pub in the week for a drink. On a Sunday they know that they have to get home at 3 o'clock, not only for their Sunday dinner but because the pub shuts. I know what will happen to their family life. The mother, son or daughter will have to go down to the pub and see if dad will come home at the usual time of 3 o'clock.
  It is all right for my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen to talk about her lovely walks with her family and calling into the pub for a drink. Other families in Britain, especially in Wales, are out of work and have no money in their pockets, but they find the money for the man to go to the pub. On a Sunday afternoon, so that he can he go back to his family for his lunch—
  Ms Janet Anderson: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Powell: No. My hon. Friend knows that I have only five minutes.
  I was surprised at the brief letter that we received from the Minister. He said that there should be practically no opposition to the Bill. The floodgates are being opened for all-day Sunday licensing hours.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) said that, as the House of Commons defeated their measure on VAT on fuel, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor said, "We will get the money from somewhere. We will get it from the brewers. To console them, so that we keep their contribution to Conservative party funds for the next election, we will extend licensing hours on Sundays so that the brewers can rake some more money in." The effect on family life will be catastrophic. The House would be wise to reject the suggestion and keep the restriction on Sunday licensing hours for as long as possible.
  6.32 pm
  Mr. John Sykes: I rise to speak briefly on the Bill as the vice-chairman of the Back-Bench deregulation committee and one who served on the Standing Committee which considered the Deregulation and Contracting Out Bill in 1994. I am the Member of Parliament for Scarborough and I also represent Whitby. It is a well-known constituency which relies heavily on tourism for its prosperity. The Bill is a continuation and amplification of the Government's deregulatory moves. The Bill aims to extend choice for both the consumer and the licensee.

  1047
  In 1989, the Government introduced measures to allow pubs and clubs to open on weekday afternoons. I remember in the months leading up to implementation of the measure the dark warnings about eternal damnation, drunkenness on the street, violence and disorder. All have proved to be unfounded. In Scarborough and Whitby those measures have enhanced the prospects for tourism and, therefore, prosperity and employment for my constituents.
  Visitors to Whitby, which is the home of Captain Cook and much else, come from all four corners of the world. Now, on weekdays, they can enjoy a drink in any of the numerous harbour bars, but not on Sunday. The walkers who tramp the glorious north Yorkshire moors can enjoy a drink when they arrive at Goathland—otherwise known as Aidensfield in the famous television series "Heartbeat", which is filmed in my constituency—during the week, but not on Sunday. Why is a Sunday afternoon drink any different from a Wednesday, Thursday or Friday afternoon drink? The Bill will put that right.
  The Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 introduced, for the first time, children's certificates for pubs. That was a welcome measure for families with children. Many families, mine included, enjoy going for a drink on a weekday during the recess or on a Saturday, but we cannot do so on a Sunday afternoon. The measure works well, except on Sundays. The Bill will put that right.
  Whenever I go to a pub on a Sunday afternoon, there seems to be a polite stampede to the bar at 10 minutes to 3. Blokes line up pint after pint and other assorted drinks to have before closing time. They drink them as quickly as they can get them down their throats, which leads to intoxication. The Bill will help to ensure that that does not happen and that people take a much more measured view of drinking.
  At present, the licensing laws prevent shops that open on Sundays from selling alcohol between 3 pm and 7 pm. It is becoming impossible to justify preventing customers who have access to a complete range of goods, including food and tobacco—which, in my book, is far more dangerous than alcohol—from buying a bottle of wine. I do not see anything wrong with being able to buy a bottle of wine at any time of the day.
  The measures in the Bill are extremely welcome. They will enhance tourism. I hope that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading.
  6.36 pm
  Mr. George Howarth: With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This has been an interesting and long day for the Minister and for me. We started at 10 o'clock this morning dealing with drugs. This afternoon, we moved on to the problems of Sunday licensing hours. During the debate, we touched on such a wide range of interesting subjects as the origins of licensing controls in the first world war, Europe and the role of Germany in all this. My hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Ms Anderson) and I raised the implications for the casino industry. No corner of the entertainment life of the great British public was left out. At one stage, there
  1048
  was even a minor skirmish into the consequences of the "back to basics" debate, but on that subject, the least said, soonest mended.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell) expressed a view that is not entirely unfamiliar to the House. He has been consistent and proper in the views that he has expressed. To put the record straight and to show that he is consistent with the debate that has taken place in Wales, I should like to quote from The Guardian of Tuesday 20 August 1968. The article is headed, "For a wet Sunday welcome in Wales". It makes the connection with the points that my hon. Friend made. It begins:
  "Welsh beer is a headier brew than most when there is a suggestion that it should be served on a Sunday: just thinking about the idea is enough to make some heads spin; talking about it triggers the passionate nationalism every Welsh man believes he ought to feel about internal affairs."
  The lineage of the sentiment has just been expressed again by my hon. Friend.
  Help is at hand from my hon. Friend's part of the world. I have before me a letter from the director of leisure of Ogwr borough council, which covers my hon. Friend's constituency. The director of leisure appears to support the idea of Sunday drinking. He says:
  "Without having to express any opinion on the merits or otherwise I do feel that if such changes are to be introduced that consideration at the same time be given to reviewing the law as it relates to public music and dancing. At present there can be no public dancing on a Sunday—which creates particular problems when say New Year's Eve falls or runs into a Sunday (clubs are in the main not affected as they are not 'public')."
  If the Bill is given a Second Reading and eventually ends up on the statute book, on the first Sunday after that there will be dancing in my hon. Friend's constituency.
  In certain contexts, the question of Sunday being a special day has been irredeemably changed. The argument about Sunday trading was the watershed for that. Until then, a number of other hon. Members and I had clung to the Keep Sunday Special position, but we have now moved beyond that—perhaps for good, perhaps for ill. This Bill is a tidying-up measure rather than a great issue of principle that should divide the House. Of course, I am not suggesting that there should not he a Division, if that is what some hon. Members want.
  There is now trading on a Sunday and Sundays generally are viewed by the majority of people more as days of leisure than as days of worship. As someone who regularly attends church, I thought it wise to speak to my local vicar, Rev. Tom Steele, on the telephone yesterday. His view is that the argument is more or less in the past and that we cannot defend the historic position. He also said—this is' characteristic of him—that he had spent many happy hours in a pub on a Sunday.
  Mr. Enright: After services.
  Mr. Howarth: It is as my hon. Friend says.
  For those who want to worship on a Sunday—I am one—it is not impossible to enjoy a day of leisure, which might include a visit to a pub and Sunday worship, all within the one day.
  Some hon. Members have raised important points that should be either answered by the Minister when he replies or, as some of them are quite detailed, dealt with in Committee.

  1049
  The first point relates to the rights of those employed in the industry, whether they be bar staff, tenants, managers, licensees or others. It is important that those currently employed should not be expected, as a matter of course, to work additional hours. They should not be subject to any disciplinary action if, as is perfectly reasonable, they choose not to work additional hours on a Sunday. At a later stage of the Bill's passage, we shall seek reassurances on that point. Another point of concern is the lack of consultation on the proposals. That was mentioned by several hon. Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Leigh (Mr. Cunliffe), for Hemsworth (Mr. Enright) and for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson).
  It is odd that, only a month or six weeks after the announcement was made in a great flourish of prime ministerial activity, the Bill has reached its Second Reading stage. Between now and the Bill going into Committee there should be further consultation on exactly how the proposals will affect all those associated with the industry.
  All the anomalies in the licensed trade will not be sorted out by the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Leigh and many others who are involved in the all-party non-profit-making clubs group and those who are associated with the club industry feel that things need to be changed. I understand that, in due course, they hope either to introduce a private Member's Bill in this place or to follow the applicable procedure in the other place, and I hope that the issues can he dealt with in that context.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen said, it would have been both proper and useful to bring all those matters together in this one Bill so that they could be dealt with at the same time. Those issues remain to be resolved and there are some anomalies that need to be dealt with.
  One of my reservations has been mentioned by several hon. Members on both sides of the House: although we welcome the move towards pubs becoming more family friendly and are glad that the new system has been introduced, there is clear concern that the trade has not risen to the challenge. All too often, pubs and clubs are not attractive to families. No one wants to return to the archetypal image of pubs which was so unattractive that children were often left on the pub steps with packets of crisps and bottles of lemonade while mum and dad were inside having a drink. Those days were most undesirable.
  The challenge for the trade is to make pubs attractive, bright, clean, decent places where families want to go, rather than, as all too often happens, places where no person would want to take his family for a couple of hours' entertainment. All the issues need more time given to them and more detailed investigation.
  Mr. Ray Powell: Does my hon. Friend really think that children should be taken into a pub at 3 o'clock on a Sunday afternoon when that pub might already have been open for three or four hours? Most of the people there would have been drinking for three or four hours. Is my hon. Friend suggesting that it would be ideal to take children into that sort of place?
  Mr. Howarth: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but I do not think that his question was intended to make me feel that way. It would be inappropriate to take a young family into many establishments. The force of my argument is that we should make more establishments
  1050
  family friendly. I have three children—a teenage son and two children under the age of 10. On occasions, my wife and I have taken them into pubs that serve food on a Sunday. It has been an enjoyable experience. Some pubs cater specifically for children and they provide special facilities such as colouring-in books. I would never want to take any of my children—or, indeed, even my wife—into a pub where people were drunk and there was violence or other difficulties. People make a choice and generally they would not take their families into that sort of establishment.
  All these issues can be raised at a later stage in the Bill's passage, but they certainly require further discussion. It is a free vote tonight, so my hon. Friends will make their decisions on which way to vote. Having listened to their speeches, I know that how they will vote is fairly predictable. I do not mean that in any way as a criticism; I happen to think that the Bill deserves a Second Reading and we can discuss our reservations at a later stage. I shall vote in favour of the Bill.
  6.48 pm
  Mr. Michael Forsyth: With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am delighted to respond to this useful debate. I very much welcome the support of the hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth). As he said, we began our day this morning on drugs and we have ended up on drinking on the sabbath day. There has been a surprising degree of consensus on both those matters. I hope that it will not be long before we can find matters on which we disagree because so much consensus in one day is ruining my reputation.
  Mr. George Howarth: May I reassure the Minister that, although we have managed to reach some consensus on two issues today, we shall return to battle tomorrow?
  Mr. Forsyth: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I: am sorry that the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) is not here, but I hope that the message will go out to every miners' welfare in the land that the hon. Gentleman is the man who wants to stop miners being able to drink there on Sunday afternoons. Indeed, he told us that there was no demand for this measure. I do not know where he spends his time these days, but it is obviously not in the clubs and pubs around the country—
  Mr. David Evans: In Belgravia.
  Mr. Forsyth: My hon. Friend suggests that he knows. The hon. Member for Bolsover obviously does not spend his time in the miners' welfares or in the other establishments that will benefit from this legislation. Meanwhile, with some trepidation, I give way to my hon. Friend.
  Mr. Evans: I just thought the Minister might like to know that the hon. Member for Bolsover spends a good deal of his time in Belgravia, in disguise, waiting for his American friend to summon him to her presence.
  Mr. Forsyth: I shall not follow my hon. Friend down that path.
  The hon. Member for Knowsley, North referred to employment protection and drew a parallel with the provisions of the Sunday Trading Act 1994. There is a distinction: that Act created a situation in which people would be required to work on Sundays when they had

  1051
  every expectation that that was not a possibility, given the nature of the law. This Bill does not do that; it merely extends Sunday working hours, so I do not see a parallel. I am sure, in any case, that we can discuss the matter in Committee—the hon. Gentleman gave notice to that effect.
  The hon. Gentleman was also concerned about consultation. I do not know whether I am allowed to say this, but the fact that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said that this measure would be introduced as part of the deregulation exercise has helped no end in ensuring the necessary agreement to bring the Bill before the House. I believe that the country will welcome that.
  The hon. Gentleman feels that there has been so much speed about the process that there has not been enough time for consultation. We shall welcome any views expressed on the implementation of the Bill, but it does extend people's freedom and I think that it will prove popular. There has been widespread bewilderment on the part of the general public when they, able to shop for the first time on Sundays, have found partitions put up at certain times of the day in supermarkets, screening off the sections that sell alcohol and deal with licensed sales.
  The hon. Gentleman also expressed anxiety at the fact that, when the 1988 Act was passed, there was no mention of any wish to liberalise Sunday hours—a fair point. The explanation is that the Government at the time had just had something of a setback on the issue of Sunday trading. Many of those who had signed early-day motions did not actually support the findings of the Auld report when it came to voting in the Division Lobbies. It would not have been right to introduce such a measure while the issue of Sunday trading was still up in the air.
  In 1988, Sunday drinking hours were extended from 2 pm to 3 pm. That became known as the Ferrers hour, after my right hon. and noble Friend. I understand that the Ferrers hour has met with general approval throughout the land. This measure provides for a further popular extension of hours. I have no idea whether anyone's name will be attached to that extension, but we all live in hope—
  Mr. George Howarth: The Forsyth extension?
  Mr. Forsyth: I was thinking more in terms of the Howarth extension.
  The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) got himself into a real tangle. Let me have a third go at explaining the position. He asked, I think, whether supermarkets would be able to trade on Sundays when Christmas day is a Sunday, and on Easter day, as a result of the measure which provides for the sale of alcohol on those days when shops are able to trade. The answer to his question is no. The Sunday Trading Act specifically prevents large shops from trading on Christmas day when it falls on a Sunday, and on Easter day. I hope that that reassures the right hon. Gentleman and that he may even feel disposed to support the Bill tonight.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Hawksley) asked about licensing committees and the exercise of discretion. I was concerned to hear what he had to say, based on his experience, about what is happening in respect of new children's certificates and the conditions that are being
  1052
  implemented. I can assure him that I will get Home Office officials to monitor carefully what is going on. It is early days yet, and I very much hope that this will be a real opportunity to create the family pub which most, if not all, hon. Members would like.
  Worries expressed about the exercise of discretion by magistrates do not appear to be reflected in the decisions that they have taken in respect of afternoon openings and their ability to control them when problems have arisen and there has been a need for restriction orders. I am not sure whether it is right not to allow magistrates some element of discretion.
  The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed suggested that the protections in clause 3 would be limited to disorder—not so, as I explained in my opening speech.
  The hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) made an extraordinary speech in which he detected all kinds of conspiracies behind the Bill. That was unworthy of him, but I do agree with his remarks about alcohol misuse and the dangers that it represents to our society. Part of ensuring responsible drinking is encouraging people to see pubs as family places, not restricting their hours unreasonably.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, North (Mr. Jenkin), who apologised for not being present at the end of the debate, made a moving plea for what I can only describe as the harmonisation of our licensing laws with Europe's—an interesting reversal of the position that he usually adopts in the House. I expect that, if he were here, he would intervene to tell me that at least this decision would be taken by the House of Commons.
  The hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Ms Anderson) made an excellent speech which stood in contrast to the one by the hon. Member for Swansea, East. She described finding herself after a Sunday walk outside a closed pub at 5 o'clock. Hundreds of thousands of people in this country have had a similar experience and will benefit from the legislation.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Couchman), with his considerable experience in the licensed trade, gave us an insider's view of how this legislation would benefit the licensed trade, which is experiencing some difficulties at the moment.
  The hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell) made the speech that we would expect of him and came up with the extraordinary proposition that pubs should be closed to stop people going who do not have the money to go to them. That is ludicrous—why should the rest of the population who want to spend their leisure time as they choose have restrictions placed on them so as to deal with those who run their lives less responsibly?
  My hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough (Mr. Sykes), in an excellent speech, underlined the importance of the measure for tourism and described how jobs and prosperity depend on the removal of petty restrictions of the sort with which the Bill deals. He said that he wanted it pushed through the House as quickly as possible.
  If the House gives the Bill a fair wind and it completes its stages here and in the other place, it will be possible to implement its provisions rapidly after Royal Assent. Whether the tourist and leisure industries have the benefit of the legislation in the coming summer season is in the hands of hon. Members. I commend the Bill to the House.
  Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time:—
  The House divided; Ayes 304, Noes 116.

  Division.74]

  [6.59 pm

  AYES

  Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

  Dowd, Jim

  Alexander, Richard

  Duncan, Alan

  Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

  Duncan Smith, Iain

  Ancram, Michael

  Dunn, Bob

  Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)

  Durant, Sir Anthony

  Arbuthnot, James

  Eagle, Ms Angela

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Eggar, Rt Hon Tim

  Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)

  Elletson, Harold

  Ashby, David

  Etherington, Bill

  Ashton, Joe

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)

  Atkins, Robert

  Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)

  Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)

  Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Evans, Roger (Monmouth)

  Austin-Walker, John

  Evennett, David

  Baker, Rt Hon Kenneth (Mole V)

  Faber, David

  Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

  Fabricant, Michael

  Baldry, Tony

  Fatchett, Derek

  Banks, Matthew (Southport)

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Barron, Kevin

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Bates, Michael

  Fisher, Mark

  Bayley, Hugh

  Forman, Nigel

  Bellingham, Henry

  Forsyth, Rt Hon Michael (Stirling)

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Forth, Eric

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Foulkes, George

  Betts, Clive

  Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley)

  Booth, Hartley

  Freeman, Rt Hon Roger

  Boswell, Tim

  French, Douglas

  Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

  Gale, Roger

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia

  Gardiner, Sir George

  Bowis, John

  Garnier, Edward

  Bradley, Keith

  Gerrard, Neil

  Brandreth, Gyles

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  Brazier, Julian

  Gill, Christopher

  Bright, Sir Graham

  Gillen, Cheryl

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Godsiff, Roger

  Bruce, Ian (Dorset)

  Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Burden, Richard

  Gordon, Mildred

  Butcher, John

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Butler, Peter

  Gorst, Sir John

  Butterfill, John

  Grant, Sir A (SW Cambs)

  Byers, Stephen

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

  Cann, Jamie

  Grylls, Sir Michael

  Carlisle, Sir Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

  Carrington, Matthew

  Hague, William

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Hall, Mike

  Chidgey, David

  Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archibald

  Chisholm, Malcolm

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Churchill, Mr

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Clapham, Michael

  Hanley, Rt Hon Jeremy

  Clappison, James

  Harris, David

  Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

  Harvey, Nick

  Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

  Hawkins, Nick

  Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ru'clif)

  Hawksley, Warren

  Coffey, Ann

  Hayes, Jerry

  Colvin, Michael

  Heald, Oliver

  Congdon, David

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Conway, Derek

  Henderson, Doug

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Hendry, Charles

  Couchman, James

  Hicks, Robert

  Cummings, John

  Hill, James (Southampton Test)

  Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)

  Hill, Keith (Streatham)

  Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)

  Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas (G'tham)

  Dicks, Terry

  Home Robertson, John

  Donohoe, Brian H

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

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

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Howarth, George (Knowsley North)

  Dover, Den

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  1054

  Hughes, Robert G (Harrow W)

  Oppenheim, Philip

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

  Ottaway, Richard

  Hunt, Rt Hon David (Wirral W)

  Page, Richard

  Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

  Paice, James

  Hunter, Andrew

  Patnick, Sir Irvine

  Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

  Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Hutton, John

  Pearson, Ian

  Jack, Michael

  Pickles, Eric

  Jackson, Helen (Shef'ld, H)

  Pickthall, Colin

  Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

  Pope, Greg

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  Johnston, Sir Russell

  Radice, Giles

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Rathbone, Tim

  Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

  Redwood, Rt Hon John

  Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

  Rendel, David

  Jones, Robert B (W Hertfdshr)

  Richards, Rod

  Key, Robert

  Riddick, Graham

  king, Rt Hon Tom

  Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)

  kirkhope, Timothy

  Robinson, Mark (Somerton)

  Kirkwood Archy

  Roche, Mrs Barbara

  Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

  Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

  Knight, Greg (Derby N)

  Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)

  Knox, Sir David

  Rumbold, Rt Hon Dame Angela

  Kynoch, George (Kincardine)

  Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Sackville, Tom

  Lang, Rt Hon Ian

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Lawrence, Sir Ivan

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  Legg, Barry

  Shepherd, Rt Hon Gillen

  Lidington, David

  Shersby, Michael

  Lightbown, David

  Sims, Roger

  Lilly, Rt Hon Peter

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

  Litherdand, Robert

  Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

  Livingstone, Ken

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

  Soames, Nicholas

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Soley, Clive

  Luff, Peter

  Speed, Sir Keith

  Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Speicer, Sir Derek

  McAllion, John

  Spicer, Sir James (W Dorset)

  MacKay, Andrew

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  McKelvey, William

  Spink, Dr Robert

  Maclean, David

  Spring, Richard

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Sproat, Iain

  McWilliam, John

  Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)

  Maddock, Diana

  Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)

  Madel, Sir David

  Steen, Anthony

  Mahon, Alice

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Maitland, Lady Olga

  Stephen, Michael

  Major, Rt Hon John

  Stern, Michael

  Malone, Gerald

  Stewart, Allan

  Mandelson, Peter

  Stott, Roger

  Mans, Keith

  Streeter, Gary

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Sweeney, Walter

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)

  Sykes, John

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Mawhinney, Rt Hon Dr Brian

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Maxton, John

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Meale, Alan

  Thomason, Roy

  Mellor, Rt Hon David

  Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V)

  Merchant Piers

  Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Thurnham, Peter

  Mitchell, Sir David (NW Hants)

  Tipping, Paddy

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Townsend, Cyril D (Bexl'yh'th)

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Tredinnick, David

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Trend, Michael

  Moss, Malcolm

  Tyler, Paul

  Mowlam, Marjorie

  Viggers, Peter

  Needham, Rt Hon Richard

  Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

  Nelson, Anthony

  Walden, George

  Newton, Rt Hon Tony

  Walker, Bill (N Tayside)

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Wallace, James

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Waller, Gary

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Ward, John

  Norris, Steve

  Waterson, Nigel

  O'Neill, Martin

  Watts, John

  1055

  Wells, Bowen

  Wood, Timothy

  Wheeler, Rt Hon Sir John

  Wray, Jimmy

  Whitney, Ray

  Young, Rt Hon Sir George

  Whittingdale, John

  Widdecornbe, Ann

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Wiggin, Sir Jerry

  Mr. Sydney Chapman and Mr. Simon Burns.

  Willetts, David

  NOES

  Alison,Rt Hon Michael (Selby)

  Loyden, Eddie

  Alton, David

  Lynne, Ms Liz

  Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

  McCartney, Ian

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  McCrea, The Reverend William

  Barnes, Harry

  Macdonald, Calum

  Battle, John

  McFall, John

  Beggs, Roy

  Macinlay, Andrew

  Beith, Rt Hon A J

  McMaster, Gordon

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony

  MacShane, Denis

  Boyes, Roland

  Madden, Max

  Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes

  Martin, Michael J (Springburn)

  Callaghan, Jim

  Martlew, Eric

  Cohen, Harry

  Michael, Alun

  Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Corbett, Robin

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

  Cormack, Sir Patrick

  Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

  Corston, Jean

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Cousins, Jim

  Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wy'nshawe)

  Cox, Tom

  Morris, Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Mudie, George

  Davies, Quentin (Stamford)

  Mullin, Chris

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

  Neubert, Sir Michael

  Day, Stephen

  O'Brien, Mike (N W'kshire)

  Devlin, Tim

  O'Brien, William (Normanton)

  Dixon, Don

  O'Hara, Edward

  Dunnachie, Jimmy

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Dykes, Hugh

  Pawsey, James

  Eastham, Ken

  Pike, Peter L

  Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

  Purchase, Ken

  Forsythe, Clifford (S Antrim)

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Foster, Rt Hon Derek

  Raynsford, Nick

  Fraser, John

  Redmond, Martin

  Fry, Sir Peter

  Robathan, Andrew

  Galbraith, Sam

  Rogers, Allan

  Galloway, George

  Rooker, Jeff

  George, Bruce

  Rooney, Terry

  Godman, Dr Norman A

  Ross, William (E Londonderry)

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Graham, Thomas

  Sheerman, Barry

  Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

  Griffiths, Win (Blidgend)

  Smyth, The Reverend Martin

  Grocott, Bruce

  Snape, Peter

  Gunnell, John

  Spearing, Nigel

  Hanson, David

  Speller, John

  Hardy, Peter

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Hinchliffe, David

  Taylor, Sir Teddy (Southend, E)

  Hogg, Norman (Cumbernauld)

  Timms, Stephen

  Horam, John

  Turner, Dennis

  Hoyle, Doug

  Vaz, Keith

  Jamieson, David

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Jones, Ieuan Wyn (Ynys Mon)

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O)

  Williams, Rt Hon. Alan (Sw'n W)

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Young, David (Bolton SE)

  Khabra, Piara S

  Klfoyle, Peter

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

  Mr. Ray Powell and Mr. Derek Enright.

  Lewis, Terry

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 61 (Committal of Bills).

  Local Government and Housing (Scotland)
  7.12 pm
  The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Ian Lang): I beg to move,
  That the Local Government Finance (Scotland) Order 1995, a copy of which was laid before the House on 2nd February, be approved.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse): I understand that with this it will be convenient to discuss the following motions:
  That the Revenue Support Grant (Scotland) Order 1995, a copy of which was laid before the House on 2nd February, be approved.
  That the draft Housing Support Grant (Scotland) Order 1995, which was laid before this House on 2nd February, be approved.
  That the draft Housing Support Grant (Scotland) Variation Order 1995, which was laid before this House on 2nd February, be approved.
  Mr. Lang: This is the annual opportunity for the House to debate the local government finance and housing support grant orders. Traditionally, the debate provides an opportunity to consider not only the detail of the orders but the wider issues relating to local government and housing finance.
  I propose to speak briefly to the orders and then make some general comments on matters relevant to them. I hope that that will enable the debate to move forward.
  I start with the draft Housing Support Grant (Scotland) Variation Order 1995, about which I need say little. It is necessary because of a reduction in the pool rate of interest used to estimate local authorities' loan charges. It is accepted and normal practice for Ministers to bring forward a variation order in these circumstances. That will reduce total housing support grant payable in 1994–95 from £25.7 million to £24.2 million.
  The draft Housing Support Grant (Scotland) Order 1995 provides that the total level of housing support grant payable in 1995–96 will be £22.3 million. Broadly speaking, that sum represents the difference between the eligible expenditure and the relevant income of those authorities which, in the absence of grant, would have a deficit on their housing revenue accounts. Its purpose and the assumptions used are explained in detail in the report that accompanies the order.
  Our estimate of management and maintenance expenditure is based on an assumed average spending level of £748 per house. That represents a 7.5 per cent. increase over the equivalent average for the current year and is further evidence of the Government's commitment to the maintenance of the physical condition of Scotland's housing stock.
  For the purpose of the HSG formula, the assumed average standard rent for next year has been set at a notional £37.48 per house per week. I should stress that that is not a forecast, nor is it a guideline or even a recommendation: it is an assumption used solely for the purposes of grant calculation. The actual rents charged by authorities may be higher or lower according to the local decisions about housing income and expenditure that local authorities have taken over the years.
  I shall discuss the implications of the subsidy settlement for actual rents in a moment, but before doing so I should draw the attention of the House to the question

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  of general fund contributions. Such contributions represent a subsidy from council tax payers to council tenants. That kind of subsidy is indiscriminate in that it benefits all tenants, regardless of their personal circumstances; and it is unnecessary to the extent that tenants who are unable to meet the costs of their housing receive assistance in the form of housing benefit. As in previous years, therefore, the proposals in the Housing Revenue Account General Fund Contribution Limits (Scotland) Order 1995 prevent authorities from budgeting to make general fund contributions next year.
  The effect on local authority rent levels will be relatively small, as the large majority of local authorities in Scotland do not receive housing support grant in respect of their mainstream council housing. Clearly, the subsidy proposals will have no impact on the rent decisions of those authorities. On the 11 authorities that will receive grant in respect of their council housing, the effect of the change in grant will vary. In most cases, grant is a relatively minor component of housing revenue account income and the impact is likely to be outweighed by the authority's own decision on such matters as management and maintenance spending.
  As Government subsidies form a small proportion of housing revenue account income, it is difficult to forecast average rent increases with any degree of accuracy. I expect, however, rent increases for 1995–96 to average between 4 per cent. and 5 per cent., as was the case in 1994–95. That is on the assumption that local authorities will wish to make real improvements in the housing services that they provide to their tenants, and it is right that the extra costs should be met by the tenants who benefit.
  The Government's proposals for housing support grant next year are, I believe, a fair and reasonable subsidies package that balances the interests of the tenants, the council tax payer and the national taxpayer.
  I now turn to the Revenue Support Grant (Scotland) Order 1995. Its purpose is explained in detail in the report that accompanies the order.
  Mr. Nigel Griffiths: Before the Secretary of State does that, can he perhaps explain to the House why, once we remove the community care element of about £40 million from the settlement—money that is, of course, rightly and properly set aside for the community care developments that we all want to see—he is imposing on Scottish councils a cut of some 10 per cent. or 11 per cent? How does he expect the councils to maintain the level of service to their tenants without pushing rents through the ceiling or cutting services drastically?
  Mr. Lang: I do not recognise the figures to which the hon. Gentleman refers. The grant to which I have just referred is payable only to 11 authorities and represents a relatively small proportion of support for council housing. The vast majority of support comes through housing benefit, where an anticipated £800 million will come through next year.
  The purpose of the Revenue Support Grant (Scotland) Order 1995 is explained in detail in the report which accompanies the order. The position is relatively straightforward and, again, I do not think that I need say very much about the order itself.
  Dr. Norman A. Godman: The tenants of Greenock and Port Glasgow are
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  slowly beginning to stand on their own two feet, and I understand that just over the horizon is the enticing promise of several hundred jobs. May I plead with the Secretary of State, however, to respond favourably to the representations of Inverclyde district council concerning what a constituent recently described to me as "that damned eyesore"—the Gourock rope works? I personally have made numerous representations—I would like the thing to be pulled down—but will the Secretary of State please respond to sincere representations made to him and his ministerial colleagues by members of the council?
  Mr. Lang: I share the hon. Gentleman's hopes for the employment prospects of Greenock and Port Glasgow, and I note what he has said about the Gourock rope works. I know the building well. The matter involves Historic Scotland, however—the building is listed—and it would be inappropriate for me to comment, even if the issue were covered by the terms of the Revenue Support Grant (Scotland) Order 1995. I suspect that if I tried to respond in any detail I would be ruled out of order, so I shall press on.
  Under the so-called AEF guarantee, the level of revenue support grant payable to local authorities for each of the years 1990–91, 1991–92 and 1992–93 is adjusted either up or down in the light of any variation between their estimated and their actual level of non-domestic rate income. The objective of the arrangement—which has been fully accepted by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities—is to ensure that each authority receives the combined amount of revenue support grant and non-domestic rating income that they were promised at the time when authorities were first notified of their settlement for the year in question. At that stage, my Department made an estimate of the level of NDRI that each authority would receive. The guarantee arrangement has been necessary because of the difficulty of estimating NDRI with any accuracy, mainly because of appeals against valuation that take some time to be resolved.
  The order makes a further adjustment to the levels of revenue support grant payable for each of the three years covered by the guarantee in the light of returns that local authorities submitted to my Department last autumn showing their actual levels of NDRI for the years in question. Because of the effect of successful appeals against 1990 valuations, there has, in general, been a reduction in the level of NDRI in comparison with previous estimates. The order, therefore, provides for the payment of extra revenue support grant, totalling nearly £65.7 million, to compensate for the reduction.
  I should make it clear that that figure is net. Although 61 authorities will receive extra rate support grant, the remaining four will receive less. That is because, against the general trend, their level of NDRI has increased as compared with previous estimates. Subject to the House's approval of the order, the extra RSG will be paid to the authorities concerned in April.
  Mr. Thomas Graham: This may appear to be a convoluted question, but it is not intended to be. The health board in my area proposes to close Ravenscraig, Bridge of Weir, Merchiston and Dykebar hospitals. Has any consideration been given to the stress and strain that that would cause

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  to Inverclyde and Renfrew district councils, which would have to provide health care in the community? Has the Secretary of State included that in his budget?
  Mr. Lang: The hon. Gentleman has put his point on the record very effectively, but it does not relate to the order that we are debating—and, to the extent that it might relate to it at the margin, it would relate to the distribution formula used for the allocation of resources between different authorities. That formula is agreed with COSLA and reviewed every year.
  Sir Russell Johnston: The Secretary of State must know that, owing to a combination of the financial arrangements that he is imposing and the capping regime, Highland region will be down £12.9 million this year. That will undoubtedly have an adverse effect on local services. The council currently faces a choice between closing its job and enterprise unit, with the loss of about 120 jobs—which would be a very bad thing—and sacking an uncertain number of teachers, perhaps 200 or 300.
  Mr. Lang: The hon. Gentleman anticipates me: I have not yet reached the order to which his comments relate. However, in the light of what I am about to say about the Local Government Finance (Scotland) Order 1995, I shall be happy to give way to him later if he wishes to pursue the point. The order that I have just been, discussing relates specifically to the adjustment of non-domestic rating income to take account of the outcome of valuation appeals, so that local authorities receive exactly what we undertook to give them.
  Certainly in terms of the amount of money involved, the Local Government Finance (Scotland) Order 1995 is the main order that we are debating. It represents the final stage of the local government finance settlement, details of which I first announced on 29 November last year. The settlement provides for the level of Government-supported expenditure—that is, total grant-aided expenditure and provision for loan and leasing charges—to be set at £6,116,900,000, an increase of 1.72 per cent. on the current year's figure. It also provides for aggregate external finance—which comprises revenue support grant, non-domestic rating income and a number of specific grants—to be set at a level of £5,306 million.
  The report that accompanies the order provides a detailed explanation of its purpose, but it may be helpful if I briefly summarise the position. The order has three separate purposes. The first is to distribute the revenue support grant and NDRI components of AEF for 1995–96 to individual local authorities. The specific grants component of AEF, which for next year totals just under £397 million, is distributed on the basis of claims by authorities, and is therefore not covered directly by the order itself. A total of just over £3,716 million is distributed as revenue support grant, and £1,193 million is the distributable amount of NDRI.
  As in the past two years, NDRI is being distributed to regional and islands councils only, with the agreement of COSLA. That means that district councils will again receive their AEF support solely in the form of revenue support grant and specific grants.
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  The distributable amount of NDRI takes into account my Department's estimate of the amount of business rate income that local authorities will collect next year on the basis of the unified business rate poundage of 43.2p which I also announced on 29 November. When we took over control of business rates from local authorities, businesses in Scotland faced a local business rate that averaged 76.6p in the pound. The Government, with the full support of the Scottish business community, have spent the last five years, and £440 million, working towards a unified business rate throughout Scotland and England.
  Next year, for the first time, Scottish business will operate on a level playing field with business south of the border. Our unified business rate policy has already delivered significant benefits to Scottish business—at least £440 million worth per annum. What is more, the guarantee that we have given to maintain that level playing field permanently will ensure that the benefits continue.
  Mr. Archy Kirkwood: I acknowledge and welcome the movement that has been made to try to reconcile the positions north and south of the border, but will the Secretary of State re-examine the exemption scheme carefully? I do not think that the orders for the exemption scheme that he has announced have yet been laid. I think that, when the revaluation details are known to small businesses in south-east Scotland, they will cause considerable concern. I know that transitional protections will limit the amount of the actual bills, but the increases will nevertheless be substantial in relation to anticipated inflation rates. That will affect small businesses throughout Scotland, not just in the south-east. Will the Secretary of State look again at the exemptions and transitional protections that he has announced, so that the amounts paid by small businesses can be restricted even more than he intends them to be?
  Mr. Lang: I constantly review such matters, but I must point out that the benefit of the reduction in the business rate from 76.6p in the pound to 43.2p makes a dramatic difference to businesses large and small throughout Scotland. We have also introduced transitional relief schemes in the light of revaluation—schemes that are specifically more beneficial to small businesses than to larger ones. I expect the benefits to be widely felt by businesses in Scotland.
  Mr. Alex Salmond: On the subject of assistance to business, will the Secretary of State reconsider the effective prohibition of purchase and lease-back schemes from the end of this financial year? Does not he appreciate that, in a range of regional councils in Scotland, those schemes are an important part of industrial strategy, and that their effective cancellation will cause great damage to many businesses? Will he reconsider that point?
  Mr. Lang: I do not accept that anything like the damage implied by the hon. Gentleman will be caused. There is no reason why local authorities should not, for the rest of this year, continue to take advantage of the schemes that we have announced. Most local authorities are doing so. The exception is Grampian regional council, which seems unwilling to deal with the realities of the scheme. My officials are more than willing to continue to make the position clear to that council.

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  The schemes are available until the end of the current financial year and we are considering various aspects that we may wish to clarify further. I am confident that the limited effect of the schemes in relation to local government expenditure overall does not justify the sort of comments that have been made. Our measures are sensible in the context of overall public expenditure.
  Mr. Jimmy Wray: Does the Secretary of State agree that his figures and calculations are based on a notional figure of £37 average rent throughout Scotland, when the average rent is only £27? On the general fund contribution, does he agree that everyone who applied last year was refused?
  Mr. Lang: The hon. Gentleman rose to make a point that I covered some five or 10 minutes ago. I made it clear to him that the rent figure of £37.48p per house was used exclusively as a notional figure, and solely for the purpose of grant calculation, in the context of local authorities' resources under the HSG formula, and taking account of management and maintenance costs. He is right—rents are some pounds lower. Indeed, they are some pounds lower than in England. But making a direct relationship between rents and the figure that I mentioned is not relevant.
  Mr. Andrew Welsh: Is the Secretary of State creating a level playing field by setting that universal business rate level? How does he react to the criticism that the estimated target yield will be exceeded by almost 3p in the pound, which will put an extra burden on Scottish businesses?
  Mr. Lang: If the estimated target yield is exceeded, the chances are that it will do so because the rating base has grown, which will he the result of the expansion of Scottish industry. I thought that the hon. Gentleman would welcome that, rather than detract from it.
  We are creating a level playing field. It is astonishing that, just as we have secured our goal, the policies of Opposition Members seek to throw away the benefits that Scottish business enjoys. The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), speaking with all the authority of an official Front-Bench spokesman for the Labour party, has confirmed that a future Labour Government would return control over the level of poundages to local authorities.
  The hike in business rates that would inevitably result from local authority control and the destruction of the level playing field that we have achieved would seriously undermine the ability of Scottish companies to compete in the marketplace. Existing businesses would be threatened, new businesses would be deterred and our efforts to attract inward investment to Scotland would be jeopardised.
  Labour's motives in proposing such a policy have patently nothing to do with the needs of business and nothing to do with the needs of the Scottish economy. I have not heard a single Scottish business man calling for business rates to be returned to council control. Labour clearly aims to satisfy the desires of its free-spending councillors, irrespective of the needs of business.
  I wrote to the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) on 18 January asking him to confirm whether that policy would, indeed, apply in Scotland. I pressed him on the matter again in the House on 28 January.
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  Despite that, I have yet to receive an answer from the hon. Member. I know that developing policy is a difficult and novel experience for Opposition Members, but the hon. Member for Hamilton only needs to tell the House whether he supports the policy of his colleague, the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras; or is the hon. Member for Hamilton afraid of admitting Labour policy, as it would be so damaging to the interests of Scottish business? The hon. Gentleman need not fear answering; I can assure him that this is not a planted question from the Scottish National party.
  Mr. George Robertson: That was a Conservative Central Office comment, meticulously delivered in the music hall style that has become the hallmark of the Secretary of State for Scotland. In the Secretary of State's consideration of the consultative document, which was published by my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), and which relates solely to England and Wales, did the Secretary of State read the autobiography of the right hon. Member for Brent, North (Sir R. Boyson), the other man with the whiskers? In his fine book entitled "Speaking My Mind", he says that the universal business rate was a mistake, that it has separated businesses from their areas and
  "diminished the calibre of councillors because local businessmen no longer stand for election to be financial watchdogs on local councils."
  Conservative Members are not unanimous about the future of the UBR. Labour's consultation will take place in Scotland. It will have a Scottish policy to protect Scottish business and Scottish industry. My hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras will do the same down south.
  Mr. Lang: I am not sure if I am supposed to take it from those latter remarks that policy will be the same north of the border. It is astonishing that the hon. Gentleman is not yet prepared to say that it will not be the same. He plans to allow a free-for-all for local business rates. That would lead back to the 76p in the pound level achieved by Labour authorities before we introduced the uniform business rate. It will be noted throughout the business community in Scotland that the Labour party shrinks from committing itself to maintaining the level playing field that we have so painstakingly secured for the Scottish business community.
  The AEF total for next year has been distributed among individual local authorities using exactly the same methodology as in previous years. The methodology involves equalising, first, for variations in authorities' assessed need—as determined by their grant-aided expenditure assessments—to incur expenditure and, secondly, for variations in their tax base and, consequently, in their ability to raise income locally from the council tax. Just over £1,303 million of the AEF total for next year is being used to equalise differences in authorities' GAE assessments, while a total of nearly £3,962 million is being shared among authorities in proportion to the number of council tax band D equivalent properties in each authority area. I hope that the House finds that clear.
  Sir Russell Johnston: Does the Secretary of State regard this as an appropriate moment for me to pose again the question that I asked earlier? In the case of Highland

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  regional council, the combined effect of the measures and the financial and capping arrangements will lead to 12.9 per cent. less money for services. That means that the council immediately faces the choice of closing its job and enterprise unit, with the loss of 120 jobs and of a great opportunity for people to enter new employment, or sacking X number of teachers. Is that the sort of choice that the Secretary of State wants to give local authorities?
  Mr. Lang: It is not; nor do I accept that it is necessarily the choice that they face. Of course I acknowledge that Highland regional council has been one of the authorities that has argued about the distribution formula from time to time. Its argument, however, is not with me; it is with other local authorities and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, which has agreed with that formula, on the basis that money is equally and evenly distributed, taking account of relative need through a sensitive formula.
  As for the overall quantum, it is well known that expenditure has risen sharply in local authorities in recent years. There has been an increase of some 20 per cent. in real terms in the past 10 years. Last year alone, in real terms, local authorities have had 2 per cent. more expenditure than had been anticipated following inflation rates estimates at the beginning of last year.
  Mr. George Foulkes: The Secretary of State's convoluted prose serves only to obfuscate the truth. He is trying to pull wool over our eyes. The position described by the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Sir R. Johnston) is replicated throughout the whole of Scotland, so it is not a question of distribution. Strathclyde is facing terrible options.
  Mr. David Marshall: It faces a crisis.
  Mr. Foulkes: Indeed. Community education is one the services that is threatened. Voluntary organisations will not have places in which to meet. That means that we will have more crime and more drug taking among young people. That is sort of thing that will happen. The Secretary of State knows that, as he has made cuts, local authorities have made efficiency savings year after year. He must give them some guidance. Where will they find the savings? Will they have to sack teachers or will they have to accept any of the other options? He must say, and he should not leave it to local authorities. I know what he is up to. He is hoping that they will get the blame for the problems when the election comes on 6 April. He is—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is the end of a lengthy intervention. Interventions are supposed to be short and to the point.
  Mr. Lang: If I were to seek to give guidance to local authorities of the kind that the hon. Gentleman suggests he would be the first on his feet, accusing the Government of intervening in local government decision making. The fact is that local authorities have had a substantial expansion in resources at their disposal over the years.
  If the problem in Strathclyde is so severe, why did the authority expand its staff numbers so substantially last year at a time when some other local authorities were
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  retrenching? When the hon. Member for Hamilton makes his speech, perhaps he will be able to confirm whether the report in The Scotsman last Friday was correct. It reported that Hamilton district council is contemplating not an increase in next year's council tax but a 10 per cent. reduction. That is hardly the action of a council under the sort of pressures to which the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes).
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Lang: I think that I shall give way to a Conservative Member this time.
  Mr. Phil Gallie: Is not the previous intervention typical of the Opposition? They call for devolution and responsibility, but when they get that responsibility, what do they do? They whine and gum and try to pass the buck back to my right hon. Friend.
  Mr. Lang: I could not have put it better, so I shall not try.
  Mr. James Wallace: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Lang: No, I have given way many times and I must make progress.
  The second purpose of the local government finance order is to increase by relatively small amounts the level of AEF payable to two local authorities for 1994–95. The authorities involved are West Lothian and Western Isles. In the case of West Lothian, the increase is the result of the district council taking on additional housing benefit responsibilities, and in the case of the Western Isles the additional AEF is to enable the islands' council to subsidise the costs of internal air travel in the Western Isles following the introduction of the air passenger tax last November.
  The third purpose of the order is to redetermine the level of AEF for 1993–94, taking into account changes in each authority's council tax base since the original distribution as a result of, for example, successful appeals by householders regarding the tax band in which their property should be located.
  I should make it clear to the House that the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has been consulted about the detail of all four orders and has had no points to raise on any of them. I fully recognise that COSLA is unhappy about the overall level of next year's local government finance settlement—I shall say something about that in a minute or two—but the convention has raised absolutely no complaint' about the way in which the settlement total is being distributed among authorities.
  The methodology for determining authorities' grant-aided expenditure assessments is kept under regular review by the distribution committee of the working party on local government finance which comprises representatives from the Scottish Office and the convention. While there are inevitably complaints from authorities which lose as a result of a change in the distribution methodology, I think that one of the strengths of the system is the extent to which it operates on the basis of consensus. I hope that tonight we shall not hear from the Opposition the sort of allegations that have been made in these debates in previous years—that, in some

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  way or other, the distribution penalises particular authorities or that it has been manipulated by the Government. It has not.
  I said earlier that I proposed to say something about the overall level of next year's local government finance settlement. I fully accept that it is a tight settlement, but it should not come as a surprise to anyone in local government or to Opposition Members. I have consistently warned local authorities over a period of years that they needed to bear in mind the limits on the levels of public expenditure and to look closely at ways of delivering their services more efficiently. For the most part, they have chosen to ignore that advice. Most councils have continued to increase the numbers of staff that they employ.
  I believe that local government must play its part along with the rest of the public sector in helping to control the level of public expenditure. Every extra £1 spent on local government would mean £1 less for health, £1 less for industry and £1 less for all the other areas for which I am responsible at the Scottish Office. If Opposition Members are arguing for more money to be given to local government, they should tell the House which other vital public services will be deprived of resources to fund this higher spending. How many millions would these services lose to finance the spending desires of local councils? Or perhaps they will tell us what taxes they would raise to enable local government to spend more. Would business rates be the first target? Or would they raise income taxes? Without those answers, no one need attach any credence to the Opposition's cries of underfunding.
  Although I have acknowledged that it is a tight settlement, I certainly do not think that it is an unrealistic one, given low inflation. Nor do I think that it is unrealistic to expect local authorities—in common with the rest of the public sector—to fund any pay increases from efficiency savings. If authorities had made some attempt to find efficiency savings in the current year to meet the cost of 1994 pay increases, they would not have stored up for themselves the need to find savings in the forthcoming year to cover the cost of 1994 and 1995 pay increases.
  Almost every year in these debates, we hear allegations from Opposition Members that the Government are underfunding local government in Scotland and have destroyed local services and local authority jobs. The hon. Member for Hamilton was no different in last year's debate. He claimed that the consequences of the 1994–95 settlement would be thousands of job losses, service reductions and an extra 10 per cent. on council tax bills across Scotland. What was the reality? The numbers employed in local government rose instead of falling; the average increase in council tax levels was, in fact, riot 10 per cent., but 5.5 per cent.; and the hon. Member for Hamilton and his colleagues were also wrong about cuts in services.
  The reality of the situation is very different from what is suggested in the Opposition's rhetoric. Let us consider the facts. In the past 10 years, expenditure by Scottish local authorities has increased in real terms by more than 20 per cent. and nearly doubled in cash terms. In the seven-year period up to June 1994, staffing levels in Scottish local authorities increased by more than 6 per cent. while, in the same period, staffing levels in English authorities reduced by almost the same percentage figure. Even after the 1995–96 settlement, the level of
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  Government-supported expenditure is 33 per cent. per head of population higher than the comparable English figure.
  I could go on to talk about improvements in particular local authority services and, if pressed, I should be happy to do so, but these figures demonstrate clearly that the Government, far from underfunding and attacking Scottish local government, have made it prosper.
  It is against that background that next year's settlement must be viewed, and it is also against that background that I commend the orders to the House.
  7.46 pm
  Mr. George Robertson: The Secretary of State described this year's settlement as extremely tight, but that is surely an understatement. In fact, for two of the regional councils in Scotland—Lothian and Strathclyde—it is not only tight but punitive and arbitrary and it will lead to reductions in real services for real people. The Government's decision will force up local council taxes, all local charges and, in the process, inflation, at the very time when the Government are yet again claiming that in Scotland and elsewhere the recovery has just started.
  The Secretary of State did not have the gall to describe the housing settlement as extremely tight. It is not just extremely tight; it means strangulation. Without doubt, it is among the most savage and vindictive housing settlements for many years. Those who will pay the price will be council house tenants and the thousands who languish on council house waiting lists all over the country. Council taxes will be forced up by 10 per cent. on average, even after stringent cuts by many local authorities. There is little doubt about that now. Services will be affected and the quality and availability of housing will decline all over Scotland.
  Why? Why are local authorities and the Scottish people being expected to bear all this pain? The reason is simple: the Government's need to find cash this year to fund election tax cuts next year. They want to pass on a tax increase one year in the form of a tax saving next year. It is a cynical, brazen abuse of central Government power so that tax bribes are available for an election Budget.
  Mr. Raymond S. Robertson: The hon. Gentleman said that this year's settlement is not sufficient. He has clearly done his sums but, if he wants to be taken seriously, he must tell us by how much this year's settlement is short. Which aspects of the block should be cut to fund the local government settlement? If new money is needed, has the shadow Chancellor agreed? If not, which of his shadow Cabinet colleagues' budgets will have to be cut to provide the hon. Gentleman with the money that he wants?
  Mr. Robertson: I do not know whether that speech was given to the hon. Gentleman as a consolation for not being the new Minister. If so, he was sold cheap. Believe it or not, the Tory Members present on the Back Benches are the reservoir of talent now available to fill future resignations. I exclude the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) from that reservoir as he beached himself long ago.
  The hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Robertson) asked about the savings. Let us start with the money that was wasted on Health Care International. If that is not

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  enough to fund the increases that should be made available for services, let us take the £700 million that will be wasted on the unnecessary and unwanted reorganisation of local government. That is a start for the hon. Gentleman. I suggest that he writes it all down and puts it in his next speech—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Order.
  Mr. Robertson: I am slightly more understanding than you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I understand the hon. Gentleman's frustration.
  All those cuts to keep back money for next year will be in vain because nobody will believe the Government on taxation ever again. A Government who lied so clearly and unequivocally before the last election are unlikely to be trusted on anything to do with financial management in the future. That is the verdict not of the Opposition but of an opinion poll that gives the Secretary of State for Scotland a rating only 2 per cent. higher than that given to Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein in the last elections in Northern Ireland. It is the Scottish people's verdict on what the Government have done for the past 16 years and what they are doing now. The Scottish people will not be fooled by a Government-dictated council tax increase this year, which may be followed by the same amount of money next year in tax reductions. They are much too intelligent to be taken in by that.
  The Government's disgraceful discrimination policy is in sharpest relief in their housing budget. The statistics speak for themselves. Fourteen years ago, the housing support grant stood at £228 million, with a further £100 million from general funds. Next year it will be reduced from £328 million to £22 million. That tells its own story.
  Mr. Bill Walker: Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House clearly about the difference in housing benefit during the same period, because that money goes directly into the housing coffers?
  Mr. Robertson: It demonstrates the poverty that exists in Scotland. It is astonishing that a Conservative Member boasts about the amount of housing benefit being paid in Scotland. That is public expenditure to help people in need because of the poverty created by the Government's economic policies over the past 16 years.
  Mr. Walker: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Robertson: No, I have been generous enough in what I have said.
  Over the past 14 years, some £200 million has been taken out of housing, in a housing environment where the Government's statistics tell the story of the problems that face Scottish housing. A survey carried out by Scottish Homes paints a bleak picture. Statistics collected and collated by that Government agency show that 4.5 per cent. of all Scottish housing is below what is defined as a tolerable standard. That is a total of 100,000 Scottish homes in both the public and private sectors. They also show that 13.5 per cent. of those homes suffer from dampness and 20 per cent.—one in every five—of houses in the public and private sector suffer from condensation, mould and dampness. Those conditions affect 500,000 houses.
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  That is the extent of the problem facing Scotland today, yet the Government's public expenditure White Paper tells the Scottish people that they intend to cut expenditure on housing by 20 per cent. over the next three years. So, in response to a housing crisis that is unparalleled in modern times, the Government will cut the amount spent on housing. Under their convoluted system of calculating, rents for council house tenants will be forced up yet again by at least 5 per cent.—2 per cent. more than the Government's calculation of inflation. When the Government took power in Scotland, council house rents were on average £4.92 a week. When the new settlement comes in next week, they will be £27.77. That is a stark fact about the rents paid by ordinary Scottish families.
  Now, 40 per cent. of Scottish housing investment goes not to local authorities but to the super-quango, Scottish Homes, which has been given more generous relief and flexible financial surroundings to spend the money.
  Mr. Graham: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Robertson: May I just give my hon. Friend the benefit of a further statistic? No less than 80 per cent. of Government grant in aid now goes to Scottish Homes for it to spend.
  Mr. Graham: My hon. Friend will be aware that I represent an area with one of the biggest concentrations of Scottish Homes property. It recently gave notification that, once again, rents would go up massively. Bearing in mind the fact that ever since Scottish Homes has been in operation, we have had year-on-year, massive rent increases, when will we reach the end of it?
  Mr. Robertson: We shall reach the end of this bleak and dismal point of view at the next general election. It is part of a strategy, not an accident. It is not even a policy of the Scottish Homes board—weird, wonderful and highly political as its policy decisions are. It is a decision by Her Majesty's Government to drive people out of the rented sector. Using the excuse of choice, they drive people into a single form of housing tenure: owner-occupation. That is why rents have been artificially increased in both the rented and Scottish Homes sectors.
  Two years ago, Scottish Homes received £250 million to write off its capital debt following the sale of 30,000 of its houses, presumably at a discount, which left it with an on-going capital debt. Why have not local authorities in Scotland, which, after all, had to dispose of some 300,000 houses, received relief for the capital debt that they continue to hold following the sale of council houses? Where is the equity of treatment? Are the Government interested in a balanced housing policy? Do they care for people who need a house, or are they simply obsessed with getting locally elected and democratically accountable councils out of the business of providing housing for rent? I fear that the answer to those questions is ominous.
  Given the contrast between the housing settlement and the favourable treatment given to Scottish Homes, a new and sinister aspect is creeping into how that quango is operated. Not only is it taking over the bulk of Government assistance to housing, but it seems to be taking over the political job of the Government. The members of the Scottish Homes board, whose names the

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  Secretary of State on Monday could not recall without referring to his notes, has taken on itself the decision deliberately to deny tenants—
  Mr. Lang: Rubbish.
  Mr. Robertson: The Secretary of State could not give the names when my hon. Friend the Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Mr. Galbraith) asked him to tell him the names without looking at his list.
  Mr. Gallie: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Robertson: I will give way to the Secretary of State if he would like to give me the names—
  Mr. Gallie: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Robertson: No, I am not interested in the hon. Gentleman. Would the Secretary of State like to tell me now, without looking at a piece of paper, the names of the members—
  Mr. Gallie rose—
  Mr. Robertson: The hon. Gentleman is bobbing up and down like a jack-in-the-box, but it is the Secretary of State who cannot recall the names of those on that powerful board. He cannot name them, but they have taken a decision in his name. That board has made a policy decision deliberately to deny its tenants the right to choose a local authority landlord.
  At least I know that the board includes Councillor Daphne Sleigh—who is one of that last remaining number of Tory elected councillors. Those board members get paid in salary and expenses £250,000 a year—that is what the Scottish Homes board pays its members. The chairman of the board gets paid more than a Member of Parliament, but rejects the advice and views of Members. The board of Scottish Homes is now dismissing the views of all Scotland's Opposition Members by deciding that it will deny its tenants a choice. We are beginning to see the untrammelled arrogance of the Tory quango state.
  Last week, the chairman of Scottish Homes, Sir James Mellon, sent me a letter not just defending his board's indefensible decision to deny choice to tenants—defending it might have been technically legitimate—but going beyond that and attacking the Labour party and challenging it on its housing policy. He ended with an unconcealed sideswipe at Scotland's local councils. Sir James Mellon, a former diplomat, who has never stood for election in his life, said:
  "Real democracy is once again at work.
  Yours sincerely, Jimmy".
  He and Mr. McKinlay then offered themselves for interview and press conferences. They happily threw the whole weight of their publicity machine behind an unconcealed attack on the Labour party. Ministers are now able to stand aside and let the quangos do their political dirty work for them.
  Why is Scottish Homes now engaged so blatantly in the party-political debate? Quangos are supposed to be responsible to Ministers; they are not supposed to free, party-political agents in their own right. The Secretary of State, not unelected placemen, is supposed to be responsible for policy, Scottish Homes should leave politics to the politicians.
  Mr. Michael J. Martin: Is my hon. Friend aware of another negation of democracy
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  concerning Scottish Homes? When hon. Members table questions to Ministers about Scottish Homes the only response we get is that the chairman of Scottish Homes will reply to us. That letter is sent to the Member rather than being published in Hansard, available to the public gaze.
  Mr. Robertson: My hon. Friend speaks with great wisdom and perception on this matter. He has underlined, as I have also sought to do, the remarkable and disturbing new development in the way in which that public body is now deploying its financial resources, and its considerable publicity resources, in the party political interests of the Government.
  I find the behaviour of Scottish Homes quite extraordinary, because it represents a major and disturbing shift in the way in which quangos are run. I must inform the Secretary of State that I intend to write to the Prime Minister and to the Secretary to the Cabinet to ask whether that behaviour is in line with present policy. It should also be drawn to the attention of the Nolan committee that unelected chairmen of quangos are now entering into the party-political arena. As a consequence, the independence of public service is seriously in question.
  Mr. Gordon McMaster: When my hon. Friend writes to the Prime Minister he should point out that tonight's debate, which is a political one, essentially involving civil servants, is also being repeated not only in the media but door-to-door on Scottish housing estates, because the staff of Scottish Homes, who are understandably trying to make sure that they have a job to go to, are promoting a particular option, because that is all that Scottish Homes will allow. It will not allow free choice.
  Mr. Robertson: My hon. Friend is absolutely right, because people are being denied the right to choose a local authority as their landlord. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that other choices are also being limited as a result of the deployment of the resources of Scottish Homes.
  On previous occasions I have spoken highly of some of the work of Scottish Homes. Perhaps I should regret that, because Sir Jimmy Mellon quoted my commendable words in his letter to me. I accept that Scottish Homes has a creditable record and has done many innovative things. I am saddened by the fact that the chairman and the board have taken it upon themselves to become an extension of the Tory party political machine.
  The local government settlement has been a tight one for all councils. For many councils, prudence and careful management—as in the case of Hamilton district council—has produced an outcome that will allow them to keep the council tax level stable or even, in some cases, to reduce it. In the case of Lothian, Strathclyde and other regions, the effects of the settlement will be punitive. The Secretary of State says that no representation about the distribution was made to him by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. However, according to annexe 1 of the briefing note—I am sure that even the Secretary of State has been handed it—Strathclyde's budget will be cut by £15 million in this year. There is little doubt that it is suffering far more than other regions.
  Despite Strathclyde's long-standing record of financial prudence and cost-effectiveness, it will have to make serious cuts in service this year and perhaps put the

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  council tax up by about 20 per cent. It will do so reluctantly, but necessarily because of the settlement. Cuts of £107 million are not just extremely tight for the council, but border on dangerous. They endanger key services such as education and the police and will force above-inflation charges for rail, bus and ferry services. That is bound to have an impact on concessionary fares for the most vulnerable. Strathclyde is cutting not at the fat, but at the bone. This year, cuts made by Lothian will also seriously affect the quality of valuable services.
  One of the roots of the problem is the Government's failure to cover the pay settlements for this year, especially that for teachers. In the light of inflation increases, the pay settlement—5.1 per cent. over two years—was not generous. It was a cautious one. A Scottish Office observer sits in at the teachers pay negotiations, but this year not a word was heard from that person. The local authorities across Scotland have now been left with a bill for £144 million to cover the pay settlements, £65 million of which is meant for the teachers' pay settlement.
  What are the efficiency savings about which the Secretary of State talked? What are councils supposed to do? Are they meant to increase class sizes and the pupil-teacher ratio? This year, the Secretary of State published yet another glossy document entitled "The Parents Charter in Scotland". It was costly publication. On the quality of teaching it says:
  "You"
  —the voter; the public; the citizen; the council tax payer and the parent—
  "have the right to expect that the staff who teach your child will be suitably qualified, professionally competent and well motivated. You can also expect high standards of teaching at all times."
  The Secretary of State has said that people should expect that, but at the same time he is demanding massive efficiency savings, especially in education budgets. If they want the quality teaching and teacher motivation that is required to comply with their objectives, the Government cannot run away from their direct responsibility for financial settlement this year.
  The Government continually tell us that the councils are increasing their staff. We hear that refrain year on year, as though it was a great crime for councils to increase their staff at a time when 250,000 people are out of work. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) says, yes it is. No; he says that it is a crime. [Interruption.] The price that some people will pay to get on to the Front Bench. The Whip said nothing.
  We are allowed to believe that it is a crime to increase jobs at a time when 250,000 of our fellow citizens are out of work but, if it is a crime, there are some remarkably obvious culprits in the dock. Tory Stirling district council, Tory Berwickshire district council and Tory Bearsden and Milngavie district council are all employing more people than they did last year.
  Moreover, the Scottish Office is employing more people, although the Secretary of State massages the
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  figures. Oh yes, the hard core of the Scottish Office has decreased in numbers, but when one takes account of the impact of the agencies, one finds that—
  Mr. McMaster: Sir Jimmy Mellon.
  Mr. Robertson: Not even Sir Jimmy Mellon. No; we are talking about the direct agencies such as the Prison Service. It emerges that, in 1990, there were 255,500 full-time equivalents in local government; in 1994, there were 255,300 local government employees, down by 0.8 per cent. However, in the same period, the Scottish Office, the Secretary of State's empire, has increased by 4 per cent. So if it is a great crime that the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South will pronounce on, in his propaganda role, let us ensure that the criminals are fully identified.
  The Secretary of State genuinely knows—he is not an unintelligent man—that local authorities, in many cases, have had to increase their labour force, including those Tory councils, because he has placed new burdens on them; massive new burdens in terms of community care, and continuing burdens in collecting the poll tax, something for which he and the Conservative Government should bear responsibility until the end of time. We should have no more homilies about the iniquities of increasing staff levels, because there is the same strong smell of humbug as comes so familiarly from the Government.
  I should like to add my voice—this may sound peculiar in this week of all weeks—to the opinion that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) expressed in relation to notional receipts. Many councils—including the Conservative councils, because the representations made to the Secretary of State were from every council in Scotland—feel that the decision that has been taken about notional receipts is unfair, unjust and will work against the interests, not only of local government, but of industrial development.
  Labour councils will make the best of the settlement, and they will work efficiently and with dedication to ensure that people are spared the full impact of the settlement. However, as usual, the Government have produced a bad deal for local government, especially for housing authorities, and a bad deal for Scotland in general. They simply will not now tackle the real problems confronting the Scottish people.
  This is simply one more settlement in a long line of attacks on the power and the services of locally elected councils. Those attacks have wounded more than the structure of local government, which can, and will, be revived by a new Government after the next election; they have hurt the people—many of whom are the most vulnerable in society—that local government helps and serves. The Government will never be forgiven for that, and they will pay a heavy price for it.
  8.13 pm
  Mr. Phil Gallie: I admit that the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) put a strong argument to persuade the green vote to join him. Indeed, I suggest that he is the champion of recycling because, if speeches are anything to go by, it appears that he uses the same whining and whingeing speech every year in this debate. He makes the same prophecies every year, but he never looks back and says, "Sorry, I was wrong last year; I will attempt to get it right this year."

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  The hon. Member for Hamilton spoke about additional expenditure for local authorities and explained to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Robertson) where all that money would come from. He would stop waste, like the money that was expended on Health Care International. As Government input of £30 million into HCI attracted private investment of £150 million, I do not regard it as anything to apologise for. As, in the past eight years, people in and around Clydebank have found employment, I do not think that the money has been wasted. I think that many people in that area will have been grateful for the £30 million injected by the Government and grateful for the jobs that have been provided.
  At the end of that, we still have a first-class hospital, possibly the best hospital in Europe, which can be used to earn money for the United Kingdom, for Scotland, but, above all, for people who will find jobs in that hospital in the years to come.
  Mr. Robert Hughes: I admire the hon. Gentleman's new enthusiasm and conversion to the idea that the Government should be investing in industry to stimulate employment directly. That goes completely against the philosophy of the Government, or is he saying, "No; we do not invest directly in manufacturing, we invest only where private medicine can make a fast buck"? Is that the distinction that he makes?
  Mr. Gallie: What I am saying is that when the Government have money to invest, they consider the best means of achieving a sound capital project and the best means of creating work with the money that they have to invest. I am suggesting that that project created a lot of work, and achieved many of the aspirations that I would expect if Government are to use much-valued taxpayers' money to try to support development of industry and commerce in our country.
  Dr. John Reid rose—
  Mr. Graham rose—
  Mr. Gallie: I give way to the hon. Member for Renfrew, West and Inverclyde (Mr. Graham).
  Mr. Graham: Does the hon. Gentleman remember the argument that I made earlier about four hospitals in my area that are earmarked for closure? If the £30 million that the Government squandered in Clydebank had been put into our area, we could continue to provide a much-needed service and at the same time stimulate the local economy.
  Mr. Gallie: In the past I have used the services of the new hospital in Greenock, and I believe that if the Government invest, as they evidently are, in new hospitals, new clinics and new health centres there must be a reduction in older buildings. Opposition Members appear to fail to recognise that. They appear to think that one can keep everything from the past yet they expect what is new in the future. There is a rationale, and there is a balance to be struck. The hon. Member for Hamilton, in the search for cash, said that he would have stopped local government reorganisation. I would have to say—
  Dr. Godman rose—
  Mr. Gallic: Give me a break and let me try to get on a little bit.
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  The hon. Member for Hamilton said that he would stop local government reorganisation because there is no clamour for it. Perhaps that is so in Hamilton, but in Ayr there was certainly a clamour to get rid of Strathclyde regional council. That was a promise that we made in our manifesto and, as usual, Conservatives meet their manifesto pledges and, as usual, we are doing so to a reasonable time scale—a time scale that the hon. Gentleman, in yesterday's argument, said was not achievable, yet now we find that we are bang on track. The elections for the shadow authorities are approaching. In Committee last year, the hon. Gentleman said that that would not be possible. The elections are coming up and the hon. Gentleman probably has his colleagues throughout Scotland all geared up for them. What the Conservatives promise, the Conservatives achieve. We will seek value for money.
  Dr. Godman: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Gallie: No, but I may give way later. I have only until 10 o'clock to finish my speech.
  Labour Members constantly moan and whine that local councils do not receive enough money, yet those councils are currently receiving 40 per cent. of the Scottish block grant.
  Labour Members advocate a Scottish Assembly. If an Assembly is set up—I will do everything in my power to oppose such a move—it will place strain on local authority budgets because each Assembly member will want to spend money in his own area. Local authorities will be deprived of the very generous settlements that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has provided for them in recent years.
  Just as councils blame all their failures on underfunding from the Scottish Office, so too would a Scottish Assembly look to Westminster—to the seemingly bottomless pit of money that can be dipped into on a whim. The Conservatives recognise that there are no bottomless pits; funding is limited.
  Dr. Godman: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for displaying his characteristic elegance and courtesy. I simply point out to him that I am the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow. Many people in my constituency are deeply concerned about the inadequacy of the local community care programme that is being drawn up by the relevant parties and they are concerned about the threatened closure of Ravenscraig hospital.
  Mr. Gallie: I fully accept that the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) is who he says he is. The concerns that he expresses about community care could be echoed by virtually every Member of Parliament for Scotland. A time of change is a time of anxiety and concern. I was concerned that the introduction of community care meant passing responsibility to Strathclyde regional council. I welcome the fact that in future the new South Ayrshire authority will take responsibility for the provision of community care. I am sure that it will work very closely with the health boards and the health trusts to provide a very good service in the area.
  During a recent sitting of the Scottish Grand Committee I asked what increase, if any, there had been in local authority spending over the past four years. I was told that there had been a 14.5 per cent. increase. I was puzzled by

  1075
  that answer because Labour Members are always saying that local authorities face constant cuts. In the past 10 years, local authority expenditure has increased by 20 per cent. I would like to know where the cuts are; I would like Labour Members to justify their claims.
  Has staffing been cut in local authorities? No, because since the late 1980s the number of local authority employees has increased by more than 6 per cent. The hon. Member for Hamilton addressed those issues a short time ago. He and his colleagues constantly talk about cuts in local authority services and numbers.
  Dr. Reid: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Gallie: No, I have been more than fair in giving way. I know that Labour Members will complain about me later for speaking for longer than I had intended.
  Let us look at the facts. The aggregate external finance settlement, which comprises revenue support grants, non-domestic rates and other grants, totals £5.3 billion this year—that is 45 per cent. higher per person in Scotland than in England. That is food for thought. Yet local authorities continue to complain. It is a tradition for local authorities to complain. One year they will have something to complain about and no one will believe them—it will be a case of the boy who cried wolf.
  Labour Members have threatened the business community, commerce and industry that a Labour Government will go back to the old ways and lift the controls from non-domestic rate contributions. That will also remove the inflation controls on non-domestic rates. If that is not true, I will give way and allow Labour Members to deny it. There is no protest from Labour Members, so obviously they intend to remove those controls.
  I compliment and congratulate my right hon. Friend on the moves towards a uniform business rate. Business and commerce in Scotland have called for that measure for years, and we are all grateful for it.
  Much has been said about the difficulties that we face in the housing sector, but since 1979 more than 250,000 new homes have been built in Scotland, and 20,000 new homes are constructed each year. Housing philosophy has changed and no Conservative Member should apologise for that. In 1979, 63 per cent. of housing was publicly owned; today, the figure is just over 45 per cent. Scotland is moving into the modern world—a world which recognises that people like to own their own homes, invest in their property, improve their facilities and reap the rewards that flow from that. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hurry up."] No, I have given way a number of times. I warned hon. Members that, on that basis, I was liable to extend my speaking time.
  Strathclyde regional council claims that it will be underfunded in the coming year. I must acknowledge that the settlements are tight. I expected them to be tight, particularly in the wind-up year for regional councils. Strathclyde regional council should have recognised before now that there would be financial constraints and it should have planned for them in the long term. However, long-term financial management has never been Strathclyde's forte.
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  In the months ahead, I expect my right hon. Friend to stick stringently to the statements that he has made about capping. His capping intentions are not idle threats and local authorities must be kept to the strict capping limits. I expect the same to apply next year when the new local authorities are established. I ask my right hon. Friend to cast his mind back to the introduction of the community charge. I believe that it was the right way to fund local government. The Government made one major mistake in introducing the community charge: they did not cap the authorities from the first year. On that basis, local authorities extended their expenditure and community charge payers met the costs.
  Finally, having mentioned Strathclyde, I should draw attention to another local council, Tory-controlled Kyle and Carrick district council. When the Tories took control from Labour in 1992, they inherited a £4 million deficit, which they have paid off in just over two years. They have still managed to improve services and provide a range of new capital projects. I predict that this year, despite the tight settlement, they will not impose a 25 per cent. increase in council tax. They will not be talking about a 20 per cent., 15 per cent. 10 per cent. or 5 per cent. increase. I believe that Kyle and Carrick will produce no worse than a zero increase in council tax. Time will tell whether my prediction or that made by the hon. Member for Hamilton is right.
  8.30 pm
  Mr. Jimmy Wray: We have to remind the Government that 25 years ago we were clearing out the slums of Glasgow, which were the worst slums in Europe. People were living at 600 or 700 to the acre in rat-infested houses owned by private landlords. Tuberculosis was rife and people were dying of poverty. Past Tory Governments acknowledged that poverty and allowed it to continue.
  We are still in the same position. We have a golden opportunity to look after the people of Scotland and of Glasgow. In Glasgow, there are 22,213 dwellings below a tolerable standard and 7,000 houses are lying empty. In 1982–83, Glasgow received 5,673 applications of homelessness and in 1993–94 the figure was 12,500. No one has laid a brick in Glasgow since 1986.
  We hear about all that is happening in Scotland, but it certainly is not happening in Glasgow, where some of the blackest constituencies suffer high infant mortality rates, rat infestation and decaying houses that are unfit for human habitation. The Secretary of State had a golden opportunity to give Glasgow the opportunity to do something about that, possibly by increasing the housing support grant, but what figures have the Scottish Office produced?
  Since 1991, £22 million has been cut from the housing support grant, representing a cut of 95 per cent. in 1994–95 and a cut of 99 per cent. in 1996–97. Those are the figures we are given. We understand the policy, as I shall explain later in the debate.
  There is an old Scottish saying that the Scottish Office formula should go out the window because the notional figures are a damned disgrace, especially when they apply to some of the most deprived constituencies in Scotland.
  The Scottish Office works on a notional figure calculated on rents 10 per cent. higher than they really are. That represents a direct cut for local authorities in

  1077
  Scotland. Rents are calculated at £37.48 when, on average, they are only £27. It is a damned disgrace, a fraud and a lie to the Scottish people and it should not be tolerated.
  The Scottish Office has calculated a notional figure for lost local authority rents because of the right to buy as 3 per cent. when the actual figure is 3.5 per cent. That is another cut being exposed.
  The Secretary of State for Scotland said that he was expecting rent increases of around 4 or 5 per cent. Why should that be when people find it difficult to pay their existing rents, particularly as inflation is running at 3 per cent.? His figures and his assumptions are wrong because Glasgow is proposing a 6.2 per cent. rent increase next year. One reason for that is the capping and the cutting.
  I thought that housing support grants were to get rid of the bad housing in Glasgow and to keep rents down, but the Government policy is to ring fence housing so that it is funded by the people who are paying rent.
  Mr. Gallie: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Wray: If the hon. Gentleman will let me get started, I shall give way later. A further increase in rents in Glasgow of £1.02 is due to the right to buy, as local authorities have lost that housing stock. That has never been cash calculated as the Scottish Office never took it into consideration.
  Then came the crocodile tears from the Government, who said that they were looking after the people who were suffering. They said that they set up a general fund contribution for local authorities that have many problems and are suffering from cuts. Last year, everyone applied to the general fund and everyone was refused, so the general contribution fund holds no water.
  Mr. Gallie: Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that the capital raised from the sale of local authority housing has been passed back to Glasgow district to allow it to reinvest in its housing stock? Will he say what proportion of rents are paid through housing benefit in Glasgow?
  Mr. Wray: What a shock I have for this man when I give him the figures for housing benefit and tell him where it is going.
  The Scottish Office should release the money to allow Scottish local authorities to build. If they are releasing it, they are not releasing it for housebuilding because they want it back in the private sector. We shall complete the cycle and we shall end up with the slums that we had in the 1950s and 1960s.
  Mr. McMaster: The devious trick that has been used in Scotland is that when the Government give a local authority its capital allocation they deduct whatever it has been given in capital receipts. That sleight of hand has stopped many houses being built. Council house tenants are now the most heavily taxed people in the country. They pay the burden of homeless persons units for all local authorities and people are increasingly becoming homeless because many of those who have bought owner-occupied houses cannot keep up the mortgage repayments and council house rent payers are left to pick up that social problem.
  Mr. Wray: My hon. Friend is correct. He has experience of a good working-class background and understands what slums are. I came from a family of 10,
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  who lived in a room and kitchen. Seven of the family were bedwetters, which made it difficult—we invented the sauna.
  In most cases, housing is the largest single expenditure for individuals and families on low incomes. Governments earlier this century realised that and adopted policies to ensure decent housing for everyone, regardless of income. The policies were successful. The National Consumers Council found in 1977 that those on low income often received better value for money than others—mostly due to good quality, subsidised council housing. Those in private rented accommodation suffered to some extent.
  Now we come to the sad story of when the Government took over in 1979. The election of the Tories in 1979 changed the position completely. Their policies totally altered the role of the public sector rented housing. The changes involved minimising public involvement and, as in other sectors, giving way to market forces.
  The main thrust of the Government's proposals was as follows: ownership was to be extended; Government expenditure was to be reduced and targeted more effectively; and local authority responsibility was to be decreased by increasing private ownership and transferring homes to housing associations, such as Scottish Homes, with the support of the majority of tenants. In addition, the private rented sector was to be improved and the number of housing associations was to be increased. The Government were taking housing out of local authority control—even though local authorities could probably have done something about the problems.
  As well as those UK-wide plans, specific legislation for Scotland was introduced. Scotland, with its history of low ownership and large numbers of council houses, was seen as having plenty of potential. Legislation introduced included the Scotland Act 1980 and the Housing Planning Act 1986. Those Acts were supposed to benefit the poor. They introduced the right-to-buy scheme that allowed tenants to buy their houses at market value minus a discount based on the length of occupancy. They changed subsidies from buildings to households to help those most in need and shield the poor. The decline in council houses and the increase in private sector dwellings and housing associations was meant to increase the choice of accommodation available.
  What happened? The policy of increasing home ownership has been a success in terms of numbers—with an increase of 450,000 new owners, but the prospect of home ownership has been unrealistic for those on low incomes. Even with discounts of up to 70 per cent. on the market value, the price was beyond the means of those on low incomes. Recently, they have also been unable to lake advantage of the rent-to-mortgage scheme as repayments were once again too high.
  The Government then committed the cardinal sin—the bright Cabinet brought in deregulation. In 1989, the Tories deregulated private rents. Since then, housing benefit for private tenants has increased from £1 billion to £4 billion in 1993–94. That was mostly due to the massively increased rents—public money went straight into private landlords' pockets. That was a disaster for the Tories who said that deregulation would increase the supply of flats and houses and so decrease rents. Rents were also pushed up when council house building came to an end and restrictions were placed on housing associations' building programmes.

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  The financial consequences of deregulation have not only caused massive rent increases, but misery for tenants, especially the poor, and huge bills for taxpayers. In 1989, public payments to landlords via housing benefit was £1.4 billion; last year that figure rose to £3.83 billion—a 280 per cent. increase. The Government have even suggested that by 1996–97, that could possibly increase to £5.2 billion.
  I shall cut short my speech because I know that a number of hon. Members want to contribute. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Martin) has, over many years, represented a district similar to mine in council and Parliament. I want to give him the opportunity to speak. I know that he will be as compassionate as other hon. Members who represent Glasgow constituencies.
  The Government's housing record is a scandal and a disgrace. The Government must be reminded of their legacy. We will not let them forget it.
  8.45 pm
  Mr. Bill Walker: I shall make only a brief contribution to the debate. I shall speak purely and simply about housing, which is important.
  A civilised society has a duty and a responsibility to provide adequate housing at affordable rates for all its citizens. It is one of the great indictments of this country that we have been unable to achieve that objective with the vast sums of public money that have been spent. That is not because the public purse or taxpayers' money has not been spent; vast sums of taxpayers' money are spent.
  I shall give an example from my constituency. Angus district council is being congratulated because it has kept down its council house rent increases. That is why the council has been unable to build up adequate funds to maintain its stock of property in a fit condition for modern people. Angus, like every other council with houses to rent, has failed to make use of housing benefit as a means of pouring vast sums of money into its housing coffers. It is available as of right to individuals—which is what every hon. Member would want.
  I listened to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Wray). I know something about living in a small house with eight children and sharing a bed with four others. The only marvellous thing about that is that today my family—we are nearly all pensioners now—is still as close as we were when we were children. Perhaps there are lessons there for all of us. The entire family was at my eldest brother's home the week before last, and it was great to see everyone there.
  There has been a failure to cash in on the £800 million being spent every year in Scotland on housing benefit. Of course, I know that the money does not all go to council houses, but council landlords have failed to cash in on that golden tap because they have set rents at unrealistic levels. The levels should ensure that there are adequate funds to carry out the necessary maintenance repairs and modernisation in the lifetime of those dwellings. If the landlords had done so during the lifetime of housing benefit—which has been with us for a long time—there is no doubt that we would not now be suffering. I see that the hon. Member for Angus, East (Mr. Welsh) is shaking his head. The trouble with the hon. Gentleman is that he
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  does not understand that, unless one takes the money that is available as of right, it will be used elsewhere and will be lost to the council house coffers.
  Mr. Welsh: Angus district council has kept its rents down by good management and has used housing benefit for the benefit of tenants. The hon. Gentleman fails to remember that when the Conservative party was in charge of Angus district, it wiped out all reserves and left nothing for the ratepayer. The Conservative council gave poor service and poor value for money.
  Mr. Walker: If the hon. Gentleman is telling me that there are no problems with maintenance, condensation or damp in Angus district council, he is talking rot. He knows it and I know it. I have to deal with the problems of my constituents who are the tenants of Angus district council.
  Mr. Welsh: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Walker: I am about to sit down. I did not say to the hon. Gentleman that there were not some things that Angus had done well. I said that it had not cashed in on all the funds that were available. That is an indictment of the council.
  Mr. Welsh: is this an intervention?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Has the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) concluded his speech?
  Mr. Walker: I said that I would be brief.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Commendably brief.
  8.50 pm
  Mr. James Wallace: I do not propose to be quite so brief. It is an indictment of any party for it to argue, as the Secretary of State did when he met the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, that it is all right to thump up rents because housing benefit will cushion the increases. The people who are entitled to housing benefit are those in poverty and in the greatest need. The Government shelter behind those in greatest need to provide some doubtful justification for their policies.
  The hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) suggested that local authorities should thump up their rents because they could claim the money in housing benefit. One wonders what the Secretary of State for Social Security would do if that happened. It has happened in the private sector and the Secretary of State is taking steps to stop it. The councils would not be allowed to get away with it for long.
  Every year one has to go back to basics to work through the various ways in which housing grants are allocated. Housing finance may often appear complex, but the simple fact is that, as investment in housing has been restricted, there has been a rise in homelessness. Nothing in the housing orders before us gives us any confidence that the necessary increase in investment in housing will be provided to meet the problems of dampness and condensation that the hon. Member for Tayside, North mentioned. Nor is there anything to bring any hope or relief to those who have waited too long on waiting lists. I am sure that in our constituency surgeries we all deal

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  with constituents who have housing problems. One fears that one cannot go back and tell them that anything in the orders is cause for hope.
  The debates on housing finance and revenue support grant are an annual ritual. When I first came into the House, I heard my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Sir R. Johnston) speak in a similar debate. He said that he had been making the same speech for 15 years. We face this evening a set of orders which, no matter what is said in the debate, are essentially non-amendable. The Secretary of State's word will be law.
  It is interesting to ponder the fact that in the regional council elections in May last year, out of 453 regional and islands councillors, only 31 Conservatives succeeded in being elected by the people. Yet we have a Tory Secretary of State who will largely determine the budgets of Scotland's councils. With some 87 per cent. of councils' income in the hands of Ministers and with capping powers, the Secretary of State has taken over the function of council treasurers the length and breadth of the land. To us, that is a travesty of what local democracy should be about. The essence of accountable democracy is that local representatives have a financial responsibility. That has all but been taken away by the steps that the Government have taken.
  This year's settlement is particularly draconian.. If one excludes community care provision, it amounts to a 0.5 per cent. reduction in cash terms. One can bandy figures about, but when one puts them in the context of services, it becomes clear just what is happening to, our local authorities and the people who depend on local authority services as a result of the settlement.
  The settlement has put strains and constraints on local authorities. It takes no account of the pay increases for public sector employees except those for the police. A 5.1 per cent. increase for teachers over two years is scarcely a generous settlement, not least when we are expected to have a well-qualified and well-motivated teaching profession. To meet the constraints, there will have to be a reduction in the number of teachers, or it will not be possible to employ additional teachers to take account of rising school rolls.
  The figures for 1991 to 1993 show that 75,000 primary school pupils in Scotland are in classes of more than 30. That is an increase of 3.6 per cent. There has been a 17.7 per cent. increase in the Borders and a 12.9 per cent. increase in Tayside. In secondary schools, 89,000 pupils are taught in classes of more than 30. That is an increase of 35.9 per cent. over the two years. That must be set to increase even further as a result of the orders that we are debating.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber outlined the choices that Highland regional council will face as a result of the revenue support grant settlement. Grampian regional council will require a base budget saving of some £31 million. Let us consider what £31 million amounts to. It is equivalent to the council's total spend on nursery, special and community education in the current financial year. It is the equivalent of the annual salaries of 10 per cent. of the council's work force. If a teacher's annual salary, including on-costs, amounts to £24,500, £31 million is the equivalent of the salary bill for 1,265 teachers—the staff required to run approximately 18 of the council's 38 secondary schools or 145 primary schools.
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  The total salaries and wages budget of the police was £31 million. That figure is equivalent to twice the spend on Grampian fire brigade in 1994–95. It was the entire planned spend on road maintenance, including winter maintenance. Perhaps the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland would like to tell us which of those services should be cut as a result of the constraints placed on Grampian regional council. Make no mistake, when the cuts take place, we shall make sure that the responsibility is on his lap and not on that of the councillors whom he is making implement his dirty work for him.
  In my constituency, there will have to be a 5 per cent. reduction in spending to keep within capping levels. Some key decisions will have to be taken on the basics such as maintaining the ferry services to some islands, on which the islanders very much depend. Perhaps in 1980 and 1981 there was some fat that could be cut, but now we have had year after year of cuts, so there is no fat )left. We are eating into the muscle. Local authorities are right down to the bone.
  Where does the Secretary of State think that the savings can come from? He makes great play of the increases in staffing, yet he has never said what proportion of the increase relates to extra responsibilities for functions such as community care and devolved school management. Those are Government policies which local authorities have to implement. They require extra staff to do so.
  In giving his figures, the Secretary of State said that he would like to see a reduction in spending on libraries. For centuries, public libraries have been an important part of the community, yet he wants to see a programme to run them down. The Secretary of State wants fare concessions to be limited. He has even suggested in some of his figures that he looks to councils to make savings on burial grounds. I remember when that was suggested on a previous occasion, when Shetland Islands council was trying to meet its budgetary demands. Someone suggested that it should dig shallower graves. We now have a Government who hold out the possibility that councils should dig shallower graves to fund basic services.
  I assume that most hon. Members received representations this week from the National Association of Funeral Directors. It drew attention to the pressures on many families as a result of the limitation on social fund payments for funerals. Now the Government advocate increasing burial charges.
  I have outlined some of the real choices that local authorities will have to make. That leads to a fundamental point. There is a breakdown in trust between central and local government. In a mature democracy, there are different centres of power. While there will sometimes be friction, at the end of the day they should work together in partnership rather than in conflict.
  I admire people of all parties who intend to stand for election to the new authorities on 6 April. They will have a pretty thankless task. In many of the smaller councils with limited budgets, they will have to choose which services to cut. There will be little scope for innovation or positive action in the interests of the communities. There will be no joy in making choices between cuts. It is no basis for establishing a new system of local government. We need to reinvigorate local democracy and recreate a positive partnership between central and local government.

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  The Secretary of State has sought to blame COSLA for the problems, but the blame lies fairly and squarely with the Government. When services are cut and when the increased council tax demands fall through the letter-boxes, the blame will lie on the Treasury Front Bench. Our candidates will ensure that people know those facts before 6 April.
  9 pm
  Mr. Michael J. Martin: I am surprised that the Secretary of State, who has presided over the worst-ever unemployment in Scotland, should say that too many people are employed in council services. He should ask the question: if the councils start sacking employees, where will they go? The railway workshops, the tobacco industry in Alexander parade in my constituency and the shipyards have all lost labour. If it were not for the local authority, there would not be an apprentice in the building industry in Glasgow. The great private sector, about which Conservative Members are always bragging, get benefits from that. When the young apprentices have finished their training in the direct labour departments, the private sector is the first to snap them up. It wants the bricklayers, the carpenters and the electricians, but it does not want to train them.
  Hon. Members have already referred to Scottish Homes. That organisation snaps up the young officials who get diplomas and training from housing departments in places such as Glasgow and Renfrew. When' there is so much unemployment in Scotland, the Secretary of State should not say that local authorities should sack staff. He and his Ministers should be creating more jobs in the private sector to take the pressure off local authorities.
  One area that could do with more employees is the concierge service, which should operate in every multi-storey dwelling in Scotland. In the old days, people came out of tightly knit communities in the old tenements and went into the new flats. There was no problem then. Now, unfortunately, in some of the multi-storey flats there is a certain element who will not give the other people peace and quiet and there is vandalism.
  Great waste is associated with the hospital in Clydebank. I have spoken in debates in the House and highlighted the way in which Government money has been spent on so-called job creation schemes; that money has gone down the drain. Why not spend money on a concierge system that would give 24-hour coverage with video cameras in the multi-storey flats?
  Some of the homes in those multi-storey dwellings are like palaces, but the residents are ashamed of the entrances—they are ashamed to bring their friends and relatives into those blocks. It is no easy answer to say, "Pull them down." In certain areas of my constituency that would be the equivalent of pulling down a small town. It would be ridiculous. A concierge system would be a great benefit.
  As I said, some of the homes on the council estates in my constituency are absolutely beautiful. Recently, I went into one and I can say that no interior designer could have designed the inside of that house as well as my constituent had done. It would have done a Barratt show house proud. There is that sort of home on every council estate in Glasgow.
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  People need backing; they do not need a Government who cut the support grant. The Minister knows that in some of the housing estates the people are fighting against terrible odds. In the next tenement to that beautiful home was a house where the damp was so bad that the resident had to pull the bed away from the wall so that she and her children could have a decent night's sleep. Scottish Homes will not provide the money to reroof the tenement.
  I did not do my training in the building industry, but I know that if a roof is neglected the rest of the building will crumble. The resident had lived in the community all her life, as had her husband. There is a network of relatives and friends around them. She does not want to leave her home, but if the roof is neglected she will be forced to leave and the local authority will have to rehouse her.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Wray) was brought up in the Gorbals and I was brought up on the other side of the city in the Anderstoun district. We were brought up in the slums, so we know what it is to get a council house. Many people who went into those council houses were very proud of them. Now, the properties need a lick of paint, reroofing and repairs. This is not the time for the Government to neglect them.
  As the Minister may know, the chief medical officer in Glasgow appeared on a BBC television programme on Monday evening saying that the life expectancy of young couples on those council estates, compared with people only half a mile up the road in Bearsden, is being reduced by 10 years. In almost every estate people are living in life-threatening conditions. We must do something about the dampness and the neglect. Resources must be provided to combat anti-social behaviour, which is a serious problem. Some young couples who are unemployed are being aggravated by their neighbours and that will cause stress. Any heart specialist will say that such stress leads to heart attacks and shortens people's lives. It is an indictment on the Government. Many people in Scotland have to be on housing benefit, but any person in receipt of housing benefit would say that he would rather have the dignity of a job and be able to pay his own rent—something which the Government fail to understand.
  The question has been posed: where is the money to come from? In my constituency, all the good housing stock has been bought by the sitting tenants. I do not begrudge them that—it is their right under the legislation. I was not against the sale of council houses, but I thought that it should have been qualified by an obligation on local authorities to build another council house for every council house sold. Furthermore, they should have been given the money to do that. In my constituency, many council houses have estate agents' "For Sale" signs up in front of them. The unemployed rail workers and tobacco workers will have no chance of buying them; they will go to the highest bidders. If market forces are to prevail, the only way to resolve this problem is to enable local authorities to provide decent housing for the people who cannot afford it themselves.
  I have another suggestion for finding the money. There are some signs, thank God, that the troops will be able to leave Northern Ireland. That being so, the Army will no longer need the resources that it used to need to maintain 24-hour security coverage. The same applies to the British Army of the Rhine. The Government did not begrudge the Army, Navy and Air Force the money in the past. If there

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  is to be a peace dividend now, it should go to pay for the basic right of every man, woman and child in Scotland to a decent home and a decent roof over their heads.
  9.10 pm
  Mr. Andrew Welsh: The hon. Member for Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Martin) has made an impassioned plea, based on hard-won experience, on behalf of his constituents. Too many of our fellow citizens face these problems. That is what the debate is all about: how are we to react to the conditions in cities that we see all around us, to ensure that our citizens enjoy decent homes and living standards?
  We have heard a concerted assault from the Opposition on the Government's proposals, but from the Government we have heard no reaction—only a statement that this is the best of all possible settlements. We have heard no justification or rationale from the Government. We have heard about no general plans for local government finance. We have certainly heard no attempt to relate the Government's budgetary proposals to real councils and real services in the real world.
  No wonder the Government have not made this attempt—their proposals are wholly inadequate for the purpose. This settlement ignores Scotland's wealth and imposes a freeze on and cuts in essential daily local services. How can it be realistic to make Glasgow, Edinburgh and Renfrew, with all their problems, freeze their spending to avoid capping, and not even to permit them to allow for inflation? Councils such as Clydebank also face cuts. This time, the Government are putting the squeeze on all the councils of Scotland, with the exception of two of the smaller ones. For the second year running, the Government have made no allowance for wage increases in cash or for capping purposes, and their policy seems set to continue.
  Even prudent councils find themselves facing massive council tax rises or unacceptable cuts in basic services—all due to this settlement. I thoroughly agree with Councillor Rosemary McKenna who has said:
  "Once again we will NOT be making choices about how we provide the best service to Council Taxpayers. Rather we will be looking at how we can provide a service which meets Government imposed targets."
  This is the Government's internally driven budget, certainly not the people's budget.
  Grant-aided expenditure may appear to be 1.1 per cent. higher for next year, but when provision for care in the community and for other new burdens is taken into account, the settlement turns into a reduction in the provision for current services of about 0.5 per cent. While oil-rich Scotland needs better services and a job creation programme, all we get from this London Government are cuts and closures. It is not good enough. The Government clearly lack the imagination and the impetus required to solve Scotland's problems.
  That is why there is no war on poor housing conditions. There are no major housebuilding or improvement programmes that would use Scottish skills and Scottish materials to get folk off the dole queues and to create assets for generations to come—and to meet today's real housing needs. Instead, we are offered only housing support grant, which cuts net spending by 12 per cent. in cash terms and by 19 per cent. in real terms over the next
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  three years. Meanwhile, gross spending is to fall by 10 per cent. in cash terms and by 17 per cent. in real terms over the same period.
  In real terms, taking into account capital receipts of £175 million, less will be directly invested from public sources in Scottish housing three years from now. So much for the future offered by this Government. The truth—as opposed to the Government's policy—is that 500,000 houses, 30 per cent. of Scotland's housing stock, suffer from damp, condensation or mould. Forty-two thousand households are homeless. Such massive problems affect all too many of our fellow citizens' daily lives, and they are not being tackled to ensure an end to them even in the distant future. The most vulnerable in society bear the brunt of the failure of Government policies.
  When will that unacceptable situation change? I suspect that the same will happen next year and the year after that, as this incompetent Government stumble from crisis to crisis. Those cuts are only part of a series imposed on local government over the past decade. While central Government load more responsibilities on local authorities through legislation, they increasingly impose financial cuts—the worst of all possible worlds.
  The budget is hopeless and offers no chance of improving housing services this year, next year or the year after. It is time that finance was related to real need and time for Scottish local authorities to enjoy a period of stability, to permit longer-term planning to meet the actual needs of people in their areas.
  No one expects the backlog of Scotland's social and economic problems to be solved instantly, but we have the right to a logical, long-term plan that will do something about them, and the Government have failed totally to provide one. We wait in vain, and this load of financial rubbish will only store up more trouble for local authorities and the people who rely on the essential daily services that local authorities provide. Pocket money instead of investment will not do. Massively rich Scotland deserves better, and now Scotland can do something about that.
  The Secretary of State slid away from my point about unified business rate levels and its effect on Scottish business. The first common UBR may not provide a level playing field. Scottish rentals have risen 53 per cent., whereas the figure in the rest of the UK was only 1 per cent. To maintain the same yield, revaluation would require a similar level of 42.3p in the pound in England.
  Scottish rental evidence suggests a considerable rise in rateable values. I would be happy if that were a sign of increased business, as the Secretary of State implied, but it is a sign of revaluation. The Scottish Office's lowest estimate of revaluation is that the tax yield on 42.3p would produce £80 million more than was required to meet the Government's suggested yield. The figure could be higher, which would not be the promised level playing field. I invite the Minister to respond tonight to the comments of the Scottish Council (Development and Industry).
  It is clear from the settlement that the Secretary of State has no interest in fighting for Scotland. His constant refusal to help overcome Scottish councils' financial problems is based solely on Treasury dogma. His much-vaunted seat in the Cabinet has done nothing to stop Government and Treasury actions in respect of Scotland

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  and our local government system. The Secretary of State should step aside and allow a Treasury Minister to lead the debate, because the right hon. Gentleman is obviously not master in his own house.
  9.18 pm
  Mr. David Marshall: Are not thousands of houses in Scotland affected by damp and difficult and expensive to heat? There appears to be no disagreement about that among Conservative Members—but instead of doing something positive, the Government have cut housing support grant year in, year out. If Ministers had to spend a Scottish winter in some of those houses, perhaps they would do something—and double quick.
  Such properties may be called houses; they certainly cannot be called homes. In my constituency and in the city of Glasgow, far too many sub-standard houses are causing untold misery, discomfort and problems for tenants, especially health problems, for young and old alike. The incidence of asthma is greatly increasing among young children. Bronchitis, chest problems and poor general health are widely prevalent. Dry, comfortable homes are essential to combat such ailments and are also cost-effective in reducing national health service expenditure.
  The housing support grant formula is a framework that shows central Government policy decisions to be implemented. The Government are committed to giving no central Government or local taxpayer support to council housing, and will continue to manipulate the formula—that is what they do—to ensure that that continues.
  It is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friends and neighbours the Members for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Wray) and for Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Martin). Some of their excellent remarks are well worth repeating, and I make no apology for doing so. I am grateful also to Mr. David Comley, the director of Glasgow district council's housing department, for providing facts relevant to the debate. Glasgow manages approximately 120,000 houses. Rents in Glasgow are due to go up by 6.2 per cent. from 1 March—double the new, increased rate of inflation—an average amount of £1.94 per week, which is not a small amount, as the Secretary of State said, especially to the many thousands of people eking out a miserable existence on very low incomes. It is a hell of a lot of money to those people. It ill-behoves the Secretary of State to dismiss such a large increase for so many poor people in the way in which that he did.
  The council's commitment to investing in its housing stock means spending £104 million on improving it in the current year, and that has added 51p per week to the rent. The loss of stock, which has been mainly due to the right-to-buy sales, demolitions and transfers to new landlords has resulted in £1.02 per week being added to the rents paid by a reduced number of tenants. The cessation of direct Government support to the council housing service, which, in the early 1980s, paid for around one third of the service, has added a further 40p per week. At the same time, the council, by a very painful decision-making process, has been trying to reduce
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  tenant-borne expenditure and has reduced employee costs by more than £1 million, yet still managed to increase spending on repairs in real terms.
  In addition, other services are being improved. The multi-storey flat concierge service will be expanded to benefit a further 3,000 homes next year. As a Member who has 13 blocks of multi-storey flats in his constituency, I warmly welcome that, because where the system already exists it is popular and cost-effective. Tenants feel safer, especially the frail and the elderly, and vandalism is reduced. It is hoped that the housing alarms service can be made available to a further 3,300 tenants next year. Again, that is a popular and essential service, providing additional security.
  Unfortunately, much remains to be done, for example, the 1,000 sub-standard Winget houses in Carntyne, in Glasgow's east end. I must express my gratitude to the Minister for Local Government, Housing and Urban Regeneration, who accepted my invitation to visit those houses 18 months ago, and especially for his subsequent decision to make an additional £250,000 available for a pilot scheme to see what could be done. Perhaps he will consider extending his contribution and thus allow the pilot scheme to cover more houses than it presently does.
  I must tell the Minister, however, that only last week a tenant of one of the houses that he visited—an elderly widow—came to see me at my weekly surgery, and she was in some distress. She is no further forward than she was five years ago. Her roof and windows still let in rain water and her front door has gaps all around it. She cannot heat her house adequately. It is continually freezing, and one can see that old lady's health deteriorating as each month goes by. It is sad to say, but there are far too many similar cases throughout Scotland.
  Why will not the Government accept that there is genuinely a serious problem in far too many houses and do something other than make the position worse by making further cuts? People are dying before they should because of the inhospitable housing conditions in which they are forced to live. The scale of Glasgow's problems is far greater than anywhere else and should be recognised accordingly. Glasgow district council is trying its best; the Government are not.
  Let me say a little about the revenue support grant. Do the Government not realise the scale of the crisis facing Strathclyde regional council, which estimates a shortfall of £115 million in grant-aided expenditure, as well as this year's deficit of just over £20 million because the Government would not make any allocation for wage awards to council staff? Just to maintain the current levels of service while remaining within the Government's capping limits, the council would have to cut next year's expenditure by £107 million and raise the council tax by 25 per cent.—all because the Government have shifted the burden from the national Exchequer to local council tax payers. That is just because the Government want to build up an election treasure chest, allowing them to announce a giveaway Budget next year in a blatant attempt to bribe the electorate to re-elect them. It will be a failed effort, because you cannot fool all the people all the time.
  A cut of £107 million means an across-the-board reduction of more than 5 per cent., and that could mean the loss of 5,500 jobs. There could be fewer police, firefighters and home helps. Some residential homes, police offices, fire stations and outdoor centres for

  1089
  youngsters could be threatened with closure. Grants to voluntary and cultural organisations are at risk; fees and charges for services will almost certainly increase substantially. All in all, the situation is very depressing and worrying.
  Like many other hon. Members, I am receiving pleas from constituents regarding the possible closure of Ad-Tec, a Strathclyde regional council project, as a result of the cuts. Ad-Tec provides courses for people with learning difficulties and physical disabilities. The training that it gives enables such people to find employment. A constituent wrote to me:
  "I am 24 years old and I go to Ad-Tec four days per week. I have a Learning Disability and was shocked to find out that Ad-Tec may have to close due to the budget cuts …Ad-Tec offers us training in clerical skills but more importantly assists us in our search for work. At Ad-Tec we do things like typing, computing, filing, word-processing, communication, literacy, and advocacy. I would like to have a Job when I am finished at Ad-Tec."
  Vulnerable people like that constituent are most at risk and will suffer most as a result of the cuts. Are there no limits to the Government's lack of compassion or humanity?
  The orders only make a bad situation worse. The only welcome order would be the order of the boot for this Tory Government—and the one bit of good news is that it will come at the next general election.
  9.27 pm
  Mr. Gordon McMaster: I am grateful to you for calling me, Mr. Deputy Speaker., I am also grateful to my hon. Friends who have spoken briefly; I intend to speak briefly as well to leave time for my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Chisholm), if he is lucky enough to catch your eye.
  I do not wish to repeat all the points that have been made about rent rises, and the fundamental housing issue—that everyone has the right to a warm, dry and comfortable home. Those points have been made forcefully by my hon. Friends, and I shall simply associate myself with what they have said. I shall concentrate on a couple of specific points.
  The Minister would be surprised if I did not mention floods, and it would be churlish of me not to place on record that the Minister recently awarded an additional borrowing consent of £2 million to Renfrew district council. Local Members of Parliament are very grateful for that, because it will allow us to start clearing up the aftermath of the floods. However, we now need to know exactly what will be provided to finance that additional borrowing. Everyone in Renfrew district knows that not a brass farthing of new money was provided; although an additional borrowing consent was provided, the debt must be serviced and the mortgage paid in future years.
  When I met the hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart) during what turned out to be his last few days as a Minister, he gave me a verbal assurance that there was a formula called top-slicing—an unfortunate phrase, given the source of the assurance—which would build money into the local authority's revenue side in future years to service the debt. He followed that up with a letter dealing with future revenue support grant, and he explained the principle of top-slicing, but no such assurance has yet been given on housing. I ask the Minister to give that assurance either tonight or by way of a letter after the debate.
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  Flood prevention is the issue that exercises the minds of my constituents who were flood victims. As they begin to move back into their homes that were devastated by the floods, they need to have an assurance that those floods, or anything like them, cannot happen again. That is why I have presented the Natural Disasters (Scotland) Bill to the House. It tries to make someone responsible for flood prevention in Scotland because, at the moment, no one is. Local authorities have a permissive power to apply for additional moneys for flood prevention, but they need not use it; indeed, the Secretary of State need not fund any application.
  There are opportunities in that Bill. They will arise again when the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency Bill comes from the other place. I ask the Minister seriously to consider what can be done to assure the people whose homes have been devastated that there will be flood prevention, because they are now buying new furniture and trying to rebuild their lives.
  Mr. Bill Walker: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his stand on flood prevention. He knows that he has my full support.
  Mr. McMaster: I am grateful for that.
  Every Opposition Member supports that Bill, so at least 62 of Scotland's 72 Members of Parliament support it. I have laid a motion before the House to refer the Bill to the Scottish Grand Committee for its Second Reading. On Friday this week, if the Government do not object, that Bill can proceed to the Scottish Grand Committee, where I will happily accept Government amendments if they feel that there are any problems.
  I have not given the Minister warning of my next point, so it would be unreasonable to expect detailed replies tonight, but I urge him to consider it. I am in a position to accuse Scottish Homes and its board of, at best, gross incompetence and, at worst, criminal negligence over the case of Waverley court in Paisley. Six years ago, the local management of Scottish Homes decided that it would empty a 56-flat multi-storey block in my constituency. I would have called it a clearance; it called it a diversification of tenure. It decided to empty that multi-storey block and to sell it to the private sector.
  Six years later, that multi-storey block of 56 flats remains empty. The reason is that Scottish Homes, in its incompetence, emptied the block before checking that its proposal for redevelopment could happen. It proposed to empty the block and convert it into cheap homes for first-time buyers. Once it had emptied it, it found that no mortgage lender in the land would give a mortgage for such a block. It has been to see housing associations to ask whether they will consider the matter.
  I have met Scottish Homes management locally. No housing association wants anything to with that block of flats. It was built only 20 or 30 years ago, yet it stands idle. The Minister has stood at that Dispatch Box before and criticised local authorities for empty housing stock. The number of empty houses in Renfrew district council is lower than not only the national average for councils, but the national average for the private sector. The district council has turned the general situation around, but Waverley court is still a problem. I have here a letter from

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  Mr. John McPherson from the Oliphant Oval in Paisley. I know him well; he is a good man who works hard for the community. He writes:
  "Are Scottish Homes so well off that they can ignore lost revenue in this block of flats for six years? Just how much revenue has been lost over the six year period this building has lay empty?"
  His questions deserve to be answered.
  I deal finally with the non-housing aspects of the orders. To illustrate the orders' impact I cite the case of a couple to whom I spoke only last week. The husband works for Strathclyde's community education department and the wife also works for the council—she heads a unit that promotes understanding between European member states, a project encouraged by the Scottish Office. They now find themselves working for departments at the head of the hit list. David and Edna Paterson are good people. Does the Minister think it right that Members of the Treasury Bench and Conservative Back Benchers boast that people who have such a valuable contribution to make are losing their jobs?
  There is one aspect of the orders that Ministers have not considered. When local government jobs start to go in the Greater Renfrewshire area, the constituency of Eastwood will be affected every bit as much as mine. I know from when I was a councillor that when local government workers leave their place of work in Paisley they do not return home to some housing estate or peripheral housing scheme but to Newton Mearns and Giffnock. The impact of job losses in local government will be a matter of political regret for the Conservative party.
  I still keep on my desk a handy copy of the book written by Nicholas Ridley, and there is no doubt that the Government still see councils as enablers, not providers. The Government want them to meet once or twice a year, have dinner and award contracts but not get involved in the problems of the people whom they represent.
  9.36 pm
  Mr. Malcolm Chisholm: I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley, South (Mr. McMaster) for being brief, to allow me to speak about Edinburgh district and Lothian region.
  I wish to make three points about housing in Edinburgh. First, for years Edinburgh district has not received any housing support grant for council housing. I make my annual complaint, but the result is that rents will have to go up by £1.85 to cover increased interest rates and inflation.
  Secondly, the housing support grant for hostels for the homeless in Edinburgh is being cut by £111,000, or 20 per cent. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State with responsibility for housing—the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton)—can explain that remarkable cut.
  Thirdly, the capital allocation for Edinburgh is being cut by £1 million to £32 million. There is also a strange change. Whereas, before Christmas, the receipts from council houses were said to be going to realise £12.5 million, we are now told that they could realise £13.5 million. I think that the first figure is more accurate, which probably means that in practice we have a £2 million cut in capital allocation for Edinburgh district.
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  In Lothian region, the problem is that the cap has been set very tight. This year, Lothian region is allowed to spend £596 million and, next year, it will be allowed to spend £600 million. By no stretch of the imagination can £4 million be said to cover inflation, for which £9 million must be allowed; pay increases, for which £17 million must be allowed; and other unavoidable expenditure, which I do not have time to list in detail.
  An additional problem to which I draw the Minister's attention is that school rolls in Lothian will be increasing in August by, I am told, 1,400 pupils in primary schools and 1,100 pupils in secondary schools. An extra 130 teachers should therefore be employed, which would mean that from August an extra £3 million has to be found. I should like to hear the Minister's suggestions on how Lothian region's problem can be solved. I expect that we shall hear something about efficiency savings, but what does the Minister mean by that? Does he mean that we must have fewer teachers, larger classes and additional charges for school meals or for meals on wheels for elderly people, or a combination of all those? The Government should deal with that problem.
  The amount of aggregate external finance has gone down even in cash terms, once community care transfers are taken into account. From April, it will represent 86.4 per cent. of Government-supported expenditure, whereas this year it represents 87.4 per cent. The Government must do something about the crisis facing Lothian region. They are unlikely to do anything because they do not have the money, having had to pay the costs of economic failure. Moreover, they are storing up money for tax cuts next year.
  As I said in the Grand Committee, why not does the Minister put the needs of the children and the elderly of Lothian region before the Government's mad dash for next year's tax bribes?
  9.40 pm
  Mr. John McAllion: We have had a good debate, but it would be fair to say that it has been predictable, with Labour Members universally condemning the housing and local government finance settlements that the Secretary of State introduced. Conservative Members who bothered to speak on the Government's behalf weakly tried to defend what cannot be defended in a democratic Chamber.
  I suppose that the fact that Opposition Members represent 61 of Scotland's 72 seats and 75 per cent. of all those who voted in the last general election in Scotland shows that we reflect the overwhelming view of the Scottish people on the settlement. If we lived in a real democracy, all the orders before the House tonight would be defeated because those affected by them voted for hon. Members who want to see them defeated. Unfortunately, however, we do not live in a real democracy in Scotland, so we shall have the fiction of a Government majority voting on the orders when every man, woman and child in Scotland opposes them.
  Some of the best contributions to the debate have come from my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Martin), for Glasgow, Shettleston (Mr. Marshall), for Paisley, North (Mrs. Adams) and for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Chisholm), all of whose vast experience on housing matters was shown in their contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow,

  1093
  Provan (Mr. Wray) reminded us what housing was like in Scotland before council housing was widely available. Rat-infested slums were thrown up by private sector landlords. I lived in one such slum in Springburn and, like all my hon. Friends, can remember the poor housing conditions in the private sector in Scotland which directly affected the health of working-class people. Infant mortality rates were much higher, tuberculosis affected people's chances of survival and working-class people in general lived for a much shorter time than those who lived in better circumstances and better housing.
  The contribution by my hon. Friend the Member for Provan was timely, given that only last week the Joseph Rowntree Foundation published a report showing that, once again, huge inequalities are beginning to develop in our country and working-class people are again at risk as their health begins to be affected by the poor housing conditions that have resulted from Government policies.
  It is because we do not want to return to the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s that we care about the housing settlement. It is because we do not want to return to those bad times that my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) rightly described this as the most savage housing settlement in years.
  Mr. Raymond S. Robertson: May I pose the same question as I posed to the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson), which he deliberately did not answer? If the settlement is inadequate, by how much is it inadequate? If the hon. Gentleman were a Minister now, on what settlement would he ask the House to vote?
  Mr. McAllion: If the hon. Gentleman would stop intervening and listen, he would discover the answer to that question as my speech develops.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton also said, rightly, that the price that has been paid for the settlement will be paid mainly by council tenants. That remark was met by guffaws from Conservative Members, but the point was confirmed by the opening statement in the Secretary of State's speech, when he said that the Government were assuming, in the housing settlement, a notional rent of more than £37 a week. The Secretary of State knows that actual rent levels in Scotland are much lower than that. The Government are assuming income for local authorities which they will not receive. He is denying them the housing support grant that they deserve if we take into consideration the actual rent levels charged in Scotland rather than the notional ones which the right hon. Gentleman assumes in his housing settlement.
  If we take the Secretary of State's own area, Nithsdale district council in his constituency, the actual rent is £25.72 a week. If his council were to meet the notional rent level that he assumes, it would have to put rents up by £12 a week, or 50 per cent. Perhaps the local Member has recommended that the council should do that, because he assumes that it has done it anyway. In fact, to take an even better example, Eastwood—the hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart), who is normally present at such debates, is not here—would have to increase rents by £15 a week. What do Conservative Members want? Do they want their local councils to charge current rent levels or do they want them to charge those rents that they assume will be charged, according to the housing settlement? They cannot have it both ways. If they are going to preach in the House that councils should charge rents of £37 a week, they had better go back to their constituencies and
  1094
  preach the same. I suspect that none of them would do that, because they would he frightened of what would happen to them in terms of votes in their constituencies if they made such an absurd suggestion.
  The COSLA brief, which was made available to all hon. Members, pointed out that, in the past 14 years, the Government, by reducing housing support grant and revenue fund contributions, have withdrawn about £2 billion of support for council housing in Scotland. We all know the consequences of the withdrawal of that massive subsidy, because we have seen rents rocket by almost 500 per cent., tenants in their tens of thousands forced on to housing benefit and the housing benefit bill rocket.
  It really surprises me that Conservative Members force council tenants on to housing benefit. They have impoverished those tenants by forcing them into dependence on housing benefit and then expect those tenants to be thankful for that. The hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) seemed to think that it was a blessing to receive housing benefit. He should go back to his constituents and ask them whether they like getting housing benefit. They do not; they would like to be able to afford the rents charged by local authorities.
  Mr. Bill Walker: The hon. Gentleman should visit Limlathem, which was the first place to introduce the equivalent of housing benefit. My parents were delighted. I would also be delighted today to see people being properly recompensed through rents and living in houses free from damp and subject to adequate supervision.
  Mr. McAllion: If the Government continue with the housing policies which they have pursued in the past 14 years, the hon. Gentleman may be in receipt of housing benefit before long.
  As the housing benefit bill has rocketed in Scotland, one of the strangest things to note inside the Tory Cabinet is how the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is almost pulling his hair out as he wonders why that bill has rocketed. He seems to be puzzled by that. He does not understand it. The answer is that the housing benefit bill is high because the Government's housing policy makes it high. That policy has forced councils to set rent at levels that council tenants cannot afford. Therefore, the Government have only themselves to blame for the spiralling housing benefit bill. If they truly want to reduce that bill, the best thing they could do would be to resign en masse and let someone who knew how to run housing policy take it over.
  I compare the withdrawal of subsidy from council housing under the Government with their parallel injection of subsidy into non-council housing, particularly through Scottish Homes. We cannot discuss the policies of Scottish Homes in the past 14 years because, thankfully, it has existed only since 1989–90. What might have happened if it had existed since 1979? God help us.
  Since 1989–90, Scottish Homes, through its various programmes to enable development and investment, has channelled £1,529 million of subsidy into housing associations, co-operatives, grants for rent and ownership for private developers and other low-cost home ownership schemes. On the one hand, the Government have withdrawn general housing subsidies for council tenants while, on the other, they have increased general housing subsidies for non-council tenants and other home owners. Why is that?

  1095
  Last year, the Under-Secretary of State with responsibility for housing, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton), was challenged on why he was cutting housing support grant and general fund contributions to council tenants. He said it was because
  "This sort of subsidy is indiscriminate because it benefits all tenants regardless of their circumstances".—[Official Report, 14 February 1994; Vol. 237, c. 745.]
  That is why he is withdrawing general subsidies to council tenants.
  Let us apply the same logic to the Government subsidies that are paid through Scottish Homes. Are they indiscriminate, and do they benefit all, regardless of their circumstances? Let us take housing association grant, which is the main subsidy paid to housing associations. Of course the answer is yes, it is indiscriminate; yes, it does benefit all housing association tenants, regardless of their circumstances. Let us take grants for rent and ownership, which are paid to private developers to bring down the cost of new housing to first-time buyers. Yes, they are indiscriminate; yes, they benefit all, regardless of their circumstances.
  Why are indiscriminate subsidies outlawed for council tenants when indiscriminate subsidies are increased for non-council tenants and householders? We need to know the answer. Why is it okay to subsidise non-council tenants but not okay to subsidise council tenants? If the Minister does not have an answer to that question in his speech, he had better think of one before 9.55 pm, because many people in Scotland will be waiting to hear why the Conservative Government discriminate against council tenants in Scotland, and we need to know the answer.
  The answer cannot be that there are so few council tenants in Scotland that they do not count, because, according to the Government's figures, there are 12 times as many council tenants in Scotland as there are housing association tenants. If all the council housing, the new town housing, the Scottish Homes housing and the housing association housing are taken together, council house tenants represent 83 per cent. of the total. That is overwhelmingly the dominant type of renting in Scotland.
  There are more council tenants in Scotland than any other type of tenant, so the question must be, why do so many people receive so little from the Government when so few people receive so much? We all need to know the answer to that question.
  The housing support grant that is paid by the Government goes to the housing revenue account, which, in turn, helps to pay the outstanding capital debt owed by the councils in Scotland. I want to ask the Minister a specific question about a capital grant that was paid to Scottish Homes in 1992–93. It received £250,139,000 to repay a national loan fund debt on its housing.
  According to the 48th report of the Committee of Public Accounts, which, the Minister will remember, conducted an inquiry into the sale of houses by Scottish Homes to Waverley Housing, the Department told the Committee that that payment of £250 million was in recognition of the houses that had been transferred out of Scottish Homes' ownership. The Department said that there was a danger that Scottish Homes might find itself responsible for servicing outstanding capital debt on
  1096
  houses that it no longer owned. Therefore, £250 million was paid to Scottish Homes so that it could redeem the outstanding capital debt on the houses that it had lost.
  That is all very well. Scottish Homes had lost 30,000 houses at that stage to other forms of ownership, but councils in Scotland have lost about 260,000 houses to other forms of ownership. Where is the equivalent capital grant, which would be in excess of £2 billion, to local authorities in Scotland to help them to redeem outstanding capital debts? The Minister, who will have to answer that question, should think about it. The Government have given £250 million to Scottish Homes at a time when they deny more than £2 billion to local authority government in Scotland.
  It is a matter of the way in which we distribute the purse between different forms of tenure. We would distribute it far more fairly, and that is the difference between the Opposition and the Government. We understand very well that there will always be demands on public spending, not only for housing but for health, education, social work and transport. There is never enough money to satisfy everyone, but being in government means having to learn to say no—we know that. As resources are limited, there is an absolute requirement on the Government to allocate those resources fairly, reasonably and in accordance with criteria that ensure that those in greatest need have the greatest priority in respect of the resources available.
  According to the Scottish housing conditions survey in 1991, public sector housing, which was mainly council housing in Scotland, needed £691 million spent on it to bring it up to what the Government describe as a reasonable standard. Housing associations required only £30 million—less than 5 per cent. of that total. According to the same housing conditions survey, dampness in council housing is twice as prevalent as dampness in housing association stock, yet last year the Government gave £280 million to housing associations, and gave only £35.9 million to council houses in Scotland.
  Why, when the crying need, whatever scheme of priorities one adopts, is to invest in council housing, do the Government concentrate resources in areas other than council housing? The crunch question is not whether we will receive additional resources, but what we can do with the resources that the Government have available to them at the moment. The Government are deliberately discriminating against council housing in Scotland. Deliberate Government policy and discrimination are making it almost impossible for the vast majority of people in the rented sector to live in decent conditions. The Minister must respond to that point.
  I do not have much time left to talk about the finance settlement. The Secretary of State for Scotland repeatedly asserts that Scottish local government is profligate in its expenditure and in the number of people that it employs. I have already told the Secretary of State that COSLA will fund with the Government a joint inquiry into those matters. However, the Secretary of State refuses to commission that inquiry.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton is quite right: the joint staffing watch figures which were issued in December last year and which cover the position until September point out that, between 1990 and 1994, the number of local authority employees was cut by 0.8 per cent. There is the Scottish Office staffing responsibility—I refer not just to the Scottish Office core group, but to

  1097
  Scottish Office agencies such as Historic Scotland, the Scottish Fisheries Protection Agency, the Scottish Agricultural Science Agency, the Scottish Office Pensions Agency, the Scottish Prison Service, the Scottish Courts Administration, the General Register Office, the Scottish Record Office and Registers of Scotland. Far from reducing the number of people in his employ, the Secretary of State has employed more staff. To be fair to him, we have not included the people who work for Scottish Homes or for the Scottish enterprise network. If they were included, the situation would be even worse.
  While the Secretary of State for Scotland spreads untruths about the way in which Scottish local government is profligate in the number of people that it employs, the reality is that he employs far more people and that that number is increasing at a faster rate. The truth will out eventually, despite what the Government say, because they are the facts.
  9.56 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton): No less than £800 million is spent on housing benefit in Scotland. It is the Government's policy to move away from generalised subsidies to target subsidies at those who need them. We anticipate that the sum will increase and that next year it may be above £900 million. They are very substantial sums and it is very easy for Labour Members to pour scorn upon the expenditure of such large amounts of money on those who need it. However, there would be massive complaints if a Labour Government ever tried to take that money away.
  The hon. Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Mr. Marshall) raised certain constituency matters. I am glad that we were able to help with the Winget housing in his constituency. We have made certain that councils include condensation and dampness as one of the four key national priorities in their housing plans each year.
  Glasgow will receive £92 million to enable the council to invest substantially in improving the housing stock. Glasgow could make greater headway were it not for the fact that it lost rents to the value of £8 million through its failure to let empty houses. Reducing the number of empty houses in Glasgow will make a substantial difference, and it lies within the power of the council to do that.
  The hon. Gentleman should take up with Glasgow district council the matter of substantial surpluses. In two out of the past three years it has generated surpluses of more than £25 million. He could put in a strong bid for his own constituency arising out of that.
  The hon. Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Chisholm) asked about housing support grant for Edinburgh. Housing support grant is given to help with the deficits of hostels in Edinburgh and it is expected to amount to almost £441,000 next year.
  This has been a wide-ranging debate—
  Mr. Chisholm: Will the Minister give way?
  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: No, I must move on and answer some of the other questions. We must ensure that local authority services are sufficiently provided for every man, woman and child in Scotland. I accept that the settlement is a tight one because of the need to keep inflation down. There has also been substantial growth in
  1098
  expenditure and manpower in Scottish local government. For example, between 1987 and 1994 the number of full-time equivalent staff in Scotland's local authorities increased by almost 6 per cent. In the same period, staffing levels in English authorities decreased by more than 6 per cent. In the year to June 1994 Scottish local authority manpower increased by almost 1 per cent. whereas in England there was a fall of almost 2 per cent. If Opposition Members say, "How will we live with this settlement?" I need only point to the example of the constituency district council of the hon. Member for Hamilton.
  On 10 February an article in The Scotsman stated:
  "Hamilton District Council has agreed to cut council tax bills by 10 per cent., and council leaders have pledged not to reduce services to pay for the cuts. Instead they plan to expand services."
  It continued:
  "The overall package is a vindication of the restructuring which we initiated in 1992".
  Mr. George Robertson: The Minister is one of a long line of distinguished failed Conservative candidates in Hamilton, although his forefathers used to own the whole constituency. He has given an example of a highly successful Labour council which, even in the face of adversity being thrust on it by the Government, has managed sufficiently to deal with its own resources. Others have not been so lucky, but clearly it is a successful council that has succeeded in the face of the Government rather than because of it.
  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: If the hon. Gentleman's local council can do it, so can every other council in Scotland and that proves my point.
  What my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Mr. Gallie) said in his vigorous and substantial speech tonight was extremely important. [Interruption.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Minister is not being given a fair chance. The noise is coming from the Opposition and his own side. Can we now have some order and give the Minister a chance?
  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I was pointing out that the level of grant-supported expenditure is 33 per cent. higher per person in Scotland than in England and the level of aggregate external finance is 45 per cent. higher in Scotland than it is in England. It is an example of the fact that the settlement is a substantial one.
  I now turn to the issue of capping to which Opposition Members object most strongly. I quote the late Willie Ross, the Labour Secretary of State for Scotland. He strongly defended capping and he said:
  "the Secretary of State ought to have these residual powers, especially as they now protect local authorities generally from excessive claims by individual authorities on the pool of grants."— [Official Report, Scottish Grand Committee, 14 June 1966; c. 10.]
  It is all very well for Opposition Members to complain about capping powers. When they were in power and had the responsibility—and I am one of the few Conservative Members who knows what it was like to be in opposition—their Secretary of State was only too glad to have exactly the same powers.
  Mr. Wallace rose—
  Dr. Godman rose—
  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I have already given way.

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  We shall maintain a unified business rate in Scotland pegged at the same level as in England on a permanent basis, ensuring that Scottish businesses have the same benefits and stability of competing on a level playing field with their English counterparts.
  As my right hon. Friend pointed out, it is astonishing that the Opposition should be prepared to contemplate returning control over non-domestic rate poundages to local authorities and thus at a stroke completely to destroy the benefits that Scottish businesses will gain from the achievement of the unified business rate. We spent no less than £440 million in harmonising it, so it would be a tragedy for every small business man in Scotland if that was to be thrown away.
  Dr. Godman: I am extremely grateful to the Minister for displaying his characteristic courtesy. Let me remind him of his visit to Gibbs hill in Greenock. What is the likelihood of the east end of Greenock being given partnership status? A promise was made to bring together Scottish Homes. Renfrewshire Enterprise and the local council. The Minister was extremely sympathetic to the idea. What is the likelihood of that area of my constituency being given partnership status?
  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: That issue will be looked at with great care by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the hon. Gentleman will receive an answer to his request in due course. I am aware of the problems that the hon. Gentleman has in his constituency.
  We have provided substantial sums for the reform of local government in Scotland—£5 million to cover the elections of the shadow councils and £36 million for the shadow authorities, to be paid during 1995–96. If an existing authority faced genuinely additional costs, we would expect it to discuss funding with the relevant shadow councils.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) mentioned housing benefit, which is of key importance in Scotland. This year, the figure is no less than £824 million and next year the figure is likely to be £926 million. That is not something to be looked at askance; it is a substantial sum. It is supplemented by no less than £80 million of urban aid.
  Mrs. Helen Liddell: I am totally at odds with the view being propounded by the Minister. How can he possibly argue that there is a positive incentive in having increased housing benefits, when people apply for them because they are living in poverty that is induced by the Government? They are living in housing conditions that are being made increasingly intolerable by the Government's expenditure cuts. I cannot believe that a Minister would be so insensitive as to take that view.
  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: The houses would be in much better condition if the rents charged by local authorities had been raised so that more could be spent on management and maintenance. Everyone knows that the average rent in Scotland is £7 or £8 less than the average rent south of the border. Some commentators say that some of the housing stock south of the border is in better condition. If that is so, it is because more has been spent on management and maintenance over the past 30 years.
  1100
  The hon. Member for Monklands, East (Mrs. Liddell) came to see me; we shall look carefully at the issue of urban aid, not only in her constituency, but many others.
  To the hon. Members for Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Martin), for Angus, East (Mr. Welsh) and for Glasgow, Shettleston (Mr. Marshall) I say that the crux of the matter is that, when Labour was in power, it spent £215 on each house in Scotland in 1978–79. We have increased that figure to £672 per house for 1995–96—a substantial increase. Opposition Members cannot have it both ways; they cannot say that the Government should spend far more on housing, when a large percentage of public sector stock has been sold to the sitting tenants. Some 300,000 houses have been sold to sitting tenants—a factor that inevitably has to be taken into account.
  I studied the reactions of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. We shall ensure that £35 million to £40 million is allocated for community care projects. That allocation will enable the authorities to achieve their aim. Housing capital and resources for rural areas has again been increased, and those areas receive more per capita than the rest of the country.
  Substantial resources are being provided for the non-housing revenue account and, as for capital receipts, more than several billion pounds has been allocated to benefit public sector housing. [Interruption.]
  Mr. Welsh: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Many English Members of Parliament have suddenly appeared who were not present earlier. They are taking a sudden interest in the debate and appear to have come to vote, but they do not to want to listen to the Minister. Would it be possible to hear the Minister? [Interruption.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is right. I have already appealed once to both sides of the House to give the Minister a fair chance. So far, that plea has fallen on deaf ears. I hope that the remainder of the Minister's speech will be given a fair hearing.
  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I am glad to draw my comments to a close. I shall study the points raised.
  I must stress that more than 300,000 tenants have achieved their ambition of becoming owner occupiers, thus releasing almost £3 billion for investment in housing stock. Almost 300,000 new homes have been built in Scotland since 1979. The number of sheltered and amenity houses has more than quadrupled to more than 50,000 and investment per council house, at £672, is higher in real terms than was achieved by the last Labour Government. Significant inroads have been made and will be made in improving Scotland's housing. It is a success story. We will build on that success, as we are absolutely determined 1.6 do.
  Question put:—
  The House divided: Ayes 290, Noes 247.

  Division No. 75]

  [10.10 pm

  AYES

  Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

  Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)

  Alexander, Richard

  Ashby, David

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)

  Atkins, Robert

  Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

  Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)

  Amess, David

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Ancram, Michael

  Baker, Rt Hon Kenneth (Mole V)

  Arbuthnot, James

  Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Baldry, Tony

  1101

  Banks, Matthew (Southport)

  Fox, Dr Lam (Woodspring)

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley)

  Bates, Michael

  Freeman, Rt Hon Roger

  Bellingham, Henry

  French, Douglas

  Bendall, Vivian

  Fry, Sir Peter

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Gale, Roger

  Biffen, Rf Hon John

  Gallie, Phli

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Gardiner, Sir George

  Booth, Hartley

  Garel-Jones, Rt Hon Tristan

  Boswell, Tim

  Garnier, Edward

  Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

  Gill, Christopher

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia

  Gillan, Cheryl

  Bowden, Sir Andrew

  Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair

  Bowis, John

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes

  Gorst, Sir John

  Brandreth, Gyles

  Grant, Sir A (SWCambs)

  Brazier, Julian

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Bright Sir Graham

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

  Brown, M (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)

  Grylls, Sir Michael

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

  Bruce, Ian (Dorset)

  Hague, William

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archibald

  Burns, Simon

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Butcher, John

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Butler, Peter

  Hanley, Rt Hon Jeremy

  Butterfill, John

  Hannam, Sir John

  Carlisle, John (Luton North)

  Hargreaves, Andrew

  Carlisle, Sir Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Harris, David

  Carrington, Matthew

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Cash, William

  Hawkins, Nick

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Hawksley, Warren

  Chapman, Sydney

  Hayes, Jerry

  Churchill, Mr

  Heald, Oliver

  Clappison, James

  Heath, Rt Hon Sir Edward

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

  Hendry, Charles

  Colvin, Michael

  Hicks, Robert

  Congdon, David

  Higgins, Rt Hon Sir Terence

  Conway, Derek

  Hill, James (Southampton Test)

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)

  Horam, John

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Hordern, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Cormack, Sir Patrick

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

  Couchman, James

  Howell, Sir Ralph (N Norfolk)

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

  Hughes, Robert G (Harrow W)

  Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)

  Hunt, Rt Hon David (Wirral W)

  Davies, Quentin (Stamford)

  Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

  Day, Stephen

  Hunter, Andrew

  Deva, Nirj Joseph

  Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

  Delvin, Tim

  Jack, Michael

  Dicks, Terry

  Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

  Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Dover, Den

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Duncan, Alan

  Jones, Robert B (W Hertfdshr)

  Duncan Smith, Iain

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Dunn, Bob

  Key, Robert

  Durant, Sir Anthony

  King, Rt Hon Tom

  Dykes, Hugh

  Knapman, Roger

  Elletson, Harold

  Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

  Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Knight, Greg (Derby N)

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)

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

  Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)

  Knox, Sir David

  Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

  Kynoch, George (Kincardine)

  Evans, Roger (Monmouth)

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Evennett, David

  Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

  Faber, David

  Lang, Rt Hon Ian

  Fabricant, Michael

  Lawrence, Sir Ivan

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Legg, Barry

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Leigh, Edward

  Fishburn, Dudley

  Lennox-Boyd, Sir Mark

  Forman, Nigel

  Lidington, David

  Forsyth, Rt Hon Michael (Stirling)

  Lightbown, David

  Forth, Eric

  Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

  Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

  Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

  1102

  Lord, Michael

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Luff, Peter

  Shersby, Michael

  Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Sims, Roger

  MacKay, Andrew

  Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

  Maclean, David

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Soames, Nicholas

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

  Speed, Sir Keith

  Madel, Sir David

  Spencer, Sir Derek

  Maitland, Lady Olga

  Spicer, Sir James (W Dorset)

  Malone, Gerald

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  Mans, Keith

  Spink, Dr Robert

  Marland, Paul

  Spring, Richard

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  Sproat, Iain

  Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

  Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)

  Mates, Michael

  Steen, Anthony

  Mellor, Rt Hon David

  Stephen, Michael

  Merchant Piers

  Stern, Michael

  Mills, Iain

  Stewart, Alan

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Streeter, Gary

  Mitchell, Sir David (NW Hants)

  Sweeney, Walter

  Moate, Sir Roger

  Sykes, John

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Moss, Malcolm

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Needham, Rt Hon Richard

  Taylor, Sir Teddy (Southend, E)

  Nelson, Anthony

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Neubert, Sir Michael

  Thomason, Roy

  Newton, Rt Hon Tony

  Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V)

  Nicholson, Patrick

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Thornton, Sir Malcolm

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Thurnham, Peter

  Norris, Steve

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley

  Townsend, Cyril D (Bexl'yh'th)

  Oppenheim, Phillip

  Tracey, Richard

  Ottaway, Richard

  Tredinnick, David

  Page, Richard

  Trend, Michael

  Paice, James

  Trotter, Neville

  Patnick, Sir Irvine

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Patten, Rt Hon John

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Viggers, Peter

  Pickles, Eric

  Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

  Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

  Walden, George

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Walker, Bill(N Tayside)

  Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

  Waller, Gary

  Rathbone, Tim

  Ward, John

  Redwood, Rt Hon John

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Renton, Rt Hon Tim

  Waterson, Nigel

  Richards, Rod

  Watts, John

  Riddick, Graham

  Wells, Bowen

  Robathan, Andrew

  Wheeler, Rt Hon Sir John

  Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

  Whitney, Ray

  Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)

  Whittingdale, John

  Robinson, Mark (Somerton)

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

  Wiggin, Sir Jerry

  Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)

  Willetts, David

  Rumbold, Rt Hon Dame Angela

  Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

  Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

  Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'fld)

  Sackville, Tom

  Yeo,Tim

  Sainsbury, Rt Hon Sir Timothy

  Young, Rt Hon Sir George

  Scott, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Shephard, Rt Hon Gillian

  Mr. Timothy Wood and Mr. Timothy Kirkhope.

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  NOES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Barron, Kevin

  Ainger, Nick

  Battle, John

  Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

  Bayley, Hugh

  Allen, Graham

  Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret

  Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

  Beith,RtHonA J

  Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony

  Armstrong, Hilary

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Ashton, Joe

  Berry, Roger

  Austin-Walker, John

  Betts, Clive

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Blunkett, David

  Barnes, Harry

  Boateng, Paul

  1103

  Boyes, Roland

  Harvey, Nick

  Bradley, Keith

  Henderson, Doug

  Brown, Gordon (Dunfermline E)

  Heppel, John

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

  Hill, Keith (Streatham)

  Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

  Hinchliffe, David

  Burden, Richard

  Hogg, Norman (Cumbernauld)

  Byers, Stephen

  Home Robertson, John

  Cabom, Richard

  Hood, Jimmy

  Callaghan, Jim

  Hoon, Geoffrey

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Howarth, George (Knowsley North)

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

  Campbell-Savours, D N

  Hoyle, Doug

  Cann, Jamie

  Hughes, kevin (Doncaster N)

  Chidgey, David

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Chisholm, Malcolm

  Hutton, John

  Church, Judith

  Illsley, Eric

  Clapham, Michael

  Ingram, Adam

  Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

  Jackson, Glenda (H'stead)

  Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

  Jackson, Helen (Shef'ld, H)

  Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

  Jamieson, David

  Clelland, David

  Janner, Greville

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  Johnston, Sir Russell

  Coffey, Ann

  Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side)

  Cohen, Harry

  Jones, Ieuan Wyn (Ynys Mon)

  Connarty, Michael

  Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

  Corbett, Robin

  Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O)

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd, SW)

  Corston, Jean

  Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

  Cousins, Jim

  Jowell, Tessa

  Cox, Tom

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Cummings, John

  Keen, Alan

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Kennedy, Charles (Ross,C&S)

  Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr John

  Kennedy, Jane (Lpool Brdgn)

  Darling, Alistair

  Knabra, Piara S

  Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)

  kilfoyle, Peter

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

  kirkwood, Archy

  Denham, John

  Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

  Dewar, Donald

  Lewis, Terry

  Dixon, Don

  Liddell, Mrs Helen

  Dobson, Frank

  Litherland, Robert

  Donohoe, Brian H

  Livingstone, Ken

  Dowd, Jim

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Dunnachie, Jimmy

  Loyden, Eddie

  Eagle, Ms Angela

  Lynne, Ms Liz

  Eastham, Ken

  McAllion, John

  Enright, Derek

  McCartney, Ian

  Etherington, Bill

  McCrea, The Reverend Wiliam

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

  Macdonald, Calum

  Ewing, Mrs Margaret

  McFall, John

  Fatchett, Derek

  McKelvey, Wiliam

  Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Fisher, Mark

  Maclennan, Robert

  Flynn, Paul

  McMaster, Gordon

  Foster, Rt Hon Derek

  McNamara, Kevin

  Foulkes, George

  MacShane, Dennis

  Fraser John

  McWilliam, John

  Fyfe, Maria

  Madden, Max

  Galbraith, Sam

  Maddock, Diana

  Galloway, George

  Mahon, Alice

  George, Bruce

  Mandelson, Peter

  Gerrard, Neil

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)

  Godman, Dr Norman A

  Martin, Michael J (Springburn)

  Godsiff, Roger

  Martlew, Eric

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Meacher, Michael

  Gordon, Mildred

  Meale, Alan

  Graham, Thomas

  Michael, Alun

  Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Milburn, Alan

  Grocott, Bruce

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Gunnel, John

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Hall, Mike

  Morley, Elliot

  Hanson, David

  Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wy'nshawe)

  Hardy, Peter

  Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Mowlam, Marjorie

  1104

  Mudie, George

  Simpson, Alan

  Mullin, Chris

  Skinner, Dennis

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

  O'Brien, Mike (N W'kshire)

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

  O'Brien, William (Normanton)

  Smith, Liew (Blaenau Gwent)

  O'Hara, Edward

  Snape, Peter

  Olner.Bill

  Soley, Clive

  O'Neill, Martin

  Spearing, Nigel

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Spellar, John

  Pearson, Ian

  Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)

  Pickthall, Colin

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Pike, Peter L

  Stevenson, George

  Pope, Greg

  Stott, Roger

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Strang, Dr. Gavin

  Prentice, Bridget (Lew'm E)

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Purchase, Ken

  Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Timms, Stephen

  Radice, Giles

  Tipping, Paddy

  Randal, Stuart

  Turner, Dennis

  Raynsford, Nick

  Tyler, Paul

  Redmond, Martin

  Vaz, Keith

  Reid, Dr John

  Walker, Rt Hon Sir Harold

  Wallace, James

  Rendel, David

  Walley, Joan

  Robertson, George (Hamilton)

  Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Co'try NW)

  Watson, Mike

  Roche, Mrs Barbara

  Welsh, Andrew

  Rogers, Allan

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Rooker, Jeff

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Rooney, Terry

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Sw'n W)

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Worthington, Tony

  Ruddock, Joan

  Wray, Jimmy

  Salmond, Alex

  Young, David (Bolton SE)

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Sheerman, Barry

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  Mr. Joe Benton and Ms Estelle Morris.

  Short, Clare

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Local Government Finance (Scotland) Order 1995, a copy of which was laid before this House on 2nd February, be approved.
  It being later than three hours after the first motion was made, Mr. Deputy Speaker put the remaining Questions required to be put at that hour, pursuant to Order [10 February].
  Resolved,
  That the Revenue Support Grant (Scotland) Order 1995, a copy of which was laid before this House on 2nd February, be approved.
  That the draft Housing Support Grant (Scotland) Order 1995, which was laid before this House on 2nd February, be approved.
  That the draft Housing Support Grant (Scotland) Variation Order 1995, which was laid before this House on 2nd February, be approved.—[Lord James Douglas-Hamilton.]

  CHANNEL TUNNEL RAIL LINK BILL
  Ordered,
  That Glenda Jackson be discharged from the Select Committee on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Bill and Mr. John Heppell be added to the Committee.—[Mr. Willetts.]

  WELSH AFFAIRS
  Ordered,
  That Mr. Roger Evans be discharged from the Welsh Affairs Committee.—[Sir Fergus Montgomery, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]

  Mrs. Margaret Morrison
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Willetts.]
  10.24 pm
  Mr. Chris Mullin: I wish to raise the subject of the tragic death of my constituent, Mrs. Margaret Morrison, and of the failure of the criminal justice system adequately to deal with those responsible for her death. The case raises wider issues about the way of dealing with cases in which criminal activity by a motorist has resulted in or contributed to the death of an innocent pedestrian.
  Mrs. Morrison—a much-loved, 84-year-old grandmother—was killed in a hit-and-run accident on 13 September 1992. The accident occurred on Premier road, Sunderland, at about 8 pm on a Sunday evening. Mrs. Morrison was leaving the offside of a car parked on the inside lane of Premier road. The car lights were on and the road well-lit, and the weather was fine. She had closed the car door and was standing close against it when she was hit by an overtaking vehicle. Another vehicle some distance in front had already passed her, so there can be no suggestion that she appeared suddenly in front of the vehicle that hit her.
  Mrs. Morrison was carried 30 ft on the bonnet of the car, her head hitting the windscreen. The car slowed and she fell on to the road. The vehicle was then driven away at high speed, and was later found abandoned half a mile away. Witnesses saw two men leaving the car. Before it was abandoned, the passenger was seen to throw two one-pint cans of Scorpion high-alcohol lager into a garden. He was seen also carefully to wipe the side of the car that hit Mrs. Morrison with a coat. He wiped also the driver's side of the vehicle and closed the driver's door using the coat.
  The following day, one of the men—Joseph Dorward, much the worse for drink—gave himself up to the police. He was 34 years old and has a long record of criminal activity. He admitted to driving since the age of 16 without a licence. In due course, he was charged with failing to report an accident and failing to have a taxed vehicle, insurance or a driving licence. Later, following strong representations from Mrs. Morrison's family, an additional charge of careless driving was added.
  Dorward's passenger, Stephen James Greener, gave himself up on 16 September—three days after the accident. He was charged with aiding and abetting failure to report an accident and with perverting the course of justice.
  The case went before Sunderland magistrates on 9 March 1993. Incredibly, they elected to hear the case against Dorward—the driver—but to refer that against Greener—the passenger—to the Crown court. The case against Dorward was strong. It could not be proven that he was over the alcohol limit at the time of the accident, since he had failed to stop and could not be breathalysed. In addition to the can of Scorpion lager that he had been seen drinking in the car shortly before the accident, he admitted to having consumed another two pints of beer several hours earlier.
  Dorward not only had a string of previous convictions, many of them involving vehicles, but it later emerged that on 9 November 1992—two months after he killed Mrs.
  1106
  Morrison and while awaiting trial for that offence—he was again arrested and charged with driving without insurance, a licence or MOT certificate, and having a defective tyre. I submit that Dorward should have been tried for those further offences at the same time as he was tried for the offences arising from Mrs. Morrison's death. That would have enabled the magistrates to place in proper context any expression of regret made on Mr. Dorward's behalf and to sentence him accordingly. In fact, however, neither the Crown Prosecution Service nor the magistrates appeared to have been aware that Dorward was continuing to commit similar offences while on bail for the death of Mrs. Morrison. That became clear only when her son spotted a newspaper report giving details of Dorward's later conviction.
  Dorward was fined £600 for the offences involving the death of Mrs. Morrison, payable at £3 a week and suspended until after he had finished paying—at the same rate—fines for a string of previous offences. In addition, he was banned from driving for 12 months. Not surprisingly, Mrs. Morrison's family were outraged, and so were many people in Sunderland. They take the view that, in the circumstances, the life of that innocent old lady should have been worth more than £3 a week.
  As for Mr. Greener, he, in due course, appeared before His Honour Judge Capstick at Newcastle Crown court. Like Mr. Dorward, he had many previous convictions, including one for failing to stop after an accident. He was sentenced to 240 hours community service. Both the judge and Mr. Greener's counsel remarked that, as the driver of the car had not been sent to prison, it would not be right to imprison his accomplice, although a conviction for perverting the course of justice would normally result in imprisonment. The judge remarked that Mr. Dorward had been "lucky" to receive the sentence that he did. Counsel for Greener, pleading with the judge not to send his client to gaol, remarked on the "rather extraordinary disparity" that would arise between a sentence of custody on Greener and a fine already imposed on the driver.
  "A member of the public,"
  he said,
  "looking at this matter and hearing of the consequences … would say it was a rather bizarre state of affairs … if the passenger loses his liberty whereas the person who …was directly responsible for killing the old lady …receives only a financial penalty. Such a marked disparity offends the common view of what justice is all about."
  Indeed it does. In my view, the handling of the whole case offends the common view of what justice is all about, and I wish that I could convey the widespread sense of outrage in Sunderland that the case has provoked. I believe that it has been grievously mishandled by the CPS, and I have sought to obtain from the Director of Public Prosecutions an admission that that is so, but I regret that I have not been successful.
  First, I should be grateful to know why, given the circumstances—I have given the Solicitor-General advance notice of the questions that I intend to ask, in the hope of receiving a substantive reply—Mr. Dorward was not charged with a more serious offence, such as manslaughter, with dangerous, reckless or careless driving as a fallback? Why, indeed, could he not have been charged, with Mr. Greener, with perverting the course of justice? That at least would have got him to the Crown court. Had he been charged with a more serious offence, I believe that there was a realistic prospect that a jury

  1107
  would have convicted. I remind the Solicitor-General that it was only after the intervention of Mrs. Morrison's family that the charge of careless driving was added in the first place.
  Mr. Bill Etherington: I congratulate my hon. Friend on obtaining an Adjournment debate on this very sad subject.
  My hon. Friend will be as aware as I am, as we both represent the same city, that, in general, the incidence of car crimes in Sunderland is higher than anywhere else in mainland Britain—even Belfast. Does he not think that the very good efforts being made by the police to try to improve the position are grievously undermined by the case that he is describing tonight?
  Mr. Mullin: I agree. There is no criticism of the police involved. They did everything that one would expect of them. The criticism and responsibility for this fiasco lies entirely with the northern branch of the CPS.
  Secondly, why did the Crown allow the driver to be dealt with by magistrates while the passenger, who after all was only an accomplice, was sent for trial at Crown court? I am sure that there is an explanation that makes perfect sense to lawyers, but it will make none at all to those of us who are not lawyers.
  Thirdly, I invite the Solicitor-General to agree that a fine of £600, payable at £3 a week, suspended until fines for previous offences have been paid, is an inappropriate sentence for an offence of this kind, particularly as the defendant, by his own admission, had been driving without a licence since the age of 16. Let me also put it to the Solicitor-General that a 12-month driving ban only adds insult to injury.
  Fourthly, I would like to know why no member of the Crown Prosecution Service noticed that, within two months of killing Mrs. Morrison and long before he came to trial, Mr. Dorward was again arrested without insurance or tax. As I said earlier, if someone had noticed perhaps that offence could have been dealt with at the same time, and Mr. Dorward's evident lack of remorse could have been reflected in his sentence.
  Fifthly, I would like to know whether Mr. Dorward has yet commenced paying the fine imposed on him for killing Mrs. Morrison. We should remember that more than two years have now passed. Sixthly, I seek an acknowledgment that the CPS handled the case badly, an apology to Mrs. Morrison's family and an undertaking that some lessons will be learnt for the future. I have conducted a lengthy correspondence with the CPS, which has so far exhibited a steely determination to concede nothing and to learn nothing from the mishandling of the case.
  It has long seemed to me that cases involving death during the misuse of motor vehicles are not taken seriously enough by either the CPS or the courts. In a recent case—not in Sunderland—a widow who was unable to persuade the CPS to prosecute the person responsible for her husband's death successfully initiated a private prosecution. It seems to me axiomatic that if a person drives a car without a licence and kills or seriously injures someone, a custodial sentence should follow; the same applies to a person who drinks and drives, whether or not it can be proved that drink was responsible for the
  1108
  accident. I believe that the CPS should be much more ready to apply a manslaughter charge in cases of this sort, and I am sure that juries would be willing to convict.
  Finally, I pay tribute to Mrs. Morrison's sons, David and John, who have been persistent but dignified in their pursuit of justice for their mother—and not only for their mother. They believe that, given Mr. Dorward's long record of criminal activity—much of it involving motor vehicles—there is every possibility that sooner or later he will kill or injure someone else. If that happened, those who failed to deal with him seriously on this occasion would bear some responsibility.
  10.37 pm
  The Solicitor-General (Sir Derek Spencer): I congratulate the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) on raising an important topic. Let me say at once that I share his feelings of sorrow and sympathy over the tragic circumstances of Mrs. Morrison's death, and share the grief of her family. Such cases, however, must be dealt with not on the basis of sorrow or grief, but according to the law of the land. The hon. Gentleman has a very distinguished record in remorselessly ensuring, and striving to ensure, that the law of the land is upheld. I hope to demonstrate to him that in this case the Crown Prosecution Service does not deserve brickbats, but acted properly, professionally, independently and in accordance with the law of the land.
  The selection of the charges that are appropriate when a driver kills another person on the road is too often surrounded by myth, mystery, misunderstanding and ignorance, particularly when the criminal culpability of the driver falls to be considered. Let me demonstrate to the hon. Gentleman how the CPS approaches such cases as a matter of principle, leaving this particular case on one side for a moment.
  The case starts in the police station, with the custody officers selecting the appropriate charge. In other circumstances, they may adopt a procedure that does not involve charge. A big difference may exist in the police's perception of a case, in the hurly-burly of the custody suite, and the lawyer's perception of it several weeks later, when all the evidence has been added together. If the hon. Gentleman has been to his local police station—if he has not, I invite him to do so—he will have seen the circumstances in which custody officers have to act.
  No criticism can be made of either the police or the CPS if the initial preferred charges are varied, whether they be made more or less serious. They must always march in step with the evidence. The first principle that is applied—and the police try to apply it as well—is that the charge must reflect the seriousness of the offending; secondly, it must give the courts adequate sentencing power; and thirdly, it must enable the case to be presented in a clear and concise way without any diversions or red herrings. There must be a realistic prospect of conviction. Provided that test is satisfied, a prosecution must be in the public interest. In the interest of justice, it is vital that questions are approached in that order. We cannot approach cases in an emotional spasm, or on the basis that the defendant is a scallywag, and the book should be thrown at him.
  Mr. Mullin: There is no need to waste a great deal of time on this aspect. I understand and accept that one must proceed on the basis of the evidence. I have read the

  1109
  evidence and all of the statements. I have the file and the conclusions that I draw, rightly or wrongly, are based on that.
  The Solicitor-General: I follow the thrust of the hon. Gentleman's argument. I shall come to the evidence in a moment, but I want to set it in the proper background.
  Although the hon. Gentleman may be aware of how we approach these things, many people are not. For example, it would be wrong to say that, just because someone has been killed by a driver on the road, the appropriate charge is causing death by dangerous driving. To take an extreme case, a person may have stepped out into the road without warning. It may be pitch black. The person may be dressed in very dark clothes and, therefore, may be difficult to see.
  Mr. Mullin: None of that applies in this case.
  The Solicitor-General: I accept that, but I have a much wider point to make than the narrow one raised by the hon. Gentleman. Let me try to give him some satisfaction in applying those principles to driving cases in general, and to this case in particular. When a driver, as a result of his driving, causes someone's death on the road, three possible charges can be preferred, as the hon. Gentleman has said. The first is manslaughter—he would like that to be preferred more often; the second is causing death by dangerous driving; and the third is driving without due care and attention.
  In deciding which is the appropriate charge, the prosecution must concentrate on the evidence. It must lay aside feelings of animus towards the defendant and his character. It must concentrate just on the evidence. II, out of sympathy for a victim, emotions run away with the lawyer and he prefers a charge that is not backed tip by the evidence, it will result only in an acquittal of the person who should be convicted of a lesser charge.
  Let us consider the three options. The first is manslaughter, in which case the prosecution has to prove recklessness. With respect to the hon. Gentleman, the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords disagreed with him in the cases of Seymour and Adomako as to the suitability of preferring manslaughter in this sort of case. They said that manslaughter is appropriate only in the most grave cases where it can be established that the driving was not only far below the required standard but reckless. There are in the casebooks instances of a vehicle being used as a weapon and deliberately driven at someone or of it being driven very close to someone to give him the fright of his life but, owing to a misjudgment, he has been struck and killed. In such cases, manslaughter would be an appropriate charge. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will agree that such facts are a million light years away from the case that we are debating.
  The second option is the charge of causing death by dangerous driving. As recently as 1991, the House visited this offence and redefined it in terms which, it was intended, should mirror the general public's idea of justice. The Road Traffic Act 1991 was passed to amend the existing law following a report by Professor North, now the vice-chancellor of Oxford university. As a result of that change, causing death by dangerous driving is deemed to have occurred where the driving falls far below—I stress the words "far below"—what would be expected of a competent, careful driver, where it would be obvious to a careful and competent driver that driving
  1110
  in that way would be dangerous and where it, in fact, caused death. In those circumstances, causing death by dangerous driving is the result and the proper charge.
  The cases covered by that charge are infinitely various and each turns on its own facts. The worst cases involve racing or competitive driving, gross disregard of speed limits and prevailing road conditions or overtaking when it was perfectly obvious that it was dangerous to do so and the corner was well signposted, for example.
  The third option is driving without due care and attention. In this case, the ingredients are that the driver has departed from the standards of a competent and careful driver but the driving is not so bad as to be viewed as far below that standard. In the case raised by the hon. Gentleman, there were in law only two rational options—causing death by dangerous driving or careless driving.
  Mr. Mullin: Will the Minister give way?
  The Solicitor-General: I shall give way in a moment but I want to follow the thread of the argument.
  The Crown Prosecution Service was set up in 1986. The fact that it is sometimes gratuitously attacked by critics who do not know the full facts is rather disappointing. It is sometimes attacked for no good reason at all. We must remember that the CPS comprises 2,200 professionally qualified lawyers who are striving to do their professional best. They are supported by 4,400 support staff. Each year, they conduct 1.4 million cases the length and breadth of the country. It is perhaps not surprising that there is sometimes criticism somewhere along the line, given the total number of cases. However, it behoves critics to examine the facts carefully and not use emotive language about incompetence or disgraceful behaviour without great deliberation.
  Mr. Mullin: What about perverting the course of justice as a possible way of getting the case into the Crown court? The man was seen speeding and he and his passenger were seen drinking while the car was going along.
  The Solicitor-General: The facts of the case are substantially as given by the hon. Gentleman, but as the passenger—the deceased—got out, she was overtaken by the driver of a Vauxhall, which was immediately behind, and the driver moved over, exposing her to the path of the defendant. Until then, Dorward's view of the pedestrian had been obscured by the Vauxhall. He later admitted that he had been talking with his passenger and failed to see the lady until the very last moment. She was struck and tragically died of her injuries. Disgracefully, Dorward drove off and his passenger acted as the hon. Gentleman said.
  The question was, how culpable was his driving at the time and what was the quality of it? After considering all, the facts, careless driving was selected as the appropriate charge—in my view, rightly. I have 30 years' experience, in the courts. Until my appointment in April 1992 I spent virtually every day of my life in the courts.
  Such an offence is triable only summarily, so once it was selected there was no way in which Mr. Dorward could be tried on indictment. I remind the hon. Gentleman that the appropriate sentence is a matter for the

  1111
  independent court. It would be wrong of me as a law officer to cast aspersions on the magistrates in his locality, who must remain free from political influence.
  The hon. Gentleman asks, "What about perverting the course of justice?" There was no evidence that the driver, Dorward, was involved in perverting the course of justice. That was done by the passenger. It would be stretching the law to breaking point to suggest that, in every case where a driver drives off in such an instance and does nothing more, he has perverted the course of justice, especially when, as this defendant did, he goes to the police station, surrenders and tells the police what he has done. The passenger was charged with perverting the course of justice and that offence is triable only on indictment, so it had to be sent to the Crown court, where it was dealt with by his Honour Judge Capstick, an extremely experienced judge who has sat for many years at the Old Bailey as well as in the north of England.
  The hon. Gentleman asked about the other offences that came to light later. The CPS cannot be criticised for not knowing about that, as they took place later and the proceedings were initiated by the police by a special summary procedure that involves serving papers on the defendant. By the time the CPS knew about that case, sentence had been passed. It is not for me to say whether the outcome would have been much more serious for Dorward had the magistrates known about the second
  1112
  offence. Given the formidable list of Dorward's previous convictions, it is most unlikely that, had the magistrates been made aware that other offences had been committed shortly after the offence in question, it would have made a great difference.
  There can be no criticism of the CPS for failing to spot that case among the hundreds of others with which it must deal. The CPS recognises that cases that involve the death of a victim cause anguish. Therefore, there is in place a procedure whereby a CPS lawyer will see relatives and friends of the deceased to explain the procedure. That was done in this case. The hon. Gentleman asked me to stigmatise the CPS's behaviour and agree that the case was grievously mishandled. I fear that I cannot join him in criticising the CPS in that way. I am satisfied that the high standards that it sets itself in witness care were fully complied with in this case.
  Mr. Mullin: That was an extremely complacent analysis of the case.
  I entirely accept that one must proceed on the basis of the evidence, but statements in the file record how the driver was seen speeding and making his brakes screech. He and the passenger were seen swigging strong alcohol shortly before the accident. As I mentioned, the driver failed to stop. The Solicitor-General said that he gave himself up a day or so later, but—
  The motion having been made after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned accordingly at six minutes to Eleven o'clock.

HEALTH

  Community Care
  Mr. Illsley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much has been spent by her Department on community care for the mentally ill broken down by local authority in the last financial year; and what is the proportion of the resources allocated to community care spent on mental health patients.

  Mr. Bowis
  Figures for the last financial year are not yet available.

  GP Fundholding
  Mr. Elletson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will make a statement about the results of GP fundholding in(a) the Fylde coast area and (b) Lancashire.

  Mr. Malone
  Fundholding general practitioners are at the leading edge of purchasing developments and are at the forefront of quality improvements for patients, including the creation of outreach clinics for such services as diabetes, physiotherapy, ophthalmology and vasectomy. The improvements made by general practitioner fundholders often have the effect of improving the quality of care for all patients.

  Information on specific localities is not available centrally. For information about Lancashire, the hon. Member should write to Sir Donald Wilson, the chairman of the North West regional health authority.

  NHS Chief Executive
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what limitations have been placed on the NHS chief executive in his dealings with the media.

  Mr. Sackville
  In accordance with the normal rules for civil servants, the national health service chief executive is permitted, under ministerial authority, to have contact with the media in order, inter alia, to explain Government policy and the performance of the NHS.

  NHS Accounts
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will amend the form of NHS authorities' and trusts' annual accounts to show the number of non-executive directors who decline to accept emoluments or salaries.

  Mr. Sackville
  No.

  Child Protection Registers
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list for each local authority the percentage annual decrease or increase of children placed on protection registers in England for the latest available 652
  year; and what were the figures for (a) five years and (b) 10 years ago.

  Mr. Bowis
  Information for the year ending 31 March 1994 will be placed in the Library. The earliest reliable annual comparisons available centrally for each local authority are for the year ending 31 March 1990.

  District Nursing Services
  Mr. Sheerman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what action she is taking to ensure that district nursing services are maintained at existing levels under the national health service reforms.

  Mr. Sackville
  Each locality will have different health needs and these will be reflected in the work of district nurses and other health professionals. It is for those who employ district nurses to assess continually and review their work with them.

  Business Plans
  Ms Jowell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what is the value of business plans estimated under the public financial initiative broken down by region;

  (2) what is the total value of the public financial initiative business plans currently being assessed by the NHS executive.

  Mr. Sackville
  The Department of Health does not have a public financial initiative.

  Intensive Care Beds
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will cancel all payments to chairmen and non-executive directors other than the reimbursement of out-of-pocket expenses and make available the savings for the provision of intensive care beds.

  Mr. Malone
  No.

  Consultants
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list the occasions during the last five years when her Department or its agencies has taken legal action against a consultancy firm; and what were the reasons in each case.

  Mr. Sackville
  There have been no occasions when the Department or agencies have had to resort to legal action with consultancy firms over the last five years.

  Acute Psychiatric Wards
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health(a) how many acute psychiatric wards there are, (b) how many beds are in each acute psychiatric ward, (c) on average what percentage of beds are vacant on those wards and (d) on average what percentage of patients are legally detained on those wards in respect of (i) the north-west regional office, (ii) the west midlands regional office, (iii) the south Thames regional office and (iv) the north Thames regional office of the NHS executive.

  Mr. Bowis
  The information is not available centrally.

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

  Consultants
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will list the occasions during the last five years when his Department or its agencies has taken legal action against a consultancy firm; and what were the reasons in each case.

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  Information sought can be obtained only at disproportionate cost. But there is one readily identifiable case which is subject to legal action and for that reason no further details can be given.

  The Lord Chancellor has three executive agencies, HM Land Registry, the Public Record Office and the Public Trust Office. As the question concerns a specific operational matter on which the chief executives of the agencies are best placed to provide an answer, I have accordingly asked the chief executives to reply direct.

  Letter from John Manthorpe to Mr. Alan Milburn, dated 10 February 1995:
  Parliamentary Question—Legal Action by HM Land Registry Against Consultancy Firms
  I have been asked by the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, to reply to your recent question concerning the occasions during the last five years when HM Land Registry has taken legal action against a consultancy firm.

  I can reply that there have been no such occasions.

  Letter from Julia Lomas to Mr. Alan Milburn, dated 10 February 1995:

  The Parliamentary Secretary, of the Lord Chancellor's Department has asked me to reply to you as part of the Lord Chancellor's Department's response to your parliamentary question, listed on 9 February 1995 regarding legal action taken against consultancy firms over the last five years.

  Over the last five years the Public Trust Office has instructed three firms of consultants and has not taken legal action against any of these firms.

  Letter from Sarah Tyacke to Mr. Alan Milburn, dated 14 February 1995:

  Parliamentary Question—Legal Action Against Consultancy Firms

  I have been asked by the Lord Chancellor's Parliamentary Secretary to reply to your question about legal action taken against consultancy firms.

  The Public Record Office has not taken any legal action against a consultancy firm during the last five years.

  Public Appointments
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, pursuant to his answer of 17 January,Official Report, column 376, how many appointments to public positions have been made by his Department in the last year.

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  In the last year, 244 new appointments were made to the public bodies for which the Lord Chancellor has ministerial responsibility. This does not include re-appointments or judicial appointments.

  Pre-trial Interviews
  Mr. Brazier
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many pre-trial interviews in line with the Criminal Justice Act 1991 and the memorandum of good practice have been made since September 1993; how many applications to submit a pre-recorded video taped interview with a child witness 654
  have been made since this date; and how many have been refused as evidence and on what basis.

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  My Department does not collect data about numbers of pre-trial interviews. Such information could be obtained only at disproportionate cost and its accuracy could not be guaranteed as many interviews do not result in criminal proceedings. Between 30 September 1993 and 31 December 1994, 725 applications were made to submit pre-recorded video taped evidence. Of these, 41 applications were refused. The reasons for the refusals are not recorded.

  Child Support Agreements
  Mr. David Shaw
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will list those countries which have child support systems which as a result of agreements or treaties with the United Kingdom are able to collect child support and maintenance money in the United Kingdom in respect of(a) their own nationals, (b) United Kingdom nationals and (c) nationals of third party countries.

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  In accordance with the relevant international conventions and agreements to which the United Kingdom is a party, the following overseas countries have made arrangements with the United Kingdom for the reciprocal enforcement of maintenance payments through our courts. The nationality of the respondent is not relevant to the operation of the arrangements.Countries
  Algeria, Anguilla, Antigua*, Austria, Australia, Bahamas*, Barbados, Belize*, Belgium, Bermuda, Bosnia and Herzagovena, Botswana*, Brazil, British Solomon Islands Protectorate*, Brunei*, Canada, Cayman Islands*, Central African Republic, Chile, Croatia, Czech Republic, Cyprus*, Denmark, Dominica*, Ecuador, Falkland Islands, Fiji, Finland, France, Gambia*, Germany, Ghana, Gibraltar, Greece, Grenada*, Guatemala, Guyana*, Guernsey*, Haiti, Holy See, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Isle of Man, Israel, Italy, Jamaica*, Jersey*, Kenya, Lesotho*, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malawi*, Malaysia*, Malta, Mauritius*, Monaco, Montserrat*, Morocco, Naura, Netherlands, New Zealand, Niger, Nigeria*, Norfolk Island, Norway, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, St. Christopher and Nevis*, St. Helena, St. Lucia*, St. Vincent*, Serbia and Montenegro, Seychelles*, Sierra Leone*, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Swaziland*, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, except Zanzibar, Trinidad and Tobago*, Tunisia, Turkey, Turks and Caicos Islands, Uganda*, United States, Upper Volta, Virgin Islands*, Zambia*, Zanizibar*, Zimbabwe.
  Note 1: Asterisked countries do not have reciprocal enforcement arrangements with Scotland.
  Note 2: Reciprocal enforcement arrangements have not necessarily been made with all the states or territories of the countries listed.

  Civil Cases (Appeals)
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what was the number and proportion of(a) all civil cases in which the appeals heard by the Court of Appeal were unsuccessful, (b) all applications for leave to appeal to the House of Lords refused by the Court of Appeal, (c) all petitions to the House of Lords for leave to appeal that were

  655
  successful and (d) hearings in the House of Lords which overturned the ruling of the Court of Appeal after a successful petition.

  Mr. John. M. Taylor
  The latest available figures show that in the 12 months ending 30 September 1994, 1,102 or 71 per cent. of the 1,546 civil appeals disposed of by the Court of Appeal were unsuccessful. The information requested regarding applications for leave to appeal to the House of Lords refused by the Court of Appeal is not available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. During 1994, of the 167 petitions to the House of Lords for leave to appeal from the civil division of the Court of Appeal, 46 or 28 per cent. were allowed. Of the 25 civil appeals from the Court of Appeal allowed by the House of Lords during 1994, including one appeal allowed in part, 17 or 68 per cent. had been granted leave by the House.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Fur Trade
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade how many fur pelts were(a) imported and (b) exported in each year since 1989; and what was their value.

  Mr. Needham
  The available information is published by the Central Statistical Office in "Overseas Trade Statistics of the United Kingdom", available in the Library of the House. Fur pelts are classified to group 212 of the standard international trade classification.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade how many retail businesses were involved in the fur trade in each of the last five years.

  Mr. Eggar
  The Government do not collect data on the number of retailers involved in the fur trade.

  Nuclear Levy
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade how much the nuclear levy has raised for each year since it was introduced.

  Mr. Eggar
  The fossil fuel levy has raised the following amounts:

  Year

  £ Million

  1990–91

  1,175

  1991–92

  1,324

  1992–93

  1,348

  1993–94

  1,233

  Source:

  Office of Electricity Regulation.

  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade how much the nuclear levy currently adds to average household fuel bills.

  Mr. Eggar
  The fossil fuel levy is charged to licensed electricity suppliers, at the rate of 10 per cent. of the value, net of VAT, of leviable electricity supplied. The levy has made transparent the nuclear costs that it finances; but because these costs were already being met, electricity prices did not have to increase when the levy was introduced in 1990.
  656

  Supply Network Programme
  Mr. Sheerman
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade when he expects to announce final details of the regional supply network programme.

  Mr. Eggar
  An announcement will be made shortly.

  Insurance Cover (Mortgages)
  Mr. Battle
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make it his policy to encourage insurers to standardise definitions of unemployment and disability in respect of private mortgage protection policies.

  Mr. Jonathan Evans
  No. This is an operational matter for individual companies in which the Government has no powers to intervene. The Association of British Insurers has said that insurers are guided by an individual's welfare benefit entitlement or by the legislation on redundancy in settling such claims. During their consultation on the proposed changes the Department of Social Security will discuss with insurers how best to ensure that the interface between public and private provision works well.

  Iraq (Sanctions)
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if the United Kingdom treated individuals and organisations listed by the United States Treasury in April 1991 as sanctions breakers or links with Iraqi procurement networks as persons in Iraq or Kuwait within the terms of the Iraq and Kuwait United Nations Sanctions Order 1990.

  Mr. Ian Taylor
  Some individuals and organisations listed by the United States Treasury are regarded as being persons in Iraq or Kuwait for the purposes of the Iraq and Kuwait United Nations Sanctions Order 1990.

  Broadly, this would include any body constituted or incorporated under the law of Iraq and any body carrying on business, whether within Iraq or not, which is controlled by persons or bodies resident in Iraq or constituted or incorporated under the law of Iraq.

  Mrs. Clwyd
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will list the United Kingdom companies which have been granted export licences to Iraq since sanctions began.

  Mr. Ian Taylor
  [holding answer 14 February 1995]: It has been the practice of successive administrations not to disclose such information unless the public interest outweighs the requirements of confidentiality.

  Mrs. Clwyd
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will list the products that have been exported to Iraq since sanctions began.

  Mr. Ian Taylor
  [holding answer 14 February 1995]: To identify and list every product which has been exported to Iraq since sanctions began would incur disproportionate cost. Any export to Iraq has to either be notified to, or authorised by, the United Nations Sanctions Committee in New York. Exports which leave the territory of the United Kingdom will also require a export licence from my Department. Typical exports to Iraq include: foodstuffs, medical items, clothing and other items for essential civilian needs.

  Chemical Weapons
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will place in the Library information showing if each item listed in schedules 1, 2 and 3 of annexe A in his discussion document on the chemical weapons treaty is presently a licensable export and on what date the requirement to be licensed was imposed.

  Mr. Ian Taylor
  This information has today been placed in the Library of the House.

  Food Competition
  Mr. Duncan Smith
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what plans he has to encourage genuine competition between different food manufacturers and stop the creation of cartels.

  Mr. Jonathan Evans
  The competition legislation provides for the Director General of Fair Trading, Sir Bryan Carsberg, to consider and, if appropriate, investigate allegations of cartelistic behaviour, anti-competitive practices and abuse of market power. His remit covers all commercial activities in the United Kingdom including the food manufacturing sector. Sir Bryan has recently announced a new initiative against cartels. Should the hon. Member have any specific cases in mind he should write to him directly.

  European Satellite System
  Mrs. Gillan
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what steps he proposes to take to involve United Kingdom manufacturers of navigation systems in the European Space Agency programme now being set up in co-operation with Eurocontrol and the European Commission to propose a European global navigation satellite system.

  Mr. Ian Taylor
  After consultation with officials from the Department of Trade and Industry and the European Space Agency, the Department of Transport has agreed to provide a Government financial contribution to the proposed European collaborative global navigation satellite system.

  This Government funding will allow industry to play an active role in the proposed programme. I am also pleased to report that industry has agreed to provide support to the programme from its own resources.

  Mrs. Gillan
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade when he last met the Secretary of State for Transport to discuss the operational and industrial importance to the United Kingdom of involvement in the steps being taken by Eurocontrol, the European Commission and the European Space Agency to establish a European global navigation satellite system.
  658
  Mr. Ian Taylor
  Officials of the two Departments have been working closely for a number of months on UK participation in the European global navigation satellite system. I hope to meet my noble Friend Viscount Goschen, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, to discuss satellite navigation issues in the near future.

  Fishing Industry
  Mr. Harvey
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what assistance the Government will give to companies providing products and support services to the fishing industry, to help them diversify.

  Mr. Eggar
  The Government provide a wide range of business support services for these companies and others. There is focused support available in assisted areas, and the full range of services is available to assist diversification in north Devon. Details can be obtained from the Government office for the south-west.

  Assistance is also available from the European structural funds: north Devon is covered by the objective 5(b) single programming document which will make grants towards a variety of economic measures including many business support activities. Diversification is an important factor, and support will be provided for, among other things, product and process development and for increasing the level and capacity for research and development.

  Information Super-highway
  Mr. Nigel Jones
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade (1) how many miles of co-axial cable have been laid towards the information super-highway infrastructure; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) how many miles of optical fibre cable have been laid towards the information super-highway infrastructure; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Ian Taylor
  The Department does not hold details of how many miles of optical fibre and coaxial cable have been laid. Figures from industry sources, however, point to the rapid installation of new or upgraded communications networks. Investment in these new networks has been spurred by the Government's liberalisation of the telecommunications sector.

  Optical fibre is the dominant technology for trunk networks and inter-exchange traffic, and increasingly for large business customers. BT, for example, has more than 1.4 million miles of optical fibre in its network. The cable industry is installing 260,000 miles of fibre per annum. Together with the networks being installed by other telecommunications operators such as Mercury, Energis, COLT, and MFS, the United Kingdom is estimated to have more than 2 million miles of fibre.

  Coaxial copper cable, which is the medium normally used by the cable industry in the final connection to residential customers, is being installed at a rate of 60,000 miles per annum. Compression techniques can materially increase the amount of traffic which can be sent over these cables. The information super-highway embraces both fibre and coaxial cable and applications are being developed accordingly.

  Nuclear Review
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what timetable he presently envisages for decisions and announcements on matters relating to the nuclear review.

  Mr. Eggar
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer that I gave to the hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr. Tipping) on 19 October 1994,Official Report, column 239.

  Iraq (Visits)
  Mrs. Clwyd
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will give the names of the companies which have been given a licence to communicate with and visit Iraq in(a) 1994 and (b) 1995, in each case giving the date the licence was granted.

  Mr. Ian Taylor
  [holding answer 14 February 1995]: It has been the practice of successive administrations not to disclose such information unless the public interest outweighs the requirements of confidentiality.

TREASURY

  Tax Relief
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will update his answer of 7 December to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts),Official Report, column 263, for the year 1995–96 to provide a list of the reliefs categorised under the heading (c) other reliefs.

  Sir George Young
  Estimated full-year yields at 1995–96 income levels based on a projection of the 1992–93 survey of personal incomes and other survey data in line with the assumptions in the "Financial Statement and Budget Report 1995–96" are given in the table. The figures do not take account of any behavioural effects which might result from the introduction of such changes, and show the yield from restructuring each allowance or relief separately. If two or more were restricted, the total yield would be greater than the sum of individual figures. Most of the amount shown within heading (c) is relief for charitable covenants, for donations under the giftaid scheme, for allowable interest on loans to acquire company shares and relief for class 4 national insurance contributions.

  Restriction to

  Basic rate

  20p

  Effect of restricting

  Yield £ million

  Numbers affected millions

  Yield £ million

  Numbers affected millions

  (a) Personal allowances

  1,600

  3.5

  5,900

  26.5

  (b) Relief for pension contributions

  730

  2

  1,410

  11.6

  (c) Other reliefs

  150

  0.7

  1n/a

  n/a

  1 Information on reliefs given at source is not available from the survey of personal incomes so it is not possible to estimate the effect of restricting other reliefs to 20 per cent.

  660

  Tobacco Duty
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the revenue from tobacco duty in each year since 1992.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  The information is as follows:

  Tobacco revenue

  £ billion

  1992–93

  6.0

  1993–94

  6.5

  1994–951

  6.8

  1 Forecast.

  Value Added Tax
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what were the receipts from value added tax in each year since 1993; and what are the forecast receipts of value added tax for the year 1995–96.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  The information is as follows:

  VAT receipts

  £ billion

  1993–94

  38.9

  1994–951

  43.3

  1995–961

  48.1

  1 Forecast.

  Alcohol Duty
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the revenue from alcohol duty in each year since 1992.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  The information is as follows:

  Alcohol revenue

  £ billion

  1992–93

  5.1

  1993–94

  5.2

  1994–951

  5.4

  1 Forecast.

  Capitalisation Values
  Mr. Olner
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are the current capitalisation values of(a) British Telecom, (b) British Steel, (c) British Gas, (d) the privatised water industry, (e) the privatised electricity industry, including the distribution element—Powergen and National Power and (f) the coal industry.

  Sir George Young
  The capitalisations of BT, British Steel, British Gas, the privatised water and sewerage companies and the privatised electricity companies are shown in the table. They reflect the market's assessment of the increased value achieved by the companies concerned since their flotation. The capitalisation of the privatised coal industry cannot be readily determined.
  661

  Capitalisation of Privatised industries

  Company(ies)

  1Capitalisation (£ billion)

  BT

  24.6

  British Steel

  3.1

  British Gas

  13.5

  Water and sewerage companies (10 companies)

  11.8

  Electricity companies2 (17 companies)

  30.4

  1 As at close of business, 10 February 1995. 2 Excludes the four generating companies in Northern Ireland which are not listed companies.

  Public Bodies
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make it his policy to reduce the payment of salaries to members of non-departmental public bodies.

  Mr. Aitken
  Provision for the remuneration of chairmen and members of non-departmental public bodies is generally set out in the founding legislation of those statutory bodies. The Government's policy is to pay the appropriate remuneration as determined by Ministers with the consent of the Treasury.

  Consultants
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the occasions during the last five years when his Department or its agencies has taken legal action against a consultancy firm; and what were the reasons in each case.

  Mr. Nelson
  The information requested is not held centrally and could be obtained only at a disproportionate cost.

  Credit Unions
  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to his answer of 7 February,Official Report, column 67, when the consultation document on credit unions is to be issued; and if he will place a copy in the Library.

  Mr. Nelson
  The Treasury is currently preparing a consultation document on the proposed amendments to the Credit Unions Act 1979. It will be issued shortly. A copy will be placed in the Library.

  Monetary Union
  Sir Peter Fry
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the cost to date of the Treasury's preparation on economic convergence in the European Union with a view to the possible introduction of a common currency and monetary union.

  Mr. Nelson
  [holding answer 14 February 1995]: It is not possible separately to cost work within the Treasury on economic convergence within the EU. The Government's macro-economic policies are directed toward achieving sound public finances and permanently low inflation. These objectives are shared by other EU member states, and are also key elements of the convergence criteria set out in the Maastricht treaty.

TRANSPORT

  Consultants
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list the occasions during the last five years when his Department or its agencies has taken legal action against a consultancy firm; and what were the reasons in each case.

  Mr. Norris
  None.

  Public Appointments
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to his answer of 17 January,Official Report, column 716, how many appointments to public positions have been made by his Department in the last year.

  Mr. Norris
  Eighty-two.

  Network SouthEast
  Mrs. Bridget Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) if he will list(a) the number of trains and (b) the percentage of trains, which arrived more than five minutes late during peak hours on each of the Network SouthEast divisions in each four-week period during (i) 1992, (ii) 1993 and (iii) 1994;

  (2) if he will list (a) the number of trains cancelled and (b) the percentage of trains cancelled on each of the Network SouthEast divisions in each four-week period during (i) 1992, (ii) 1993 and (iii) 1994.

  Mr. Watts
  I have written to the hon. Member and placed a copy of my letter in the Library.

  Waste Containers
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what assessment his Department or consultants to his Department have made of the suitability of the use of(a) elastomer rather than metallic seals and (b) austenitic steel rather than other metallic containment in the transport flasks used for the forthcoming shipment of high-level waste to Japan.

  Mr. Norris
  The Department judges the suitability of both seal materials and materials of construction of the containment system as a part of the design assessment process, against the stringent leaktightness criteria required by the International Atomic Energy Agency's regulations for the safe transport of radioactive material, for each application for design approval which it is required to undertake.

  The forthcoming shipment of high-level waste to Japan will use a French design of package, assessed to the same standards by the competent authority of France.

  Rail Service Withdrawals
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport which rail services have been withdrawn since April 1992.

  Mr. Watts
  British Rail has discretion to vary services and many changes are made each year. Information on such changes could be provided only at disproportionate cost. Complete closure of a line or station is subject to statutory closures procedures.
  663
  Since April 1992 services have been completely withdrawn from the following stations:

  Primrose Hill

  Ditton

  Tilbury Riverside

  Westbourne Park

  Brocklesby

  Elsham

  Llangelynin

  Dover Western Docks

  Rail Track Access Charges
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what are the rail track access charges in(a) each EU country, (b) each Scandinavian country, (c) the USA and (d) Japan.

  Mr. Watts
  These countries have different railway structures which would make it difficult to identify actual access charges and make accurate comparisons with our own access charge.

  Live Animal Exports
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what measures he is taking to ensure that charter aircraft engaged in the transportation of live cattle are airworthy.

  Mr. Norris
  Before issuing any permits to a non-European Economic Area airline to operate an aircraft for flights to or from the United Kingdom under article 88 of the Air Navigation Order 1989, my Department must be satisfied that the aircraft to be used has, among other things, a valid certificate of airworthiness issued by the state of registry of the aircraft.

  In view of concern about the safety of flights engaged in the transportation of live cattle from Coventry airport as a result of the Air Algerie crash on 21 December 1994, the Department has taken the additional measure of requesting the Civil Aviation Authority to conduct inspections of the non-EEA aircraft for which an article 88 permit has been made in order to ensure, among other things, that the aircraft is airworthy.

DUCHY OF LANCASTER

  Repetitive Strain Injury
  Mr. Chidgey
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what was the total Government spending for medical research into the causes and treatment of repetitive strain injury in each year since 1991; and what is the projected figure for 1995.

  Mr. Robert G. Hughes
  None.

  Antarctica
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will give details of the clear-up work necessary at each of the abandoned British bases in the Antarctic region with the estimated costs in each case.
  664
  Mr. David Hunt
  The removal of hazardous waste will be given priority. The cost, estimated at around £45,000 per station, is subject to weather conditions and accessibility. Complete removal of the abandoned stations may be necessary in the longer term.

  Consultants
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will list the occasions during the last five years when his Department or its agencies has taken legal action against a consultancy firm; and what were the reason in each case.

  Mr. Robert G. Hughes
  None.

  Public Appointments
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many public appointments have been made by his Department in the last year; and how many of those appointed were first identified by the public appointments unit.

  Mr. Robert G. Hughes
  Seventy-five public appointments have been made to Cabinet Office and Office of Public Service and Science sponsored public bodies in the last year.

  Of these, 57 were to the scientific research councils whose creation was announced in the White Paper "Realising Our Potential". One of these was first identified by the public appointments unit. In common with other Departments, the Cabinet Office-OPSS follows the guidance provided in the "Guide on Public Appointments Procedures". This advises that PAU is just one option which may be appropriate in filling certain posts.

  Scientists (Higher Education Institutes)
  Dr. Lynne Jones
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, pursuant to his answer of 2 February,Official Report, columns 757–58, what number of research scientists and engineers were employed by higher education institutes in each year since 1981–82.

  Mr. Robert G. Hughes
  The estimated number of research scientists and engineers, as defined by OECD, employed in HEIs are available only for selected years and are shown in the table. It should be noted that these data are derived from total HEI staff numbers using a set of factors representing the proportion of time that different categories of staff spend on teaching or research. The numbers also include academics working directly on research and development, and the time of central support staff attributed to R and D.

  Research scientists and engineers engaged on R and D within HEIs, 1986–19921

  (Full-time equivalents)

  1986

  1988

  1990

  1991

  1992

  UK

  25,000

  26,000

  28,000

  29,000

  31,000

  Note:

  1 The definition of R and D employment is from the Frascati manual.

  Source:

  Forward Look 1994 Statistical Supplement (table 1.7.1).

EDUCATION

  Class Sizes
  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what account she has taken, in formulating policy, of research carried out by Peter Mortimore of the London Institute of Education, linking performance in reading and mathematics to class size.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The Department is aware of research published by Professor Mortimore and his colleagues in 1988. His report noted that the weight of earlier research had supported the view that larger classes were more effective. The Department will continue to monitor research in this field.

  Consultants
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education if she will list the occasions during the last five years when her Department or its agencies has taken legal action against a consultancy firm; and what were the reasons in each case.

  Mr. Boswell
  Neither the Department nor its one next steps agency, the Teachers Pensions Agency, has taken 666
  legal action against a consultancy firm during the last five years.

  Public Appointments
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to her answer of 17 January,Official Report, column 398, how many appointments to public positions have been made by her Department in the last year.

  Mr. Boswell
  In the last year, 149 appointments to public positions were made by the Department.

  Careers Advice
  Mrs. Bridget Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what assessment she has made of the quality of careers advice for those aged 16 to 19 years in south-east London; and if she will make a statement.

  Mr. Paice
  I have been asked to reply.

  Quarterly and half-yearly reviews of the careers services in south-east London have indicated that they are achieving the objectives set out in their business plans. Impartial and timely careers advice is essential to help young people make informed choices about education, training and employment.

ENVIRONMENT

  Air Pollution, Rotherham
  Mr. MacShane
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what steps he is taking to monitor air pollution in Rotherham.

  Mr. Atkins
  My Department, in co-operation with Rotherham metropolitan borough council, monitors levels of smoke and sulphur dioxide at four sites and nitrogen dioxide at four sites in the Rotherham area.

  Shop Front Design
  Mr. Key
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he last met members of the English Historic Towns Forum to discuss shop front design.

  Sir Paul Beresford
  We have invited many organisations, including the English Historic Towns Forum, to discuss our proposals to improve the quality of design in our towns and cities, set out in the discussion document "Quality in Town and Country".

  Diesel Engines (Public Health)
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what assessment he has made of the impact of diesel engines on public health; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Atkins
  Diesel vehicles emit a range of pollutants, notably small particles—PM10. Advisory committees of my Department and of the Department of Health are examining possible health and environmental effects of PM10 and are expected to make recommendations on possible air quality standards shortly. More generally, Government will continue to fund research into links between air quality and, in particular, respiratory health.

  Revenue Support Grant, Sunderland
  Mr. Mullin
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what assessment he has made of the effect of the reduced revenue support grant on the provision of services in Sunderland; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Curry
  Sunderland's budget is properly a matter for the city council. Within our provisional capping criteria, the council may increase its expenditure in 1995–96 by 0.5 per cent.

  Water Supply
  Mr. Canavan
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will arrange to meet representatives of the water authorities to discuss quality and reliability of water supply.

  Mr. Atkins
  From time to time Ministers and officials do meet representatives of the water companies to discuss matters of mutual interest. My right hon. Friend has no immediate plans for meetings to discuss quality and reliability of water supply.

  House Building
  Mr. Etherington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he next expects to meet representatives of the house building industry to discuss 668
  prospects for new house building in the coming year and the impact of Government policies.

  Mr. Gummer
  I met representatives of the volume housebuilders study group on 13 February. Discussion covered a number of topics of mutual interest.

  Housing Market
  Mr. Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what assessment he has made of the prospects for the housing market in 1995.

  Mr. Curry
  The housing market will continue to benefit from a range of Government policies, including the right to buy, cash incentives and shared ownership schemes for local authority and housing association tenants, and from our economic policies which have produced low interest rates and made home ownership more affordable than for many years.

  Urban Environment
  Mr. Mans
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how he intends to improve the quality of the urban environment.

  Sir Paul Beresford
  My Department launched last summer a wide-ranging initiative, "Quality in Town and Country", designed to see what more can be done lo improve the quality of the built environment, in city, town and village. In the light of the overwhelmingly positive response, we are considering how best Government and others can take forward this initiative. The Government already help to improve the quality of life in urban and other areas through the single regeneration budget, including city challenge partnerships. My Department has also issued planning policy guidance aimed at sustaining the vitality and viability of town centres, and encouraging effective town centre management.

  Standard Spending Assessment, Leicester
  Mr. Jim Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the percentage increase in the SSA for Leicester council between 1994–95 and 1995–96.

  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  On a comparable basis, Leicester city council's SSA increases by 2.6 per cent. from £40.340 million in 1994–95 to £41.396 million in 1995–96. This compares with an increase of 0.1 per cent. for non-metropolitan districts as a whole.

  Out-of-town Shopping Developments
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many new out-of-town shopping developments await planning approval subject to DOE appeal.

  Mr. Gummer
  There are 18 appeals awaiting a decision.

  National Parks
  Mr. Hendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what account he will take of the views of national park residents on his plans to change the structure of national park authorities.

  Mr. Atkins
  Our proposals for the future administration of the national parks are set out in part III
  669
  of the Environment Bill, which is currently being considered in another place. No doubt my hon. Friend and other hon. Members whose constituents live in the parks will make their views known when the Bill comes before the House in due course.

  Lobbying Groups
  Mr. Campbell-Savours
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his policy on meeting lobbying groups.

  Mr. Gummer
  I try to meet as many as possible of the various types of groups that wish to see me, and I listen carefully, with an open mind, to what they say.

  Departmental Staff
  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what financial resources, broken down by programme where possible, have been allocated and are to be allocated by each department to each Government office for the regions, in the financial years 1993–94, 1994–95 and 1995–96.

  Sir Paul Beresford
  The information requested has been placed in the Library of the House.

  Public Bodies
  Mr. Patten
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list those public bodies for which he retains departmental responsibility; which of these bodies have been identified as suitable for placing in the private sector; and by when it is expected each of these bodies will enter the private sector.

  Mr. Gummer
  Details of the public bodies for which I have departmental responsibility are listed in the Cabinet Office publication "Public Bodies 1994". A copy is available in the House of Commons Library. In addition to the bodies listed in that publication I now have responsibility for two further executive non-departmental public bodies. These are:Stonebridge Housing Action Trust, Brent
  The National Forest Company

  I announced plans in October 1994 to privatise the docklands light railway which is wholly owned by the London Docklands development corporation. The first step will be taken in 1996, when DLR operations will be franchised to the private sector for a period of about seven years. The second step will be taken at the end of the franchise period, when the aim will be to transfer the railway as a whole into the private sector.

  There are no plans at present to privatise any of the other public bodies, but non-departmental public bodies are subject to a quinquennial review. Each such review considers the scope for privatising, contracting out or market testing all or part of the functions of the body. The Department's larger executive public bodies have programmes to contract out and market test parts of their work, where this is not already carried out in the private sector.

  Sulphur Dioxide Emissions
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will set out a year-by-year projection from 2000 to 2010 of the projected level of sulphur dioxide emissions in the United Kingdom; and if he will 670
  indicate for each projected sulphur dioxide total the targets required under the United Nations economic commission's second sulphur protocol.

  Mr. Atkins
  Year-by-year projections from 2000 to 2010 are not available.

  The most recent published projections of sulphur dioxide emissions, prepared by the Warren Spring Laboratory, now the National Environmental Technology Research Centre, were:

  '000 tonnes

  High

  Low

  2000

  2.596

  2.050

  2005

  2.200

  1.890

  2010

  2.332

  1.889

  These figures represent 47 to 58 per cent., 53 to 61 per cent. and 52 to 61 per cent. reductions respectively against 1980 sulphur emissions. The protocol requires reductions in sulphur emissions against 1980 levels of 80 per cent. by 2010, to be achieved through intermediate targets of 50 per cent. by 2000 and 70 per cent. by 2005.

  There have been considerable changes since these projections were prepared and the Government expect to produce revised projections this year, taking account of recent developments. These will provide a basis for consultation on a national strategy to achieve the protocol commitments.

  Property Sales, Westminster
  Mr. Gapes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many properties that are designated for sale have been empty in each of the wards within the borough of Westminster in the last(a) three months, (b) six months, (c) nine months, (d) 12 months and (e) 24 months.

  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  This information is not held centrally.

  Mr. Gapes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if the district auditor's interim report on Westminster city council's designated sales policy has caused his Department to review guidelines on relationships between members and officials in the control of local councils.

  Mr. Robert. B. Jones
  No.

  Mr. Gapes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what guidelines have been issued to local authorities since the district auditor's interim report on Westminster city council's designated sales policy; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  The Government have said that they will consider whether there are any general lessons to be learned, when it is possible to do so without prejudice to the particular case in question. No guidelines have been issued by the Secretary of State to local authorities concerning housing sales since the district auditor published his provisional findings on the allegations relating to council house sales in Westminster, in January 1994. Designated sales take place under long-standing statutory consents for voluntary sales of housing as part of authorities' normal activities. Revised consents were issued in September 1994 and my Department is currently consulting the local authority associations on further revisions to those consents.

  Consultants
  Mr. Gapes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the framework of rules for engaging consultants by local authorities; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  Local authorities wishing to engage consultants must follow their own standing orders and obtain value for money. In this regard, the Audit Commission, in 1994, produced a good practice guide for local authorities called "Reaching the Peak? Getting Value for Money from Management Consultants".

  McDonald's Restaurants Ltd.
  Mr. Hawksley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many appeals his inspectors have heard against the refusal of councils to grant planning consent to McDonalds Restaurants Ltd.; and what were the results of the appeals in each of the last three years.

  Sir Paul Beresford
  The information requested is not held in the Department's records.

  Foleshill Gas Works
  Mr. Robert Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what discussions he has had with English Partnerships about grant to assist the development of the Foleshill gas work site.

  Sir Paul Beresford
  I understand that English Partnerships has reached agreement with British Gas about the grant required to develop phase I of the site and that a survey will be completed this month for British Gas to establish ground conditions on phase II of the site. A formal submission to the board of English Partnerships will be made shortly after that about the offer of a grant to British Gas.

  Liquid Fuels
  Mrs. Anne Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will investigate whether the secondary liquid fuel currently being burned by Rugby Cement at Barrington should be reclassified as hazardous waste.

  Mr. Atkins
  It is for waste regulation authorities to decide whether or not a material should be classified as a waste under the Waste Management Licensing Regulations 1994, and, if so, whether that waste should be considered special, under the Special Waste Regulations 1980. The Department of the Environment has issued guidance on what is a waste and what is not in its circular 11/94, and on how to determine whether or not a waste is special in waste management paper No. 23. I understand that Cambridge waste regulation authority has taken the view that the material in question is not waste.

  Public Expenditure, Kent
  Mr. Rowe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the latest estimate of public expenditure per head in the county of Kent.

  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  Local authority net revenue expenditure per head of population in Kent in 1994–95 was budgeted to be £773. Central Government expenditure in Kent is not available.
  672

  Whitechapel Moors, North Devon
  Mr. Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will place in the Library copies of representations made to him relating to his decision over whether to call in the planning application for a leisure development at Whitechapel moors, north Devon.

  Sir Paul Beresford
  I will arrange for the hon. Member to receive copies of all the representations made about the proposed leisure development at Whitechapel moors, north Devon, as it would not be appropriate to place copies in the Library. Copies of all these representations have already been sent to the agents acting for the applicant and North Devon district council.

  Mr. Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what considerations underlay his Department's delay in calling in the planning application for a leisure development at Whitechapel moors, north Devon.

  Sir Paul Bereford
  I refer the hon. Member to the answers that I gave him on 2 November 1994,Official Report, columns 1152–53.

  There was no undue delay in calling in the planning application.

  On 21 December 1994 North Devon district council wrote to the Government office for the south-west indicating that it had resolved to grant planning permission for a leisure development at Whitechapel moors, north Devon. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State took full account of all the planning issues involved, and the representations received, and called in the application for his own determination on 19 January 1995—15 working days after receipt of the council' s letter.

  The planning issues which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State wants considered at the public inquiry are set out in the call-in letter issued by the Government office for the south-west.

  Housing Benefit
  Mrs. Maddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the total amount of housing benefit paid in the last year for which figures are available to private tenants renting properties previously acquired from local authorities under the right-to-buy scheme.

  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  The information requested is not collected centrally.

  Council Tax
  Mrs. Maddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the total cost to date of processing appeals against council tax bandings.

  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  The cost of work undertaken by the Valuation Office agency on council tax banding proposals and appeals in England between 1 April 1993 and 31 December 1994 was £56.2 million.

  During the same period, the running costs of the valuation tribunals in dealing with all types of appeal, including non-domestic rating, council tax liability and valuation, were £18 million. Non-domestic rating cases accounted for a majority of this figure, but no exact breakdown is available.

  Mrs. Maddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many properties currently have
  673
  exemption from council tax under each category of exemption.

  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  The latest information on the number of properties in England under each class of exemption is as follows:

  As at 7 June 1994

  000s

  A. Empty dwellings where works are required, under way or recently completed

  89.5

  B. Empty dwellings owned by charities

  1.5

  C. Dwellings left empty and unfurnished

  201.5

  D. Dwellings left empty by prisoners

  1.0

  E. Dwellings left empty by patients in hospitals and care homes

  31.6

  F. Dwellings left empty by deceased persons

  57.5

  G. Dwellings which are unfit etc.

  10.4

  H. Empty clergy dwellings

  1.2

  I. Dwellings left empty by people receiving care

  5.9

  J. Dwellings left empty by people providing care

  0.7

  K. Dwellings left empty by students

  2.1

  L. Repossessed dwellings

  31.9

  M. Halls of residence

  9.2

  N. Dwellings occupied solely by students or school leavers

  98.5

  O. Armed forces' accommodation

  61.9

  P. Visiting forces' accommodation

  14.0

  Q. Dwellings left empty by bankrupts

  0.6

  R. Vacant caravan sites and moorings

  0.5

  Total

  620.0

  The number of dwellings on the valuation list, including the 620,000 listed was 20,216,303.

  Local Government Finance
  Mrs. Maddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the factors taken into account in the calculation of local authorities' standard spending assessments in order of importance.

  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  The amounts allocated by each of the main indicators in the standard spending assessment formula for 1994–95 were set out in the standard spending assessment handbook 1994–95, a copy of which was placed in the Library. The corresponding figures for the SSAs for 1995–96 will be set out in the next edition of the handbook which is expected to be published in April.

  Homelessness
  Mr. Alfred Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what evidence he has received on the extent of homelessness among young single people; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  In central London, where the problem of rough sleeping is greatest, a count undertaken last November by voluntary sector agencies found 288 people sleeping rough, of whom two were aged under 18 and a further 45 aged 18 to 25.

  Outside central London, I know of no reliable information about the number of young homeless people. It is properly the responsibility of each local authority to consider the housing needs of all people in their area, including young homeless people.

  British Waterways Board
  Mr. Booth
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement about the future of the British Waterways Board.

  Mr. Atkins
  I have today published a consultation paper continuing the review of navigation functions of the British Waterways Board and the National Rivers Authority recommended by the Select Committee on the Environment. I intend to consider carefully the views of those who respond and, therefore, I cannot yet say what effect the outcome of this consultation exercise may have on the future of the British Waterways Board.

  Forth Rail Bridge
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he hopes to fulfil his undertaking to inspect the Forth rail bridge.

  Mr. Gummer
  Soon.

  Air Pollution
  Mr. Alfred Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what study his Department has made of changes in air pollution levels in(a) Manchester and (b) other United Kingdom cities; what comparable information he has about the situation in major industrial cities elsewhere in the EU; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Atkins
  Changes in annual average levels of pollution in Manchester and other United Kingdom cities are set out in the 16th edition of the Department of the Environment "Digest of Environmental Protection and Water Statistics", a copy of which is available in the Library of the House. Information on levels of pollution in major industrial cities elsewhere in the European Union is not held centrally.

  A European topic centre of the European Environment Agency on air quality has been established to assess, among other issues, environmental data requirements, collection and reporting, with a view to improving information on urban air quality across Europe.

  Ozone Layer (Damage)
  Sir Trevor Skeet
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what action the United Kingdom is taking to phase out the production of substances damaging the ozone layer.

  Mr. Atkins
  The production of halons, chlorofluorocarbons and carbon tetrachloride has already ceased, and methyl chloroform will cease by the end of this year. The Community has introduced a new European regulation which phases out hydrochlorofluorocarbons by 2015. This is directly applicable in United Kingdom law.

  Consultants
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the occasions during the last five years when his Department or its agencies has taken legal action against a consultancy firm; and what were the reasons in each case.

  Sir Paul Beresford
  The Secretary of State is not aware that any legal action has been taken during the last
  675
  five years by his Department in relation to a consultancy contract.

  London Boroughs (Rents)
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list(a) the planned average rent, (b) the planned actual average rent rise and (c) the planned percentage rent rise of each of the London boroughs.

  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  Local authorities set their own rents and are currently in the process of doing so for 1995–96. For the purposes of calculating housing revenue account subsidy, each authority is given an average weekly guideline rent. These are as follows for all London boroughs for 1995–96:

  Guideline rents

  Borough

  Rents (£)

  Increase over (£)

  1994–95 (per cent.)

  Barking and Dagenham

  36.98

  2.82

  8.2

  Barnet

  46.84

  2.51

  5.7

  Bexley

  39.59

  2.82

  7.7

  Brent

  44.40

  2.82

  6.8

  Bromley

  43.62

  1.82

  4.4

  Camden

  42.88

  2.82

  7.0

  City of London

  44.98

  1.82

  4.2

  Croydon

  48.57

  2.82

  6.2

  Ealing

  47.04

  2.82

  6.4

  Enfield

  45.96

  2.82

  6.1

  Greenwich

  44.06

  2.82

  6.4

  Hackney

  39.79

  2.82

  7.1

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  49.39

  2.82

  6.1

  Haringey

  48.49

  2.82

  6.2

  Harrow

  49.29

  2.82

  6.1

  Havering

  43.92

  2.82

  6.9

  Hillingdon

  44.15

  2.82

  6.8

  Hounslow

  41.56

  2.82

  7.3

  Islington

  44.76

  2.82

  6.7

  Kensington and Chelsea

  58.50

  2.82

  5.1

  Kingston upon Thames

  49.11

  2.82

  6.1

  Lambeth

  39.35

  2.82

  7.7

  Lewisham

  43.17

  2.82

  7.0

  Merton

  44.00

  1.89

  4.5

  Newham

  40.14

  2.82

  7.6

  Redbridge

  46.56

  1.82

  4.1

  Richmond upon Thames

  46.60

  2.82

  6.4

  Southwark

  44.86

  2.82

  6.7

  Sutton

  45.12

  2.82

  6.7

  Tower Hamlets

  39.80

  2.82

  7.6

  Waltham Forest

  42.07

  2.82

  7.2

  Wandsworth

  48.93

  1.82

  3.9

  Westminster

  50.93

  1.82

  3.7

  Public Appointments
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his answer of 17 January,Official Report, column 411, how many appointments to public positions have been made by his Department in the last year.

  Sir Paul Beresford
  No central record is maintained of the total number of appointments made by the Department. However, information readily available indicates that 105 public appointments were made during 1994.

  Regeneration Policies
  Ms Jowell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many new jobs have been created through regeneration policies since April 1992.

  Sir Paul Beresford
  Since April 1992, there has been a reduction of more than 500,000 in the number of unemployed. In that time, my Department's policies have been successful in creating or safeguarding over 340,000 jobs.

  EC Eco-management Scheme
  Mr. Nigel Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what steps he proposes to take to assist small firms to improve their environmental performance when the European Community eco-management and audit scheme becomes fully operational in April.

  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  The Government strongly supports the EC eco-management and audit scheme which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be launching on 10 April. The scheme will give public recognition, throughout the European Union, to manufacturing businesses which adopt a positive approach to managing their environmental impacts. I am now delighted to be able to announce that we will be introducing a new grant to help small companies participate. The grant will be known as the small company environmental and energy management assistance scheme or SCEEMAS.

  SCEEMAS will be an adaptation of the existing energy management assistance scheme. It will help small firms address the whole spectrum of environmental issues facing them. Energy will remain an important element since the scope for saving energy must always be considered in establishing an environmental management system. Eligibility will be confined to manufacturing industry and to firms with fewer than 250 employees.

  The details of the grant will be refined over the next few weeks and its management will be contracted out, subject to satisfactory competitive tenders being received. I expect SCEEMAS to come into operation during May.

  To make way for SCEEMAS, the existing grant scheme will be phased out over the next year. Fresh applications under the existing scheme will be allowed up to 31 March; applications for successive stages will be allowed up to 29 September; with final claims allowed up to 31 January 1996. My officials will be writing to consultants involved in the scheme in the next few days, explaining the arrangements.

  The new grant should play an important role in promoting environmental management among smaller firms, and assisting them to become more competitive.

  Inland Waterways
  Mr. Simon Coombs
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what action he has taken to continue the review of British Waterways and the National Rivers Authority's navigation functions recommended by the Environment Select Committee.

  Mr. Atkins
  I have today published a consultation paper continuing the review of British Waterways' and the National Rivers Authority's navigation functions begun in 1991. Copies have been placed in the House libraries.
  677
  The paper seeks views on how we might secure the best possible stewardship of our waterways for future generations. A number of options are identified, including those of transferring all the NRA's existing navigations to BW and vice versa, achieving more effective management through closer co-operation between existing authorities, and the possibility of creating a new single statutory authority for navigation. Our waterways are a unique asset and must serve a wide range of interests and uses. This consultation aims to give all those concerned about the waterways the opportunity to make their views on the best way forward known to Government.

  Docklands Light Railways
  Mr. Barry Porter
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the extension to Lewisham of the docklands light railway.

  Mr. Curry
  I have today given my approval for Docklands Light Railway Ltd. to shortlist four private consortia to tender for the concession to finance, build, own and maintain the extension of the DLR to Lewisham, under the Government's private finance initiative. The competition is expected to last about nine months, with the concession contract being concluded before the end of this year. Construction should start in 1996, and the extension should then open to passenger services in 1999.

  Private sector interest in the project has been strong, with seven consortia representing a wide range of finance, construction and project management expertise from the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain and Japan competing to prequalify. The four selected by DLR Ltd. to proceed to tendering are, in alphabetical order:

  Brown and Root, AMEC and Dragados

  Docklands Link Group

  Lewisham Extension Company

  Light Rail Group.

  In itement last October, the Secretary of State indicate(' that the project could not be financially viable Cutty Sark station included and that the station could therefore be built only if its costs were to be met in full by third parties. He said that contributors should agree unconditionally and contractually by the end of January 1995 to meet the actual costs of the station as they arose during the construction period. I have to report that no funding package was submitted by third parties. The tender documents to be issued by DLR Ltd. for the Lewisham project will therefore make it clear that bids are being invited on basis of six stations, without provision for a station at Cutty Sark.

  Greenwich council, local landowners and other interested bodies wish to discuss with the four prequalified bidders for the Lewisham extension the possibility of their making separate contractual and financial arrangements to provide a station at Cutty Sark. Those discussions must neither delay the Lewisham project nor prejudice its financial arrangements. The decision whether to enter into negotiations or reach an agreement with the council and other local interests will be for the private bidders to make, according to their own commercial judgment. I have asked DLR Ltd. to provide information, as requested, to assist any discussions between third parties.
  678
  I am pleased to confirm that the Lewisham line will have a new station at Island Gardens just north of the river, which will be 600 m from Cutty Sark via the Thames foot tunnel and another alongside the Greenwich BR station, some 700 m south west of the Cutty Sark. Further south it will have stations at Deptford Bridge, Elverson Road and Lewisham town centre, all in the Deptford city challenge area. The extension will therefore dramatically improve access to Greenwich and Lewisham, and provide new cross-river access to and from the City, Docklands and Stratford for local residents, tourists and north Kent commuters. It will be a splendid addition to the capital's public transport network and will reinforce the Government's commitment to promote regeneration in the Thames gateway.

  Credit Liabilities
  Mr. Dobson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the provision for credit liabilities as at 31 March 1994; and what is his estimate of the total of the provision for credit liabilities represented by cash for each local authority and its total for England.

  Mr. Gummer
  [holding answer 9 February 1995]: Returns to the Department indicate that the total amount that English local authorities had set aside for debt repayment at 31 March 1994 was £6 billion.

  The Department has no detailed information as to the extent to which these amounts are represented by cash held by local authorities, but is aware that many authorities have made use of the cash involved to meet their financing needs.

  Opencast Gravel Mining, Avon Valley
  Ms Ruddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans there are for opencast gravel mining in the Avon valley.

  Sir Paul Beresford
  [holding answer 13 February 1995]: Proposals for minerals extraction in Hampshire are set out in the deposit draft of the Hampshire minerals and waste local plan, which is due to be considered at a public local inquiry commencing on 21 March. There are no proposals in the draft plan for gravel working in the Avon valley.

  Countryside Stewardship Sites
  Mr. Tipping
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his answer of 6 February,Official Report, columns 15–18, if he will name and provide a grid reference for each countryside stewardship site; and if he will indicate those sites where access is available beyond September 2004.

  Mr. Atkins
  [holding answer 14 February 1995]: A list of the names of countryside stewardship sites has been placed in the House Library. Details of grid references of sites are not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. Countryside stewardship agreements are signed for 10 years. Contractual obligations to provide access under current stewardship agreements will not extend beyond September 2004 when the last of these agreements terminate. Existing rights of way are unaffected.
  679

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Compensation
  Ms Mowlam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much was spent on criminal damage and emergency provisions compensation in each of the last 10 years.

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

  Letter from Denis Stanley to Ms Majorie Mowlam, dated 13 February 1995:

  The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has asked me to reply, on behalf of the Compensation Agency, to your recent Question regarding criminal damage and emergency provisions compensation.

  The following amounts of compensation were paid out on criminal damage and emergency provisions in each of the last ten years:

  Year

  Criminal damage compensation

  £ million Emergency provisions compensation

  1984–85

  19.9

  Not available

  1985–86

  17.2

  Not available

  1986–87

  15.2

  0.3

  1987–88

  19.0

  0.6

  1988–89

  20.6

  1.3

  1989–90

  22.1

  1.2

  1990–91

  22.7

  1.7

  1991–92

  33.1

  1.9

  1992–93

  75.9

  2.8

  1993–94

  67.9

  2.6

  Fair Employment
  Mr. Trimble
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, pursuant to his answer of 7 February,Official Report, column 168, if he will list the 58 consultants who undertook assignments under the small firms fair employment scheme.

  Mr. Ancram
  The list of consultants is as follows:

  R. Allen

  J. Smyth

  N. Semple

  R. Shevlin

  CTR Services

  G. Parkes

  P. McCallion

  J. Chapman

  Coopers and Lybrand

  DTM Management Consultants

  G. Ward

  Engineering Employers Federation

  P. E. Scullion and Co.

  Ernst and Young

  Fair Employment Services

  Gilpin Black Associates

  A. Patrick

  B. Forsythe

  G. Wilson

  Harold Moss Services

  Hillen and Jenkinson

  Sales Placement NI Ltd.

  IRPC Group Ltd.

  680

  MDS

  Leonard Personal Services

  Price Waterhouse

  S. Cullen

  Peartree Consultants

  Management Consultants

  R. McRoberts

  RMA Consultants

  M. James

  Saville and Holdsworth

  University of Ulster

  J. McQueeney

  Time Consulting Group

  M. McBride

  Mary Carson Management Consultancy

  Mentor Management Consultancy

  H Walker

  Oakes Personnel Consultancy

  KPMG Management Consultants

  G. Patterson

  J. Wylie

  Finegan Gibson

  G. Ackah

  D. Gibson

  Archusa Management Services

  Rose Personnel Associates

  M. Templeton

  Personnel and Training Services

  Resource Counselling

  Toner Recruitment Agency

  I. McKay

  Employment Equality Services

  J. Hawthorne

  G. Patterson

  W. Deane

  Boundary Commission
  Mr. Trimble
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, pursuant to his answer of 7 February,Official Report, columns 167–68, on what basis officials of the political affairs division of the Northern Ireland Office gave guidance as to the revised recommendations of the Northern Ireland Boundary Commission prior to the publication of those recommendations.

  Mr. Ancram
  In accordance with normal briefing practice, on receipt of the deputy chairman's letter of 16 January 1995 the political affairs division was asked to contribute to the advice for Ministers on the possible electoral consequences if the revised recommendations of the Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland were implemented.

  Consultants
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list the occasions during the: last five years when his Department or its agencies has taken legal action against a consultancy firm; and what were the reasons in each case.

  Sir John Wheeler
  None.
  681
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what are his latest estimates of the expenditure on all external consultants, including management consultants, for each year since 1987, in 1994 prices, for his Department and its agencies; and what are the quantified annual cost savings which such expenditure has resulted in.

  Sir John Wheeler
  [holding answer 9 February 1995]: The information requested is not available in all the Northern Ireland Departments and the Northern Ireland Office for each year. However, from the information available, expenditure on external consultants, including management consultants in 1994 prices was:

  Year

  Expenditure (£000)

  1987–88

  1,580

  1988–89

  8,889

  1989–90

  14,451

  1990–91

  17,753

  1991–92

  26,141

  1992–93

  29,662

  1993–94

  30,286

  1994–95

  116,933

  1 Available estimates to date.

  As consultants are, in many instances, engaged to contribute particular skills to an element of a much larger process, it is not possible to quantify cost savings which such expenditure has resulted in but, in each instance, consultants were engaged on the basis of best value for money.

  Public Appointments
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, pursuant to his answer of 17 January,Official Report, column 420, how many appointments to public positions have been made by his Department in the last year.

  Sir John Wheeler
  From 1 February 1994 to 31 January 1995, 395 individuals were appointed or reappointed to the bodies listed in the publication entitled "Public Bodies 1994", copies of which are available in the Library of the House.

  Delorean Motor Car Co.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will give the total and breakdown of legal fees and all other costs associated with the action being pursued against Arthur Anderson in connection with the collapse of the Delorean Motor Car Co. and related matters; on what date the action was commenced; when it is expected to be concluded; and if he will make a statement on progress of that action to date.

  Mr. Ancram
  The legal fees and other costs associated with the action are a matter between the Government and their lawyers and disclosure while the action continues would not be in the public interest. The action was commenced on 15 February 1985. Arthur Anderson and Co. has filed a motion for summary judgement which is at present under consideration by the court. A date for trial cannot be set until the court has ruled on that motion and it is not possible to state when the action will be concluded.

  Sheep Pox
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many cases of sheep pox have been reported in each year since 1985.

  Mr. Ancram
  Sheep pox has never been reported in Northern Ireland.

  Equal Opportunities Commission
  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what was the annual expenditure per capita of the Equal Opportunities Commission for Northern Ireland in each of the last three years.

  Mr. Ancram
  The information requested is as follows:

  1992–93: 79p

  1993–94: 87p

  1994–95: 94p

  Criminal Justice
  Rev. Ian Paisley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what provisions there are in the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 1994 to protect the principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty by due process of law.

  Sir John Wheeler
  Generally speaking the prosecution bears the burden of proving all the elements of the offence necessary to establish guilt. It would not be necessary therefore for the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 1994 to provide any specific protection as the common law rule is not affected by this legislation.

OVERSEAS DEVELOPMEMT ADMINISTRATION

  Crown Agents
  Mr. Robathan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what arrangements are being made to meet expenditure by the Overseas Development Administration in 1994–95 in connection with the proposal to change the status of the Crown Agents.

  Mr. Baldry
  As announced in the gracious speech on 16 November 1994, the Government intend to bring forward legislation to change the status of the Crown Agents. In advance of the enactment of the legislation, expenditure will be incurred on preparatory advisory services and suppliers have been contracted to provide these services.

  Parliamentary approval to this new service will be sought in a spring supplementary estimate for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Overseas Development Administration external assistance vote, class II, vote 5. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure, estimated at £59,000, will be met by repayable advances from the Contingencies Fund.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL

  Consultants
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Attorney-General if he will list the occasions during the last five years when his Department or its agencies has taken legal action against a consultancy firm; and what were the reasons in each case.

  The Attorney-General: There are none.

  Public Appointments
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Attorney-General, pursuant to his answer of 17 January,Official Report, column 399, how many appointments to public positions have been made by his Department in the last year.

  The Attorney-General
  None.

  Special Advisers
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Attorney-General if he will list the severance payments made to special advisers in each of the last five years indicating(a) the amount and (b) the date.

  The Attorney-General
  [holding answer 1 February 1995]: There have been no special advisers in the departments for which I am responsible in the past five years.

LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL

  Privy Council
  Ms Lestor
  To ask the Lord President of the Council how many women are currently on the Privy Council; and how many(a) men and (b) women have been appointed since 1979.

  Mr. Newton
  The Privy Council currently includes 18 women. Since 1979, 266 men and 13 women have been appointed to the Privy Council.

  House of Commons Medical Facilities
  Mrs. Peacock
  To ask the Chairman of the Administration Committee what medical provision is available in the House to hon. Members and their staff who require medical but not accident and emergency help from a hospital.

  Mr. Michael J. Martin
  [holding answer 10 February 1995]: The staff of the occupational health service, located off the Lower Waiting Hall, are available to advise Members or their staff, and staff of the House, who require medical help. It is their practice to deal with any small-scale accidents or emergencies, and to arrange for the transfer of more serious cases of this kind to St. Thomas's hospital. The service is not intended to provide medical treatment for which an individual's own general practitioner would be more suitable.

PRIME MINISTER

  Consultants
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will list the occasions during the last five years when his Office or its agencies has taken legal action against a consultancy firm; and what were the reasons in each case.

  The Prime Minister
  None.

  Public Appointments
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to his answer of 17 January,Official Report, columns 398–99, how many appointments to public positions have been made by his Department in the last year.

  The Prime Minister
  I have made 18 appointments since January 1994 to bodies listed in "Public Bodies 1994".

  Intensive Care Beds
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Prime Minister what action he plans to take to ensure a higher priority within public spending to the provision of intensive care beds.

  The Prime Minister
  It is for each purchasing authority to determine the appropriate level and type of provision of intensive therapy, and to priorities these accordingly based on an assessment of the total needs of its population. For their part, the Government have undertaken to increase the real level of resources devoted to the health service.

  Education Priorities
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to his oral answer of 9 February to the right hon. Member for Bridgewater (Mr. King),Official Report, column 452, if he will list those local education authorities which may need to look carefully at education priorities.

  The Prime Minister
  All local education authorities need to consider their priorities to ensure that they provide an effective and efficient service.

  Hong Kong
  Mr. MacShane
  To ask the Prime Minister what plans he has to travel to Hong Kong in 1995.

  The Prime Minister
  I have no plans to visit Hong Kong in 1995.

  Marchioness
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will(a) meet those who survived the sinking of the motor vessels Marchioness and their relatives, and (b) respond positively to the requests for legal aid to be granted to them for their representation at the forthcoming inquest.

  The Prime Minister
  My right Hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor would be willing to meet a delegation of survivors of the tragedy and their relatives. Legal aid is not available for representation at inquests. Subject to financial eligibility, advice and assistance may be available before the hearing under the green form scheme.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Angola
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs which countries have made commitments to the proposed UN peacekeeping force in Angola; how many troops are involved; and what provision has been made to provide the necessary logistical support for such an operation.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The authorised maximum strength of United Nations Angolan unification mission III is 7,000 military personnel, 350 military observers and 260 civilian police observers. Some 30 countries have made offers of troops to UNAVEM III and the UN has accepted commitments from Brazil, Romania, India, Uruguay, Pakistan and Zimbabwe. Logistical support for the operation will be handled by a civilian contractor to be appointed by the United Nations.

  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how quickly the UN believes it can install United Nations Angolan verification mission III in Angola; and what commitment he has made to assist.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The Security Council resolution authorising the deployment of UNAVEM III was adopted on 8 February. That resolution called for the phased deployment of forces subject to a report from the UN Secretary-General that certain conditions have been met for example, an effective cessation of hostilities and provision of all relevant military data. We are considering whether we are able to assist the operation.

  Football Agents
  Ms Hoey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with the Norwegian Government concerning their investigation into the activities of football agents, with particular reference to Mr. Rune Hauge.

  Mr. David Davis
  None.

  Ministerial Travel (Hong Kong)
  Mr. MacShane
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans he has to travel to Hong Kong in 1995.

  Mr. Goodlad
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs has no firm plans to visit Hong Kong in 1995, but he intends to continue to pay regular visits to the territory.

  Cyprus
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is his policy towards the accession of Cyprus to the European Union; and what conditions he attaches to such accession.

  Mr. David Davis
  We agreed at the Corfu European Council that Cyprus would be involved in the next phase of enlargement. We welcome that prospect. The Council is currently reviewing Cyprus's application. We want to see the whole island join the EU, and want to help remove the obstacles presented by the intercommunal dispute.

  Former Yugoslavia
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is his policy towards the proposal of the French Foreign Minister for holding a summit meeting in Paris to which representatives of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia would be invited.

  Mr. David Davis
  We, along with our EU and contact group partners, support the French Government's initiative. If successful, such a meeting could be a major advance towards political settlements of the conflicts of former Yugoslavia.

  Consultants
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the occasions during the last five years when his Department or its agencies has taken legal action against a consultancy firm; and what were the reasons in each case.

  Mr. Goodlad
  My Department has not taken court proceedings against a consultancy firm in the last five years. On one occasion during that period a legal dispute with a consultancy firm was referred to arbitration. This concerned the alleged failure of an architectural practice properly to carry out design, supervision and administrative functions.

  Antarctica
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make it his policy to offer former bases in Antarctica to non-governmental organisations; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. David Davis
  Our policy is to offer, where appropriate, UK former bases in Antarctica to other Antarctic treaty parties, to promote the spirit of scientific co-operation between states foreseen by the Antarctic treaty. There are no plans to change this policy.

  European Movement
  Mr. Michael Spicer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what financial assistance the European Movement received from his Department in 1994; and what commitment has been given for 1995 or future years.

  Mr. Baldry
  The European Movement was given a one-off grant of £10,000 in 1993, which was paid in January 1994. It has received no financial assistance this year. No commitment has been given for 1995, or for future years.

  Equipment Sales (Human Rights)
  Mrs. Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what advice he gives to the Secretary of State for Defence on the transfer of equipment which is likely to violate human rights.

  Mr. David Davis
  [holding answer 30 January 1995]: If my Department judged that defence equipment, if transferred, would be likely to be used to violate human rights, it would advise against the transfer.

  Sudan
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement about reported Sudanese military air attacks on Uganda, the reasons for such activities and the British and international response.

  Mr. Baldry
  We are aware of the recent incident in which two bombs were dropped on Ugandan territory near the border with the Sudan. The Sudanese authorities have stated that this was an accident and continue to maintain normal relations with Uganda. There has therefore been no requirement for a formal British or international response.

  Defence Exports
  Mr. Barry Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what account the Government take, in considering applications for licences for the export of defence equipment, of its likely use for internal security purposes.

  Mr. David Davis
  We do not issue licences for the export of equipment likely to be used for internal repression.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Escaped Prisoners, Parkhurst
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the cost of searching for and recapturing the three prisoners who escaped from Parkhurst prison in January.

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

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 15 February 1995:
  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about the cost of searching for and recapturing the three prisoners who escaped from Parkhurst prison in January.
  It is difficult to give a definitive answer to your Question as some costs have not yet been finally calculated. The estimated additional cost to the Prison Service of mounting the operation to recapture the escaped prisoners is about £25,000.
  The cost of the police operations from the beginning of the incident until Thursday 9 February was £252,000. It is not anticipated that this figure will increase substantially.

  Group 4 Ltd.
  Mr. Thurnham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the benefits from the contract with Group 4 Ltd. for court services in Merseyside, Greater Manchester and north Wales.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  Responsibility for this matter has been delegated to the Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.
  688
  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. Peter Thurnham, dated 15 February 1995:
  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about court escorting and custody services in the North West.Group 4 has been awarded the contract for the court escort and custody service in the North West (Area 6). Based on the tender submitted, the terms of the contract and prior experience, this contract is expected to lead to fewer escapes, a better quality service to the courts, less disruption to the police and Prison Service, and lower costs.Experience in the East Midlands and the Metropolitan Police District shows that there are fewer escapes than occurred when the police and Prison Service were responsible for escorts. In the East Midlands, where Group 4 has been running the service for more than a year, escapes are now 40 per cent. fewer than under the previous arrangements.Contract standards are enforceable, with penalties for non-compliance. Two full time Prison Service monitors will be based in the contract area carrying out regular spot checks. In a recent survey in the East Midlands, over 90 per cent. of court staff said that Group 4 was providing a service as good or better than under the previous arrangements.Contracting out this task also relieves prison and police officers of a non core task, enabling them to concentrate on more important duties. Police forces and prisons will be relieved of a task which is unpredictable in its demands and will no longer have to redeploy officers to meet unexpected peaks. They will be able to plan better how to use their resources most effectively.The overall cost saving, following the award of Area 6 to Group 4 is estimated to be £11 million or 14 per cent. Duplication between the police and Prison Service will be eliminated.

  Prisons
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will give the salary scales for(a) prison officers and (b) prison auxiliaries; and if he will distinguish between the duties of each.

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

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 15 February 1995:
  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about the salary scales for a) prison officers and b) prison auxiliaries; and to distinguish between the duties of each.The salary scales are from £15,630 to £19,491 for prison officers and £8,348 to £9,299 for prison auxiliaries. In addition to their basic salary, all prison auxiliaries receive 12.6 per cent. shift disturbance allowance and additional hours worked are paid by overtime. Prison officers are compensated for additional hours by time off in lieu.Prison officers are required to undertake and pass formal training at a Prison Service College and accept that they are fully mobile. They are required to demonstrate a wide range of skills and competencies in dealing with inmates in order to perform their duties, which include supervising activities, searching, escorting prisoners, counselling, offending behaviour programmes, advising on legal procedures, sentence planning, categorising prisoners, crisis intervention and support, report writing, security information collation, disciplinary action, interviewing, incident response (including control and restraint techniques) and pre-release course leadership.Prison auxiliaries are non mobile and perform a wide range of support duties, such as staff mess caterer, gate keeper, records officer, escorting contractors and assisting in control rooms.689
  Mr. George Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he intends to announce the successful bids for the next phase of private prisons.

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

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. George Howarth, dated 15 February 1995:

  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about the next phase of contracted out prisons.

  The next phase will be the first two design, construct, manage and finance prisons, one in Bridgend in South Wales and another in Merseyside.

  We have received a first round of tenders and we are discussing those with the tenderers under the negotiated procedure of the EU Services Directive. We hope to issue a final invitation to tender in the next few weeks.

  After consideration of tenders, we would expect to make an announcement of the successful contractor or contractors in the spring or early summer.

  Radio Broadcasts
  Mr. Gapes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what monitoring he carries out of radio broadcasts to see whether they comply with the Race Relations Acts or Public Order Acts;

  (2) what investigations he has made into the organisation, Muslim Community Radio;

  (3) how many staff are employed monitoring radio broadcasts to consider whether they are racially offensive or incite racial hatred;

  (4) what guidelines are issued to the Radio Authority with regard to broadcasting of racially offensive or anti-semitic material.

  Mr. Nicholas Baker
  Section 22 of the Public Order Act 1986 makes it an offence to broadcast material intended to stir up racial hatred. The investigation of any complaints is a matter for the police and prosecuting authorities.

  The Home Office has no role in the monitoring of radio broadcasts. The responsibilities of the Radio Authority are a matter for the Department of National Heritage.

  Immigration Detainees
  Mr. Litherland
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many people have been detained at Manchester airport under Immigration Act powers in the last two years;

  (2) how many people were detained on entry at Manchester airport over the past two years; and what was their country of origin;

  (3) how many people detained at Manchester airport under Immigration Act powers were subsequently transferred to other detention centres or prisons over the past two years.

  Mr. Nicholas Baker
  The available information set out shows the number of people detained at Manchester airport overnight or longer broken down by nationality. Of these, 94 were detained on entry in 1994 and an estimated 82 in 1993. The other information requested is not readily available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.690

  Country

  1993

  1994

  Not determined/stateless

  27

  32

  Afghanistan

  3

  5

  Albania

  3

  —

  Algeria

  20

  34

  Angola

  1

  7

  Antigua

  —

  1

  Argentina

  —

  1

  Australia

  3

  1

  Austria

  2

  —

  Bangladesh

  27

  33

  Bermuda

  1

  —

  Brazil

  1

  1

  Bulgaria

  1

  1

  Cameroon

  3

  —

  Canada

  4

  1

  China

  6

  6

  Colombia

  7

  4

  Congo

  1

  —

  Croatia

  3

  —

  Cyprus

  3

  2

  Czechoslovakia

  —

  4

  Dominican Republic

  1

  —

  Ecuador

  3

  —

  Egypt

  1

  3

  Gambia

  11

  13

  Ghana

  15

  28

  Guyana

  1

  —

  Hong Kong

  21

  13

  Hungary

  1

  1

  India

  153

  244

  Iran

  1

  7

  Iraq

  —

  1

  Israel

  6

  —

  Ivory Coast

  3

  1

  Jamaica

  19

  20

  Japan

  —

  10

  Jordan

  1

  1

  Kenya

  2

  2

  Latvia

  1

  —

  Lebanon

  1

  2

  Liberia

  2

  —

  Libya

  1

  –1

  Lithuania

  —

  4

  Malawi

  2

  —

  Malaysia

  21

  18

  Malta

  2

  —

  Mauritius

  1

  1

  Mexico

  —

  3

  Morocco

  3

  4

  Nepal

  4

  —

  New Zealand

  2

  —

  Nigeria

  36

  49

  Pakistan

  127

  184

  Peru

  2

  2

  Philippines

  7

  1

  Poland

  4

  9

  Portugal

  3

  —

  Romania

  3

  2

  Russia

  3

  2

  St. Lucia

  —

  1

  St. Vincent and Grenada

  1

  —

  Senegal

  1

  —

  Sierra Leone

  3

  6

  Singapore

  1

  1

  Somalia

  2

  6

  South Africa

  9

  7

  South Korea

  —

  1

  Spain

  —

  1

  Sri Lanka

  10

  24

  Switzerland

  —

  1

  Syria

  2

  —

  Tanzania

  1

  6

  Thailand

  2

  1

  Togo

  2

  —

  691

  Country

  1993

  1994

  Trinidad and Tobago

  1

  —

  Tunisia

  5

  2

  Turkey

  23

  72

  Uganda

  2

  —

  Ukraine

  —

  3

  United Arab Emirates

  1

  —

  USA

  7

  7

  Yemen

  4

  1

  Yugoslavia

  —

  2

  Zaire

  4

  4

  Zambia

  2

  1

  Zimbabwe

  —

  2

  Total

  663

  918

  Football
  Mr. Pendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the Carling Premiership and Endsleigh Insurance league clubs together with the total season's attendance at(a) matches played in the Carling Premiership and Endsleigh Insurance leagues and (b) matches played in the FA Cup, Coca-Cola Cup and Autoglass Trophy with the total number of (i) arrests and (ii) arrests as a percentage of the total attendance at each category of such matches, accurate to four decimal places, for the 1993–94 season.

  Mr.Maclean
  The information is set out in the following tables:

  Premier league 1993–94 season

  Club

  Total attendance

  Arrests

  Arrests Percentage

  Arsenal

  641,833

  80

  0.0125

  Aston Villa

  609,314

  141

  0.0231

  Blackburn Rovers

  372,145

  59

  0.0159

  Chelsea

  407,732

  94

  0.0231

  Coventry

  280,392

  90

  0.0321

  Everton

  480,391

  75

  0.0156

  Ipswich

  344,025

  28

  0.0081

  Leeds

  724,363

  130

  0.0179

  Liverpool

  808,361

  214

  0.0265

  Manchester City

  560,899

  46

  0.0082

  Manchester United

  929,133

  59

  0.0064

  Newcastle

  707,269

  82

  0.0116

  Norwich

  381,436

  70

  0.0184

  Oldham

  263,815

  19

  0.0072

  Queens Park Rangers

  298,782

  59

  0.0197

  Sheffield United

  410,805

  87

  0.0212

  Sheffield Wednesday

  571,002

  67

  0.0117

  Southampton

  309,765

  61

  0.0197

  Swindon

  320,761

  31

  0.0097

  Tottenham

  570,359

  62

  0.0109

  West Ham

  432,008

  59

  0.0137

  Wimbledon

  219,961

  17

  0.0077

  Total

  10,644,551

  1,630

  0.0153

  Division one 1993–94 season

  Club

  Total attendance

  Arrests

  Arrest Percentage

  Barnsley

  175,037

  77

  0.0440

  Birmingham

  333,636

  92

  0.0276

  Bolton

  241,462

  50

  0.0207

  Bristol City

  203,596

  47

  0.0231

  Charlton

  185,279

  11

  0.0059

  Crystal Palace

  360,092

  61

  0.0169

  692

  Division one 1993–94 season

  Club

  Total attendance

  Arrests

  Arrest Percentage

  Derby

  365,549

  54

  0.0148

  Grimsby

  143,747

  28

  0.0195

  Leicester

  351,209

  20

  0.0057

  Luton

  181,197

  13

  0.0072

  Middlesbrough

  239,218

  26

  0.0890

  Millwall

  225,893

  98

  0.0434

  Nottingham County

  197,726

  25

  0.0126

  Nottingham Forest

  529,168

  25

  0.0158

  Peterborough

  170,477

  57

  0.0334

  Portsmouth

  268,918

  50

  0.0186

  Southend

  140,404

  24

  0.0171

  Stoke

  366,419

  89

  0.0243

  Sunderland

  389,493

  54

  0.0139

  Tranmere

  186,278

  94

  0.0505

  Watford

  181,607

  20

  0.0110

  West Bromwich Albion

  387,327

  123

  0.0318

  Wolverhampton

  505,190

  119

  0.0236

  Total

  6,487,104

  1,359

  0.0209

  Division two 1993–94 season

  Club

  Total attendance

  Arrests

  Arrest Percentage

  AFC Bournemouth

  100,156

  28

  0.0280

  Blackpool

  109,403

  129

  0.1180

  Barnet

  55,906

  13

  0.0233

  Bradford

  147,095

  33

  0.0224

  Brentford

  129,043

  37

  0.0287

  Brighton

  177,301

  21

  0.0118

  Bristol Rovers

  122,214

  8

  0.0065

  Burnley

  259,283

  23

  0.0089

  Cambridge

  84,773

  6

  0.0071

  Cardiff

  139,150

  15

  0.0108

  Exeter

  76,366

  20

  0.0262

  Fulham

  107,068

  28

  0.0262

  Hartlepool

  47,742

  14

  0.0293

  Huddersfield

  146,556

  42

  0.0287

  Hull

  136,199

  15

  0.0110

  Leyton Orient

  97,442

  8

  0.0082

  Plymouth

  206,075

  33

  0.0160

  Port Vale

  191,435

  38

  0.0199

  Reading

  158,437

  117

  0.0738

  Rotherham

  85,438

  29

  0.0339

  Stockport

  117,081

  13

  0.0111

  Swansea

  81,281

  9

  0.0111

  Wrexham

  91,098

  48

  0.0527

  York

  106,160

  55

  0.0518

  Total

  2,972,702

  782

  0.0263

  Division three 1993–94 season

  Club

  Total attendance

  Arrests

  Arrests Percentage

  Bury

  54,529

  4

  0.0073

  Carlisle

  116,244

  16

  0.0138

  Chesterfield

  66,958

  33

  0.0493

  Chester

  67,008

  30

  0.0448

  Colchester

  59,998

  6

  0.0100

  Crewe

  83,809

  13

  0.0155

  Darlington

  47,796

  8

  0.0167

  Doncaster

  52,041

  8

  0.0154

  Gillingham

  66,110

  10

  0.0151

  Hereford

  47,499

  1

  0.0021

  Lincoln

  66,758

  0

  0.0000

  Mansfield

  57,082

  19

  0.0333

  Northampton

  72,534

  12

  0.0165

  Preston

  154,918

  56

  0.0361

  693

  Division three 1993–94 season

  Club

  Total attendance

  Arrests

  Arrests Percentage

  Rochdale

  55,788

  7

  0.0125

  Scarborough

  35,302

  20

  0.0567

  Scunthorpe

  66,816

  5

  0.0075

  Shewsbury

  92,435

  162

  0.1753

  Torquay

  72,167

  2

  0.0028

  Walsall

  88,977

  10

  0.0112

  Wigan

  39,844

  17

  0.0427

  Wycombe

  114,411

  17

  0.0149

  Total

  1,579,024

  456

  0.0289

  Cup competitions in the 1993–94 season

  Attendance

  Arrests

  Percentage

  FA Cup

  1,989,474

  761

  0.0383

  Coca-Cola

  1,744,120

  487

  0.0279

  Autoglass

  251,381

  48

  0.0191

  Total

  3,984,975

  1,296

  0.0325

  Mr. Pendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to re-examine the provisions of section 3 of the Football (Offences) Act 1991; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Maclean
  We have no specific plans to do so. We do, however, keep under review all of the provisions of the Football (Offences) Act 1991, as well as other football legislation concerned with public order.

  Al Fayed Brothers
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects to take decisions on applications for British citizenship by(a) Mr. Ali Al Fayed and (b) Mr. Mohammed Al Fayed; if he has all the information he requires on which to take decisions; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Nicholas Baker
  As I explained in reply to a question from the hon. Member on 31 October 1994,Official Report, column 947, I do not propose to comment further on the detailed processing of these applications.

  Consultants
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the occasions during the last five years when his Department or its agencies has taken legal action against a consultancy firm; and what were the reasons in each case.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  During the period specified, I am not aware that the Home Office has had occasion to take legal action against a consultancy firm.

  Asylum Seekers
  Sir Michael Neubert
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to reinforce asylum decision taking procedures; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Howard
  The Government intend to undertake a significant reinforcement of the asylum determination system, and of the independent immigration appellate authorities in respect of their responsibility for hearing asylum appeals.
  694
  The United Kingdom fully adheres to its obligations towards genuine refugees. But the number of abusive or otherwise undeserving asylum applications has grown massively since the late 1980s. Currently, nearly 80 per cent. of asylum applications are rejected outright, and the great majority of appeals are dismissed. It is not in the interests of genuine asylum seekers for the system to be overloaded with applications from people whose real motives have nothing to do with a well-founded fear of persecution.

  Additional money is being made available to fund 150 additional determination staff in the asylum division of the Home Office, and there will be a corresponding reinforcement in the independent appeal system. Once the additional staff are in post and trained, it will make possible an additional 7,000 initial decisions annually.

  Mrs. Gillan
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what use is being made of the power in section 7 of the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993 to curtail the leave to enter or remain of an asylum seeker at the same time as his claim is being rejected; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Howard
  The use of the curtailment power has been reviewed in the light of the first year's experience of the operation of the Act. The curtailment power has deliberately been used sparingly while the new asylum procedures were settling in. I have concluded that it would now be right to make wider use of this power.

  A refused asylum applicatant with extant leave at the time of his application may, if the curtailment provision in section 7 of the 1993 Act is not used, appeal twice, first against the asylum decision, and then, if he overstays, against deportation. This is wasteful of resources, leads to delay and is not in the interests of either genuine refugees or an efficient asylum system.

  Greater use of curtailment will speed up appeal procedures and make it easier to remove those with existing leave to enter or remain who have sought to abuse the asylum procedures. Genuine asylum seekers are better served by a system that deals with undeserving cases swiftly and effectively.

  Section 7 of the 1993 Act allows curtailment of any existing leave to enter or remain at the time of refusal of an asylum claim. Curtailment takes effect immediately the decision is served. The applicant's appeal right is triggered by the service of a notice of intention to deport. The applicant's detention may be ordered pending his deportation. If the applicant decides to appeal, then all relevant aspects of the case, including the asylum and deportation aspects, may be addressed by a special adjudicator at a single hearing.

  During the passage of what became the 1993 Act, the Government indicated that it was not the intention that curtailment should be used either automatically or punitively. We propose no change of approach in these respects.

  However, discussion of curtailment during the passage of the Bill tended to focus on the case of a person who is admitted as a bona fide tourist but makes an asylum

  695
  application soon after, thus revealing that the real intention in coming here was to apply for asylum. Experience since implementation of the 1993 Act suggests that it would restrict the curtailment power too narrowly to confine its use to cases of this sort.

  At present, some two thirds of all asylum applications in the United Kingdom are made after entry, rather than at the port. More than half of these in-country applications are made by people with existing leave to enter or remain. In the bulk of cases, the asylum application is not made immediately after leave to enter or remain has been granted, but shortly before it is due to expire. We have concluded that in these cases there is significant scope for proper use of the curtailment power.

  There will in future be a general presumption that curtailment will be used where available except where this would be inappropriate. Each case will continue to be looked at on its individual merits and, as before, curtailment will be neither automatic nor punitive. Cases where curtailment might be inappropriate include those where it is right to allow existing leave to run after the asylum decision has been taken; where the applicant qualifies for leave to remain under another category of the immigration rules—for example, if they are married to a British citizen or person settled here; or where there are compelling compassionate or other circumstances which would make it inappropriate to proceed to deportation action. Where the curtailment power is used, a notice of intention to deport will normally be served at the same time. This is necessary in order to trigger a right of appeal against the refusal of asylum. It will still be open to the applicant to leave voluntarily, either before or, if it is unsuccessful, after the appeal.

  Metropolitan Police
  Mr. Booth
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what will be the total cost to public funds of the Metropolitan police in 1995–96; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Howard
  As police authority for the Metropolitan police district, I have approved estimates which provide for net revenue expenditure of £1,687.828 million in 1995–96.

  The receiver for the Metropolitan police district is issuing, with my approval, a precept of £47.86 per property in band D of the council tax valuation band for Metropolitan police purposes.

  I have discussed the estimates for the Metropolitan police expenditure in 1995–96 with representatives of the London local authority associations.

  Boundary Commission for Wales
  Sir Wyn Roberts
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what action he proposes to take on the fourth periodical report of the Boundary Commission for Wales.

  Mr. Howard
  I have today laid before Parliament the fourth periodical report of the Boundary Commission for Wales together with a draft Order in Council for giving effect, without modifications, to the recommendations contained in the report.

SCOTLAND

  Contagious Agalactia
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many cases of contagious agalactia have occurred in each year since 1985.

  Sir Hector Monro
  No cases of contagious agalactia have been recorded since it was made notifiable on 1 January 1993. Official records are not available before that date.

  Sheep Pox
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many cases of sheep pox have been reported in each year since 1985.

  Sir Hector Monro
  No cases of sheep pox have been recorded in Scotland since 1985.

  Power Generation
  Mr. Eric Clarke
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what proposals he has to change Government policy in respect of directing the Scottish utilities, Scottish Power and Scottish Hydro to accept Scottish Nuclear's total generation production at any time.

  Mr. Kynoch
  Scottish Power and Scottish Hydro-Electric purchase all of Scottish Nuclear's output of electricity under the terms of the nuclear energy agreement. Any change in this commercial contract would be a matter for the three companies.

  Strathclyde Fire Brigade
  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many malicious calls were made to Strathclyde fire brigade in(a) Inverclyde and (b) Strathclyde in each of the past three years; and, of these, how many led to successful prosecutions in. the district courts in (i) Inverclyde and (ii) Strathclyde.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Relevant information is as follows:

  Malicious calls made to Strathclyde fire brigade

  1991

  1992

  1993

  1994

  Inverclyde

  1—

  1—

  1—

  292

  Strathclyde total

  11,370

  16,349

  13,970

  7,914

  1Information about calls in particular districts is not readily separable from brigade totals for years prior to 1994.

  Persons with a charge proved under section 31 of the Fire Services Act 1947 (false alarms of fire)

  1991

  1992

  1993

  District court

  Inverclyde

  —

  —

  —

  Strathclyde

  1

  —

  —

  Stipendiary Magistrates

  4

  4

  3

  Sheriff court

  Greenock

  1

  —

  2

  Strathclyde (including Greenock)

  10

  17

  19

  Note:

  Information for 1994 is not yet available.

  Mountain Rescue Teams
  Mr. Charles Kennedy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will introduce legislation to require those who benefit from the services of Scottish mountain rescue teams, and who subsequently receive payments from newspapers to provide details of such rescues, to pay over such sums to the rescue services in question; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir Hector Monro
  I cannot commend too highly the work carried out by our mountain rescue teams, the members of which provide their services free of charge. Although it is most disappointing when a rescued person seeks to sell the story to a newspaper and does not donate the proceeds to the rescue services concerned, I do not consider it appropriate for the Government to legislate in the manner proposed.

  Local Government Reorganisation
  Mr. Raymond S. Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what compensation will be available for staff made redundant as a result of reorganisation of local government in Scotland; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Kynoch
  I am laying before the House today regulations setting out the compensation which will be made available, in general, to local authority staff who may be made redundant or prematurely retired as a result of local government reorganisation in Scotland. Further regulations will be laid shortly covering members of the teachers' superannuation scheme who are in administrative posts and who may be similarly affected. Copies of the regulations will be placed in the Library.

  In determining the compensation package, I have given careful consideration to the comments received on the draft proposals which were circulated for consultation at the end of last year. In response to these comments, I have simplified the administrative arrangements and, as indicated, will be bringing forward regulations to provide similar arrangements for members of the teachers' superannuation scheme who are in administrative posts in local authorities. I believe local authorities will welcome these changes.

  I believe the compensation package being made available represents a sensible and balanced approach to an important issue and one which will allow authorities and their staff to take forward the necessary planning for transition to the new unitary authorities.

  Child Witnesses
  Mr. Raymond S. Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, when he expects to extend the provision of closed circuit television for the taking of children's evidence in the High Court and criminal trials in the sheriffs courts.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Following consultation with the Lord Justice General and the sheriffs principal, arrangements are being made to extend these provisions from 3 April 1995 to the whole of Scotland. The necessary facilities will be provided in one court house in each sheriffdom.

  Boundary Commission Report
  Mr. Raymond S. Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he expects to present to 698
  Parliament the report of the Boundary Commission for Scotland.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The report has been laid before Parliament today, together with the draft of an Order in Council for giving effect to the recommendations.

  Trading Standards
  Mr. Nigel Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what proposals he has to safeguard the trading standards service in the future local government structure.

  Mr. Kynoch
  [holding answer 14 February 1995]: The trading standards service is a local authority function and I will expect the new councils to give careful consideration to how this important function should be provided in the new structure, including exploring the use of joint arrangements. Should suitable arrangements fail to be made, my right hon. Friend has powers under section 20 of the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994 to establish a joint board.

  Mature Students
  Mrs. Fyfe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many students in Scotland currently benefit from the mature students allowance.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  [holding answer 13 February 1995]: In the academic year 1993–94—the latest period for which complete figures are available—the number of Scottish domiciled students qualifying for a mature students' allowance as part of their means-tested maintenance award under the students' allowances scheme was 7,272.

  Advertising
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the total expenditure on all forms of advertising by his Department and its agencies for each year since 1979 in 1994 prices.

  Mr. Lang
  [holding answer 13 February 1995]: Expenditure by my Department and its agencies on advertising, based on 1994 prices, has been:

  Year

  £

  1993–94

  1,874,000

  1992–93

  1,648,000

  1991–92

  2,104,000

  1990–91

  1,911,000

  1989–90

  2,713,000

  1988–89

  1,470,000

  Figures in the form requested are not available for 1979–80 to 1987–88. Total expenditure on information publicity for each year of that period, at 1994 prices, was:

  Year

  £

  1979–80

  629,000

  1980–81

  744,000

  1981–82

  724,000

  1982–83

  664,000

  1983–84

  592,000

  1984–85

  1,102,000

  699

  Year

  £

  1985–86

  1,001,000

  1986–87

  1,228,000

  1987–88

  1,507,000

  Consultants
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what are his latest estimates of the expenditure on all external consultants, including management consultants, for each year since 1987, in 1994 prices, for his Department and its agencies; and what are the quantified annual cost savings which such expenditure has resulted in.

  Mr. Lang
  [holding answer 9 February 1995]: A full reply could be provided only at disproportionate cost. However, I refer the hon. Member to my answers to the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) on 21 February 1994, Official Report, column 51, and to the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) on 16 March 1994, Official Report, column 660, which contain much of the information sought.

EMPLOYMENT

  Saddlery
  Sir David Steel
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on the prospects for young people to enter, and receive training for, the saddlery trade; if he will support the continuing provision of centres of excellence within the trade for the provision of training; and what plans he has to ensure that employment prospects in the industry are strengthened.

  Mr. Paice
  The prospects for young people entering and receiving training in the saddlery trade are very good. The industry is interested in developing a modern apprenticeship framework which will enhance and improve existing opportunities.

  The industry is successful in the domestic and overseas markets and should be responsible for primary support for centres of excellence. Young people are, of course, eligible for support through youth training. Individual training and enterprise councils and local enterprise companies have flexibility in addressing the needs of their local labour markets.

  Training
  Mrs. Bridget Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what percentage of people who took part in schemes run under the auspices of employment training and employment action progressed to further training as a result of their scheme in the years 1991–92 and 1992–93.

  Mr. Paice
  Of those leaving employment training in Great Britain in both 1991–92 and 1992–3, 2 per cent. went into another Government training programme. The only full year for which data are available for employment action is 1992–93. Of those leaving EA in Great Britain in that year, 11 per cent. went into another Government training programme.
  700
  Mr. Bradley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment, how many young people with severe disabilities are currently participating on a youth training scheme; how many are awaiting a position on a youth training scheme; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Paice
  Of those leaving youth training in England and Wales in the period April to September 1994, 5 per cent. had a disability or health problem.

  There are no figures available for the number of disabled people waiting for a position on a YT scheme.

  Ministerial Travel (Hong Kong)
  Mr. MacShane
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what plans he has to travel to Hong Kong in 1995.

  Miss Widdecombe
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has no plans to travel to Hong Kong.

  South Thames Training and Enterprise Council
  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will list the total assets available to South Thames TEC prior to it going into receivership.

  Mr. Paice
  This is a matter for the receiver. A list of South Thames training and enterprise council's assets and liabilities is still in the process of being drawn up.

  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment for what reasons his Department is asserting preferential creditor status with regard to the receivership of South Thames TEC.

  Mr. Paice
  The Department is not a preferential creditor with regard to South Thames training and enterprise council. The Department is a secured creditor as a result of the debenture with the TEC. Where, as in the case of South Thames TEC, public money is at risk, the Department has a duty to protect it. Were secured creditor status to be waived, this would not be possible. The debenture provides for a relationship between the Department and the administrative receiver which enables it, consistent with the receiver's legal responsibilities, to influence the management of the contract with the Department so as to minimise the disruption caused by the receivership to individuals on Government programmes within the South Thames TEC area.

  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how much of the South Thames TEC assets will go to his Department as preferential creditor; and how much will go to the training providers owed money by the TEC.

  Mr. Paice
  The receiver is currently still in the process of drawing up a list of South Thames training and enterprise council's assets and liabilities. Until this is known, I am not in a position to make a statement about the division of assets between the Department and other creditors.

  Consultants
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will list the occasions during the last five years when his Department or its agencies has taken legal action against a consultancy firm; and what were the reasons in each case.
  701
  Miss Widdecombe
  Records held by the Department and its agencies do not differentiate between consultancy firms and other organisations. It would be disproportionately costly to examine all case records manually.

  Public Appointments
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment, pursuant to his answer of 17 January,Official Report, column 461, how many appointments to public positions have been made by his Department in the last year.

  Miss Widdecombe
  In 1994, 201 appointments were made to the public bodies which are the responsibility of the Employment Department group.

  Unemployment
  Mr. Wicks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what are the latest figures showing the number of unemployed persons with dependent children who have been unemployed for(a) less than six months, (b) six to 12 months and (c) 12 months or more.

  Mr. Oppenheim
  [holding answer 13 February 1995]: Latest estimates from the summer 1994 labour force survey for Great Britain show that there were 785,000 International Labour Organisation unemployed parents with dependent children. Of these, 297,000 had been ILO unemployed for less than six months; 138,000 had been ILO unemployed for six to 12 months and 349,000 had been ILO unemployed for over one year.

  Mr. Wicks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment (1) if he will publish the latest figures showing the number of children living in families with an unemployed head;

  (2) if he will publish the latest figures showing the number of children living in families headed by a person who has been unemployed for (a) less than six months, (b) six to 12 months and (c) 12 months or more.

  Mr. Oppenheim
  [holding answer 13 February 1995]: Latest estimates from the summer 1994 labour force survey for Great Britain show that there were 1,103,000 children living in families with an ILO unemployed head. Of these, 297,000 children lived in a family where the head had been ILO unemployed for less than six months; 170,000 in a family where the head had been ILO unemployed for six to 12 months and 635,000 in a family where the head had been ILO unemployed for over a year.

  Ethnic Minorities
  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment, pursuant to his oral answer of 7 February to the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. Chidgey),Official Report, column 124, (1) if he will make a statement regarding measures he is taking to improve the working of the labour market which will address discrimination faced by ethnic minorities;

  (2) what are the measures he has taken to tailor the most effective help for those facing prejudice on the grounds of race when looking for a job.

  Mr. Oppenheim
  [holding answer 13 February 1995]: The Race Relations Act 1976 makes racial discrimination in employment matters generally unlawful and anyone
  702
  who feels that they have been discriminated against any complain to an industrial tribunal.

  The Department's race relations employment advisory service advises employers on how to provide racial equality of opportunity. The Department has also published guidance for employers on this.

  Helping people at a disadvantage in the labour market to find work is one of the strategic priorities set for training and enterprise councils. They are contractually obliged to ensure that they and their providers promote equality of opportunity in access to, treatment on and outcomes from their programmes. Performance-related funding encourages TECs to improve the rate of job outcomes from training for ethnic minority people.

  The Employment Service applies the principles of racial equality of opportunity in its programmes and services. ES has taken a number of measures to assist people from ethnic minorities. Employers wishing to use ES provisions must comply with the Race Relations Act.

  Jobsearch Plans
  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is his Department's policy on whether it will be considered reasonable, in answer to question 18 of the draft jobsearch plan, to specify a figure below the benefit level that the jobseeker would get if he remained unemployed.

  Miss Widdecombe
  [holding answer 3 February 1995]: The draft jobsearch plan has been designed to enable jobseekers to set out information to help them prepare for the discussions with an employment adviser about their jobseeker's agreement. Whether a particular level of pay is reasonable will be determined in the light of the jobseeker's skills and experience, whether he has a previous occupation and the labour market conditions. As now, people with a previous occupation may be allowed a permitted period of up to 13 weeks during which they may refuse employment where the level or remuneration is lower than they are accustomed to receive. Legislation would stipulate that, as now, the level of remuneration cannot be a reason for refusing employment outside the permitted period.

  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what guidance he proposes to issue in respect of the lowest wage that can be specified under question 18 of the draft jobsearch plan without a refusal of benefit resulting; and if he will make a statement about question 18 of the draft plan.

  Miss Widdecombe
  [holding answer 3 February 1995]: The draft jobsearch plan has been designed to enable jobseekers to set out information to help them prepare for the discussions with an employment adviser about their jobseeker's agreement. A question about the level of pay is relevant for consideration of the permitted period during which an unemployed person may refuse employment where the level of remuneration is lower than he is accustomed to receive. The same question is already asked of all unemployed people when they make a claim for benefit. The draft Jobsearch plan simply carries forward existing practice in this respect.

  Beyond any permitted period, the jobseeker may still be allowed to restrict his availability on grounds of pay for up to six months, provided that he retains reasonable prospects of securing employment, and that he becomes available for an increasing range of jobs. Legislation

  703
  would stipulate that, as now, the level of remuneration cannot be a reason for refusing employment outside the permitted period.

  Decisions on such issues will be a matter for independent adjudication officers who are not subject to guidance from the Secretary of State. It is for the chief adjudication officer to issue guidance based on the relevant legislation and case law.

  Labour Statistics
  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many people left unemployment in each quarter since 1987 after(a) zero to 13 weeks unemployed, (b) 12 to 26 weeks unemployed, (c) 26 to 39 weeks unemployed, (d) 39 to 52 weeks unemployed, (e) 52 to 65 weeks unemployed, (f) 65 to 78 weeks unemployed, (g) 78 to 91 weeks unemployed, (h) 91 to 104 weeks unemployed, (i) 104 to 140 weeks unemployed, (j) 140 to 156 weeks unemployed and (k) 156 to 208 weeks unemployed; and what is the exit rate as a percentage of the relevant stock of unemployed for each duration.

  Mr. Oppenheim
  Unadjusted quarterly information on the stock of claimant unemployment, and on claimant outflows, by duration can be obtained from the NOMIS database in the Library. No information is available on ILO unemployment flows.

  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many, and what proportion of people, in each year since 1974, who were(a) unemployed, (b) unemployed for more than one year and (c) unemployed for more than two years have (i) a degree, (ii) GCEs or GCSEs and (iii) no qualifications.

  Mr. Oppenheim
  For years 1984 onwards, this information is available from the labour force survey and can be obtained via the Quantime LFS service available in the Library.

  Industrial Accidents
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if Her Majesty's Government support the decision of the European Parliament to amend the EC industrial hazards directive 82/501 so as to require EU member states to forward data on industrial accidents to the Commission and the European Environment Agency.

  Mr. Oppenheim
  I understand that the European Parliament is to consider at its session on 16 February 1995 amendments suggested by its members to the proposed Council directive on the control of major accident hazards involving dangerous substances, which is intended to replace Council directive 82/501. The Parliament has, therefore, not yet taken a decision on the position of data on industrial accidents being forwarded to the Commission and the European Environment Agency.

  The Health and Safety Executive and the Department of Environment, which jointly lead on negotiations on the proposed directive, are considering the implications of an additional reporting requirement to the European Environment Agency. I will take a view on this when the European Parliament has made its position clear.

  Part-time Workers
  Mr. McCartney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what measures he intends to take to 704
  publicise the new employment rights for part-time workers.

  Mr. Oppenheim
  The Employment Department publicises employees' statutory rights in a number of ways. A press notice was issued on 20 December last year when the Government announced their intention to remove the qualifying hours thresholds. News items on the removal of the thresholds have since been included in the Department's "Employment Gazette" and "Employment News" publications. In addition, the Department's series of free leaflets on employment protection rights is being revised to reflect the new position.

WALES

  Pregnancy Statistics
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what was the number and rate of(a) conceptions, (b) full-term pregnancies and (c) terminations for each of the last 10 years, for girls in the age group 12 to 15 years; and if he will disaggregate this information to the level for which figures are collected centrally.

  Mr. Richards
  The information available for Wales is shown in the following table. Corresponding information for district health authorities, with rates averaged over three year periods, is published in the OPCS Monitor, "Conceptions in England and Wales 1991: residents of regional and district health authority areas FM1 94/1", which is in the Library of the House.

  Conceptions at ages under 16—rate per 1,000 women aged 13–15

  Conceptions leading to:

  Year

  Number

  Total conceptions

  maternities

  abortions

  1984

  553

  8.6

  4.5

  4.2

  1985

  577

  9.3

  4.9

  4.3

  1986

  510

  8.4

  4.7

  3.7

  1987

  545

  9.6

  5.0

  4.6

  1988

  536

  9.9

  5.4

  4.5

  1989

  460

  8.9

  4.9

  4.0

  1990

  523

  10.4

  6.3

  4.1

  1991

  461

  9.5

  5.0

  4.5

  Note:

  Rates use the mid-year population estimates revised following the rebasing of mid–1991 estimates using the 1991 census of population.

  Unemployment
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many 16 and 17-year-olds are unemployed in each of the counties of Wales and in each of the parliamentary constituencies; and what is the percentage not receiving a benefit.

  Mr. Redwood
  Information on levels of claimant unemployment for under 18-year-olds are available from the NOMIS database in the Library of the House. Information on the numbers of people in receipt of benefits is not available from the claimant count.

  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) how many long-term unemployed there are in
  705
  each of the parliamentary constituencies and counties of Wales;

  (2) how many young unemployed adults there are in each of the counties in Wales and in each of the parliamentary constituencies.

  Mr. Redwood
  The data requested are available from the NOMIS database, which can be accessed by the staff of the Library of the House.

  Training
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what initiatives there are in place to ensure that there are sufficient training opportunities for young people with special needs; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Richards
  Youth training provides a range of opportunities for young people, including those with special needs. This is underpinned by the Government's guarantee that all 16 and 17-year-olds not in education or employment who are seeking training shall receive the offer of a suitable YT place. The guarantee may be extended to those aged 18 who have been prevented from taking up, or continuing with, a YT place for specified reasons including language difficulties and disability.

  Civil Servants (Redundancy Payments)
  Mr. Hanson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what factors are taken into account by his Department in relation to the setting of redundancy payments made to civil servants; and if he will make it his policy to offer the same terms to local government staff.

  Mr. Redwood
  The financial terms for civil servants in the event of redundancy are set out in the civil service compensation scheme. This scheme, which applies throughout the civil service, was laid before Parliament on 20 December 1994 by Her Majesty's Treasury.

  The Local Government (Compensation for Redundancy) Regulations 1994 set out the redundancy terms for local government staff, which are not the same as those which apply to civil servants. The regulations were approved by a resolution of the House on 24 January 1995. The Government have no plans to amend them.

  School meals service, by LEA area 1993–94

  Clwyd

  Dyfed

  Gwent

  Gwynedd

  Mid Glamorgan

  Powys

  South Glamorgan

  West Glamorgan

  Wales

  Primary schools:

  Number of pupils taking free midday meals1

  6,570

  6,201

  10,744

  4,111

  15,726

  1,212

  10,125

  8,173

  62,862

  Number of pupils entitled to free meals2

  7,540

  6,972

  12,910

  4,535

  18,078

  1,334

  10,964

  9,342

  71,675

  Secondary schools:

  Number of pupils taking free midday meals1

  2,862

  2,875

  4,378

  1,736

  6,612

  405

  3,762

  3,789

  26,419

  Number of pupils entitled to free meals2

  3,815

  3,906

  6,249

  2,379

  9,398

  486

  5,290

  5,003

  36,526

  1 Pupils taking free midday meals on 18 January 1994.

  2 Pupils on roll on 18 January 1994 who were registered as being entitled to free meals. Pupils entitled to free meals but absent from school on 18 January are included.

  706

  Receiverships
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many firms went into receivership in Wales in(a) 1994, (b) 1993, (c) 1992, (d) 1991, (e) 1990 and (r) 1989; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Redwood
  Official statistics on companies placed into receivership are not available separately for Wales.

  Dentists
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will publish for each(a) district council area, (b) health authority area and (c) for Wales as a whole for the latest available date and for the previous three years the number of (i) dentists and (ii) dentists accepting new patients to NHS lists.

  Mr. Richards
  Information on the number of general dental practitioners treating NHS patients in Wales is collected centrally by family health services authority area and is given in the following table. Information on the number of dentists accepting new patients to NHS lists is not held centrally.

  Number of dentists at 30 September 1

  FHSA

  1991

  1992

  1993

  1994

  Clwyd

  105

  102

  114

  117

  Dyfed

  101

  105

  104

  105

  Gwent

  139

  135

  135

  138

  Gwynedd

  65

  66

  67

  66

  Mid Glamorgan

  123

  133

  126

  125

  Powys

  36

  35

  34

  33

  South Glamorgan

  129

  127

  133

  133

  West Glamorgan

  134

  128

  130

  132

  Wales

  832

  831

  843

  849

  1 Principles and assistants. Dentists working in more than one FHSA are accounted in the FHSA where they perform most work.

  Free School Meals
  Mr. Win Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many children attending(a) secondary and (b) primary schools are entitled to free school meals and how many do not receive them; and if he will provide the information by local education authority.

  Mr. Richards
  The information available is shown in the following table:

  Consultants
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the occasions during the last five years when his Department or its agencies has taken legal action against a consultancy firm; and what were the reasons in each case.

  Mr. Redwood
  My Department has taken legal action against one consultancy firm in the last five years. This action, initiated in 1994, is being taken in connection with alleged defective workmanship on a trunk road scheme. Further information cannot be provided until the case has been resolved.

  W. S. Atkins and Partners
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) on what grounds he instructed the Welsh Health Common Services Authority to place W. S. Atkins and Partners on a stop list for the purposes of hospital design consultancy work; and on what date subsequent modification to that instruction have taken place;

  (2) if he will specify what instructions his Department issued to Welsh Health Common Services Authority to place W. S. Atkins and Partners on a stop list; on what date the stop list was lifted or modified; what bearing the stop list classification had on pre-qualification for inquiries about sale of hospital design sections of the Welsh Health Common Services Authority; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Redwood
  W. S. Atkins and Partners has not been placed on any stop list in Wales. Health authorities in Wales were advised on 22 September 1988 that it should not be appointed to major new commissions in 'Wales without the approval of the Department and to ensure the company was capable of performing satisfactorily in all aspects of the proposed commission.

  The requirement for departmental approval was lifted on 4 January 1991, but health authorities were required to exercise caution when considering any appointment of W. S. Atkins and Partners.

  Any speculation about the future of the EstateCare Group of the Welsh Health Common Services Authority or the interest of any particular company is premature until the current review of market testing opportunities has been completed.

  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what consultations he has had with the chairman of the Welsh Health Common Services Authority in relation to inquiries by W. S. Atkins and Partners with a view to the market testing and sale of the EstateCare group of the Welsh Health Common Services Authority.

  Mr. Redwood
  None.

  Welsh Development Agency
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, pursuant to his answer of 27 January,Official Report, column 423, how many officers of the Welsh Development Agency have had disciplinary action taken against them arising out of problems on procurement of information systems.

  Mr. Redwood
  I have asked the chief executive of the agency to write to the hon. Member and will arrange for a copy of his letter to be placed in the Library of the House.

  Habitat Scheme
  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when the habitat scheme was launched; and when details were made available to farmers and their unions.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  The habitat scheme was announced on 15 December 1994. Further information is available from the new countryside and agricultural information service or Agriculture Department divisional offices.

  Environmentally Sensitive Areas
  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the total budget of the environmentally sensitive area schemes in(a) the Cambrian mountains, (b) Lleyn peninsular, (c) Radnor and (d) Preseli.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  The total budget available for distribution under the schemes in Wales in 1995–96 will be £6,900,000.

  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many applications have been processed for grant aid under the present environmentally sensitive area scheme; and what was the average time spent processing them.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  There are 793 extant management agreements in Wales. Processing time is not currently recorded but has varied according to the circumstances of each case, and has depended upon the complexity of the application and the amount of help needed by farmers in drawing up a scheme.

  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many applications have been received to take part in the Preseli environmentally sensitive area scheme.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  Ninety-five.

  Intensive Care Beds
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what consultations he has had with the chairmen of Welsh health authorities and trusts concerning the provision of additional intensive care beds; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Redwood
  I have not discussed the provision of intensive care beds with NHS chairmen, but will shortly be asking all health authorities in Wales to assess the need for such beds and then to work with hospitals to introduce any changes that are necessary.

  Public Appointments
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, pursuant to his answer of 17 January,Official Report, column 444, how many appointments to public positions have been made by his Department in the last year.

  Mr. Redwood
  Between 1 December 1993 and 30 November 1994, I made 198 appointments, excluding reappointments, to non-departmental public bodies, including NHS bodies.

  Cardiff Bay Barrage
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what consultations he has had with the chairman of the Cardiff Bay development corporation concerning the dispatch of tender documents for a buildings condition survey in relation to the impact of rising groundwater from the Cardiff bay barrage; how many applications
  709
  were received by the 20 January deadline; what is the estimated survey cost in each of the next five years; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Redwood
  None. My Department has authorised the provision of £5.04 million in total for expenditure on property condition surveys. The number of survey applications received and the estimated cost of surveys in each of the next five years are operational matters for the corporation and the chief executive will write to the hon. Member.

  St. David's Hospital, Cardiff
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what proposals he has received for the construction of a new local neighbourhood hospital on the site of St. David's hospital, Cowbridge road east, Cardiff; on what date he received the full detailed business case; what was the date of its approval; if he will make a statement on the application of the principles of the private finance initiative to the business case; and what was the proposed capital expenditure in(a) 1994–95, (b) 1995–96 and (c) 1996–97.

  Mr. Redwood
  The Department received and advised on a draft proposal for a local hospital on the site in February 1994. South Glamorgan health authority's revised submission taking into account its strategic purchasing plan and its consultations with local community health councils is still awaited.

  If and when the outline business case is approved, expressions of interest will be sought from private sector organisations wishing to submit proposals for the design, build, finance and management of non-clinical facilities.

  Stillborn Baby, Wrexham
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will place in the Library a copy of the report of the Wrexham Maelor hospital into the transportation of a stillborn baby from Wrexham to the University hospital of Wales, Cardiff.

  Mr. Redwood
  Yes. I am arranging for copies to be placed in the Library of the House.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Consultants
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list the occasions during the last five years when his Department or its agencies has taken legal action against a consultancy firm; and what were the reasons in each case.

  Mr. Hague
  No legal action has been taken by the Department of Social Security or its agencies against a consultancy firm during the last five years.

  Invalidity Benefit
  Mr. Bradley
  To ask the Secretary of State or Social Security how many appeals concerning invalidity benefit were received by his Department during each of the quarters since 1994; and what percentage of these were found in the claimant's favour.
  710
  Mr. Hague
  The available information is in the table.

  Invalidity benefit appeals

  Quarters in 1994

  Received

  Heard and decided

  Percentage in appellant's favour

  January-March

  6,381

  4,005

  58

  April-June

  6,290

  3,683

  58

  Information from "Quarterly Social Security Appeal Statistics" produced by the Government Statistical Service.

  Public Appointments
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security, pursuant to his answer of 17 January,Official Report, column 387, how many appointments to public positions have been made by his Department in the last year.

  Mr. Hague
  There were 87 such appointments or re-appointments to those bodies listed in "Public Bodies 1994".

  Unemployment Benefit
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many claims for unemployment benefit in the last available year the claimant(a) gained the adult dependent addition and (b) refused the addition on the grounds that the claimant's dependents earnings were above the threshold.

  Mr. Roger Evans
  The latest available information is that the number of claimants with an adult dependency increase to unemployment benefit in Great Britain, as at May 1994, was 73,000 and, as at November 1993, was 82,000. Figures are for a point in time, rounded to the nearest thousand, and based on a 5 per cent sample. They are derived from the "Half yearly analysis of unemployed claimants", a copy of which is in the Library.

  Information on the number of refusals of adult dependency increases by reason is not available.

  Incapacity Benefits
  Mr. Bradley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when the exercise of monitoring the revised medical control procedures introduced for incapacity benefits will be completed and published.

  Mr. Hague
  The current medical control arrangements for benefits for incapacity will be superseded by the introduction of incapacity benefit from 13 April 1995. Data collection from the monitoring of the procedural changes introduced in April 1993 will continue for some time after that. We expect analysis to be completed towards the end of the summer.

  Net Incomes
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security, pursuant to the answer to the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) of 2 February,Official Report, columns 825–26, if he will provide a comparable table on income distribution for quintiles 2, 3 and 4.

  Mr. Burt
  The following table gives the change in the real net incomes for quintiles 2, 3 and 4 of the United Kingdom income distribution of families with children for the period 1979 to 1991–92. 1991–92 is the two calendar years combined.
  711
  Information is given both before and after housing costs.

  Percentage change in real incomes of 2nd, 3rd and 4th quintiles of families with children, 1979 to 1991–92

  Quintile 2 20–40 per cent.

  Quintile 3 40–60 per cent.

  Quintile 4 60–80 per cent.

  Before housing costs

  (7)

  22

  33

  After housing costs

  (1)

  20

  32

  Notes:

  1. In the table quintiles 2,3 and 4 refer to the second from bottom, middle and second from top quintiles respectively.

  2. Percentage growth estimates are calculated from the median income of each quintile.

  3. Estimates in brackets () are particularly uncertain; see appendix 5 of "Households Below Average Income 1979 to 1991–92—a copy of which is in the Library—for details of the tests applied to estimates of changes in real incomes.

  Income of families with children: quintile medians for 1979 and 1991–92

  Quintile 1 bottom 20 per cent.

  Quintile 2 20–40 per cent.

  Quintile 3 40–60 per cent.

  Quintile 4 60–80 per cent.

  Quintile 5 Top 20 per cent.

  Before housing costs

  1979

  103

  138

  165

  198

  261

  1991–92

  100

  148

  202

  263

  394

  After housing costs

  1979

  86

  117

  141

  172

  227

  1991–92

  76

  118

  169

  226

  339

  Notes:

  1. The figures relate to the median income level in each quintile in April 1994 prices. Estimates are for weekly income and are given to the nearest whole £.

  2. The figures given are for equivalised income.

  3. All estimates are subject to sampling error.

  Before housing costs the income level of the 21st percentile of the income distribution of families with children is the same in 1979 as in 1991–92. After housing costs the equivalent figure is approximately the 29th percentile.

  Newcastle Estate
  Mr. Trotter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make it his policy that as part of the proposed redevelopment of his Department's Newcastle estate the new office will be in the Tyneside area and will not involve any loss of jobs locally.

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  The administration of the Department's Newcastle estate is the responsibility of Mr. George Bertram, the acting chief executive of the Contributions Agency. He will write to my hon. Friend.

  Letter from George Bertram to Mr. Neville Trotter dated 14 February 1995:
  As Acting Chief Executive of the Contributions Agency, I have responsibility for control and administration of the Department of Social Security's Newcastle Estate. I have been asked to reply to your question to the Secretary of State for Social Security regarding the proposed development of the Estate.
  The Newcastle Estate Development Project seeks to provide new accommodation within a ten mile radius (approximately) of Newcastle city centre. This encompasses the whole of the Tyneside
  712
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security, pursuant to the answer to the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) of 2 February,Official Report, columns 825–26, on income distribution, if he will indicate (a) the numbers in each quintile in each year, (b) the actual income levels in each year for each quintile, 1 to 5 and (c) at what income level there was no change in income (i) before housing costs and (ii) after housing cost; and if he will provide a regional analysis of real income levels in each quintile, 1 to 5.

  Mr. Burt
  Information is provided for the United Kingdom as a whole. Information is not available on a regional basis.

  In 1979 there were 5.5 million individuals in each quintile of the income distribution of families with children. For 1991–92 the equivalent figure is 5 million. 1991–92 is the two calendar years combined.

  The available information is in the table.

  area and also extends into Wearside, whilst skirting the boundaries of Durham and Northumberland.

  Organisations who express interest will, over the coming months, develop proposals to satisfy our accommodation requirements, the evaluation of which will consider all factors including location, and most importantly, value for money for the taxpayer.

  The aim of the project is to provide modern, multi-functional accommodation for the use of DSS staff currently on the Newcastle Estate. As you know, the Department continues to seek efficiency savings and possible future reductions in staffing levels may coincide with a change of location. However, the rationalisation of the accommodation will not itself involve any loss of jobs although the physical location of the jobs may change within the ten mile radius.

  I hope you find this information helpful.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Poultry Transport
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the regulations applying to the transport of poultry; and if he will make a statement.
  713
  Mrs. Browning
  The following orders, made under the Animal Health Act 1981, apply to the transport of poultry:

  The Transit of Animals (General) Order 1973

  The Welfare of Poultry Transport Order 1988

  The Welfare of Animals during Transport Order 1994.

  Consultants
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what are his latest estimates of the expenditure on all external consultants, including management consultants, for each year since 1987, in 1994 prices, for his Department and its agencies; and what are the quantified annual cost savings which such expenditure has resulted in.

  Mr. Jack
  Expenditure on consultants in each of the years concerned was as follows:

  Financial year

  Expenditure £

  Expenditure at 1994 prices £

  1987–88

  44,015

  61,887

  1988–89

  1,174,114

  1,547,016

  1989–90

  2,972,150

  3,661,506

  1990–91

  4,495,793

  5,125,327

  1991–92

  5,374,284

  5,761,665

  1992–93

  7,010,814

  7,238,665

  1993–94

  12,169,785

  12,169,785

  1994–95

  111,534,575

  —

  1 Estimated.

  The figures for 1987–88 exclude computer consultants.

  It is not possible to quantify savings accruing from this expenditure, since most of the benefits derive from new systems and working methods, and from the consultants' expertise in certain fields, in which permanent staff do not have the necessary knowledge and experience.

  Live Animal Exports
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what checks were made that the calves unable to be flown from Coventry airport on 3 February were fed, watered and rested every 15 hours; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Browning
  Two consignments of calves that had arrived at the airport were returned to their premises of origin after planned flights were disrupted by demonstrators. A third consignment was turned back before reaching the airport. Two of the three would have reached their premises of origin within the 15-hour statutory period. The third could not and the calves were therefore returned under a notice requiring their feeding and watering immediately on arrival at the home premises.

  As a result of this incident we are now insisting that exporters make contingency arrangements for the animals to be lairaged in premises near the airport in the event of similar disruptions.

  Fur Farms
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many mink were killed on fur farms in the United Kingdom in 1994; and how their carcasses were disposed of.
  714
  Mrs. Browning
  This information is not available.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many people were employed in the killing of animals on fur farms in the United Kingdom in 1994; and what were their qualifications for this.

  Mrs. Browning
  In monitoring welfare standards on fur farms the state veterinary service takes account of guidelines laid down in the recommendation concerning fur animals adopted by the Council of Europe in 1990. That recommendation specifies that the killing of farmed fur-bearing animals must be carried out by a competent person. However, no specific qualifications are laid down and information regarding the number of people involved is not available.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assessment he has made of the environment needs of farmed mink and Arctic fox; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Browning
  The Farm Animal Welfare Council's review of fur farming in 1989 considered the environmental needs of farmed mink and fox. It concluded that there was insufficient evidence to make specific recommendations on the keeping of fur-bearing animals and recommended that the industry should carry out further research.

  The Farm Animal Welfare Council has recently given its views on a report by Respect For Animals which made certain recommendations regarding the keeping of mink and Arctic fox. Interested organisations are being consulted on this further advice from FAWC.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many reports he has received of mink escaping from fur farms on the Isle of Wight in the last 10 years.

  Mrs. Browning
  Over the last 10 years no reports have been received by this Ministry of mink escaping from the licensed mink farm on the Isle of Wight.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many licences for fur factory farms of the Isle of Wight he has issued in the last 10 years.

  Mrs. Browning
  In each of the last 10 years only one licence has been issued to keep mink at premises on the Isle of Wight.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what checks are carried out to ensure that pentobarbiturate used killing animals on fur farms has been properly and legally authorised and obtained.

  Mrs. Browning
  Products used to kill animals require authorisation under the marketing authorisation for veterinary Medicinal Products Regulations 1994. All such products are categorised as prescription-only medicines and are subject to the usual checks for product of that sort. Members of the state veterinary service, as part of their duties during regular visits to all farms for welfare purposes, including fur farms, check that veterinary medicines have been properly authorised and obtained.

  Consultants
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the occasions during the last five years when his Ministry or its agencies has taken legal action against a consultancy firm; and what were the reasons in each case.
  715
  Mr. Jack
  No central records are kept, but so far as we can ascertain no such actions have been taken.

  Public Appointments
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, pursuant to his answer of 17 January,Official Report, column 447, how many appointments to public positions have been made by his Department in the last year.

  Mr. Jack
  In the last year, my right hon. Friend has made 205 appointments to those bodies listed in "Public Bodies 1994". Of these, 80 were re-appointments and 125 were new appointments.

  Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what percentage of compensation paid in respect of animals slaughtered as BSE carriers has subsequently been discovered to have been paid in respect of animals which were not infected in each of the past five years; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Browning
  The percentage of cattle slaughtered as BSE suspects which were subsequently not confirmed after laboratory examination for the past five years is as follows:

  Year

  Percentage unconfirmed

  1990

  15

  1991

  14

  1992

  15

  1993

  16

  1994

  123

  1 Provisional figure.

  However, it is not possible without disproportionate costs to divide the total amount paid out in compensation into the percentages for confirmed and unconfirmed cases. The compensation paid varies from animal to animal according to market value within a ceiling which is adjusted monthly—the indicative market price. The ceiling is increased by 25 per cent. for unconfirmed cases.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, pursuant to his answer of 31 January,Official Report, column 645, what was the nature of the other experiments which revealed that cows milk contains no detectable BSE infectivity.

  Mrs. Browning
  The other experiments involved challenge of mice with:

  A) A mixture of milk and udder by feeding;

  B) Milk alone by feeding;

  C) Udder alone by inoculation; and

  D) Milk alone by inoculation;

  All derived from cows with clinical signs of BSE and confirmed by microscopic examination of the brain. No infectivity was detected in any of these studies.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, pursuant to his answer of 31 January,Official Report, column 647, how the sterilisation of specified bovine offals is undertaken.

  Mrs. Browning
  The term "sterilised" is defined in the Specified Bovine Offal (Prohibition) Regulations 1989, as amended, and has the meaning as given in the Meat (Sterilisation and Staining) Regulations 1989.
  716
  Under existing legislation, specified bovine offal must either be sterilised or stained at the place of its removal—that is, at the slaughterhouse. The sterilisation option is rarely used by slaughterhouses and the Government have recently consulted with interested parties on proposals to withdraw this option for slaughterhouses.

  SBO will continue to be sent from slaughterhouses to rendering plants for treatment before being buried or incinerated under licence.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, pursuant to his answer of 31 January,Official Report, column 646, what was the monthly number of cases of BSE confirmed in the United Kingdom during 1994 that (a) were born before 18 July 1988 and (b) after 18 July 1988.

  Mrs. Browning
  The number of confirmed cases of BSE in Great Britain for 1994 is as follows:

  Year

  Born before 18 July 1988

  Born after 18 July 1988

  January

  1,559

  637

  February

  2,312

  805

  March

  2,160

  1,119

  April

  1,643

  945

  May

  1,425

  558

  June

  1,480

  1,024

  July

  948

  493

  August

  1,019

  539

  September

  992

  884

  October

  1,071

  940

  November

  1,079

  816

  December

  685

  495

  Total

  16,373

  9,255

  The number of cases of BSE in Northern Ireland for 1994 is as follows. The ruminant feed ban in NI came into force on 11 January 1989.

  Year

  Born before11 January 1989

  Born after 11 January 1989

  January

  44

  8

  February

  36

  7

  March

  42

  7

  April

  28

  2

  May

  11

  0

  June

  23

  6

  July

  19

  2

  August

  23

  4

  September

  20

  8

  October

  22

  3

  November

  22

  7

  December

  17

  2

  Total

  307

  56

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, pursuant to his answer of 31 January,Official Report, column 645, what was the apparent source of the infection in the cow born in April 1989.

  Mrs Browning
  It is not possible to precisely indicate specific routes of infection for most individual cases. The breeding records relating to the case in question were incomplete and the date of birth was therefore estimated by its dentition. The animal's mother has been sold but has not been reported as a BSE suspect elsewhere.

  Milk Quota
  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many representations he has received concerning delays in transferring milk quota by the Intervention Board.

  Mr. Jack
  The Ministry received 57 representations concerning the delays in processing milk quota transactions by the Intervention Board following the transfer of responsibility for administering the milk quota system to the board on 1 April 1994. These delays were due in part to technical problems with the Intervention Board's new computer system, but the principal cause was the delay on the part of the milk marketing boards in providing essential information. These problems have now been overcome and the processing of quota transactions is proceeding satisfactorily.

  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many transfer applications the Intervention Board had for(a) the sale and (b) the leasing of milk quota in England and in Wales.

  Mr. Jack
  As milk quotas can be transferred throughout the United Kingdom, separate figures are not available for England and Wales. For the whole of the UK the Intervention Board had received 24,404 applications for the lease of milk quotas by the end of the leasing period on 31 December 1994, and 5,762 applications for the permanent transfer of milk quotas by 13 February 1995.

  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what has been the total litreage of milk quota transferred by the Intervention Board(a) by sale and (b) for leasing to date.

  Mr. Jack
  The total litreage of milk quota processed by the Intervention Board at 13 February 1995 was 341,000,000 litres by permanent transfer and 1,339,000,000 litres by lease.

  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what has been the average time spent by the Intervention Board in processing applications for transfer of milk quota by(a) sale and (b) leasing in England and in Wales.

  Mr. Jack
  After initial processing delays when milk quota records were being transferred from the milk marketing boards and subsequently amended following vesting day changes on 1 November 1994 in England, Wales and Scotland, the Intervention Board is now processing the majority of milk quota leases and transfers within 15 days of receipt of acceptable applications.

DEFENCE

  Land Sales
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what action he has taken to ensure that sale by tender or auction is not the invariable method of approved disposal where another method would achieve better value; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  It is our normal practice to dispose of the freehold of surplus land—in which there is no former owner of pre-emptive interest—on the open market by competition, so as to maximise the financial return. A range of other methods may, however, be used if 718
  professional advice indicates that such alternatives would produce a better value.

  Departmental Property
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what action his Department has taken to ensure the provision of an efficient and cost-effective service to customers of his Department's property services; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  A new Defence Estate Organisation is to be formed which will incorporate the staff who are involved in providing services to the occupiers of the defence estate. The intention is that this will provide a top-down oversight of the estate and thereby improve the efficiency of those services. As announced on 17 January, the chief executive of the new organisation will take up his appointment on 1 April.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is his policy as to the notice given to agents appointed to dispose of property by reference to the date of closure of a service; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  When disposing of surplus property, it is our policy to seek the smoothest possible transition from service to civilian use by ensuring that as much notice as possible of closure and vacation dates together with other appropriate information is given to appointed agents.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what action is taken to ensure that the use of joint ventures is encouraged so that optimal value is achieved for property disposals; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  It is our practice to consider alternative methods of disposal, including joint venture, where professional advice indicates that conventional open market sale would not achieve optimal value.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he has established a clear distinction between his Department as estate owner and the various budget holders as occupiers; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  The responsibilities of the budget holders as occupiers of the defence estate are clearly established. They are responsible for the efficient and economic use of the estate in ensuring that the armed forces are properly prepared for war. Their responsibilities include the maintenance of the estate, taking account of operational requirements, conservation, the interests of tenants and, wherever possible, the generation of income and allowing access by the public. The budget holders are ultimately responsible to my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Defence, in whom title to the estate is vested, for the discharge of these duties.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment he has made of the effect of disposal pressures on the achievement of optimal value for property disposals; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  We are conscious that many factors such as the size and nature of the establishment; the local planning environment; the state of the market; and the timing of the disposal can impact on the achievement of optimal value. All such factors are taken into account in developing a disposal strategy for a site.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what action his Department has taken to promote the effective utilisation of landed property and its
  719
  rationalisation, reductions in cost of use and operation and consequently properly planned redundancy and disposal; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  The director of estate rationalisation, defence lands service is specifically charged with identifying opportunities for rationalisation and disposal of the defence estate, so as to promote its best and most cost-effective use; this includes ensuring that estates issues are taken fully into account in investment appraisals and studies.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the normal time scale for the disposal of surplus property; what discretion is given to the defence estate in this respect; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  In common with other Government Departments, it is our policy to dispose of surplus property, wherever practicable, within three years. It is accepted that for some sites a longer-term disposal strategy is required, and in those circumstances, a flexible approach is adopted.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will restructure the defence land service and the defence works service and infrastructure to form one overall organisation; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  It was announced on 17 January that the first chief executive of the Defence Estate Organisation will be Mr. Brian Hirst who will join the Ministry of Defence on 1 April this year. The new organisation will incorporate the defence lands service, the defence works service and the infrastructure and logistics, infrastructure, division.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has to amend budgetary rules related to anuality to ensure that optimal value is achieved for property disposals; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  There are no plans to seek changes to the existing end-year flexibility scheme which allows funding to be carried forward from one year to the next subject to certain criteria being met. All defence operating costs, including property disposals, and defence procurement expenditure are eligible for carry-forward under this scheme.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if all his Department's property assets are valued; if a comprehensive database has been established; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  Some parts of the defence estate have already been valued and other elements are to be valued under a programme which is due to be completed by the end of 1996. As a separate but related exercise, a new database is to be created containing a more detailed record of property assets held by my Department.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what action he is taking to ensure his Department's estate becomes more proactive in overall occupational and budgeting decisions; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  Defence estate issues are already given the fullest possible exposure in Departmental studies and other initiatives involving occupational and budgeting decisions.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is his strategic plan encompassing property interests at his Department; and if he will make a statement.
  720
  Mr. Soames
  It is our objective to manage the defence estate so that it supports, cost effectively, the military capability of the armed forces in peace and war. Property which is no longer required for these purposes is disposed of.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence for what reasons phasing plans are used for large-scale disposals of his Department's property; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  A phased disposal strategy may be employed under various circumstances including: where market supply exceeds demand; where planning objectives can best be met by staged release of land; or, where the financial return from sale cannot otherwise be maximised.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what measures he takes to ensure value for money in property maintenance in his Department.

  Mr. Soames
  Following my Department's untying from the Property Services Agency on 1 April 1990, property maintenance became the responsibility of individual top-level budget holders. At each unit which controls maintenance programmes, three independent parties undertake clearly defined tasks. The Department appoints a service or civilian officer as property manager who is advised by a contractor—establishment works consultant. Another contractor acts as works services manager carrying out the tasks. This system, centering on contractorisation, reinforced by independent reviews and audits, is intended to ensure best value for money.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what action he is taking to ensure his Department's property estate places greater emphasis on active asset management and asset realisation; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  The Department is taking a number of steps to place greater emphasis on the management of the defence estate as an asset. These include the creation of the Defence Estate Organisation which will provide a top-down view of all estate related activities. In addition, the estate is being valued as a precursor to the introduction of resource accounting and the valuation work is linked to the creation of a new property database.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence in what circumstances his Department's estate is allowed to enter into term contracts with the private sector; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  As with all contracts, term contracts are used when they are both appropriate and to my Department's advantage in terms of value for money. The scale and nature of the demand and delivery requirements are also factors used to determine whether a term contract is the most appropriate means to meet a particular need.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what advice his Department gives in the preparation of planning briefs for significant disposals of property, including joint ventures, to ensure appropriate greater local authority involvement; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  It is normal practice to seek to develop, in co-operation with the local authority, a planning brief for large or complex sites.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the surplus air bases in the eastern counties of the United Kingdom that(a) have and (b) have

  721
  not a phasing plan for disposal; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  The following air bases in the counties of Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk have been declared surplus to RAF requirements: RAF Bentwaters, RAF Sculthorpe, RAF Swanton Morley, RAF West Raynham and RAF Woodbridge. An offer has been accepted for the sale of RAF Bentwaters in its entirety. No disposal plans have been finalised for the other sites, several of which remain under consideration for alternative defence uses.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if his Department will liaise with the Department of National Heritage and other appropriate bodies where buildings need to be preserved for posterity; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  My Department has developed good working relationships at all levels with the Department of National Heritage, English Heritage and other national heritage bodies with the aim of achieving the highest standards of conservation of its historic buildings.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make it his policy to ensure that buildings declared surplus but which have feasible alternative uses are not neglected to such an extent as to make their disposal at a later date more difficult and less cost-effective; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  It is already our policy to take steps, wherever possible, to maintain the viability of surplus buildings which have alternative use potential and to explore the scope for realising revenue through their short-term commercial use where disposal of the freehold is not in immediate prospect.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what account is taken in his strategy for control of his property operations of heritage policy and the military married quarter estate; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  Within the overall strategy of holding the minimum amount of land and buildings necessary to support the operations of the armed forces, historic buildings are considered for their suitability alongside other buildings. Many continue in full use and others are being adapted to a new defence use but where an historic building is redundant, my Department seeks to dispose of it for an alternative use which will preserve its architectural and historic value.

  The Department is committed to ensuring that the number of married quarters is kept to the minimum necessary to meet service demands. Responsibility for management of the estate will pass to the defence housing executive on 1 April 1995.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what consideration he has given to forming a holding agency to cover those properties held by his Department for which there is no immediate market; and if he will make a statement.
  722
  Mr. Soames
  The House of Commons Defence Committee report on the defence estate recommended that consideration be given to the creation of a separate agency to hold and dispose of surplus land. This recommendation will be given further consideration when the chief executive of the new Defence Estate Organisation takes up his appointment on 1 April 1995.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what steps he has taken to learn from the experience gained by the NHS in a conservation strategy for his Department's buildings; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  Officials in the Department of National Heritage who have been working with the NHS on their conservation strategy also work with my Department and policy is being developed along similar lines. In particular, my officials are working with English Heritage on the selective listing of aviation structures, dockyards and barracks, on which thematic surveys are being carried out. In addition, officials from my Department held a meeting in August last year with the chairman of the historic hospitals working group to discuss common problems and respective approaches.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what phasing plans exist for disposal of Old Park barracks, Dover; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  Discussion with the local authority and other interested parties concerning a single regeneration budget to assist in the development of the site is ongoing. A planning brief has been agreed for the site and phased development is an option for disposal.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list those properties(a) sold by his Department and (b) in the process of being sold where the sale involved a joint venture with private or public sector partners; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  Although, to date, no Ministry of Defence properties have been sold through joint venture schemes, the following properties are in the process of being sold through such schemes: the former central vehicle depot, Hilton, Derbyshire, and the former ordnance storage depot, Ruddington, Nottinghamshire.

  Departmental Assets
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what action he is taking to ensure that there is greater emphasis on active asset management and asset realisation in his Department; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  A number of financial management improvements are being introduced as a result of the defence costs study. These include conventional asset accounting techniques, supported by appropriate commercial software, which are to be introduced throughout the Department.

  Royal Air Force Finningley
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what has been the cost of running Royal Air Force Finningley in each of the last 10 years.
  723
  Mr. Soames
  The cost of running Royal Air Force Finningley, including the cost of operating the units based there, for each of the last three financial years is as follows:

  £ million

  1991–1992

  29.5

  1992–1993

  27.5

  1993–1994

  31.2

  Information for financial years 1984–85 to 1990–91 is not readily available and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Simulated low-altitude Bombing
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence who can request and obtain simulated low-altitude bombing attacks on publicly owned buildings.

  Mr. Soames
  Any public body can request that its premises be used as targets for simulated low-level attacks. Any request would be considered on its merits taking into account not only the reasons for the request, but the usual criteria for selecting suitable simulated targets.

  Land Contamination
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the most recent assessment he has made of land contamination at(a) the Defence Research Agency, Woolwich arsenal and (b) Royal Ordnance, Waltham abbey; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  The royal arsenal, Woolwich, comprises two sites. A number of studies have been commissioned on the west site; the ground study report has been completed, but the results of the building investigation are still awaited. Studies for the east site have been commissioned but not completed. The most recent assessment of contamination of Waltham abbey was conducted in August 1992.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what instructions his Department has given in respect of the production of land quality statements for service establishments; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  As part of an on-going review of land contamination and the defence estate, steps are being taken to incorporate the production of a land quality statement into site disposal procedures. Appropriate guidance for site occupiers is being prepared.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what budget is allocated for his Department's potential liabilities in respect of contaminated land; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  Individual budget holders within my Department are responsible for all aspects of site management, including any survey and decontamination work, and for making appropriate financial provision.

  Burtonwood
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence for what reasons his defence land agent did not inform Warrington borough council local planning department of the operational decision made in respect of 724
  Burtonwood; what was the role of that local authority's economic development unit in promoting its availability; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  RAF Burtonwood has not been declared surplus to MOD requirements, pending consideration of an alternative defence use. The defence land agent has had on-going discussions with Warrington borough council regarding short-term lettings while the future of the site is determined, and also about non-defence uses in the event that the site was declared surplus. Warrington borough council will be advised when a final decision has been taken on the future of RAF Burtonwood and consulted fully about the future of the site.

  "Instructions for Opening Fire in Northern Ireland"
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will publish the current wording on the "Instructions for Opening Fire in Northern Ireland" issued to British armed forces.

  Mr. Soames
  Instructions concerning the use of firearms in Northern Ireland are part of rules of engagement which, like other operational documents, are not made publicly available.

  Battle of Britain Memorial Flight
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what action he is taking to maintain the battle of Britain memorial flight's Lancaster in an airworthy condition; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  All necessary steps are being taken to retain the BBMF Lancaster in an airworthy condition.

  Rules of Engagement, Bosnia
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will publish the current wording on the cards issued to armed British peacekeeping troops in Bosnia in respect of rules of engagement.

  Mr. Soames
  The wording on the cards issued to British troops in Bosnia is part of rules of engagement which, like other operational documents, are not made publicly available.

  Defence Land Service
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the timetable for informing the defence lands service in respect of operational decisions; and what account is taken of its planning systems.

  Mr. Soames
  Our procedures require that the defence lands service should be closely involved from an early stage in studies where defence estate issues are, or are likely to be, a factor in operational decisions.

  Private Lee Clegg
  Mr. Mullin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what action was taken against the officer in charge of the patrol at the time of the incident which led to the imprisonment of Private Lee Clegg; and if he will make a statement.
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  Mr. Soames
  The officer concerned was tried in the Belfast high court on two counts: making a statement with intent to pervert the course of justice; and obstructing the police. The officer was found not guilty of both charges.

  Gulf War Syndrome
  Mrs. Currie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if any of the volunteers who underwent tests for(a) inoculations and (b) nerve agent pre-treatment sets at Porton Down in preparation for the Gulf war were women.

  Mr. Soames
  This is a matter for the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment, Porton Down under its framework document. I have asked the chief executive, CBDE to write to the hon. Member.

  Letter from Graham Pearson to Mrs. Edwina Currie dated 15 February 1995:

  1. Your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Defence asking if any of the volunteers who underwent tests for (a) inoculations and (b) nerve agent pre treatment sets at Porton Down in preparation for the Gulf War were women has been passed to me to answer as Chief Executive of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment.

  2. The role of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment is to carry out work to ensure that the UK Armed Forces are provided with effective protective measures against the threat that chemical and biological weapons may be used against them. As part of this the potential hazard of possible chemical and biological warfare is assessed and the effectiveness of medical countermeasures evaluated.

  3. No Service volunteers participated in studies on inoculations and nerve agent pre-treatment sets (NAPS) in preparation for the Gulf War. However, a number of studies into NAPS using Service volunteers were carried out primarily between 1970 and the early 1980s at the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment, RMCS Shrivenham, Dover, Bulford, Cambridge Military Hospital as well as some collaborative work with the Institution of Aviation Medicine and more recently in 1993 at the Cambridge Military Hospital. These studies were to evaluate the acceptability of using pyridostigmine bromide and whether such use had adverse side effects or was affected by the nature of the duties of the Service personnel. These studies which lasted for up to eight weeks included the assessment of the effects of NAPS on volunteers undergoing strenuous exercise and of a thermally stressful environment. Our records indicate that a total of about 11 female Service volunteers received NAPS during these studies.

  4. Insofar as vaccines are concerned, over many years the staff at the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment and previously at the Microbiological Research Establishment at Porton Down engaged in work involving potential biological warfare agents have been vaccinated to protect them against the microorganisms they are working with in the laboratory. Over the past five years this has involved the vaccination about 150 female personnel.

  Mrs. Currie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will set out the conditions and illnesses which have so far been diagnosed among those British veterans claiming to be suffering from Gulf war syndrome.

  Mr. Soames
  Initial findings from my Department's Gulf war medical assessment programme show that those diagnosed so far are suffering from medical conditions which can be categorised as follows: approximately 25 per cent. are suffering from psychological conditions; 20 per cent. from serious, but well-recognised, medical conditions; 10 per cent. from chronic fatigue syndrome and the remainder from minor physical ailments. None of the conditions has been found to be peculiar to service in the Gulf. There is no single illness, major or minor, common to those examined and no evidence to suggest the existence of a Gulf war syndrome. More detailed 726
  preliminary findings will be made public shortly, when 100 individuals have been fully assessed and diagnosed.

  Mrs. Currie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many service men and women claiming to be suffering from Gulf war syndrome have registered a claim for compensation; how many have presented themselves to his Department's medical officers for examination; and how many have been assessed to date.

  Mr. Soames
  To date, my Department has received notification of 483 potential claims in respect of alleged ill health as a result of service in the Gulf. Approximately one third of these are from serving armed forces personnel and the remainder from former personnel. Some 39 of these potential claims have subsequently been withdrawn.

  So far, 233 personnel have requested medical assessment through the Gulf war assessment programme, of whom about 25 per cent. are serving. Some 90 of these have been examined to date.

  Falkland Islands
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many members of the armed forces are currently garrisoned on the Falkland Islands; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  Figure 2 of the Statement on the Defence Estimates 1994 lists the British military units deployed to the Falkland Islands. It is not our practice to reveal precise details of the numbers of personnel involved. We keep force levels in the Falkland Islands under review and, if the need arises, the garrison can be reinforced at very short notice using the airfield at Mount Pleasant.

  Consultants
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the occasions during the last five years when his Ministry or its agencies has taken legal action against a consultancy firm; and what were the reasons in each case.

  Mr. Freeman
  I am not aware of any such actions.

  Public Appointments
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 17 January,Official Report, column 451, how many appointments to public positions have been made by his Department in the last year.

  Mr. Soames
  The information is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Haymes Garth
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence on what grounds he has decided not to publish the independent investigation by KPMG Peat Marwick into the official residence known as Haymes Garth.

  Mr. Soames
  I have made a full report to Parliament on this matter, and do not believe it would be appropriate to publish the report by KPMG Peat Marwick, which is confidential and was prepared for the use of senior management and Ministers.

  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 10 February to the hon. Member for Fareham (Sir P. Lloyd),Official Report, column 465, if he will specify the occasions on which the

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  House was provided with wrong information concerning expenditure on Sir Sandy Wilson's official residence, Haymes Garth; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Soames
  The two occasions on which the House was provided with incorrect information on this subject were in the answers given by the then Minister of State for the Armed Forces, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. J. Hanley), first to the hon. Member on 9 February 1994,Official Report, columns 362–63, which put the figure at some £250,000, and, subsequently to the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Jones) on 29 March, Official Report, column 732, which gave a figure of around £260,000. In his answer to the hon. Member for Dorset, West (Sir J. Spicer) on 4 July 1994, Official Report, column 85, the then Minister of State for the Armed Forces provided the revised figure of £387,000 and expressed his regret that an incorrect figure had been given in the preceding answer.

  Gulf War Veterans
  Mrs. Currie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what action is taken to ensure that ex-service men and women who have been assessed as suffering from medical conditions following their service in the Gulf war are followed up to ensure adequate care and treatment.

  Mr. Soames
  The health care of individuals who have left the armed forces is the responsibility of the NHS. In accordance with standard medical practice, and to ensure continuity of health care, the medical reports on those ex-service personnel assessed by my Department are therefore forwarded to the patient's general practitioner. These reports contain recommendations for further care where necessary.

  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many individuals have returned for a second examination under his Department's Gulf war veterans' medical assessment programme.

  Mr. Soames
  Some 14 out of the 90 patients seen to date under the Department's Gulf medical assessment programme have attended for further examinations by the service consultant co-ordinating the programme on one or more occasions.

  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for 728
  Defence how many People who have taken part in his Department's Gulf war veterans' medical assessment programme. are (a) currently in the armed forces and (b) were in the armed forces at the time of their assessment but have since left the services.

  Mr. Soames
  Some 24 out of the 90 patients seen to date were in the armed forces at the time of their assessment. Information relating to the number of individual who may have left the services since being assessed is not readily available.

  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence which separate tests are incorporate into the examination of an individual under his Department's Gulf war veterans' medical assessment programme

  Mr. Soames
  All tests offered to individuals coming forward for assessment are tailored to the particular requirements of each patient after considering the medical and occupational history, the reported symptoms and clinical signs found on initial examination. Possible tests include: full blood assay, radiological examination —CT/MRI scan—electrocardiograph, endoscopy and psychiatric or psychometric assessment but further tests or referrals are available when required.

  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how much each examination of an individual under his Department's Gulf war veterans' medical assessment programme costs.

  Mr. Soames
  No separate or central record of the cost of the assessments under this programme is maintained.

  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many individuals have been referred to a second doctor for examination under his Department's Gulf war veterans' medical assessment programme.

  Mr. Soames
  Current records show that 48 out of the 90 individuals seen to date have been referred to another consultant following initial assessment.

  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the projected total cost of his Department's Gulf war veterans' medical assessment programme.

  Mr. Soames
  The assessments do not form a separately funded programme and their total costs would, in any case, depend upon final numbers of those coming forward, which are still uncertain.

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

Lord McConnell
The Right Honourable Robert William Brian McConnell, having been created Baron McConnell, of Lisburn in the County of Antrim, for life —Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Grey of Naunton and the Lord Cooke of Islandreagh.

Hospitals: Emergency Admissions
2.48 p.m.
Baroness Jay of Paddington Baroness Jay of Paddington asked Her Majesty's Government:
What are the causes of the recent rise in the number of emergency admissions to hospitals.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Cumberlege): My Lords, we do not know the reasons why there is an increase in emergency admissions. Studies looking at the causes are under way and more detailed information will be available later in the year.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Is she considering the report by the National Association of Health Authorities and Trusts? Is she aware that that report has already suggested that it may be part of the operation of the internal market which is leading to the very rapid rise in emergency admissions? For example, are GP fund-holders bypassing routine admissions in order to get fast-track admissions and taking the emergency route? Does she agree that once patients are in hospital, managers are under such financial pressure to improve what is called their patient throughput that they are discharging people too early and they are re-admitted as emergencies?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, there is no firm evidence about that at all. That is why we are running the research studies, five o l which are due to take place. We shall be working with all the associations, including the joint consultative committee and the Confederation of Royal Medical Colleges as well as the Trust Federation and the national association.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, if no one else wishes to intervene, perhaps I may press the Minister a little further on this point. If she does not yet accept the findings of the National Association of Health Authorities and Trusts, does she accept the findings of the clinical advisory group of the Department of Health, which also suggests that the commercial pressures of the
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internal market are leading to that extraordinary rise of 13 per cent. excess emergency admissions this year compared with last year?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I have already said to the noble Baroness that there is no firm evidence. That is why we are running the research projects. We want to find out the reasons. There are a number of commentators who put forward suppositions, such as an increase in asthma cases. At the moment there is no definition of an emergency case. We shall also be looking at that. Overall, it is quite interesting that GP referral rates to A&E departments vary between three and fourfold. We shall be considering all those conundrums.
Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the complication rate for those patients who are treated on a day-case basis is exactly half the complication rate for those who stay in hospital longer than one day?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, the pattern of medicine is changing very fast indeed. Increasingly operations are being carried out on a day-case basis, rather than have the patients admitted to hospital.
Lord Carr of Hadley: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that whatever may be the reasons for the increase, it is not necessarily a bad thing? Does she further agree that it may indicate a greater flexibility in responses from the service?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I mentioned the GP referral rate. I believe that as waiting times are slashed and people wait less time to be admitted, GPs clearly feel that it is worth while to send patients to hospital to be investigated and sometimes admitted.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, will the Minister agree to look at another reason for the increase in emergency admissions? Could it have something to do with the lack of community care that exists in some parts of our country, so that elderly people become emergency admissions when that normally would not have been the case?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, we do not have evidence on that matter. That is why we are running the five pilot schemes. It is interesting that not only has the number of emergency admissions increased but so have the referral rates to the London Ambulance Service and ambulance services around the country. The increase in their calls was 8.5 per cent. last year alone. There is something rather strange going on and we need to find out why.
Lord Rea: My Lords, will the noble Baroness accept the logic of the situation? Will she accept that there has been a great increase in the turnover in London hospitals, with a diminution in the number of beds? That has meant a much shorter stay for each patient. Is she aware that many people may well have been discharged

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rather too soon and, therefore, have had to be readmitted in a hurry? That is certainly the experience of many of my colleagues in primary health care in London.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, we do not agree with that supposition at all. In fact, we know that the number of patients being treated is increasing. There always seems to be some kind of correlation between the number of patients treated and the number of patients admitted through accident and emergency departments. We intend to find out the reasons why.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, can the Minister say whether the results of the examination her department intends to undertake will be reported to the House?
Baroness Cumberlege: Yes, my Lords.

Historic Buildings: VAT on Repairs
2.54 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter Lord Boyd-Carpenter asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is the annual yield of VAT levied on the repair of historic buildings, including Grade I churches.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Henley): My Lords, the information is not available. Repairs to all buildings have been liable to the standard rate of VAT since 1973. The VAT paid on all repairs is charged by registered builders, who periodically declare to Customs and Excise the total VAT charged by them to all their customers without further analysis.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that not particularly informative reply, perhaps I may disclose an interest. I am the churchwarden of a beautiful church in the country now under repair. Is my noble friend aware that the amount raised by VAT on this kind of work is trifling in proportion to the national revenue, but harsh in its operation on those who are desperately trying to raise money to repair and keep beautiful buildings in good order? Is there not an overwhelming case for waiving VAT on this kind of transaction altogether?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I do not believe that there is an overwhelming case, as my noble friend Lord Mackay made clear on another occasion when he repeated that my right honourable friend had made clear that he has no plans for a reduced rate of VAT on anything other than domestic fuel and power. However, we see considerable scope for providing support for historic churches or other heritage buildings. Government funding for the repair of English historic buildings is channelled through English Heritage and this year English Heritage will receive over £105 million in government grants from the taxpayer. Of that, English
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Heritage has been allocated an estimated £44 million in grant assistance, of which £10.5 will go to assist church restoration and £4.3 million for cathedrals.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the Minister aware that under the European Community's sixth directive the Government have powers if they wish to use them? In the same way that lotteries and gaming institutions are exempt from VAT, it is open to the Minister to order that the tax on church repairs be stopped, if he wishes to do so. Does the Minister want to do so or not?
Lord Henley: My Lords, under the Sixth VAT Directive, to which the noble Lord referred, my right honourable friend has powers, under the list of suppliers of goods and services which may be subject to reduced rates of VAT, to apply a reduced rate of not less than 5 per cent. on specific items. That includes supply, construction, renovation and alteration of housing. It would not go as far as a reduced rate on churches because they do not come under the heading of housing or, for that matter, housing provided as part of the social policy. If we wanted to amend that list of suppliers in the Sixth VAT Directive at Annex 2, we would have to go to ECOFIN and unanimity would be required.
Lord Jenkins of Hillhead: My Lords, does the Minister recognise that this is a remarkable interchange, in that the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, does not blame the European Community for the position? Does not that show the strength of the case which has occurred to some of us for a long time past that one can, without paying VAT, build the ugliest building it is possible to design but one cannot repair the most beautiful building without paying it?
Lord Henley: My Lords, as I believe I made clear earlier, if it was an alteration, the VAT would be zero rated; it has been zero rated since 1984. As regards the first point, like the noble Lord I found it a remarkable intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Bruce. However, on this occasion, rather than attacking the European Commission, he is attacking my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Lord Clark of Kempston: My Lords, I too have a vested interest, in that I am chairman of an appeal for my local church in the country. Does not my noble friend agree that it is ludicrous that historic churches receive a grant from English Heritage, yet when that grant is used, the expenditure is subject to 17.5 per cent. VAT? Surely that must be changed.
Lord Henley: My Lords, as I made clear, my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer does not see a case for further reduced rates of VAT other than that for domestic fuel and power. As I made clear also, we provide help through grants and other help which we can provide to charities or charitable donations. There is also the possibility of help through the National Heritage Memorial Fund. We do not see a reason for making a specific exemption in this case.
The Bishop of Ripon: My Lords, in the light of the Minister's comments on English Heritage, does he

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accept that more is paid out by the churches in VAT than is received by them from English Heritage? Is that a satisfactory position?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I do not accept that case, as I made clear in my first Answer. The information is not available. I am aware that, when we had another debate on the subject on 31st January this year, the right reverend Prelate's colleague, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich, made that suggestion. As we made clear on that occasion, there is support from English Heritage and also help from the taxpayer in many other ways.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, can the noble Lord clear up some confusion? My noble friend Lord Bruce of Donington is seldom wrong on matters European. He told us that the Government have the power to vary the VAT rate on church repairs, yet the Minister said that we do not have the power unilaterally to do so and we would have to go to ECOFIN and obtain a unanimous decision to reduce or revoke VAT on church buildings. Can he tell us what the truth is? Will he also say whether, if the Government had the power to reduce VAT, they would do so?
Lord Henley: My Lords, as always, I was right and the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, was wrong. I shall send the noble Lord a copy of Annex 2 to the Sixth VAT Directive, to which I referred, which is the list of the supply of goods and services which may be subject to reduced rates of VAT. That would then be a decision for national parliaments. The list includes a number of different items and, on buildings, Item 9 mentions the supply, construction, renovation and alteration of housing provided as part of social policy. I do not believe that that covers churches.
As regards the wider issue, as I made clear, my right honourable friend does not see a case for a reduced rate of VAT. Therefore, even if such a power should be granted by an amendment to the list, he would not seek at present to make use of it.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, does it not strike my noble friend as a little odd that a lottery should be free of tax but the repair of an ancient and historic church is taxed?
Lord Henley: My Lords, as I made clear, my right honourable friend does not see a case for further complicating the VAT structure by bringing in reduced rates in this case.
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, how can my noble friend deny that a church is a house? Is he not aware that most of us were brought up to believe that a church is a house with a rather distinguished Resident?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I take the point made by my noble friend, but I do not believe that in law a church is defined as housing provided as part of the social policy.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, the right reverend prelate made the assertion that the amount paid out by the Church in respect of VAT is exceeded by the amount which it receives from English Heritage. The
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Minister disputed that. If he does not know the amount of VAT that has been paid, as he said in the earlier part of our proceedings, how does he know that the right reverend Prelate is wrong?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I hope I did not say that I disputed the figure. I simply said that I could not accept it.
Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, as the Minister can see that VAT is very unpopular in this case, will the Government put their mind to thinking of new ways to help people pay for listed historic buildings and churches?
Lord Henley: My Lords, that is obviously a matter for the Department of National Heritage. As I made clear, a number of sources of funds are available for assistance in heritage matters: support from English Heritage, similar arrangements in Scotland, support offered through the tax system for charitable donations, and so on. I could go on.
Lord Peston: My Lords, when the Minister answered his noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter by saying that the information was not available—and I believe that those were his exact words—did he mean that it was not available because it could not be made available, or was it not available because the Treasury has not done the work and made it available? The reason for asking the question follows what the right reverend Prelate asked. It would help all of us to gain a purchase on the question if we could relate the amount of money raised on VAT on repairs to the amount of grants given by English Heritage. It is difficult to make sense of the matter unless we have a numerical balance. Is there any way in which the Treasury could carry out the work and give us the answer, or is that impossible?
Lord Henley: My Lords, the figures are not available for the reasons I gave in the second part of my original Answer. The registered builders who periodically declare to the Customs the total VAT charged by them to all their customers do so without any further analysis.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, I must declare a similar interest to that of my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter. Does the Minister agree that the virtual financial bankruptcy of the Church of England means that we shall increasingly find that the funds which parishes have previously been able to devote to the repair of churches will have to be siphoned off by the diocese to keep the show on the road? What is really needed is an increase in order of magnitude, or perhaps two orders of magnitude, in the money given to English 'Heritage for that purpose. Is that not a much better way than introducing further aberrations into the VAT system?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I am grateful for my noble friend's support for not bringing further aberrations into the VAT system. I would rather not comment on the state of the Church's finances, but as regards the

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physical state of the churches, I remind my noble friend of what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich said in our previous debate:
"Taken overall, most of our ancient churches are in a better state of repair than since the Middle Ages and the quality of the work is such that it will last for generations".—[Official Report, 31/1/95; col. 1399.]

Breast Cancer Screening
3.6 p.m.
The Viscount of Falkland The Viscount of Falkland asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will consider reducing the interval between mammography tests from three years to two for women between 50 and 65 years old.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, the Government are currently funding research into the possible benefits of screening women for breast cancer more frequently than the present interval of three years. The results will be available in 1996.
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that encouraging reply. Is it still the case that in this country the incidence of that kind of cancer is very high in comparison with other countries in Europe, particularly for the group of women above the age of 50? Increasing the amount of screening available to that age group will surely increase the detection rate which will help not only in the social benefits which we hope for and expect but also in the economic benefits.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, we are looking at the matter; but the screening programme was set up in the light of the Forrest report, which was well researched, and we implemented the first screening programme in Europe for that cancer. Now we are looking at the views of other bodies which have said that things have changed and they think perhaps it is time we reviewed the Forrest committee's recommendations. However, before we invest in a huge new programme, we wish to be absolutely sure that it has the benefits we seek.
Lord Ironside: My Lords, what value does my noble friend place on screening in terms of reducing mortality rates in breast cancer? Can she say how many mammography facilities are available and operating at present in the UK? I am aware that she has already said that no central records are kept; but surely if we are considering stepping up the screening programme, we should be aware of what the capacity of the system is. Does the Minister agree that the selection should be based far more on the symptomatic way of selecting people rather than by age?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, that would be difficult. At the moment we have a mass screening programme and we know that it is effective in terms of saving lives. So we want to continue with the
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programme. As to the number of mammography units, I do not have the figure with me this afternoon; but if it is available, I shall give it to my noble friend.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, in view of the increasing incidence of breast cancer diagnosed in women over 65, may I ask whether the Government have any plans to extend the screening programme to women over that age?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, again the programme was established in the light of the Forrest committee's report. But the advisory committee on breast cancer screening is looking again at the age factor. We are also aware of some small pilot schemes being run to test whether women who are offered the opportunity take up the invitation. In the past there was anxiety that women over 64 would not do so. If they seek the screening, then they may have it on request; but that is not a matter of course.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I should like to say how pleased I am that in both the Minister's replies this afternoon she has indicated how much research is going on in the health service. However, it would be nice to think that we can have slightly more precise answers which are not dependent on long-term research into some of the questions. Regarding breast cancer, would it be more helpful in reducing our alarming mortality rate if, instead of extending the amount of screening, people were trained more precisely in diagnosing early breast cancer? Then when patients come forward, their GPs can recognise it at an early stage?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, late last year we launched a new policy for breast cancer and all cancers. Part of that policy was better training for GPs and reorganising the treatment services so that we can consolidate the expertise in the bigger units. We are very conscious that the first suspicions of breast cancer are often discovered by the GP.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, will the Minister confirm, as she did partly a moment ago, that mammography tests are available at any time for those women who have a special anxiety or who are alerted by their GPs to have cause for concern? The Question refers only to routine screening. I should declare that I am chairman of the Royal Free Hospital. Is she aware that at that hospital over 50 per cent. of the appointments made by women to attend the Easy Access Clinic for a mammography test are not kept? Does she not believe that that is a waste of valuable NHS resources?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that question. The first part of it is completely correct. I have now found the figure. There are 80 screening centres in England and in addition there are mobile units. We are very concerned about the number of patients who not only do not keep those appointments but other appointments in the National Health Service. In January my right honourable friend the Secretary of

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State for Health launched a programme called "Help Us to Help You" in order to inform patients how they can help the National Health Service.

Croatia: Expulsion of UNPROFOR
3.12 p.m.
Lord Kennet Lord Kennet asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they are aware of any contacts between Senator Dole of the USA and the Croatian Government concerning the expulsion of UNPROFOR from Croatia.
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, we are aware of such contacts.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord might wish to be a little more forthcoming to the House. There is a war zone in which there is a United Nations force, quite a sizeable part of which is provided by this country. Croatia has declared that if the United Nations does not remove its force within a few weeks it will itself require its removal and will drive the force out. In those circumstances, is it not striking that while the President of the United States appears roughly to be backing the position of the United Nations in defence of which our own soldiers are involved, the Leader of the Senate appears to be backing the opposite position? I ask the noble Lord whether at the minimum this in practice is causing any embarrassment as regards carrying out the duties which this country has undertaken there?
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, the reply I gave to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, was cautious because we do not believe that the gloss which the noble Lord put on the matter is the correct one. We understand that in a television phone-in programme the Foreign Minister of Croatia, in reply to a caller, mentioned that he had been in constant touch with Mr Dole over the issue of the aims embargo.
We understand from inquiries that we have made that Mr. Granic's spokesperson confirmed that there were official contacts between Mr. Granic and Mr. Dole, and that these are in fact part of normal diplomatic activity and relate in particular to the Croatian Government's decision not to renew the UNPROFOR mandate to which the noble Lord has alluded. As far as we know, the contacts cannot be described as constant. To the best of our belief Mr. Dole is at one with the United States Government and with ourselves, the United Nations Security Council and the European Union, in agreeing that this proposal by the Croatian Government is contrary to the interests of everybody concerned. I would like to take this opportunity to urge the Croatian Government to think about this. I believe that the noble Lord will agree with me that were UNPROFOR to leave Croatia it would undoubtedly be a step for the worse.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: My Lords, will the Minister say something about the meeting of the contact group in Paris yesterday? Can he tell the House whether
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there was progress in getting agreement between the European members and the United States about the policy for promoting peace in the former Yugoslavia?
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Thomson, for his question. My understanding is that agreement was reached between the European Union members and the United States to try to bring forward the proposal to bring the leaders of Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia together.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, can my noble friend tell the House whether our Government have had any direct contact with the Croatian Government on this matter given the fact, as he himself suggests, that the withdrawal of UNPROFOR could lead to a drastic and traumatic widening of the conflict?
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his question. As I have already explained, we are very anxious about this matter and believe that it is very important that UNPROFOR does not leave Croatia. We have taken every step possible to impress on the Croatians the seriousness with which we view the proposal. I am not in a position to spell out in detail the exact nature of the direct contacts which may have been made with the Croatian Government.
Lord Chalfont: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the present situation in the former Yugoslavia is a typical example of the dangers that ensue when the United Nations engages in military action in a situation without any apparent clear political or military aim? Will Her Majesty's Government take that into consideration in their future attitude towards events in the former Yugoslavia?
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, the point which the noble Lord makes is obviously relevant. The problem that we all face in the context of what has happened in Yugoslavia is that nobody wanted matters to develop in the way that they have. If we were tackling the matter afresh we would not start from here. Inevitably, because of the very nature of the problem, one has to move one step at a time. Often that means that the progress, or the lack of it, which one appears to make seems frustrating and difficult. With the wisdom of hindsight I fully accept that it is possible to argue that matters should have been processed and brought forward in a different manner. But that does not alter the fact that in the real world one has to deal with the real problems as one finds them. I do not believe that anyone in this House would suggest that the United Nations has not been anything other than a force for good in this conflict and that it has saved a very considerable number of lives in the former Yugoslavia.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, returning to the meeting of the contact group yesterday, can the Minister confirm that it agreed to lift sanctions against Serbia provided that certain conditions were met? Can he also confirm that one of the those conditions was that Serbia should not get involved in any war that might break out within Croatia following the removal of UN troops? If that is the case, can the Minister reassure the House that there will be careful monitoring to ensure that those

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conditions are met; that sanctions can be reimposed immediately and that the facilities will be there to do so if the conditions are not met by Serbia?
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, I can confirm that if events move forward satisfactorily then sanctions may be lifted on Serbia. I am not in a position to confirm or deny the particular details which the noble Baroness gave because I do not know the answer. I would not want to mislead your Lordships' House. I am quite willing to write to the noble Baroness with the details as soon as I can discover them.

Mental Health (Patients in the Community) Bill [H.L.]
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to make provision for certain mentally disordered patients in England and Wales to receive after-care under supervision after leaving hospital; to provide for the making of community care orders in the case of certain mentally disordered patients in Scotland; to amend the law relating to mentally disordered patients absent without leave or on leave of absence from hospital; and for connected purposes. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Baroness Cumberlege.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Raoul Wallenberg
3.19 p.m.
Lord Braine of Wheatley Lord Braine of Wheatley rose to call attention to the 50th anniversary of the disappearance of Raoul Wallenberg; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the most terrible, heartbreaking story of man's gross inhumanity to man occurred during the lifetime of many of us. It was the murder of the majority of Europe's Jews by the Nazis. These innocent people, young and old, were slaughtered—not because of any crime that they had committed; not even because they posed the remotest threat to the power of the Nazis, but simply because of their religion. It was genocide on a massive scale.
The victims were worked to death, tortured, shot and gassed to death and their bodies burnt in huge incinerators. All of that took place in organised mass killings month after month during the Second World War. If there is a more monstrous story of sustained evil in human history, I have not heard of it.
In that ocean of cruelty and hate in wartime Hungary, one great heroic figure stands out—a brave young Swedish diplomat named Raoul Wallenberg. Indeed, he became one of the greatest heroes of all time. In the closing months of the Second World War, he responded to the appeals of the world Jewish community and left neutral Sweden to do what he could to save what remained of Hungarian Jewry.
So it was that in July 1944, Wallenberg went to what Simon Wiesenthal has referred to as,
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"the slaughterhouse that was Budapest".
By that time some 5 million European Jews had already been cruelly murdered. The Nazis, aware that they were now losing the war, were obsessed with wiping out those who remained and were within their reach. Four months earlier, they had invaded Hungary with the declared purpose of exterminating the last remaining Jewish community in Europe. Obersturmbannfuhrer Adolf Eichmann was given the task of liquidating the Hungarian Jewish community. It is ironic that the Hungarian Jews, who had survived the longest in Nazi-occupied Europe, were now the quickest to be destroyed. In a two-month period, from 15th May to 8th July 1944, 430,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz in sealed cattle trucks.
Raoul Wallenberg became the head of a special department of the Swedish Legation in Budapest, charged with the task of helping the Jews wherever possible. He began by designing a Swedish protective passport to help them to resist both the Germans and the Hungarians. Wallenberg had previously learned that both the German and Hungarian bureaucracies had a weakness for symbolism. So he had his passports attractively printed in blue and yellow (Sweden's national colours), displaying Sweden's coat of arms and the appropriate authorisations. I have such a passport, although I have not brought it with me today. It is a work of art. Wallenberg's passports had no validity whatsoever under international law, but they served their purpose, commanding the respect of those they were designed to influence. At first, he had permission to issue only 1,500 passports. But he managed to persuade the Hungarian authorities to let him issue 1,000 more and, by one means or another, managed to get the quota raised again.
Altogether Wallenberg was to save the lives of 100,000 Hungarian Jewish men, women and children. At the risk of his own life, he distributed Swedish passports by the thousands, even following the death marches to the Austrian border, physically pulling people off the trains bound for Nazi concentration camps, confronting at every turn the Nazis and the death squads. He also successfully protected refugees in scores of houses that he bought or rented in Budapest, marking them with the neutral flag of Sweden.
As the Soviet armies encircled Budapest in late 1944, Wallenberg fearlessly continued his work. On 13th January 1945, a Russian soldier saw a man standing alone outside a building with a large Swedish flag flying above its main entrance. It was Wallenberg. Speaking in fluent Russian, Wallenberg told an astonished Soviet sergeant that he was the Swedish chargé d' affaires for those parts of Hungary liberated by the Red Army. He was invited to visit the Soviet military headquarters at Debrecen, east of Budapest.
On his way out of the capital on 17th January with a Soviet escort, Wallenberg and his chauffeur, Vilmos Langfelder, stopped at various "Swedish houses", where he bade farewell to his friends. He cheerfully told one colleague, Dr. Erno Peto, that he was not sure whether he would be the guest of the Soviets or their prisoner, but he thought he would be back within a week. Alas! he never returned.
According to reliable witnesses, Wallenberg and his driver were arrested and taken to Moscow, where they were thrown into prison. At first, the Soviet authorities maintained that Wallenberg had been taken into custody by the Red Army and that he was under their protection. However, nothing more was heard of him until 1947, when Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Vyshinsky, in answer to repeated Swedish inquiries, stated that he was not in the Soviet Union and his whereabouts were unknown to them.
That was a blatant lie. Soviet prisoners of war, chiefly German, who were released in the early 1950s confirmed that Wallenberg had indeed been captured and imprisoned in Moscow, first in the dreaded Lubyanka and then in Lefortovskaya prison. The Swedish Government intensified their inquiries, only to be told by the Soviet authorities that they had nothing to add to what they had said on the subject back in 1947.
Again, during a visit to Moscow in 1956, the Swedish Prime Minister raised the matter with the Soviet leadership. He produced irrefutable evidence that Wallenberg had been imprisoned by the Soviets. The Soviet answer to this was not given until the following year—in the form of a note from the Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko to the Swedish Ambassador in Moscow. In that note—to which the Soviet Government have unfailingly referred every time there have been inquiries from the West—it was stated that, as a result of a thorough investigation by the Soviet authorities, it had been discovered that a prisoner named "Walenberg"—with one "1", which is the Lithuanian spelling of the name—ha.d in fact died from a heart attack in 1947 in the Lubyanka. It was also asserted that all the documents pertaining to his case had disappeared and that there was only a handwritten report about his death made by the head of the prison hospital service, one A.L. Smoltsov, who had since died. It seems that Smoltsov had informed the Minister for State Security, Abakumov, who himself was later to be executed in the purges of the Security Police, that Wallenberg was dead. Abakumov, of course, was a convenient person to blame for having misled the Soviet Foreign Ministry in the first place. There was lie after lie, deception after deception.
I must tell noble Lords that the Swedish Government have never accepted—and as far as I am aware, no Western government has accepted—the Soviet line that Wallenberg died in 1947. Why should I say that? The answer is that there is abundant evidence that he was alive after that date.
Further evidence did come to light in later years indicating that Wallenberg was alive but imprisoned in the Soviet Union. Indeed the great Russian historian Solzhenitsyn has testified that he met a Swede fitting Wallenberg's description during his own imprisonment.
Is it possible then that Raoul Wallenberg could still be alive? Well, it is not impossible. If he were alive today, he would be just two years older than myself. Spartan conditions have on occasions—many a doctor can testify to this—proved beneficial to a long life. Incredible though it may sound, during his research for the BBC's brilliant "Man Alive" documentary on
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Wallenberg, John Bierman met a Russian Jew, Leonid Berger, who was allowed to emigrate in 1978 after spending no fewer than 35 years in Soviet jails.
It is my duty to draw your Lordships' attention to rumours being circulated that the family of Raoul Wallenberg now accepts that he is no longer alive. There is no truth in this. Indeed, contact has been made with United States Congressman Tom Lantos, who was himself rescued from death by Wallenberg and is the only survivor of the Holocaust to be elected to the United States Congress. The Congressman's office contacted Nina Lagergren, Wallenberg's half-sister, and she has categorically denied that any member of the Wallenberg family concedes that he is dead. I am happy to take this opportunity of paying a tribute to Congressman Lantos, who has kept Wallenberg's name alive both inside and outside the United States Congress and was also responsible for him being granted honorary American citizenship.
It is now generally accepted that during his stay in Hungary Wallenberg saved 100,000 lives. We should never, never, never, never forget this. May I humbly suggest that we should honour this brave man by following the example already provided by our American friends and allies by making him an honorary British citizen? In an almost poetic sense, honorary citizenship is uniquely appropriate to Wallenberg quite simply because he used the privilege of Swedish citizenship to save thousands of innocent lives. Indeed, conferring citizenship—the instrument Wallenberg exercised with so much courage, generosity and imagination —accounts not only for the fact that thousands who were granted Swedish citizenship by him are still alive today and have children and grandchildren, but also for the fact that, following his example, other countries which were neutrals in the war—Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and the Vatican —granted citizenship as a means of saving Jewish lives.
Why then even after all these years should we in Britain honour Wallenberg's name in this way? The answer is that, with no thought for his own safety, in what has been called "the slaughterhouse that was Budapest", he accomplished the impossible. Sometimes alone, sometimes with others, he thwarted the designs of the most murderous regime the civilised world has ever seen. He bribed the unspeakable Nazis; he charmed them on occasions; he lied to them; he certainly threatened and bullied them; and used every other means he could devise to save the lives of the Budapest Jews. He was a Swedish diplomat. He had some authority. He even entered the deportation trains himself to pull off innocent human beings who would otherwise have gone to a cruel death. He worked incessantly, at great personal risk with utter disregard for his own safety, and through the sheer force of his example inspired hundreds of others to assist him.
At the end, when the Red Army entered Budapest, and what little remained of Nazi rule collapsed into anarchy, Wallenberg worked on tirelessly. He told a Swedish diplomat who urged him to seek cover in the Swedish Legation:
"For me there is no choice … I'd never be able to go back to Stockholm without knowing inside myself that I'd done all a man could do to save as many Jews as possible".
So it is that we remember Wallenberg because he has become more than a hero of our times. He symbolises the central conflict of our age, the determination to remain human, caring and free in the face of unspeakable tyranny. What Wallenberg represented in Budapest was nothing less than the conscience of the civilised world. By abducting and imprisoning him, the Soviet authorities did more than violate the long-standing rules of diplomacy accepted by civilised nations and their governments, they demonstrated contempt for everything his dedication and bravery in Budapest had achieved.
Yet even the Soviet Union of those days did not succeed in suppressing his achievements. Just as the Nazis could not keep him from his mission, so the Soviets failed to obliterate his legacy.
All mankind owes a great debt to this man, not only for the 100,000 lives he saved, but also for the example he gave us as to how one man with the courage to care, even in history's darkest hour, can become a beacon of light and can make a difference.
There are two very good reasons for remembering this courageous man. First, because as the author Milan Kundera observes,
"the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."
Secondly, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, the world may little note nor long remember what we say here, but surely it will always remember what Raoul Wallenberg did to salvage the dignity of the human spirit from what was a hell on earth. It is a great honour to pay tribute to him this afternoon. I beg to move for Papers.
3.37 p.m.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, your Lordships' House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Braine, for ensuring that we have this opportunity, shortly after the 50th anniversary of his disappearance, to remember Raoul Wallenberg, and for the very moving way in which he introduced our debate. The noble Lord and I had many occasions in another place to participate together in debates relating to human rights. I welcome this earnest that we may continue to do so.
We welcome the debate for three reasons: first, because it is right that we should remember a man who was directly instrumental in saving more lives probably than can be credited to any other individual of his generation. Not only did he respond to a call for help. He was constantly thinking of new ways to accomplish his mission, seeking out new opportunities for rescuing those who were otherwise condemned to perish; and, as the noble Lord said, he exposed himself constantly to the risk that he would himself fall victim to the regime.
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So far as I am aware, Raoul Wallenberg was the only person in the Second World War who confronted Nazi officials in their own headquarters and told them that, if they proceeded with what they were then proposing, he would personally see to it that they were hanged as war criminals and compelled them to back down by sheer audacity and will-power.
It is ironic for a man who faced so many risks that he fell victim to a risk which he almost certainly could not have envisaged: that he would be arrested, not by the Nazis, but by one of the Allied powers to whom he was turning for help in what he was seeking to do.
At a time when so much media attention is devoted to those who bring shame on the human race, it is good to see more attention being paid to someone who enhanced our humanity. I hope that in reply the Minister will respond to the invitation of the noble Lord, Lord Braine, and set out the Government's intentions as regards conferring honorary citizenship on Raoul Wallenberg.
The second reason why the debate is welcome is that it is possible, even now, that someone somewhere may learn of our anxiety and will shed further light on what became of him. After repeated assurances from the Soviet regime that nothing was known of Raoul Wallenberg, in 1957 an official note was sent to the Swedish Government stating that on 17th June 1947 the superintendent of the infirmary at Lubyanka prison had sent a note to the Minister of State Security—which is not entirely without significance—to the effect that Wallenberg had died in the prison of a heart attack. That note added that nothing else was known of the matter.
That was a startling development for two reasons. First, until then the Soviet Government had responded to every inquiry by insisting that there was nothing to indicate that Wallenberg had ever been in the Soviet Union. Either that was a deliberate lie or no one had even troubled to make the inquiry. Secondly, it did not accord with what was known of the practices of the Soviet bureaucracy, which insisted on full documentation for everything that it did, and it was most careful to retain the documents. Perhaps more importantly, it is inconsistent with a great body of other evidence that he was alive and imprisoned at least until 1955, and there is strong reason to believe that he was alive substantially longer than that. It is not impossible that further information may emerge, although one hesitates to raise false hopes. Debate such as this may serve to remind the world that the files are still not closed.
The final reason for welcoming the debate is that, unhappily, Raoul Wallenberg was not the last victim to be numbered among those who disappeared and whose disappearance must be laid at the door of the regime under which they lived. It has happened many times since the Second World War. There are some whose fate was discussed in another place by the noble Lord, Lord Braine, and me. There are still hundreds of people whose families are left wondering what has become of them, hoping against hope that one day something will happen which will enable them to return to their homes.

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This is not the occasion to mention any of them specifically because we are remembering one heroic individual. However, there may be those who were instrumental in the disappearance of others and!who hope that, after exhaustive inquiries, questions asked and repeated and the blanket of silence remaining, one day those who ask the questions will grow weary, the curtain will be drawn on the matter and the world will forget. This debate may serve as an opportunity to your Lordships to send a message to tyrants the world over: "You may cause your victims to disappear; you may protest that you have no answers as to what became of them; but do not delude yourselves that the inquiring voices will sink into silence. Not only will we not forget such victims, but there are those who will not cease to remind the world about the unanswered questions, and those questions will continue to ring in your ears". I hope that, together with our tribute to Raoul Wallenberg, that message will go out from your Lordships' House.
3.45 p.m.
Lord Kirkhill: My Lords, it may be of interest to your Lordships to know that in recent years the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe considered whether Raoul Wallenberg was alive and, if not, what had happened to him. I refer to the manner, occasion and place of his death. Early in 1991, the Bureau of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe referred the issue to the committee on legal affairs and human rights. I was chairman of that committee, which appointed a rapporteur, M. Pontillon, to examine the facts in so far as they could be established. Perhaps I may summarise those facts in so far as they were capable of being established. The committee was fortunate to hear in person Mrs. Simone Lucki, the Secretary General of the International Committee of Inquiry. She was able to bring before the committee a number of relevant details.
Raoul Wallenberg was born in 1912 and belonged to one of the wealthiest and best-known families in Sweden. In 1939 he became the European representative of a major trading house whose chairman was a Hungarian Jew. This association and numerous journeys through Europe made him fully aware of the fate that the Nazis had reserved for the Jews and he decided to defend their cause.
At the request of the Jewish organisations and of President Roosevelt, the founder of the War Refugee Board, the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent the young Wallenberg, who was appointed attaché to the Swedish delegation in Budapest, on a rescue mission.
His first operation involved the granting of protection certificates, known as Wallenberg passports, to Hungarian Jews who had family links—sometimes real but more often imaginary—with Sweden. He also placed 32 buildings under the protection of the Swedish Crown. As far as can be established, some 30,000 Jews sheltered in those buildings. In November 1944, as the first death marches got under way, he succeeded at the last moment in preventing the implementation of the Eichmann plan, which would have led to the extermination of the approximately 70,000 Jews in the Budapest ghetto.
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On 17th January 1945, following the entry of the Soviet troops into Budapest, Raoul Wallenberg went to the Soviet army headquarters in Debrecen with his driver, Langfelder. They never returned. Those facts are reasonably well established.
There is some evidence, although not a great deal, to support the proposition that Wallenberg survived. Were he alive today he would be about 83 years of age. There is some evidence to suggest that the Soviet authorities suspected Wallenberg of spying because of the support that he was receiving from the United States. Since his disappearance, Sweden has made numerous requests for information about him.
The Soviet Government initially stated that they had placed Mr. Wallenberg under their protection. Then they claimed to have no knowledge of the case until in 1957 Mr. Gromyko stated that Mr. Wallenberg had died of a heart attack in the Lubyanka prison in 1947 but that his body had been cremated, the death certificate had been destroyed and all the medical personnel then in service were now dead. That was Mr. Gromyko's assertion. The Kremlin maintained that position until August 1989, when the Soviet Ambassador to Sweden, Mr. Boris Pankin, announced that Mr. Wallenberg had been assassinated by Soviet agents and that Moscow would do everything possible to recover his body. Therefore, there was a measure of ambivalence there.
Indeed, there are numerous testimonies, going back to the death of Stalin, during the 1970s and then January 1981, when a Wallenberg tribunal was set up. Several individuals have stated that they met him or heard reports of him on various occasions and in different locations within the Soviet Union. Among the recent accounts are those of Josip Terelja, who, in 1987, stated that he had met a Ukrainian who had known Wallenberg in 1953; and Elena Butova, a doctor at Vladimir prison, who examined him, or so she says, in 1980. According to the Swedish writer, K. Fant, Mr. Wallenberg was alleged to have been treated at the Blagovechtchensk Clinic in Siberia on 22nd December 1986, and she is specific about the date. Andrei Sakharov was also convinced that Wallenberg had survived and said that he had met people who had met him.
In October 1989, Mr. Wallenberg's family was invited to Moscow, where the KGB passed members of that family a series of objects belonging to Wallenberg—a prison record drawn up when he was in the Lubyanka, a diplomatic passport and foreign currency. The Soviet weekly, New Times, has devoted several articles to Mr. Wallenberg and in October 1989 it launched an appeal for information about him.
Other than the proposition, which has not been sustained, that the KGB was to open up its files, those are all the known facts which the rapporteur to the legal committee, M. Pontillon could establish.
There is one other matter to which I should refer. In November 1990 the committee found listed in the archives of the Soviet Council of Ministers a letter dated February 1947 which referred to Wallenberg's presence in the Lefortov prison. That was discovered by chance, which, of course, is in contradistinction to the earlier KGB position.

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Those are the facts which M. Pontillon established in so far as he had access to information and records. The Legal Committee of the Council of Europe decided that such evidence as was before it could not lead it to a firm conclusion as to whether he was still alive or had been killed or died earlier.
The matter still stands before the Legal Committee of the Council of Europe. It has not closed its files on the matter. Mr. Esperson, who was that committee's rapporteur to Russia on the question of Russian accession to the Council of Europe, a matter currently before the council, was asked on a recent visit whether he would make further inquiries. That he did, but they were of an inconclusive character. In 1991 the committee asked the then USSR visiting delegation if it would care to comment and explain further but it achieved nothing of a positive nature. Currently it is asking, and has asked, the visiting delegation from the Soviet Federation for its observations, and the matter stands before the committee in that regard.
I thought that those factual matters might be of some interest to your Lordships' House.
3.56 p.m.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, as a former compatriot of Raoul Wallenberg, I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Braine of Wheatley, for raising yet again in this House the question of what happened to Raoul Wallenberg.
The noble Lord's speech gave us the background and the details of what we know, which is very little, about what happened to Raoul once he disappeared behind the Iron Curtain on 17th January 1945. He was the most courageous man of whom I can ever remember hearing because when he was working in Budapest, he was working in the district where Eichmann was in charge of the extermination of the Jews. He had to meet Eichmann and had to go over his head in order to save the people whom he managed to save. As a born Swede, I am tremendously proud of the man who saved 100,000 lives in Hungary.
Considerable efforts have been made by the Swedish Government and by this Government too. On 19th March 1987 in this House I tabled a Question which asked the Prime Minister, who was then visiting the USSR, whether she would consider raising the question of Raoul Wallenberg during her visit to that country. The noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, replied that she would draw the matter to the attention of the Prime Minister. I thought that that was a good opportunity to raise the matter again because Gorbachev was then in power in the Soviet Union and he had made many pronouncements on the importance of human rights. I am not aware of what the Prime Minister achieved in that regard because I never received any information.
Andrei Gromyko finally wrote and claimed that Raoul Wallenberg had died suddenly in his cell and that his body had been cremated. Later he implied that perhaps he had been killed. Moreover, the Minister for Security Services —Abakumov—was sentenced to death and shot. But that is no answer to our questions, because
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since that reply was given by Gromyko, to the knowledge of the Wallenberg Society in this country, there have been at least 24 sightings in various prisons in the Soviet Union, the last of which was as late as 1980.
I spoke to Mrs. Nina Lagergren, Raoul Wallenberg's sister, after her visit to the Soviet Union during which she was given his diplomatic passport and various other possessions. I asked her whether she believed that he was still alive. She said, "I can never, never put it out of my mind that he might still be alive". When there is a man about whom there is so much doubt, one must always hope that something will come out of the Soviet Union to answer all the family's questions.
All over the world, not only in Sweden but in many other countries also, Wallenberg Societies have grown up to try to put pressure on the Soviet Government. For example, the British society held a vigil outside the Soviet Embassy each year on 4th August on his birthday. The last one was held as late as 1985. In October 1982, the Wallenberg Society in this country mounted an exhibition in the House of Commons which the Prime Minister attended to commemorate Wallenberg's 70th birthday. The exhibition then travelled to various parts of the country.
It was with tremendous pleasure that we received the information that Ronald Reagan had signed legislation to confer an honorary citizenship on Raoul Wallenberg. He is the only man this century, apart from Winston Churchill, on whom that honour has been conferred. I believe that we should do the same.
The Private Members' Bill which was introduced in another place under the ten-minute rule on 22nd March 1989 by Mr. David Amess received its First Reading, but it was turned down by the Government because they claimed that it would set a dangerous precedent to confer an honorary citizenship on a man like Raoul Wallenberg.
This year we are commemorating the end of the Holocaust and the horrors of the Nazi extermination of Jews, Catholics, gypsies and all kinds of people in Europe. I believe that we should commemorate at the same time the memory—if it is a memory—of the man who was responsible for saving the lives of 100,000 Jews. We should commemorate his outstanding courage and humanity by conferring an honorary citizenship on him in this country.
4.2 p.m.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, the whole House will be indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Braine, for having used the opportunity this afternoon to raise such an important matter which involves the honour of the entire United Kingdom. Speaking personally, I am most grateful to my noble and learned friend who expressed on behalf of Her Majesty's Opposition sentiments which I feel quite sure will be endorsed throughout the House. Again, from my own point of view, the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, makes, I am happy to say, much of my speech completely unnecessary. I say that because he gave us a complete and factual account which not only reflects on

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the noble Lord's power of marshalling and presenting the facts but also on the pertinacity of the Council of Europe in thoroughly investigating the whole matter and bringing it to our attention.
The events that we are discussing this afternoon occupied but six short months of one person's life. He was a young Swede, aged 32, who had studied architecture and who came from a well-known family in Sweden. He decided on the basis of what he saw in Budapest, and on the basis of reports that had been given to him, to devote his life at that point to a series of actions which were extremely brave. He displayed a bravery which was, for one man, almost incredible to relate and which carried with it every day, every second arid every minute the risk of his being killed along with those whom he sought to save. Therefore, we ought to consider Raoul Wallenberg as someone who is a little special.
The fact that our then wartime allies, the Russians, took him in on 17th January 1945 did not make much impact at the time. Both the noble Lord, Lord Braine, and myself were in the forces overseas. We and the whole country were concerned and preoccupied with winning the war against the Nazis. At that time the courage of Mr. Wallenberg could hardly have attracted the publicity that it would undoubtedly attract today or possibly during the period immediately after the war ended. Those were the six crucial months.
It is perhaps not realised that the Russian act of perfidy in confining Mr. Wallenberg in the Lubyanka from 17th January onwards was surpassed only by their cynicism some four years later when the people of Budapest wanted to erect a monument to him in that city. It was done. But before it could be dedicated, the Russians ordered its destruction, thereby confirming in the perceptions of most ordinary people their complete wickedness and perfidy in the matter.
I regret to say that some of us over here, including myself, who were possibly under the illusion that the great alliance of the Soviet Union and the West was still in some kind of teetering existence, probably did not do what we ought to have done in investigating further matters that had been brought to our attention. To that extent, we are all a little culpable, though of course not those who were not alive at the time. However, I—and I am approximately the same age as Mr. Wallenberg would be were he alive today—had some inkling of it; but we all failed him.
It is true that many years later in, I believe, 1987, a memorial was finally erected in Budapest to the memory of Mr. Wallenberg. A report in the Independent on Thursday 12th October 1989 carried a feature which said:
"On a grass verge along Szilagyi Erzsebet avenue in Budapest stands a bronze figure flanked by blocks of granite, bearing the inscription: 'While good fortune stands by your side, friends are plentiful. But should grey clouds gather, you are alone to withstand the storm'".
That is a poignancy which Mr. Wallenberg has left all Western society and, for that matter, the world. Therefore, I believe that we should honour him in some expiation perhaps for the many omissions which we or our predecessors may have made in the past.
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I am bound to say that it would have done no harm at the meeting of the CSCE which took place on 5th and 6th December in Budapest (the first time that that organisation, or for that matter any other European organisation, had met there) when the cavalcades passed for someone to have left an official wreath and made some gesture on behalf of the memory—and I fear that it must now be considered a memory —of that very gallant gentleman.
There was a time in 1985 when the matter was raised in another place. I am not at all sure whether the noble Lord, Lord Braine, who at one time was Father of the other place, was present at the time. However, according to The Times on 21st March 1985:
"Mr. Sumberg asked Sir Geoffrey Howe to make any invitation to the Soviet Union to attend ceremonies in Britain to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of VE day conditional on the revelation of details of",
Mr. Wallenberg's death. Sir Geoffrey Howe replied that he did not think it would be,
"appropriate or effective to set preconditions to foreign representation at our national commemoration".
He did, however, say a little later in another place,
"The Soviet Government claimed he died in 1947. But I can assure Mr. Sumberg we will continue to make inquiries about this matter until we receive a satisfactory answer".
The question I have to ask Her Majesty's Government is whether since that time they have received a satisfactory answer, and, if they have not, what after 1985 did they do about it? In the meantime I should like to associate myself with the sentiments which have been so movingly put in this House that we should follow the example of the United States in conferring honorary citizenship upon this gallant gentleman.
4.11 p.m.
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Braine of Wheatley for giving us the opportunity to have this debate. I was enormously impressed by his speech and indeed by those of all the noble Lords who have spoken today. The story of Raoul Wallenberg is indeed an almost unbelievably extraordinary and wonderful one, and there is very little that I can add to the information which has been given today, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, and I certainly cannot match the oratory.
As is well known, in January 1945 Raoul Wallenberg was taken into custody by the Red Army. Exactly what happened to him remains a mystery. Persistent attempts to unearth proof of Raoul Wallenberg's fate have been unsuccessful, as we have heard from many noble Lords today. New hope came in the dying days of the Soviet era. A new working group replaced the Wallenberg International Commission amid signs that the Soviet authorities were prepared to display greater commitment and openness. This is now the official body engaged in the ongoing investigation. On the Swedish side, the group includes Wallenberg's half-brother as well as police and Foreign Ministry officials. The Russian team is drawn from the staffs of the foreign, justice and interior ministries. We continue to give that group our support and urge the Russians to do likewise. The group has met 11 times since it was established. Its meetings

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have been both in Stockholm and in Moscow. The last was in November 1994: the next is scheduled for next month in Moscow.
The group has two major tasks. First, it is trying to identify and collect all the relevant documentary evidence which is available. Secondly, it is responsible for interviewing anyone who may have knowledge about the disappearance of Wallenberg, or his subsequent fate. Interviews are not restricted to Russians. There may well be others, for example those who were held in prison at the same time as Wallenberg, or who heard reports of his whereabouts from other prisoners. We understand that the group will publish a first report later this year, but progress has unfortunately been slow. We understand that there has been no major breakthrough. Every rumour and every scrap of information has to be checked out, but there is no doubt about the group's commitment. Despite the frustrations there are certainly no plans to wind up its work.
As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer of Sandwell, said, it is enormously important that we do not give up the search. Those who cause people to disappear should know that we will never cease to ask after them. My noble friend Lord Braine and others have raised the question of whether Raoul Wallenberg might be granted British citizenship. Of course I am not in a position today to give an answer to that, but I guarantee that I will draw this debate, and all that has been so movingly said, to the attention of my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, said, many people in this country and elsewhere have been active in keeping Raoul Wallenberg's name alive. I am delighted to learn that my honourable friend David Amess has been successful at least in securing that a memorial will be placed in Cumberland Place this year. Raoul Wallenberg was a most extraordinary man. We have heard today testimony to his bravery, to his extraordinary principle, to his disregard for himself and to his audacity. Even listening to today's descriptions of what he did I find it impossible to understand how he did it. It is unimaginable to me that anyone could actually achieve what he achieved in the circumstances that existed at that time. He saved 100,000 people. My knowledge of history—and I admit it is not that extensive—includes many people who have killed 100,000 people. My history books refer to plenty of people who have killed only a few. But I can think of no other example in human history of someone who has saved 100,000 people.
We must remember Raoul Wallenberg. It is not healthy just to remember the villains, however salutary that is. We need the heroes as well. The evils that Raoul Wallenberg fought are with us today. We need to remember what one person can do against even the most terrible regime that we have known. I hope that this debate will play a small part in that remembrance.
4.17 p.m.
Lord Braine of Wheatley: My Lords, I am deeply grateful for the support that noble Lords have given to my Motion and for the way in which all of them have
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spoken, and to the Minister for his closing remarks. All have spoken from the heart about the terrible story I unfolded earlier concerning the fate of the Hungarian Jews during the most terrible of all wars.
The cruelty to which hundreds of thousands of Jewish men, women and children were subjected in Hungary and indeed elsewhere in Europe knew no bounds—no bounds at all. It horrifies us still today. I recall saying in another place some 13 years ago that we in the West should never ever allow the Soviet Union to think that we will forget Raoul Wallenberg who saved the lives of 100,000 Hungarian Jews from the Nazi holocaust. At that time the Soviet Embassy in London was refusing to see British Members of Parliament of all parties just to discuss the matter quietly and in a civilized fashion.
I hope the House will permit me to say that it seems incredible that one man, a diplomat representing a neutral country—not a country at war—who was posted to Budapest, managed with the utmost bravery and skill to save at least 100,000 lives. As the Soviet armies closed in on Budapest, with the hope of bringing to an end the agony that everyone in that part of the world had suffered, he was seized, imprisoned and held in defiance of all civilized behaviour by a regime whose own brand of threats, cruelty and persecution were to menace the world at large long after the Second World War had come to an end. Even now I find it shaming that during the earlier periods when Wallenberg was undoubtedly alive in Russian hands there appears to have been no effective action taken by the wartime allies to secure the release of one of the greatest heroes of our troubled century.
However, it is not too late—and the debate has illustrated that your Lordships do not think that it is too late—for today's Soviet Union under its new leadership to set in motion the kind of inquiry that should have been made long ago. It should be a matter of honour for its leaders to come clean on what their predecessors did. If any man could have defied his oppressors with spirit and determination it was Wallenberg. This remains a matter I find very difficult to understand. Until firm evidence of Wallenberg's death is produced we should not assume that he is dead. As I said in the course of my earlier speech, if he were alive today he would be only two years older than I am.
In his moving book Righteous Gentile—the missing hero of the holocaust, John Bierman concludes:
"So we confront the ultimate question about Wallenberg. Is he still alive, somewhere out there in the Gulag Archipelago? On the evidence, maddeningly incomplete though it is, the answer has to be: Quite possibly, he is.
As long as that possibility exists, it seems unthinkable"—
and I gather from what other noble Lords have said that it is unthinkable to us all—
"that free men should abandon him to his fate".
I hope that this short debate will enable a wider audience to understand what this great man achieved at the peril and the cost of his life, coming as he did from a neutral country but concerned as he was with the appalling cruelties to a vast number of human beings.

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What he did on behalf of those persecuted, tortured and slaughtered souls should live on in the memories of civilised men and women for decades to come.
A Noble Lord: My Lords, withdraw the Motion.
Lord Braine of Wheatley: My Lords, what I should like to do is to move for Papers. Emotion overcame me and I forgot the proper procedure, which was to withdraw my Motion, but on the understanding that I can call for Papers.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Taylor of Blackburn): My Lords, the Question is that the Motion is, by leave, withdrawn. Is it your pleasure that the Motion is, by leave, withdrawn?
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

South Africa
4.22 p.m.
Lord St. John of Bletso Lord St. John of Bletso rose to call attention to the case for Government action to promote economic, cultural, sporting and tourist links with South Africa; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am delighted to have the opportunity to introduce this short debate today. I am pleased that so many noble Lords have put down their names to speak in support of this Motion.
This is the first debate on South Africa in your Lordships' House since last year's general election, aside from the recent Second Reading of the South Africa Bill. I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Poole, will be making his maiden speech today. His recent experience as a special adviser to the policy unit of the Prime Minister's office will, I am sure, have provided him with a valuable insight into South African affairs. While I am sorry that the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, cannot reply personally to the debate, I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, will respond ably for the Government.
Last year the world watched in wonder as South Africa completed an almost miraculous political transformation. From the darkness of apartheid emerged a brand new democracy. Where so many had predicted civil war, peace broke out and the people united in a national surge for reconciliation. I returned from South Africa only two weeks ago and the change from a year ago is remarkable.
That political transition can be said to have represented Phase I of the rebuilding process. When the international media left after last year's general election, the businessmen arrived. It is on that issue that I should like to address today's debate. Phases II and III are just beginning; namely, the massive task of satisfying the raised expectations of the underprivileged majority. To that end the new government have launched their cornerstone policy document, the reconstruction and development programme, which I shall refer to as the RDP.
This short debate seeks to move beyond that political question to address the economic and social challenges facing South Africa. It focuses on how Her Majesty's Government can most effectively help to secure South Africa's future as a beacon of stability and success.
I am pleased that many of your noble Lords who are speaking today will be addressing specific: issues within the broad remit of the debate. The All-Party Parliamentary South Africa Group, of which I am one of the vice-chairmen, was established last year on the initiative of the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, with the clear objective of forging ever closer working relationships between Her Majesty's Government and South Africa. The group has already co-ordinated a number of projects and will be playing an active role in assisting with the staging of local elections in South Africa later this year. I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever, who is treasurer of the group and who returned from a visit to South Africa only today, will participate in today's debate.
It is essential that South Africa remains at the forefront of international affairs, constantly assisted and nurtured from abroad. It remains a country of crucial significance: first, because its success is pivotal to the stability and recovery of many countries in sub-Saharan Africa; and, secondly, because it is a substantial economic force and has a well-established and fast-growing infrastructure. Looking at the devastation in countries like Angola and Mozambique, it is to be hoped that that transition will grow from strength to strength.
Her Majesty's Government have hitherto made a significant contribution to South Africa. I warmly welcome the various aid packages and initiatives recently announced by the Prime Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker. While there will always be calls for more aid, it must be accepted that Her Majesty's Government have played and are continuing to play a leading role in the international effort to assist the new government.
The quality of aid is as important as the quantity of aid. In my view, financial aid should be targeted as much as possible at specific issues. I shall not raise the recent scandal involving the Reverend Alan Boesak and the allegations concerning Winnie Mandela. All aid has to go through the normal budgetary processes and must be targeted at specific projects, which are fully accounted for.
This short debate specifically calls attention to the promotion of economic, cultural, sporting and tourist links with South Africa. The process of renewing international contact in these areas after the long years of international sanctions has already contributed significantly to the raising of national morale. But more can be and must be achieved. I should like briefly to discuss each of those topics. I shall focus on those needs which the South African Government themselves have indicated are of paramount importance by incorporating them in their White Paper on the reconstruction and development programme.
The central economic reality facing South Africa today is that the economy must grow at an annual rate in excess of 3 per cent. if the RDP is to be adequately financed. Without consistent economic growth, the house of cards could come tumbling down. The latest figure on GDP growth is 2.7 per cent., a statistic which reaffirms the need for the Reserve Bank under the disciplined governorship of Chris Stals to maintain tight fiscal control. Inflation, which has become rampant in many of the emerging markets, remains relatively under control in South Africa at below 10 per cent.
International trade has been rising strongly since last year's general election with British trade to South Africa up by 27 per cent. in the first nine months of 1994, confirming Britain's position as South Africa's largest trading partner. There have been many high profile trade visits to South Africa, including the trade delegation of the President of the Board of Trade last year, as well as the British Invisibles Delegation which will visit South Africa in March, coinciding with the visit of Her Majesty the Queen. The Department of Trade and Industry plans a further 13 trade missions to South Africa as part of its Opportunity South Africa campaign this year.
Several commentators in South Africa have remarked in the past that international trade delegations tend to bring their notepads rather than their cheque books. But I am pleased to note that that trend appears to be gradually reversing. Since the election, many investors have adopted a wait-and-see approach to South Africa, expressing concern about the long term stability as well as on law and order. However, day by day those fears are being eased and an even clearer picture may emerge this Friday when President Mandela will speak at the State Opening of Parliament in Cape Town, outlining his Government's plans for the forthcoming Session. Fiscal policy will also be addressed in next month's budget. Many international investors into South Africa have recognised the need to pursue joint ventures with companies operating in South Africa which are fully conversant with local conditions.
Regarding the promotion of cultural affairs, such notable British exports as "Mr. Bean" and "The Two Ronnies" have been enjoyed by large television audiences in South Africa. A broad range of theatre and dance companies have entertained the market opened up by the lifting of the Equity ban. In fact, in two weeks' time the Rolling Stones will be performing at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg. There has also been extensive contact between the Department of National Heritage and their counterparts in South Africa. As a result, I am confident that South Africa will continue to find Britain a regular source of top class entertainment. Such developments may not show up on the balance sheet, but they certainly contribute crucially to national morale; and they significantly enhance the ubiquitous feel-good factor during these times of change.
The same is true for sport. South Africans have always invested vast quantities of emotion, resources and effort into their sport, and the act of supporting the national rugby, cricket and football teams through their
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readmission to international competition has been among the most effective means of uniting a once divided people. Recently Steve Tshwete, the Minister of Sport, spoke of sport providing the cement which holds together the bricks that are building the new nation.
In 99 days' time, South Africa will host the Rugby World Cup —the third largest sporting event in the world, and the largest sporting event ever staged on the African continent. I believe that many of the international spectators visiting South Africa for the first time will be overwhelmed by the quality of its stadiums and facilities. The tournament will offer an unprecedented opportunity for the country to demonstrate its best qualities to global television audiences.
I am pleased to note that the Sports Council has launched an initiative to help South African sport in three main areas: to train more than 1,000 South African athletics coaches; to educate 350 South African soccer coaches; and to train South African administrators.
The fourth area of promotion is tourism. With its fine weather, outstanding scenery and game parks, the country has the potential to become one of the most sought after holiday destinations in the world, thereby deriving much needed international revenue and creating many jobs. Numbers of international visitors have risen dramatically since the election. However, the figure of 850,000 foreign tourists last year still compares unfavourably with the 4 million foreign tourists who visited Kenya last year. Tourism currently represents about 3 per cent. of South Africa's GNP compared with a global average of 10 per cent. More than 70 per cent. of tourists in South Africa originate from within the country. To realise its tourism potential, South Africa must and will have to improve its internal transport structure and raise the standards of accommodation and service in major hotels. There will also need to be more assurances that South Africa is a safe and politically stable destination for international tourists. I believe that Her Majesty's Government can help in that area by providing more tertiary education and training in tourist and leisure activities to South African operators.
With recent figures suggesting that nine incoming tourists to South Africa correspond to the creation of one job, a boom in the tourist industry could produce a highly positive impact on the economy. Although luring the world's holidaymakers may seem far removed from the task of rebuilding poverty-stricken townships, it can prove a valuable source of income for the RDP. The RDP lies at the heart of the new Government's strategy and has assumed the dimensions of a national mission. International donors have focused their attention on promoting the RDP. The corporate sector within South African has orientated its strategy to complement the RDP's goals, and educational institutions have framed their plans to support and promote the RDP.
In simple terms that programme may seem nothing more than a state sponsored plan to provide jobs and houses for the very poor. But in fact the programme incorporates an extensive range of initiatives. The Government have budgeted 37.5 billion rand—that equates to about £6.8 billion—over the next five years, and have identified five prime aims: to meet basic needs,

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such as jobs, land and housing; to develop human resources through education and training; to promote economic growth; to complete the democratisation process; and, finally, to establish a sound structure of government. As President Mandela stated in the White Paper,
"The RDP should not be seen as a new set of projects, but rather as a comprehensive reconstruction of existing activities. Growth and development are more than inter dependent. They are mutually enforcing".
The RDP is, in short, the way ahead. I believe it is essential that any British initiative to South Africa be framed as closely as possible to the needs set out in that programme.
These are exciting times for South Africa. The new country enjoys almost boundless potential. Yet we should not lose sight of the fact that there remains much to be done, and that there could be many hiccups. The jarring contrast between the opulence, say, of gracious homes in Cape Town suburbs of Constantia and Bishopscourt, and the squalor of Khayelitsha, a township just a few kilometres away, are repeated up and down the country. It may be the case that South Africa will only truly settle down when that almighty chasm between the rich and the poor is satisfactorily bridged. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
4.39 p.m.
Lord Poole: My Lords, 33 years ago I sat on the steps of the Throne to listen to my father's maiden speech. I must have been about 17 at the time. I do not think children are ever very kind where their parents are concerned, and I fear that. I certainly was not, because over lunch my acerbic eye was surprised that someone who seemed to me so enormously experienced in speaking could be quite so nervous. I think I understand that better today.
I venture to speak about South Africa because my grandmother, who died in the 1960s, was brought up in the Orange Free State before the Boer War. These had clearly been enchanted years to her; so my childhood was filled with her memories. Spion Kop and Ladysmith, for example, were as real to me as Romney Marsh, which lay before her house. Her old age, however, was saddened by apartheid and what it was doing to her country. She held it in horror. She made me promise not to visit her country until apartheid had come to an end.
When Nelson Mandela left prison, I can assure noble Lords that I quickly booked my ticket. It was not just to visit the area of my grandmother's childhood or the battlefields, which I certainly did—and staggeringly beautiful I found the country to be. My real purpose was to see what could be done to help to rebuild business relationships that had been attenuated or broken by apartheid. At the time I was running corporate finance for a major investment house in the City. We had many connections that I could look up. Visiting those was a profoundly depressing experience. It was absolutely apparent that the impact of years of sanctions had gravely damaged the economy.
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But much worse, visiting the African townships hugely depressed me. The magnitude of the task of bringing any economic development to the Africans who had been deprived for so long of any of the building blocks that were required had to be seen to be imagined. As I toured around, it became clear to me that virtually none of the educational skills or the infrastructure that would be required was in place—none of the components that were needed to build an economy was really present so far as the Africans were concerned. Whatever was to be done was clearly a task beyond private enterprise alone. Our Government must be congratulated not just on recognising that, but on moving so very quickly to put such a range of imaginative initiatives in place to assist the development of South Africa's economy, as well as assisting on the cultural and sporting side.
There can be no secure future for South Africa without a strong economy which can deliver to the Africans the housing, education, health care and job opportunities that are their right. My main concern here is the role that the private sector can play and how it can be fostered by the British Government. South Africa's economic development will best be driven by the building of a vibrant, broader-based private sector—partly by privatisation, partly by new investment coming into the country. When I talk about investment I do not mean the sort of investment funds that are flowing into the Stock Market and so rapidly and unhelpfully increasing the price of a limited number of listed companies. What is needed is the creation of wealth generating businesses from which the black community will profit as owners, employees and customers.
Since last year's visit by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, much has been put in place to assist British companies and businesses which might participate in that process. We should pay tribute to the Prime Minister's strong personal commitment to assisting South Africa.
I think particularly of the Opportunity South Africa campaign, of the £100 million of development finance to be delivered over three years; and, indeed, for example, of the biggest ever UK trade drive that will follow Her Majesty's visit later this year; as well as all the training and educational initiatives, to mention but a few.
The key to fostering investment is to require our Government to take steps to assist in modifying the political risk that investors will face. I am glad to say that the Government have moved effectively here as well. For example, special ECGD arrangements for up to £1 billion of cover have been specially provided in what I believe is a unique initiative against political risk.
But not quite everything is being done in that respect as might be the case. First, it has to be .said that to potential investors the 1999 elections represent a very serious hurdle. When talking to the investment banks in the City which act for British companies, it is plain that that is the case. As a result, although much know-how is moving to South Africa—a good example would be Eastern Midlands Electric's excellent joint project to wire up Khay-elitsa—the amount of capital for direct investment from the UK is rather disappointing. It is a

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sad commentary, but I have been told by many of our merchant banks that they are acting for more United States investors in South Africa than for British ones. I believe that that is partly due to that country's excellent political risk coverage. As it happens, there are special ECGD arrangements to provide medium-term political risk coverage to direct investors in South Africa. But for some reason the existence of these arrangements is largely unknown.
Secondly, whatever arrangements there are for protection against political risk must necessarily come with operating rules and guidelines for the officials who will administer them. From my brief time in government, I know how very easily guidelines can atrophy into insurmountable barriers. Perhaps I may be permitted to put in a plea to Ministers to ensure both that the arrangements become better broadcast and that whatever rules are in place shall be interpreted as flexibly as possible—not just in the present climate but to meet whatever future requirements there may be as the economy in South Africa evolves.
4.47 p.m.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, the House has been privileged to hear two outstanding speeches. Although I am not required to congratulate the opening speaker, I am required—and it is a pleasure—to congratulate the maiden speaker. His father was a very popular Member of this House, and a very powerful man—and his grandmother was obviously extremely wise, because she was one of my supporters, but I do not mean in a party political sense.
My first involvement with South Africa was in the formation of the boycott movement in 1958. We met then, in the basement of dear David Pitt's surgery, with Oliver Tambo and many others. We took the same view as the noble Lord's grandmother; namely, that we ought not to visit, trade, engage in tourism or sell arms, but should wait until the time for which we were campaigning when South Africa would be free.
It was therefore for me a most wonderful experience to be chosen as one of the Commonwealth and UN representatives, as an official observer, and to be in South Africa for five weeks to see happening what we had campaigned for nearly 35 years earlier. The British Government's record at that time was not very good. That emphasises, as the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, said, our special responsibility at this time in every way—governmental, private, or whatever. We have to mobilise our support for South Africa.
South Africa is basically enormously rich. It has so much to offer to those who go there. Eventually it will have so much to offer for those who invest there. South Africa's role is not just qua South Africa, qua southern Africa. I believe that it has a very important stabilising role in the whole of Africa.
It is a very great privilege that the country is now led by men of the quality of Nelson Mandela. I met Nelson Mandela before he went to Robben Island. I knew him as a young lawyer. He is an outstanding man. I saw him walking tall as he came out of prison a free man. He
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had been behind bars for many years but seemed not to have any bitterness and to care only for the good of his own country and the welfare of his people. I have almost equal praise for Mr. de Klerk, who was at one time the president of the country. It was a remarkable combination of the work of those two men which enabled the people of South Africa to join together.
I believe it was recognised that boycott campaigns and sanctions were extremely important. They hurt but they produced the results. We saw white and black coming together during the elections and it was a wonderful experience. It was not just a matter of the liberation of Africans. It was the liberation of white people and coloured people—in fact, all those who make up the great South African nation. It is right that Nobel peace prizes were awarded to Nelson Mandela and Frederik de Klerk as well as to Archbishop Tutu, who, in his own inimitable way, has had a very powerful influence in South Africa. I admire all of them.
But, of course, Nelson Mandela must take pride of place. He is a man so big, so generous, so charming and witty, with all the right qualities for a political leader, which all too few political leaders possess.
I believe that South Africa, after all these years, is entitled to look for encouragement to Britain, the European Community, the countries of Africa through the Organisation of African Unity and the United Nations. Those four organisations, working together, were able to say after the election was over—and it was a funny old election—that it was a free election. It is a real opportunity for the people of that country, who, as the noble Lord, Lord Poole, so powerfully said, have suffered so much, now to be able to enjoy the privileges that go with independence. People will have to be very patient. It will take a long time. I know that it will take a very long time to turn Khayelitsha into a place that is lovely to live in. There are places like Khayelitsha all over the country.
Finally, I should like to pay tribute to Bishop Trevor Huddleston, who is now over 80 years old. He has made a great contribution to the anti-apartheid movement, in the broadest sense. I was very proud that he was one of my successors as president of the anti-apartheid movement. He embodied, as did Nelson Mandela, the spirit of co-operation. That spirit of co-operation which the Africans have shown must also be shown now by the rest of the world and Britain in particular.
4.55 p.m.
Lord Thurlow: My Lords, I must apologise for having come to the House a few minutes after the beginning of the debate. It started rather earlier than I had expected. First, I should like to endorse warmly what the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, said about the speaker who introduced the Motion and to pay tribute to the very distinguished contribution from the maiden speaker. I was particularly interested by what he said about the failure of the investing community to become alive to the exceptional political cover that ECGD has now offered. I very much hope that that will be put around more widely and taken on board.

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In the aftermath of a political revolution—whether it is called evolution or revolution, it is part of both in the case of South Africa—I believe that nothing is of more importance than voluntary organisations bringing together expertise from all fields to support the positive proposals of the authorities. The noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, referred Ito the paramount importance of the RDP.
I should like to refer to one of the small green shoots that has sprung up in the past five years, bringing together people from every branch of industry, banking, social life, education and the media to help plan together ways of supporting the Government in their ambitious plans. Five years ago an initiative was undertaken to start up something of that kind. Under the surface it has been growing under the very distinguished and experienced leadership of Mr. Louis van der Meere. Apart from having made a great contribution in turning round one of the great utilities of South Africa, he has also worked abroad in many fields and is in touch with many experts of all kinds. Three weeks ago a meeting was held to launch what has been entitled the National Learning Centre in order to establish a network of influential people with responsibilities. Representatives in every key field seek to create a partnership to support development and, in the first place, to produce a three-year development plan.
That framework includes plans for five subsidiary national learning centres in the main centres of South Africa. There are also links abroad. MIT and the global industry network in California have been very much involved in the planning over the past five years and there have been valuable links with an important associate of the London Business School. That National Learning Centre is now getting off the ground, with leaders of the black community and other ethnic communities, to tackle together the fearful problems of economic and social change. They will use the latest technologies that international business is now increasingly harnessing, including scenario planning, systems dynamics, matrix grids and other techniques with which your Lordships no doubt are more familiar than I am. But they are valuable and help to bring South Africa into the international network of business and social leaders.
A new nervous system can be created by that means. I myself know from my experience what has happened in the, relatively speaking, microcosm of the Bahamas, which experienced its own revolution—a revolution without a background of recent oppression but with its own tensions and difficulties after 300 years of the white community being virtually in charge of everything. In that microcosm we managed to come through successfully with a co-operative community between the different ethnic components. It is possible; it has been shown to be possible elsewhere in Africa, both in some of our former colonies and in some of the former French colonies.
South Africa is a special case; the difficulties are perhaps greater than anywhere else. But they can be solved by people working together and this network sets out to give a powerful boost in that direction. I hope that in the support Her Majesty's Government pledged
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to give, it may be found possible to contribute some seed corn to this new, important and promising initiative.
5.1 p.m.
Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord St. John, has been successful in achieving this debate. No one in this House has such first-hand experience of South Africa, Publicly and behind the scenes he has done an enormous amount to restore British-South African relations to their current excellent standing.
The title of the debate might imply that Her Majesty's Government are not doing enough to help South Africa. Many people I met throughout that wonderful country over the past eight days pointed out that our Government have not received their due recognition for how much they have done for South Africa. South Africans do not forget the crucial role our Government played leading up to the miracle election last year, nor do they forget the substantial sums directed to the Peace Secretariat in the pre-election period for training monitors and for the purchase of essential equipment. A substantial number of election observers were funded during the election, of which I was fortunate enough to be one. We have committed £100 million—an enormous sum—to South Africa over a three-year period in addition to training assistance with the civil service, police and BMATT.
I understand that one of the key aims of our assistance is to help with agricultural and land-use development. Some concern was expressed to me in South Africa that various agricultural loans and assistance to other African countries, particularly from the European Union, were ill-conceived and ignored the environment and eco-tourism as a natural resource of tremendous value. One much quoted example is the Okavango Delta where zealous overstocking and agricultural development, driven by European Union subsidies, is destroying a beautiful part of the Botswana environment.
South Africa desperately needs to boost its economy. Millions are without jobs—there is 50 per cent. unemployment in some areas—and in order to prevent civil unrest in the future something dramatic will have to be done. Only tourism has the potential of creating thousands of jobs, offering numerous business opportunities and attracting foreign exchange on such a scale that it will make a major difference to the lives of many South Africans.
So rich is the country in scenic beauty and wildlife that those facets remain the strongest motivation for overseas tourists to visit South Africa. As an eco-destination, South Africa has an enormous responsibility and there is a growing awareness of that among members of the tourism industry. Parties that are directly involved, such as the national and provincial parks, as well as game reserves, are now including the concept of involving and benefiting local communities in their mission statements. It is therefore a top priority for government and overseas aid agencies to help develop tourism in South Africa.

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I was contacted yesterday in South Africa by the chairman of the South African cabinet-appointed committee looking into the crucial subject of environmental management. He would like to bring a delegation to meet my noble friend Lady Chalker within the next three to six months to make various suggestions as to how Her Majesty's Government can help the South African tourist industry, with particular emphasis on technical assistance and education for those needed in the tourist industry.
The delegation will also comprise a senior representative of the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism—indeed, I understand that the Minister himself hopes to come—the Director of the World Wildlife Fund for South Africa, the Director of National Parks, South Africa, and the head of the ANC Environmental Desk, as well as representatives of private enterprise from all backgrounds and races, dedicated to eco-tourism. Costs would be borne by the individual organisations rather than by Her Majesty's Government and I understand that the High Commissioner and ODA representative in Pretoria will be fully consulted. I was in touch today with the office of my noble friend Lady Chalker and hope that she will give all the representatives a warm welcome and an attentive ear.
5.7 p.m.
Baroness Wharton: My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lord St. John of Bletso for introducing this timely debate today. As we know, South Africa has embarked on an ambitious programme of reconstruction and development which will challenge all of its resources. As my noble friend said, the key challenges for the country are to achieve sustainable economic growth in order to create jobs and reduce unemployment; to build homes for the homeless and to raise education standards, thereby enabling more people to find work.
Self-help schemes and owner-build projects can speed the production of homes and bring employment; creative ideas and technology can help transform the education system. Obviously the solution rests primarily with the South African Government and the policies they pursue. But there is much that can be done to support the process in just the same way as it works in the UK, where our leaders rally voluntary effort and resources from the talented and industrious to run programmes which are of great benefit to society at large.
I realise that the ODA gives high priority to small business in South Africa and is currently working together with local business to fund small development projects. In response to an earlier debate on the Commonwealth with reference to South Africa, the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, told us that the ODA already spends a considerable amount of money on education and training scholarships for South Africa as a whole. South Africans too benefit from that fund. I particularly welcome the £2 million the Minister promised on her recent trip to South Africa for tertiary education. However, organisations such as the Prince's Trust and the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme could be encouraged to play an important part.
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Now that South Africa is back in the Commonwealth with Her Majesty the Queen's visit drawing close and in the wake of the Prime Minister's highly successful tour, now could be the moment to form a bridgehead and launch a major initiative to co-ordinate and focus our considerable experience and resourcefulness by helping to solve some of the problems that South Africans, particularly those in rural areas, will continue to face for many years to come.
I recently read with a great deal of interest about an organisation which in many ways parallels the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme; it is called the SIBIKWA Community Theatre Project. It was formed in 1988 as a community-based organisation, helping youngsters up to the age of 25. Funding has come from foreign as well as local South African business.
Basically, SIBIKWA is about education, art and culture. It has a youth development programme which involves full-time vocational training for out of school unemployed youths. Most of the participants in those programmes are from very poor homes with little or no educational skills, and SIBIKWA has managed to encourage many disaffected illiterate youngsters back into the culture of learning, eventually to become useful members of their community.
SIBIKWA provides centres where youngsters can escape township violence and a haven where they can also channel their energy creatively. Students who eventually find work contribute a percentage of their earnings to SIBIKWA, thereby helping it to continue its valuable work. Another SIBIKWA initiative is the street children rehabilitation programme, which speaks for itself. There is also a part-time youth arts development programme for senior school children and a full-time course for children of primary school age. The theatre community programme encourages every aspect of art and drama. Plays have been written and performed and some have also found their way into arts festivals around the country.
I hope that I am not going too far from the essence of the debate, but these ventures, in order to expand and thrive, need funds and by working alongside such projects, we too could benefit. Our own unique trusts have the same objectives and encourage people to use their own initiative rather than just doing the job for them. Is it possible that we could work alongside the indigenous self-help programmes in the new South Africa? The Prince's Trust, with its interest in housing and technology, could have an enormous input. Would the ODA involve itself in those sorts of programmes? Much work needs to be done—for example, community centres need to be built, particularly in rural areas. South Africa is multi-cultural and rich in its diversity. Its art and culture are the sum of its people.
Finally, when I lived in South Africa I felt proud of all things British and I should like some of that feeling to rub off on the new generation.
5.12 p.m.
The Earl of Lindsey and Abingdon: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, for opening this short debate on four important aspects

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relating to the new South Africa. Like the noble Lord, I spent most of my early life in southern Africa. As a result, I have taken a keen interest in developments over many years. I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Poole on an excellent maiden speech.
It is now nearly a year since the first fully democratic elections and I for one am not only pleased but at the same time surprised at bow relatively well the peace process has gone. In view of the short time allocated, I shall try to restrict my observations mostly to the economic part of the debate, though at the same time fully realising that the cultural, sporting and tourist activities are all dependent on economic prosperity.
After years of isolation and sanctions, the country is desperate for foreign investment. It has to be said that some extravagant promises were made by the African National Congress leading up to last year's elections, such as the construction of 1 million new low-income homes over a period of five years. If that kind of project is to be met over the next few years and thus avoid the possibility of further unrest, urgent inward investment will be required.
Companies with previous South African experience are beginning to relocate after the lifting of sanctions. Some institutional investors are beginning to take a cautious approach to a market which has shown a rather slow growth over the past year. A lot of trouble seems to centre around the two-tier monetary system, based on the financial and commercial rand. It is said that the former is having a detrimental effect on inward investment. The gap has recently narrowed between the two rands and I should like to suggest that a good first anniversary present to the economy would be to abolish the two-tier system.
Another major problem which has already been referred to is unemployment. Through encouraging inward investment, the other activities mentioned in the debate will benefit, thus helping to eradicate the unemployment problem. It is unfortunate that recent adverse publicity has centred around two well known ANC personalities, together with the news today of a racial confrontation outside a school near Cape Town. This kind of thing must make potential investors hesitate. Prosperity will only prevail so long as there is racial harmony and respect for each other's cultural traditions. It must be remembered that, unlike other southern hemisphere African countries, there has been a European as well as an African presence for over 300 years. I was therefore sad to read earlier this week that the London Philharmonic Orchestra had arrived in South Africa to find itself at the centre of a sensitive debate over African and European cultures. Both should be treated on an equal basis.
In conclusion, I still urge my noble friend Lord Inglewood, who will wind up for the Government, to set an example so that others may follow in establishing links with a country that in the past had a close association with the United Kingdom.
5.15 p.m.
Lord Acton: My Lords, on 17th November last year, South African Deputy President Thabo Mbeki wrote to the European Union presidency a letter of the utmost importance. In it he said:
"South Africa … asks to open negotiations with a view to establishing the closest possible relationship with the Lomé Convention".
The case for the Government to take a lead in promoting South Africa's links with the European Union is a powerful one. For reasons of history, investment and trade, Britain has a major interest in the success of South Africa.
The Lomé IV Convention is a 10-year treaty between the European Union and 70 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries (the ACP) designed to encourage trade and development and to strengthen political and cultural ties. Because of the enormous importance of the European Union as South Africa's major trading partner, that country now seeks to join the Lomé band.
Although South Africa has a number of developed sectors, its levels of infant mortality, life expectancy, malnutrition, unemployment and illiteracy make it comparable with neighbouring African countries. Ninety-five per cent. of the population of the ACP countries live in sub-Saharan Africa, thus Lomé is largely a treaty between Europe and Africa. To omit from Lomé an African country as critical as South Africa would be perverse.
Trade relations and import duty concessions are the first business of the Lomé Convention. Last month the Institute of Development Studies completed an independent study for the South African Government of 98 South African products identified as being of particular importance for export to the European Union.
The study reports that for three-quarters of those products, friction with ACP countries would be minimal. Moreover, relatively few of those exports would lead to competition with European Union countries. Negotiations therefore need not be as difficult as one might imagine.
At paragraph 87 the report makes the particularly noteworthy finding that the United Kingdom is a significant importer of many of the 98 products concerned and a significant exporter of only a relatively small number of the items. Undoubtedly, this country's overall trading interest is to promote South Africa's relationship with the Lomé family.
One area where Britain should give an urgent lead is in the Lomé IV mid-term review which is due to be completed early next month. A provision should be included in the review which allows for South Africa's eventual accession to the Lomé Convention. A similar clause made some years ago for Namibia provides a model. It would permit South Africa's accession to be ratified speedily once detailed negotiations were completed. Without such a clause, endless cumbersome procedures would have to be undergone and the resulting delay would prove very expensive for South Africa.

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Another specific area where Britain could take a lead is in the European Union's aid to South Africa. If South Africa were included in the Lomé aid programme, it would compete for funds with the ACP countries, which doubtless would object strongly. Currently, under the European Union's special programme for reconstruction and development, South Africa will receive 125 million ecus (£100 million) for 1995. Britain should ensure that South Africa continues to be aided from that special programme and not from Lomé resources. This exceptional aid needs to be continued at least until 1999, the intended period of the Government of National Unity.
To enable the proper planning of projects in South Africa, this aid should be arranged on a multi-annual basis—in other words, the European Union should commit itself to providing funds over, say, a three-year period.
A key aspect of the convention's trading system is "cumulation" under the Lomé rules of origin, whereby to obtain duty-free access to the European Union, ACP products must be deemed as originating in the ACP. For example, clothing manufactured in Zimbabwe from cloth produced in South Africa is liable for standard import duty on entry into the European Union because South Africa is not an ACP member. To include South Africa within the ACP would undoubtedly open up great new commercial possibilities within the entire region of Southern Africa.
Under the convention, European Union and ACP companies can tender for Lomé-funded works and supply contracts. ACP companies receive a special 10 or 15 per cent. preference. Britain should play a leading role in ensuring that South African companies can bid for those contracts, thus increasing the number of such contracts awarded to African countries. Whether South Africa should get the full ACP preference would be a matter for negotiation.
Britain has played a huge part in the story of South Africa's past. Let Britain now play a huge part in the crucial story of South Africa's future relationship with the European Union.
5.23 p.m.
The Earl of Clanwilliam: My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord St. John Bletso, that I was not present during his opening remarks. I have an excuse in that I was a Member of the Defence Committee of your Lordships' House and was visiting the Royal Yacht "Britannia" where we heard in detail about much of the work which is about to be done. The yacht is shortly off to Cape Town where it will be a base for our Sovereign not only there but in Durban. I know that this is perhaps not relevant to the immediate debate, but perhaps I may make a plea to say how important it is that a replacement for the Royal Yacht is found and arrangements made for the proper representation of the Sovereign not only overseas generally, but particularly in the Commonwealth.
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I refer also to the words of the noble Lord, Lord Acton, who referred in particular to the Lomé Convention and the ACP arrangements which include everything that I am about to say about the promotion of trade in that country.
My reason for speaking is my experience as an immigrant to South Africa in 1948. That was the year when Dr. Malan arrived and "We are the masters now" were the words which were heard by the Afrikaner. They were only too redolent of remarks that we had heard a couple of years previously in this country. I have some experience at first hand of the Afrikaner. I do not believe that I am going to be too popular, but a word should be said about the Afrikaner, who is a remarkable individual.
I spent some years in an outlying village about 150 miles from Cape Town. It was dominated by a Scots dominey. The society was entirely Afrikaner which lived by the Bible and the gun. It regarded me with great suspicion as an "Engelsman". I am not an apologist for apartheid, but they were in a difficult position. The Afrikaners lived in a country where they were greatly outnumbered and felt beleaguered. They undoubtedly experienced terrible aggression but their response was defensive in order to protect a way of life and not to impose one. Of course, the result of their policy was inhuman to the vast majority of the population. It was imposed out of fear and not out of beastliness. They felt all the more beleaguered as a result of the international reaction. It is a familiar phrase, but they had nowhere else to go. No one in this House today can say that he has nowhere else to go.
That is said on behalf of the Afrikaner, but all that is in the past now. There was the work of Bishop Huddleston and Bishop Tutu and that of the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, who was here just now. Not only that, but there was also the shining light of Nelson Mandela while he was imprisoned on Robben Island. We have been shown all too clearly that the vast majority of Africans could not have been supported or educated and brought up to the standard to which they look forward by the Afrikaner or white population of South Africa.
It is for us, as one of the outside nations, to provide millions of pounds and dollars which will be required to satisfy the aspirations and the needs of the newly enfranchised Africans. It is a subject which is far beyond the scope of South Africa. There are the huge problems of housing, education and health which cannot be solved by South Africa, but by outside help. It requires millions of dollars from the United Nations and help especially from our country.
5.28 p.m.
Lord Alport: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, for initiating this timely debate. For those of us in this House who have had a long association with South Africa, the events of the past few years have seemed almost miraculous. I was born in South Africa as my father was before me. He was medical officer to General Louis Botha's commandos in the German South West Africa campaign before coming to England at the end of 1914 to join the British Army. One strand of my family went to Cape

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Colony in 1840 and another goes back to the first European settlement under Van Riaback by the Dutch East India Company in 1652. That strand contributed representatives to the Great Trek and to the battle of Blood River. It was therefore when serving as the UK Government representative in Rhodesia in 1962, and learning that South Africa had severed its constitutional links with Great Britain by leaving the Commonwealth, that I felt a very real sense of loss.
I like to think that perhaps the events in Rhodesia of those years—the failure of white-led UDI and the transition into a majority rule state in Zimbabwe—contributed to the emergence of the South Africa of today, now back as a member of the Commonwealth, as a democratic state and without any civil war.
But of course it could scarcely have happened without the extraordinary leadership of President Mandela and the statesmanship of Mr. de Klerk. Now, as the Motion reminds us, we have to look to building a new relationship between Britain and South Africa in all the spheres of common interest which we share. There are many. One of our common interests is the stability of the African states south of the Sahara. South Africa is economically, militarily and now politically in a position to wield great influence in helping to solve problems such as the conflicts that exist in Angola and Mozambique. Previously, the South African Government exacerbated the conflicts in both those countries. We should encourage as much as we possibly can the present and future governments of South Africa to play the role of a strong impartial neighbour there and elsewhere in Africa—perhaps in Malawi if there is trouble there in the future, as there may well be.
The South African Government will, of course, be heavily involved in trying to meet the rising expectations of its African population, as many of your Lordships have said, but we should help primarily to ensure that through its membership of various international organisations, including the Commonwealth, South Africa takes on an effective role as the leading democratic state in Africa today.
It is inevitable that the immediate problems which the South African Government face in meeting the demands of the Africans for better housing, education and standards of living, should have priority. The help that we can give is pretty limited, but we have heard some interesting suggestions in this debate. Her Majesty's Government should examine with the South African Government whether the latter believe that special forms of assistance would be of value. I refer to the areas of professional education and technological training. South Africa's universities and industry are of a very high standard.
I do not think that there will be much trouble in encouraging tourists from this country to go to South Africa to enjoy that wonderful country and its climate or in encouraging the Lions and the Springboks to engage in friendly combat in a variety of sports. However, it may be that when the extraordinary personal influence and judgment of President Mandela have become part of history, friendship and understanding between a new generation of South African leaders and those who will be governing at
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Westminster will be of vital importance. I hope that the creation of a special relationship between Great Britain and South Africa will be a commitment that will be accepted by the leaders of whatever party is destined to govern this country in the immediate future.
5.33 p.m.
The Earl of Kintore: My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lord St.John of Bletso for introducing the debate this evening. My noble friend has been tireless in his efforts for South Africa.
I first went to South Africa in 1947 by boat from Southampton to Cape Town. Most people now fly. My sister and brother-in-law did so at Christmas to stay with relatives and on hearing of this debate suggested that to encourage tourism air fares must be reduced. I am indebted to my local travel agent for delving into the minefield of the estimated air fare element of holiday costs. Flying for almost exactly 11 hours, you can go against the wind to San Francisco for £468, with the wind to Bangkok for £848 and across the wind to Johannesburg for £930, which is the most expensive. But the real expense is at the holiday resort.
South African holidays are incomparable, but suffice it to say that they are considerably more expensive than a similar holiday in Kenya. Those high costs may be deliberate in order to restrict tourists, as the holiday infrastructure is relatively small and popular locations like the Victoria Falls Hotel and the Blue Train are difficult to book. The Government might consider encouraging—even instructing—that another British carrier should cover the South Africa route. They might also assist the South African Government to increase the number of holiday destinations.
The Government are to be congratulated on the DTI initiatives of 1994 and the first one of 1995, from 27th to 31st March, in Cape Town to coincide with the visit of the Royal Yacht. The Scots have been to South Africa as well. On a 1994 trade mission organised by the Scottish Council for Trade and Industry, one of the delegates was the managing director of R. B. Farquhar of Huntly, which is well known for prefabricated modular accommodation. It has a quick-build house which it thinks would be ideal for the planned reconstruction and development programme and in helping to reduce the housing backlog of at least 1.5 million families. It could also help to meet the annual demand for 200,000 houses.
I believe that somewhere in the Cape at Christmas a small town was laid out—with streets, streetlights and lavatory bowls in place, but nothing else. Farquhar's quick-build houses could cover 60 lavatory bowls per day, using a squad of 18 reasonably skilled workers. Farquhar thinks that it has the right product—and South African building firms have confirmed that—but it is at present unable to persuade the South African authorities of the merit of its product. Any assistance or advice that the British Government can give will be welcome.

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Perhaps the noble Lord who is to reply to the debate would write to me if he does not have the information to hand.
5.37 p.m.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, the expectations of the black majority in South Africa for progress over the next few years are enormous and those expectations will not be realised unless there is a strong economy backed by increasing international business investment.
As we have heard, the reconstruction to that end is delegated largely to the reconstruction and development programme, which is based in Pretoria, and is the cornerstone of the programme. For all its good intents, the programme suffers from bureaucracy and, above all, from inexperience. As a result, projects are not taking off with the best of speed, and the RDP is a bottleneck in transforming the aid given by outside countries into improvements on the ground for all those millions who are expecting so much so quickly from the new government: houses, education and services.
If, by the next election in 1999, progress has not been achieved, there will be a great danger of a Left-wing challenge to Mr. Mandela that could seriously affect the future of the country. In time South Africa will finish its honeymoon, and it will leave the immediate news stage as some other theatre becomes more in the public eye. The development that by then has not been achieved may become all the harder to achieve as funds are routed elsewhere. But projects have to be identified, business plans have to be drawn up and feasibility studies made to measure the aid benefit. All this takes valuable time.
There is an office of the ODA in Pretoria administering aid and I believe it would speed the process if the ODA were actively to help the RDP in its own administration. This could be done by seconding officials to the latter. I hope that the Government will consider that.
In 1997 there will be a bid for Cape Town to have the Olympics in 2004. I cannot think of a better or more beautiful place to have them. If the bid is successful, it will attract an investment of 58 billion Rand and create 400,000 jobs. I very much hope that it will succeed. Either way, the reconstruction programme will generate a huge market for all sorts of goods, offering terrific investment opportunities.
There are a great many technologies that are peculiarly applicable to South Africa. They can be passed on to the other countries in the region to their benefit. For example, Eskom, which provides the power for the country, has enough surplus generation to supply its neighbours. It expects to be able to supply an extra 2.5 million households by 2000. That huge electrification programme will provide vast business potential for the makers of appliances, household goods and, of course, electrical supply equipment, some of which will be imported. The supply of electricity comes through a prepaid meter on specially developed technology that is a sought-after export product by other African countries.
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The technology for cheap housing, which has been mentioned, suitable only for that region is another valuable export which will lead to a big demand in white goods. The spin-off from the South African RDP will reach deep into the whole region, so that money spent in South Africa will help to stabilise and benefit the whole region.
Closer liaison between the ODA and the RDP, working in tandem, would give early warning to British firms of opportunities on the horizon. Such a knotting together of the two interests would benefit the regeneration and the trade of both countries, and it would forge links that would last through the decades that it will take to do the job.
Britain may be the biggest investor in South Africa, but the Japanese and the Germans are investing heavily in the country and buying hotels and businesses. We must not allow ourselves to be pushed into second or third place—as has happened in so many other countries—in a country that has such affinity with and good will to us at the moment and one that is the engine of the half continent. We must not miss the opportunity to establish new bases which can then spread out over the continent.
It is therefore reassuring to see that Mr. Major and Mr. Heseltine have led trade and business delegations, and that last, but foremost, Her Majesty is about to pay a visit to South Africa. The Government merit congratulations on taking those initiatives.
The country is now trying to move out of trade protection and into the GATT. That will cause some agony and may prove too painful. However, the UK has a role to play in helping to ease the way and has already helped South Africa with the European Union. The UK could usefully advise with regard to Europe, to everyone's mutual benefit. South Africa will of course compete with us, but the difference in climate and its special position enable it to complement quite as much as to compete in most spheres of trade. But a word of warning: in many countries aid has led to a crippling debt burden that has undone all the benefit of the aid.
It is essential for the good of South Africa that any loans should be channelled strictly into wealth-creating industry so that any debt can be serviced properly. Otherwise, in our generosity, we shall just create another impoverished country. It is that country's industry, not aid, that must create the wealth to improve its own living standards.
5.43 p.m.
Lord Balfour of Inchrye: My Lords, when I first set eyes on South Africa in 1939 as a young teenager, it was from the sea. Before me lay Cape Town harbour with the magnificent spectacle of Table Mountain in the background. Alas, as my noble friend Lord Kintore has just remarked, few go by sea nowadays: everyone travels by the more mundane method of air travel which, in the case of arriving at Cape Town, is not nearly so exciting.
I wondered what lay beyond the mother city. In years to come I was to learn: the arboraceous scenery of the Cape peninsula; the garden route to Port Elizabeth; the

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beaches and resorts along the Indian Ocean; the drama of the Drakensbergs; the silence and solitude of the Karoo; the awe-inspiring Kimberley mine—the deepest man-made excavation in the world—and the lusher lands of the north and north eastern Transvaal, which contain numerous reserves with an abundance of game of every description. When one considers that South Africa has excellent communications and a first-rate transport system, it is no wonder that it constitutes a veritable paradise for the tourist.
I am therefore pleased that my noble friend Lord St. John of Bletso, to whom I am very grateful for instigating this debate, has specified tourism as one of the links to be promoted between Britain and South Africa.
Whereas politicians often tend to divide and separate people, sport and the performing arts unite and bind them. I may be right in thinking that the Prime Minister partially agrees with me, because I recall that among the party that accompanied him to South Africa last September was that distinguished footballer and splendid ambassador for soccer, Sir Bobby Charlton. His visit to the townships must have been of great encouragement to all the youngsters there. In recent years, African countries have shown remarkable progress in the World Cup, and I note that Leeds United has two black South Africans on its playing staff. Following his visit to South Africa last year, John Barnes, the Liverpool and England player, stated:
"The skill level was unbelievable, it's an outstanding set-up and best of all they keep stressing the enjoyment factor. In two or three World Cups' time, South Africa is going to be in with a real chance of winning something".
That was high praise indeed from such a fine player. So I hope that we can look Forward to regular exchanges between the clubs and national teams of our two countries.
I trust that noble Lords will forgive me, in particular the noble Lord, Lord Rennell, if I admit that compared with my knowledge of soccer, my knowledge of rugby is limited. I confess I watch only when Scotland plays which nowadays is a somewhat chastening experience.
In 1956, I watched the first Test Match at the Wanderers' Stadium in Johannesburg when England, led by the late Peter May, were the visitors. In those days the few African spectators were allocated little space from which to watch, and they invariably used to cheer every boundary scored by the visitors and every wicket lost by the home side. How different it is today! Membership of the Wanderers is open to all, and, amazingly, a new ground has been constructed in the middle of the nearby Alexandra township, which has already been used as a venue for international cricket. There are now black players on the fringe of the national team, so it must be only a matter of time before South Africa follows Zimbabwe in having its first black test cricketer. It is pleasant to record that English professionals have performed valuable work in recent years by coaching in the townships. Now that they will have more time on their hands, perhaps Mr. Gooch and Mr. Gatting can pass on their wealth of knowledge and experience to aspiring young cricketers.
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I turn now to the cultural scene. Special mention must be made of the Johannesburg Theatre which in the past often proved a thorn in the flesh of the friends of apartheid as well as being a fruitful source of inspiration for many of the country's most distinguished writers. I hope that it may prove possible for it to do a season over here. Musical exchanges have already begun, with the London Philharmonic paying a recent visit, as the noble Earl, Lord Lindsey and Abingdon, mentioned. However, what came as a revelation, to me at least, was a report the other day in The Times of a visit to the first Cape Town opera festival by that paper's opera correspondent, Mr. Rodney Milnes. As he rightly observed, that somewhat esoteric art form had hitherto been almost exclusively associated with the white population, and it is understandable that the Government have other priorities for funding.
One of the festival's four productions was Verdi's "Nabucco", a work in which the chorus plays an important role. In that production the chorus numbered almost 100, with singers of every colour. I find that both moving and thrilling, and the impact of the great chorus Va pensiero must have been truly overwhelming. I wonder what effect even a concert performance of the opera with that choir would have on that most generous and knowledgable of audiences; namely, the London Promenaders.
I realise that while tourism, sport and the arts have a part to play in the new South Africa, there are more pressing ways in which our two countries must be linked; that is, above all, economically. Concerning the latter, I should like to make just two observations in the time available to me. The first is that we must not overlook the commendable part that the South African business community has played in the affairs of the country. More often than not, in its efforts to see justice for all races it has consistently fallen foul of the protagonists of apartheid on major issues. The leading companies have for long had an established policy of social investment on a substantial scale throughout South Africa.
Secondly, it has been repeatedly emphasised how crucial it is that the South African economy should consistently achieve a higher growth rate so that the new government can address the political imperatives of alleviating poverty and extending equality of opportunity to all its citizens, without in any way stultifying growth. But that can be achieved only if the South African Government can reduce the current too-high level of violence and crime so that confidence, particularly among private investors and the international investment and banking communities, can be restored.
Finally, I wish to state a personal belief. We have had close historical ties with South Africa over a long period, which in recent years many would have dearly liked to have severed completely. I submit that we have an obligation to help her overcome the ravages of apartheid and take her rightful place in the world after four-and-a-half decades of darkness and discord. We have had invaluable contributions from all her citizens of all colours during two world wars.

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When I was in the Navy during the Second World War I often heard my shipmates talking about the wonderful hospitality and kindness that they received whenever they had shore leave. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will play a part in discharging this obligation by helping South Africa towards a future of harmony and prosperity for all her citizens.
5.50 p.m.
Lord Rennet:: My Lords, it is a great pleasure to take part in this debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso. Eighteen months ago we played together in Cape Town in the parliamentary rugby team. I can assure your Lordships that it was most comforting to have such a ferocious wing forward protecting me from a very large former Springbok forward. The noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, was also one of my protectors.
I wish to concentrate on sporting links. South Africa is one of the greatest of all sporting nations. Yet a high proportion of the population neither watch nor participate in sport. I wish to make a few suggestions, but first it is important to stress the considerable influence wielded in the South African Transitional Government by the sporting personalities and sporting groups in their Parliament.
I believe that the way to the South African heart in Parliament is through sport. Yesterday I spoke to the Member of Parliament in Cape Town responsible for the Rugby World Cup. One of the main points that he mentioned to me was the desire for a high-level sports fact-finding delegation to be sent from the United Kingdom to South Africa.
Perhaps I may give your Lordships a further example of the influence of Parliament in sport. The South African national rugby team, which recently toured Scotland, Wales and Ireland, was accompanied by some 50 people, 40 of whom were MPs, and two or three Ministers. ANC and Inkatha Members of Parliament, who had never previously seen a game of rugby let alone knew the rules, played for the South African parliamentary rugby team. In fact, that team beat the Scottish Caledonian parliamentary team for which I was playing. Songs were sung in the team coach and they were rendered in Zulu and Xhosa, which is the local language, by all the players. Of course, being rugby songs, I could not understand them and I do not know how polite they were.
There is a great determination and team spirit within the new South African Parliament; a determination to make the new constitution work. I repeat that sport is not only traditionally the greatest of all bonding influences but that that is particularly the case in South Africa.
From an historical perspective, leading developed countries have not had great success in steering many African countries through the transition from "colonial" rule, as it were, to sustainable democratic and reliable free market economies. I am anxious that after the Rugby World Cup in June and after the final
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constitution of the South African Government is adopted there should not be a waning of global scrutiny and interest in the welfare of South Africa.
How, therefore, can we prevent this? From a sporting point of view, we are of course already playing a small but active part. For instance, two magnificent cricket grounds have been created in Alexandria and Soweto, funded from the UK. Cricket is flourishing in those townships. The Soweto Cricket Club is one of a number of township teams which has been coached by an organisation under the guidance of the West Indian cricketer, Conrad Hunt. This was financed by a charitable organisation.
The Soweto Cricket Club will be touring in England and Ireland in July. It has raised some £35,000 from one large individual sponsor and many donations. It has the support of two famous names; Dr. Ali Bacher and Sir Colin Cowdrey. Perhaps your Lordships will consider the excitement of these young, previously disadvantaged cricketers touring abroad. Consider their return to their homelands and the role models that they will become to their families and friends.
Ian Botham and Frank Bruno—what do they have in common? I know what your Lordships will say—that they both perform to full houses at the pantomime! They are sporting heroes and role models and they wield great influence.
An African township team or individual will, with help, sooner rather than later become a role model, a sports hero. In this way, with sporting heroes and teams at all social levels, will South Africa, through the spotlight of the media, remain in the public eye.
I wish briefly to make three suggestions for government action as regards the promotion of sporting links with South Africa. I also ask whether funds might be available from the Reconstruction Development Board and whether tax incentives might be offered to sponsoring companies. My first suggestion, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, is the setting up of a national soccer coaching scheme. Football is very popular in South Africa. The second is funding and sponsorship with tax concessions for South African township touring teams from a wide variety of sports. The third, and most important of all, is that funds which have already been pledged towards education and schools in South Africa should be used at least in part on sports facilities in those schools.
I look forward to hearing my noble friend's reply. In the expectation that he will use his influence on the sporting front—and I hope that I shall not disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Balfour—I suggest that he backs England to win the Rugby World Cup.
5.57 p.m.
Viscount Waverley: My Lords, Britain has always enjoyed a special relationship with South Africa, imbued with a shared sense of history, culture and language as well as sports.
Apartheid's demise has rightly revived this friendship, as both nations tackle the challenges posed by a reawakened South Africa. Britain's business community stands to gain a great deal once South

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Africa's economic recovery gathers momentum. However, the pace of economic ascent can be guaranteed only once favourable socio-economic conditions prevail for all her people.
South Africa's planned Reconstruction and Development Programme, referred to by my noble friend Lord St. John and other noble Lords, will be crucial in restoring the nation's self-confidence and aspirations. Her fledgeling multi-racial democracy can thrive only once decades of mass poverty are progressively reversed. Britain has the technical expertise needed to accelerate the national reconstruction project in both public and private sectors.
I believe that the South African Government appreciate that only by deploying an effective system of local democratic government can both urban and rural areas be beneficially served. The apparatus of good governance will be measured by the strides made in areas such as education, health, housing and employment.
Although expectations run high, they should not exceed realistic projections and thus jeopardise the entire healing process. Essentially, the RDP's eventual success depends as much on the people as it does the current administration. Impatient dissension and back-biting has no role to play in the building of a new South Africa.
Human resource development must spearhead the nation's renewal. Apartheid starved South Africa of a skilled workforce and suffocated any hopes for small or medium-sized black enterprise. Joint ventures with black businesses will be vital in safeguarding their prosperous reintegration into the commercial world as well as bolstering much needed capital investment.
However, South Africa's long-term prospects will be determined in the field of education, where the nation's intellectual and practical training has already started. British governmental and non-governmental organisations, such as Research on Education in South Africa and the Professional Development Fund, are providing substantial assistance. Such trends must continue in the pursuit of universal education in South Africa.
The infrastructure must be in place so that the economy can be built upon firm foundations. British experience in health service management will be needed as South Africa focuses on the development of primary health care services. British building companies are already actively involved in South Africa's housing construction campaign, which aims to remove the deprived living conditions still facing many. A vibrant economy provides the most appropriate context for the fulfilment of such wide social goals.
We share deep personal ties with South Africa, but ultimately British strategy must be shaped by entrepreneurial perspicacity rather than by historical sentimentality. We have already acknowledged the importance of developing that economic relationship. Our deep-rooted commitment was underlined by the visits of both the President of the Board of Trade and the Prime Minister last year. Indeed, Britain's pledge of £1.25 billion to South Africa in the form of trade
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support and aid underlines our dedication. Expanding trade and investment also remain a pressing priority for South Africa.
British sponsored initiatives such as "Opportunity South Africa" have served as timely catalysts. And 1995 signals the year of, "Britain Means Business in South Africa". Those promotions, in conjunction with other trade missions, must be encouraged as market competition intensifies. South Africa is transforming into one of the world's most attractive emerging markets and Britain must not lose the comparative advantage she holds over other established economic rivals.
South Africa is currently enjoying a high level of economic optimism. Present ECGD rates reflect the upbeat mood now sweeping through the international community. Cape Town's bid for the 2004 Olympics, articulating generally the immense potential for South African tourism, embodies the nation's breadth of economic vision. That proposed enterprise alone promises to generate well in excess of £1 billion for South Africa.
Parallels can be drawn with the successful Indo-British partnership and we should pursue a similar line with South Africa. Britain is still her principal foreign investor, but a moment's complacency will see us overtaken by competitors. The key to our market leadership lies in unflinching commitment. Efficient and co-ordinated market intelligence-gathering on the ground in South Africa will predetermine the level of our commercial success on her new economic playing field.
It would be inappropriate to close without thanking my noble friend Lord St. John for taking the initiative with this timely debate. South Africa has a true friend at Westminster.
6.4 p.m.
Lord Redesdale: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, for initiating this debate. It does not seem so long ago that I had the privilege of staying with the noble Lord in his home at Cape Town. Over breakfast, we looked over Cork Bay to watch whales mating. I mention that only to illustrate the remarkable breadth of activities that one can undertake in South Africa.
As a development spokesman, I find that I am in a rather peculiar situation in this debate and it is one in which I hope to find myself again: I wish to congratulate the Government on the money that they have pledged for aid to South Africa. Indeed, on a recent visit, the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, pledged over £8 million to the first of the commitment projects which encompass such areas as business, education, rural development and development in the townships.
While I welcome that aid, there is one question that I should like to ask the Minister. Although £100 million has been pledged to South Africa, will the Minister give an indication of the kind of projects on which the European Union money pledged in aid will be spent?
There is a desperate need for aid in South Africa. Anybody who has visited the townships in South Africa will be struck by the enormous gap between the wealth

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of the towns and the cities and the dire poverty of the townships. I worked on the borders of KwaZulu and in the local township there was a small hut in which 19 people lived.
Although I call for aid, I do not believe that aid is the answer for South Africa. The noble Lord, Lord Poole, in his excellent maiden speech, put his finger on the eventual means of economic liberation for South Africa; that is, private investment. Only through massive private investment from outside will South Africa realise its economic potential.
Many people have talked about the lack of investment in South Africa. I must admit that I do not find that lack of investment surprising. As I have told the House before, I had the privilege of monitoring the elections there in April last year. One outcome of the peace in South Africa is that we take it for granted that the elections took place peacefully and were so successful. Just a few days before I went to South Africa I was quite scared by the prospect of monitoring the elections in Natal and KwaZulu. At the time, with Inkatha refusing to take part in the elections, it did not seem that they would be as peaceful as they turned out to be.
This is a very wide-ranging debate and I should like to deal with a few of the other points mentioned in the title. I should like to refer to the three major sports played in South Africa. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Balfour, I know very little about cricket and I shall not say a great deal about that. However, I should like to mention the sport referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Rennell—football. Facilities for playing the other sports that were mentioned are very expensive. Obviously to play rugby in South Africa a proper pitch is needed, as those members of the inter-parliamentary rugby team who went to South Africa in September the year before last know very well. Indeed they will have the opportunity to find out again. I must declare an interest in that I am vice-captain of that rugby team. There are still places available on the team. If the Minister would like to volunteer, he would be most welcome on our trip to South Africa in May, although I am not sure in which position he should play.
The sport which needs least investment—and I have seen it played in the townships—is football. It is a very popular sport and it needs only a ball to play it. There are flat grounds in South Africa on which it can be played. I received a briefing from the Sports Council and I welcome the measures that it is taking to promote sport there. I notice that as a contribution to promoting football in South Africa, we sent Sir Bobby Charlton as one of our ambassadors. However, it is not a one-way trade. I should like to bring to the attention of the House a recent export from South Africa, Mr. Philemon Masinga. He left Sundowns, was bought by Leeds United Football Club and, indeed, has been a remarkable success. He recently scored a hat-trick in the FA replay against Walsall.
One of the sports that is incredibly popular in South Africa and which leads to a degree of fanaticism is rugby. I believe that that encompasses the point of tourism that has been mentioned in the debate. The Rugby World Cup to be hosted in South Africa is a
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dream come true for many South Africans. In fact, on my trips to South Africa, and while talking to South Africans, it appears that it has only recently become a certainty that it would ever take place. It is an indication of the strides towards peace that South Africa has made that it is now, without doubt, going to take place in South Africa. However, it will also make many people's minds focus on South Africa. The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, mentioned the point that, for many people, apartheid closed the door on South Africa; but that closed door led to the end of apartheid.
I was in Mozambique when the referendum took place in 1991. One of the arguments used to convince the white voters to vote for multi-racial elections was the fact that, if they did not do so, they would again be shut out of the international community. However, closing the door on South Africa meant that many people closed their minds against the country as a destination.
I originally went to South Africa in 1990. As a student, I considered it one of the places on earth that I would never visit. I went there due to the fact that I was in Zimbabwe at the time. I had the privilege of seeing Nelson Mandela addressing a crowd in the football stadium in Harare. That was his first public appearance outside South Africa. It convinced me that it was time to visit South Africa to see the changes taking place.
The World Cup will bring a great deal of tourism to South Africa. The country has immense potential for tourism. I believe that that will be one of the growth areas in the future. Indeed, South Africa is not an expensive country to visit. The noble Earl, Lord Kintore, suggested a figure of around £900 for such a visit. It is, perhaps, because I spent a large period of my life back-packing that I know one can actually get to Johannesburg for a great deal less than £500 and then travel on from that point. Moreover, with an exchange rate, when I was over there—and I believe it is still most favourable—of five rands to the pound, it is not an expensive tourist destination.
I believe that there is one area which really needs to be considered. I refer to the development of eco-tourism through the game parks such as Kruger and through the amazing national parks such as the Drakensberg which I had the joy of spending a good deal of time in. Those reserves will attract a great many tourists from outside South Africa. However, with the change in apartheid, there must also be a change in policy as regards those national parks. The local communities can no longer be shut out and fenced out of the game parks. The camp-fire policies that have worked so well in Zimbabwe to include the local communities within the game parks must be embraced. Indeed, embracing the local communities actually helps the wild life. It cuts down on poaching and gives a source of sustenance to the local population.
I should like to conclude by referring to one area in which I believe South Africa will serve a role as regards the rest of Africa. As an economic power, there is no doubt that South Africa will be the engine that leads to the development of many of the countries bordering South Africa. I should like to mention the prospect of an African defence force. South Africa will have a

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growing role in peace-keeping forces under the UN. I hope that the Minister will give some indication of his support in that respect.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, Perhaps I may, like other speakers, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, on his splendid introduction to today's debate and on selecting the item for discussion. The noble Lord gave us an eloquent, informed speech which illustrated his passionate concern for the new South Africa. Indeed, we have heard some fascinating speeches, not least the maiden speech from the noble Lord, Lord Poole. I gather that, these days, one is not allowed to say too much about maiden speeches. However, I enjoyed it, as I am sure did the whole House.
The noble Lord, Lord Alport, referred to the current situation in South Africa as a miracle. It is very close to being a miracle, is it not? It is a miracle which few of us, committed though we were to protesting against apartheid —indeed, I remember on many occasions going with my noble friend Lord Ennals to South Africa House; that is, not inside it but outside—would have believed would happen in such a short space of time.
Proper tribute has been paid during the debate to many people—for example, Bishop Trevor Huddleston, Archbishop Tutu, and, rightly, Vice-President de Klerk; but, most of all, the President of South Africa, Mr Nelson Mandela. I do not have to go any longer to stand outside the gates of South Africa House because a different sort of High Commissioner has been installed. I am delighted about that. Indeed, I gather that he is not too far from us at the present time. All those people showed a great measure of heroism, but nothing could excel the heroism of Mr Nelson Mandela. He, of course, was inspired by the courage of an entire people who, despite appalling privation and state terrorism, never lost their faith.
Is it not remarkable how that man has no feeling for revenge after his terrible years of incarceration? In his recently published autobiography, Nelson Mandela says:
"No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. Even in the grimmest times in prison, when my comrades and I were pushed to our limits, I would see a glimmer of humanity in one of the guards just for a second, but it was enough to reassure me and keep me going".
Does that not encapsulate the spirit of the man since his release and his assumption of the presidency? Together, he and Vice-President de Klerk, along with his team, are co-operating and beginning to dismantle those hated structures of apartheid. I believe that they are committed to demonstrating how ethnic and national cultures can be mutually reinforcing and can contribute to the establishment of a society based on justice and freedom.
As my noble friend Lord Ennals, said, none of that could have happened without the use of economic sanctions, not least by the United States, which precipitated the situation —a policy that was opposed for a very long time by the noble Lady, Baroness Thatcher, when she was Prime Minister. I am delighted that the present Government are taking a totally different
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attitude. No longer are members of the ANC regarded as terrorists or pariahs; they are regarded as people with whom we are very willing to deal in the new government. However, tensions and difficulties are bound to arise. The very sad events of today exemplify that situation. Indeed, there is a whole range of daunting problems confronting the government in South Africa.
The per capita income of whites is still about eight times higher than that of the Africans. A jobless rate of 39 per cent. exists among the African peoples. About half the population is functionally illiterate as a result of the operation of the Bantu education acts. Two-thirds have no access to electricity. In rural areas something like 70 per cent. of the people eke out an existence below the minimum living level as defined by the Department of National Health. Squatter camps in Cape Town exemplify the joblessness and the homelessness which undermine the Government's endeavours to achieve reform on a peaceful but necessarily gradual basis.
Some minority elements in. the white community continue to harbour hostility to change, although thankfully far fewer than one might have imagined just a few months ago. Substantial elements in the black community are desperately and understandably impatient for change. I think we appreciate all this and it is good that our Government are resolving to play their part in achieving the necessary scale of change in the country. But how is it all going to be achieved? There is an understandable wariness on the part of the present Government of South Africa about taking extensive loans from international institutions because of the consequential debt burden referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, and also the impairment of sovereignty.
The government of course do not wish, and could never wish—they could not afford—to turn their back on the millions of their supporters who have achieved their freedom. The government, or at least the ANC part of the government, is opposed to the old "trickle down" economic philosophy. However, they recognise that they have to strike a balance between personal incentives and social redistribution markedly different from the policies followed in the old South Africa.
The policy referred to by the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, at the beginning of this debate that is set out in the Reconstruction and Development Programme has to be the foundation of the economic and social revolution which must follow the political revolution. This programme seeks to combine the benefits of growth and redistribution in setting the path towards a more just society. It provides a framework for socio-economic development referred to by the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley. It sets out objectives for the first five years in, among other things, employment and social policies. It speaks of the need to redistribute 30 per cent. of land holding. I would say in parenthesis that I understand that only about 13 per cent. of the land had under the previous oppressive laws been allocated to blacks. Millions of people had literally been brutally uprooted to eliminate what were called "black spots" from white areas.

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The task in the economic sense is to create half a million new employment opportunities in the public and private sectors. That requires the electrification of something like 2½ million houses. There needs to be better provision for education, health and social welfare. Again that was touched on by the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, in his contribution. One of the most impressive priorities set by the government is free medical attention for children under six and for pregnant women. One cannot create the necessary stimulus for enlarging employment and economic opportunity in the country as long as "slumdom" is allowed to be perpetuated. The avowed aim of the government, while recognising these problems, is nevertheless to redirect rather than to increase the budget. That is a hugely difficult purpose in view of the urgency of redressing wrongs which have been suffered for so long.
A number of your Lordships have referred to the opportunities which will be provided in terms of cultural and above all sporting links. I have no intention of accepting any invitations to join any rugby teams. It is an uncivilised game which, as a football supporter and player in my youth, I would never dream of undertaking, and certainly not at the age of 66. Nevertheless it is good that the parliamentary team is playing. How well it plays I am not sure, but it is playing. I am glad that the sporting links exemplified by the recent test matches are being built up. I look forward to the time when there will be sufficient experienced black South African players able to bowl and bat with the best of them, and keep wicket too. That will take time but it will happen. This is all about building on the self-confidence that has been created by the recent scenario in South Africa among the overwhelming majority of people. There is a degree of self-confidence too among the white community which is so pleasing to behold. So much of the fear has gone out of the scene. The black community and the white community overwhelmingly, I believe, want reconciliation.
How do we go about trading with South Africa? A number of useful suggestions have emerged in this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Acton, referred to the clear need to renegotiate the relationship with the European Union because South Africa is probably too well off to be admitted to the Lomé agreement, but some new arrangement has to be devised. While South Africa may not be in a position to acquire the swiftly earned prosperity of South East Asia, it is unlikely to be in the position of some countries in Latin America such as Brazil, which is trapped in apparently permanent and massive inequalities of income, not at least in the long term.
South Africa has a high ratio of overseas trade and dependence on foreign markets for its main products, and on foreign investment for growth. It has substantial mineral resources. It has an experienced business community. It has a legal framework which is now widely supported and practised by both Africans and white lawyers of great distinction. It has great natural beauty to attract tourists. It has a strong infrastructure in terms of transport, services and communication. In some industries it has high technological skills. Indeed it even
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has a strong educational system compared with most other countries of the developing world. All these represent good auguries for the potential influence of South Africa—an influence which I believe will be enormous in the whole continent of South Africa. It is clearly in our interests to align ourselves alongside that country.
There are some faint hearts of course. As the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, said, there is the "wait and see" brigade. It is not unreasonable, in a way, to adopt that point of view because of the considerable uncertainties that continue to exist. But the penalties for standing aside could be high in the long term and we would risk being left behind. The United States is adopting a positive attitude. It promises to double United States aid and to encourage investment by American industry. If that happens, and if we are part of it, I like to believe that the favoured scenario is that, in the years to come, South Africa, with its substantial white community, with a standard of living considerably better than that of communities in Western Europe and with a majority of Africans closing the gap and closing it rapidly, will have less poverty, much less racism and less pessimism about the future than there is among so many of its neighbours. It will, I believe, be able because of that to influence its neighbours and its natural allies to follow the right course. Together I think that we can look with optimism to the future of Africa.
6.29 p.m.
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, I am delighted that it now falls to me to reply to this debate on our ties with South Africa which was moved so lucidly by the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, and which has included so much of the expertise which exists in this House.
I am also very pleased to welcome my noble friend Lord Poole in making his maiden speech. He brings wide-ranging experience from the Prime Minister's policy group and the City as well as heartfelt personal feelings for South Africa. I understand that he is also an enthusiastic yachtsman. His contribution to this debate shows that he will not be at sea in your Lordships' House, and we look forward to hearing more from him.
Britain has an enormous admiration for all the South African people and the way they are handling their transition to democracy. They have provided the rest of the world with a fine example of a country moving towards justice, peace and reconciliation.
Last month your Lordships debated the South Africa Bill, which addresses the outstanding legal issues pertaining to South Africa's rejoining the Commonwealth. As I said during my summing up on that occasion:
"the themes that ran through the speeches were those of joy, which must be right, and those of respect for the leaders in South Africa who have effected a most dramatic and historically significant transformation".
It is fitting that the Second Reading of that Bill has been followed by tonight's debate, which looks more closely at Britain's relations with the new South Africa, which, as both the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, and my noble

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friend Lord Alport recognised, holds one of the keys to the future well-being of the southern part of the African continent.
In this House there is a great deal of consensus on all sides—not least on the Opposition Benches, reflected in the speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Redesdale and Lord Clinton-Davis. Britain is committed to supporting South Africa's peaceful transformation. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister expressed that intention clearly in the speech he made in Cape Town. He promised South Africans that Britain wanted to forge a fellowship for the future with them. I can reassure my noble friend Lord Alport that we are committed to links with South Africa.
Last week my noble friend Lady Chalker went to South Africa to meet the responsible South African Ministers, to develop the dialogue we have established and to discuss the practical details of the help we are giving to that country. She came away with very positive impressions of the efforts being made and of the warm appreciation in South Africa for what Britain is doing.
Britain has close, important and long-standing trade and investment links with South Africa, which of course has the most modern and effective economy in Africa and which is endowed with many human and natural resources. In 1993 South Africa was our 20th largest market, .the fourth largest outside the OECD. Our exports have been over £1 billion for each of the past six years. Our invisible earnings are worth around a further £1 billion a year. During 1994, our visible exports to the end of November had increased by 24 per cent. over the previous year. South African exports to this country are in the region of £1 billion a year. The UK is the largest overseas investor in South Africa. Our investments have an estimated book value of £2 billion and an estimated market value of between £8 billion and £10 billion. All this is a very solid platform from which increased trade can grow.
In July last year my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade quickly demonstrated Britain's wish to strengthen trade and investment links with South Africa by leading a party of 57 British businessmen on a week-long visit. There he launched a trade and investment campaign—Opportunity South Africa. It is estimated that new business opportunities amounting to £500 million, ranging from the straightforward sale of equipment to large-scale investment and infrastructure projects, are there to be grasped. My right honourable friend also announced an additional £1 billion available in ECGD cover. He also announced a British investment promotion scheme to encourage more small and medium-sized UK companies to invest in that country by providing grants towards the cost of pre-investment feasibility studies and the training of local employees. The scheme is administered by the Commonwealth Development Corporation and British Coal Enterprise. It was launched formally by my noble friend Lady Chalker last week in Johannesburg with £2 million of British money.
My right honourable friend the Prime Minister, on his visit to South Africa last December, took with him 16 senior businessmen. During that visit he and President
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Mandela signed an investment promotion and protection agreement which is aimed at creating favourable conditions for investment by British and South African companies in each country. It will be ratified by both governments later this year. In addition, on 24th January, a full-scale trade promotion campaign called Britain Means Business was launched in Johannesburg amid widespread publicity.
The future of South Africa provides a huge challenge for British business. We must prove that we are equal to that challenge. I am sure that we can be.
The noble Lord, Lord Acton, raised a point about the relationship between South Africa, our own country and the LoméConvention. We in Britain are committed to pressing within the European Union for the closest possible trading relationship between South Africa and the Union. In particular, we are pressing for maximum South African access to European markets. Whether the needs of South Africa would be best served by accession to Lomé or by bilateral trade agreements with the EU is a matter for them to decide. Either way, we shall continue to press for the maximum possible benefit from EU aid programmes to be extended to that country.
As a number of noble Lords said, we and South Africa have important shared elements in our cultures, which in turn are an important component in developing relations between us. The British Council is at the forefront of our cultural relations. Its work is in two main areas. The first is in support for training, educational and collaborative projects in the arts. That is the kind of project which the noble Baroness, Lady Wharton, described when she spoke about the SIBIKWA project, which the British Government do not know about. I am advised that if the noble Baroness were minded to approach the High Commission in South Africa it may be able to help. The second aspect of our cultural programme is high profile. We have instituted a series of high impact arts initiatives, both in this country and in South Africa.
Another important area of cultural relations between Britain and South Africa is our scholarships programme. The latest figures which are available, for 1992–93, show that there were 609 South African students in Britain, of whom 556 were supported by her Majesty's Government, at a cost of £1.2 million. Most of the students were funded under the ODA's technical co-operation training programme. In addition, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office funds Helen Suzman Chevening awards.
As a number of noble Lords said, Britain and South Africa have deep and long-established sporting ties. We enjoy friendly rivalry. These stretch from league levels to the grass roots. As both the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, and my noble friend Lord Rennell pointed out, these are a unifying influence. There are numerous examples of British support for South African and Southern African sports development.
In South Africa British sporting assistance has included the financing of the Alexandra township cricket ground, part funding of the Vision for Sport conference in Johannesburg in 1993, secondments to the Sports Council of sports development officers from the Johannesburg and Cape Town municipalities, and

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training for junior sports development officers in sports centre management. In September last year my right honourable friend the Prime Minister announced a UK-South Africa sports initiative to help develop sports training skills in South Africa. A total of £148,000 has been committed to that programme, which is backed by the British Council, the ODA and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
The case for sport as a development tool was made by the Commonwealth heads of government meeting Committee on Co-operation through Sport which reported to the 1993 Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference in Limassol. Its report specifically recommended that the developed countries of the Commonwealth should include sport, particularly in the educational field and using a community-based approach, as part of their assistance packages to Commonwealth developing countries. In South Africa's case, Britain has taken on that responsibility.
Tourism is one of South Africa's fastest growing industries. In 1993, 618,000 people visited that country. This year over 800,000 visitors are expected, with the peaceful change to democracy and the rugby world cup. It will be interesting to see how the teams from the British Isles and South Africa compare. As an Englishman, I was reassured by the prognosis of my noble friend Lord Rennell of what would occur.
I should also like to explain to the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, that at one time in my career I played fullback, but I ended up in Addenbrookes Hospital with a punctured lung. I thought that it was time to call it a day. Despite the prospect of a trip to South Africa—where I have never been—I had better stand by that decision.
Most of the increased tourism is likely to come from Britain and Germany, which are South Africa's two top sources of visitors, and from North America. The Department of Trade and Industry has identified the tourism sector as offering significant opportunities for UK involvement, as well as being a significant area of growth in that country's economy offering jobs and prosperity. Companies are actively being encouraged to pursue those opportunities within the context of the DTI's Britain Means Business trade and investment promotion. If my noble friend Lord Astor of Hever submits the proposal for the kind of project he described to the High Commission, he may well find that we can proceed and bring matters forward.
Immediately after the South African elections in April 1994, we committed a total of £100 million over three years as the latest chapter in our aid programme to South Africa, which goes back to 1979. Of that, £60 million is bilateral aid and the remainder is our contribution to European Union funds and Commonwealth Development Corporation investments. That is a substantial co-operation programme. It is clear that the South African authorities regard our assistance as a positive and effective contribution to South Africa's reconstruction and development. We are one of the largest bilateral aid donors. On top of that, let us not forget the work of the British NGOs and other voluntary organisations.
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Our assistance to South Africa is driven by the needs of the South African people. It has always sought to help directly those hurt by apartheid and to enable them to play a full role in South Africa's social, economic and political life. In June 1993, we took a decisive step forward, focusing our aid to South Africa where it is most needed, when we opened the British Development Division in Pretoria. That division works closely with the office of the South African Government's Reconstruction and Development Programme to ensure that our projects and programmes are fully in tune with the Government's priorities. Our assistance is targeted in support of the Reconstruction and Development Programme and is channelled through both non-governmental and governmental organisations. There is much to be done, and we shall play our part fully.
On 20th September last year, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and President Mandela signed a memorandum of understanding on development co-operation which set out agreed areas of focus for our bilateral aid. Those areas are: education, health, good governance, including assistance to police reform, enterprise development (which is especially important given the high level of unemployment to which a number of noble Lords alluded), land and agriculture.
The noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, visited South Africa last week to sign a further memorandum with Mr. Jay Naidoo, the Minister responsible for the reconstruction and redevelopment programme, setting out the arrangements to deliver that help. It is the first agreement of its kind concluded between South Africa and a donor country. She also emphasised the overriding requirement for the programme to be backed by sound macroeconomic and administrative policies, without which it cannot succeed. My noble friend also announced that Britain would provide £2 million to help strengthen capacity at provincial and local government level to implement the Reconstruction and Development Programme and over £1 million to support the establishment of a rural strategy unit within the Orange Free State. Those are the first major aid projects to be announced under our bilateral programme.
About a third of our funds in South Africa are currently spent on education—a point raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley. Our assistance is intended to increase access for disadvantaged South Africans to education and training opportunities and to help improve the quality of education. Agreed areas of focus for support are, first, enhancing the capacity to develop, improve and manage national provincial education policy; secondly, improving the quality and content of maths, science and language education at school level; and, thirdly, increasing provision of education and training for those previously disadvantaged by apartheid.
Examples of current initiatives are projects to improve the quality of English language teaching in black schools in rural areas and to improve science teaching in secondary schools through improved classroom materials and better training for teachers. We also support a number of schemes for scholarship and training. The noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, announced

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during her visit to South Africa last week a further contribution of over £2 million to the tertiary education fund of South Africa. I hope that that will meet some of the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Wharton. Those will provide bursaries and loans to some 1,200 students in 1995. They are earmarked for those students from the traditionally disadvantaged communities pursuing studies in the fields of science, education, engineering and medicine.
The noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, asked me to relate the European Union's aid policies with those of the Government in their bilateral aid. Bearing in mind the time, if the noble Lord will forgive me, I shall write to him to explain that.
Of course, it is not only aid which helps the South African people. It is trade and the workings of the market economy, as the noble Lord, Lord Poole, pointed out. I have already mentioned the wide-ranging steps that the Government are taking to assist trade with South Africa which we are linking with an additional £1 million worth of export credit guarantees. That expansion in bilateral trade will be a major catalyst in helping all South African citizens to improve their lot. As the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, commented, growth is the key to South Africa's success, and trade will be an essential engine to generate that growth.
A significant programme of parliamentary links is being developed. As noble Lords are aware, British South African and British Southern African parliamentary groups have been set up to re-establish and develop closer ties between our Parliaments. Another area where assistance and links are building is that of military assistance, where Britain provides a military advisory and training scheme (BMATT) to help the integration of South African armed forces, transforming erstwhile enemies into colleagues all committed to supporting the new non-racial democratic South Africa. As I am sure your Lordships can imagine, that is a difficult and daunting task.
The question was raised about the role that South Africa might play in the future peace and stability of the Southern African continent. Since South Africa's return to the international community, its new government have committed themselves to playing a major role in the preservation of peace and stability within the UN framework, in particular in the Southern Africa region. South Africa has already given strong diplomatic support to conflict resolution, as was shown, for example, in the resolution of the recent crisis in Lesotho, and will surely, once the integration of its armed forces is complete, play its full role in peace-keeping operations.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the Cabinet Minister responsible for Science and the Public Services, is to visit South Africa from the 26th February to 2nd March. His visit follows the Prime Minister's trip to South Africa last year when he stressed the importance of close scientific links between the two countries. The Minister will be accompanied by Sir William Stewart, the Prime Minister's chief scientific adviser, and a high delegation of British scientists and business people. The visit will build on existing scientific trade links between our two countries and will
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establish areas for future joint scientific work which, as my noble friend Lord Gisborough pointed out, has great potential.
I have now explained in some detail what we are doing. We are seeing a steady expansion and flowering of relations between Britain and South Africa, which is warmly welcomed on both sides. At the end of March, Her Majesty the Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, will pay a state visit there, the first such visit for nearly 50 years. We believe that this visit, which we know is eagerly awaited in South Africa, will set the seal on the revival of an old and mutually beneficial friendship between our two countries.
Let me conclude by quoting a senior South African official, speaking at the recent launch of a training course for athletics coaches in Johannesburg. He mentioned the large number of overseas visitors South Africa now receives and the extravagant promises they make, and added, "But the Brits deliver". I am sure that all noble Lords share my pride in this confirmation of the esteem in which our country is held, which is evidence of the concrete value of our endeavours in South Africa.
South Africa and its people have behaved magnificently in overcoming racial injustice, bitter division and human folly. This all points the way towards hope and reconciliation among its people. They have the heartfelt good wishes of the British people, as has been so clearly reflected in the debate. We in Britain have shown our willingness to help. They deserve our support, and they will continue to receive it.
6.48 p.m.
Lord St. John of Bletso: My Lords, this has been a most informative debate. I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords who have participated. I would like to join in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Poole, on a most interesting maiden speech. I hope that we shall hear more from him in the years to come. I am also delighted that the new South African High Commissioner, His Excellency Mendi Msimang, has been present to listen to the debate today. I wish him every success in his posting in this very important time for South Africa.
It has been a classic debate for hereditary Peers representing all age groups and all professions, from the noble Lord, Lord Rennell, who was an international rugby player and played against the Springboks in 1962, to my noble friend Lady Wharton, who was at my sister school in Cape Town. However, that is not in any way to decry the valuable contributions of the two life Peers, the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, and the noble Lord, Lard Clinton-Davis, both of whom made most interesting and valuable contributions.
I should like to have made further mention of individual contributions, but that ground has been admirably covered by the Minister. I note that I have precisely two minutes in which to wind up this debate that has taken a full two-and-a-half hours. I would like to thank the Minister for his extensive reply and also the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, for his valuable contribution. I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness,

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Lady Chalker, who has played such an important role in fostering and developing British relations with South Africa.
Clearly, there is a general appreciation that South Africa has made remarkable progress in recent months and over the past year—not least in going so far in reconciling what was only recently a bitterly divided society. I very much hope that Her Majesty's Government will continue to assist the new government in every possible way. I am confident that, with a little luck, South Africa will eventually repay such support with interest.
The South African Government must meet vast expectations in terms of providing housing, jobs, education, improved health care and land reform, all of which are incorporated in the reconstruction and development programme. This is a tall order in the short term. But with the continued support of the international community, I am confident that these targets can be achieved. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

War Crimes (Supplementary Provisions) Bill [H.L.]
6.51 p.m.
Report received.
Clause 1 [Limitation]:
Lord Wilberforce Lord Wilberforce moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 6, leave out ("the passage of this Act") and insert ("this Act comes into force").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, in moving this amendment I shall also speak to Amendment No. 2, which is in my name, together with that of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway. At the same time, noble Lords may also care to cast an eye upon Amendment No. 3 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, which relates to the same subject. I need not explain the amendments; they are completely self-explanatory. I should just like to add a word or two as to the motivation for putting them forward.
As noble Lords will know very well, the War Crimes Act 1991, to which this Bill is supplementary, was a House of Commons measure; it was passed there by a large majority, and was not welcomed by this House. However, it became law under the constitution and it must be accepted as such. I feel absolutely convinced that none of your Lordships would wish to treat it otherwise. It is the law, and we would not wish in any way to undermine it or stultify it at this stage. It was in that spirit that I looked at the Bill.
When I first saw Clause 1 as originally drafted, I must say, with all respect to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, that I thought it was perhaps a little confrontational. I am sure that noble Lords would not wish it to be so. I am also sure that noble Lords would wish to avoid any appearance of confrontation or of attempting to stultify the Act of 1991. In that spirit, I
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thought of introducing the idea of a closing period—a decent period after the Bill comes into force—which would establish a limit for prosecutions under the Act.
The fact that I introduced this clause in the amendments was intended to reflect the opinions of many noble Lords who spoke on this Bill at Second Reading, when, as noble Lords will remember, there was a very extended debate. It was also my intention to reflect a good deal of the feeling in the other place when the 1991 Act was debated, and when it was emphasised, not once but many times, that there was a need for urgency and speed in disposing of this matter.
I note also that the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, in his Amendment No. 3, follows in effect the language of Amendment No. 1 and does not seem to disagree in principle with the establishment of a time limit—though the noble Lord has a different period to put before your Lordships. I note also that there is no amendment before the House to delete Clause I of the Bill, which is the clause that would remain were neither of our amendments to be accepted. The principle of introducing a moderate—a reasonable—period might be acceptable to the House.
As to the period itself, I chose the period of three months: one has to think of some figure, and that seemed reasonable, giving us in effect about six months or slightly longer from this time. It also seemed to bear some relation to the timetable, in so far as we know it, of the investigations, the prosecution considerations by the CPS, and so on. I will not enlarge upon that; noble Lords will have the dates in mind, and the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, or the noble Baroness may wish to amplify the point. That was the basis on which I ventured to select the period of three months.
I suggest with all respect that this is not an undermining amendment. It is not one that stultifies or repeals the Act of 1991. (I take those words from previous debates.) It is well within the intention of the present Bill, as expressed by many noble Lords at Second Reading, and I believe that it reflects a good deal of the intention of the other place as expressed in 1990. So far as concerns the Government, I think I can safely say that the amendment renders the present Bill less unacceptable than it would be without it. I do not pretend that I shall go over the edge to "acceptable", but it makes it "less unacceptable".
I shall pay very great attention to what is said about the amendment by the noble Lord who is the sponsor of the Bill. I was very cheered and heartened when he decided to add his name to it. If he has any comment or suggestion as to its future course, I will of course pay very great attention. At this point I beg leave to move Amendment No. 1.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, the Government are committed to opposing Amendments Nos. 1 and 2, and also Amendment No. 3, for the reasons already given at Second Reading. The Government will countenance for all time, without limitation, that suspects who have the presumption of innocence, however so long investigated, and whensoever investigated, or to be investigated, may be

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charged and tried under the Act. In so doing, they will keep, so to speak, the cell door ever open, if not, at least, ajar.
Noble Lords may well think that the crucial point in the speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, on his motivation for introducing Amendments Nos. 1 and 2 was the affirmation of the rectitude in introducing some period of limitation to end an extraordinary situation which could not have been envisaged. For, as noble Lords may remember, when this Bill was before Parliament some five years ago, both Houses were assured that, on the evidence then available but not disclosed, these trials were then warranted. It was assumed that they would ensue with dispatch in accordance with our concepts of justice, and that they would be fair.
That point was strongly insisted upon by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, whom we are delighted to see in his place this evening. We hope that he has recovered from his unnerving experiences. By his amendment, as I understand it, he accepts, as my noble and learned friend said, the principle of Clause 1 of the Bill as well as its other provisions. I shall listen, as I always do, with deference and respect to what the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, may say in due course. But, as at present advised, I should not be prepared to accept his amendment, for reasons which perhaps I may give later. However, I am very much indebted to the noble Lord for his support in principle, of the Bill.
With regard to proceedings before Parliament, some five years ago it was not envisaged by another place that the police investigations, which were set up in 1988, would continue in one form or another until today; that, notwithstanding the ending of the specific police grant funding for the unit on 31st March this year, the investigations would continue thereafter; that no steps would be taken to expedite any decision by the CPS on whether to seek the consent of Mr. Attorney to the institution of proceedings; and that the Government would be content to be unable to say when any such decision would be made. To save time, I refer your Lordships to the Official Report of the other place on 12th January at col. 266 and to a letter dated 13th February 1995 that I received yesterday from the Home Office.
Again, some five years ago it was not envisaged by the other place that today there would still be 21 suspects in England, 15 of whom have been under investigation since 1988, and who had been candidates for prosecution since before 29th June 1994, when all those living in Scotland had been excluded by the Lord Advocate. It was not envisaged that two investigations would have been instituted as late as last year, 1994; nor indeed that further investigations could be initiated for all time in the future. That was never within the possible contemplation of the other place or indeed of your Lordships' House, having regard to the manner in which the Government then put forward this Bill.
If charges are to be laid this year within the period of the proposed amendment, we are looking at a delay of some 52 to 57 years before substantive trial. Your Lordships may well feel that these amendments, as the noble and learned Lord said, afford a modest and
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reasonable opportunity for the CPS and Mr. Attorney to decide whether to charge on the available evidence. They are not stultifying amendments; they are not confrontational amendments; and they are not unreasonable amendments. Indeed, they all but commend themselves in the name of justice.
7 p.m.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, having been engaged in activities which I assure your Lordships in some cases were not so pleasant as addressing your Lordships' House, I was not able to participate in the previous proceedings on the Bill. I appreciate the courteous remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, who always speaks with courtesy. Sometimes he makes comments with which I do not agree, but they are always said with great moderation.
I should like to make it absolutely clear—otherwise I should be insincere—that I have never liked this Bill. Having said that, I believe it to be the duty of this House, when a Bill is presented to it, whether it be a private or a public Bill, to ensure that it is in the best possible state before it goes to another place. I have taken it for granted that when your Lordships allowed the Second Reading of the Bill, they approved of the principle of the Bill. I am sure that every Member of your Lordships' House takes a respectful view of what the House did at Second Reading. Accordingly, in my judgment, it is the duty of every Member to try to ensure thereafter that, if the principle has to be admitted, at least the Bill leaves this House in the best possible state. Therefore, my amendment is not meant to be a wrecking amendment. It is meant to be an improving amendment.
Perhaps I may give your Lordships my reasons. In the first place, as a lawyer—a humble one in the presence of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, and the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, but one who, in all humility, insists upon saying what he has to say—I find that at the very least the House should be very wary about the question of limitation in regard to heinous offences, which has not been admitted in our law over the centuries. There is no statute of limitations that applies to murder, manslaughter or culpable homicide in our law. But we have made an exception, in agreeing to the principle of this Bill, so that the heinous war crimes of which this House is very well aware should have a limitation period attached to them.
Therefore, my first reason for tabling my amendment is to ensure that, if we have to admit that principle, as long a period as is reasonable ought to be put on the face of the Bill, so as at least to show the Bill's unusual nature. When it goes to another place, we should realise that we are doing something very exceptional, as I said, by allowing as long a period as is reasonable. I should have thought that a 12-month period, from the date of Royal Assent, was right.
My second reason advanced for that period is that it does no harm. If we agree to the limitation period and that Clause 1 of the Bill provides adequate time for a prosecution to be brought, we ought to give as long a period as we reasonably can. Your Lordships will bear in mind that there are investigations taking place and it would be quite wrong to cut them off if they are likely

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to lead to a prosecution out of respect for those who are conducting the inquiries. I refer, of course, to the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and thereafter the final sanction of the Attorney-General, for whose judgment I hope your Lordships would always have respect.
Are we doing any harm as regards the rest of the Bill by allowing 12 months after Royal Assent? Clause 2 declares that the Crown Court can have jurisdiction to quash the indictment on the grounds it sets out. It was conceded on all sides that although the insertion of that clause does no harm, it certainly adds nothing to our law because that is the right of the Crown Court in any event. There is thereby no harm done in regard to Clause 2 in having an extended period of limitation.
When we consider Clause 3—the only other operative clause in the Bill—we see that it gives a certain jurisdiction to the Court of Appeal to deal with cases where there is doubt as to whether there is likely to be a fair trial. Either that is something which ought to be given in all criminal cases because it is a just procedure, or it is not. As it stands, it is a right which is limited to war crimes. Either it is right that the Court of Appeal should have that jurisdiction—at the moment it only has jurisdiction after conviction—or it is not. If it is right and it is a sensible procedure, then we should have time to consider the matter in Parliament and apply it to all criminal cases. Why should it be selected only for war crimes? Again, an extended period would give the opportunity, if Parliament so decided and so wanted, to deal with that procedural point which may or may not be an improvement to our criminal law.
Having spoken to Amendments Nos. 1 and 2, I tabled my amendment for consideration by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, as to whether, having heard what I have to say —I say this with great respect to them—they can concede the amendment so that it will go to another place with your Lordships at least having shown that, when admitting this principle, your Lordships have been careful to ensure that an unjust precedent is not set.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I can ask him formally to move his amendment in due course so that I may reply to it.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, as I understand it, Amendments Nos. 1 and 2 must be taken first and I cannot formally move my amendment now. However, if the noble Lord wants me to make a promise to him, I shall promise to move my amendment.
7.15 p.m.
Earl Russell: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, is naturally entirely correct that there is no limitation of actions in cases of murder or manslaughter. He asks what is the distinction. I think there is an answer. Murder and manslaughter can be, and regrettably are, committed at any time. I can think at the moment—though I am sure somebody may put me right—of no other crime which in its nature cannot have
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been committed less than 50 years ago. That is why war crimes are peculiar. That is why a distinction does, in logic, have a place.
I am glad that the Bill was tabled. The 1991 Act was passed at very nearly the last moment when it could effectively have been put into execution. Our expressions and appearances change with the passage of time, and so do our memories. It is entirely compatible with the passage of that Act to hold that it may have been enforceable at the time, but that as time goes on so we reach a point where it cannot practically be done. It is a valid principle that there is no such thing as a crime so dreadful that an innocent person should be convicted for it.
The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, asked what harm it could do. But he answered the question himself. He said that accepting the amendment would put a special mark on the Bill; he did not say a mark of disapproval, but he came very near to saying that—so near that he answered his own argument.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I have not previously participated in debates on this Bill. I hasten to say that I do so now in a purely personal capacity and certainly not from the Front Bench. These issues are not within my responsibilities. But I wish to add my support to what was said by my noble friend Lord Mishcon. I notice that he said that he rose with great humility because of his modesty as a solicitor in the presence of some extremely distinguished lawyers in this place. Where that puts me I am not quite sure because I was his articled clerk only a few years ago. However, while I did not always agree with him then, I do so in relation to this matter.
Looking back to the time when we debated this issue when the War Crimes Bill was before us, like him, I was not unduly enamoured of the Bill. I felt that there was a danger that there would be a transfer of sympathy from the true victims of these horrendous crimes to people who may not deserve that sympathy. I felt too—I say this with great respect to some noble Lords who spoke in that debate—that in the light of some of those contributions I was impelled to vote for it, notwithstanding my reservations about it.
I also felt, perhaps as a former Member of another place and still having some of the sensitivities of that place, that it was a dangerous precedent to engage in a confrontation with the will of the House expressed not once but on several occasions. I believe, notwithstanding what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, said in a very moderate way, that this is close to becoming precisely that all over again. This House must watch itself. We must be extremely careful about engaging in confrontations of this kind.
Something was said tonight, notably by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, about the danger of an unfair conviction after all this time. That depends on the evidence, the view that the jury takes of the evidence and the way in which the jury is directed on the evidence. Consequently, I do not believe that there is a risk of a miscarriage of justice in the way that the noble Earl envisages. One of the points which the learned

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judge presiding over the trial will make is that the jury must be extremely careful because of the passage of time. That goes to the heart of the matter.
We are dealing with crimes of unprecedented savagery. Therefore, in my judgment we must take careful note of the will of the Members of another place who expressed strong views about the matter with overwhelming majorities. I believe that it is an abuse of our criminal law to talk of periods of limitation. I may have strayed over the bounds of propriety because this House has—in my view misguidedly—given a Second Reading to the Bill. I believe that it is a thoroughly bad Bill and I hope it will go no further once it reaches another place.
I fall back on the position that my noble friend adopted, he probably shares my views in principle about the matter. Today we are constrained and I support the constrained amendment that he put forward.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I rise without premeditation and with considerable trepidation to disagree with one point only in the speeches of my noble friends Lord Mishcon and Lord Clinton-Davis. It is about the status of the Second Reading of the Bill in this House. Those of us who did not oppose the Second Reading cannot be said thereby to have given approval to the Bill in principle. In my brief intervention when the Bill came before us a second time, having received a large majority vote in the elected Chamber, I said—and my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis said much the same thing—that it was extremely unwise of this House to oppose the Second Reading again and thereby bring into play the Parliament Act 1911. It was unwise and I still hold that view. At the same time, I have to recognise as a matter of practical legal possibility that the chances of a significant number of successful prosecutions under the War Crimes Act 1991 are very low. They are low for the reasons that have been expressed.
However, the Bill is a Private Member's Bill. It did not seem to me to be appropriate—speaking from the Front Bench in a personal capacity, as we always do on Private Members' Bills—to suggest that your Lordships should reject this Private Member's Bill at Second Reading and therefore exclude the possibility of amendment at Committee, Report and later stages. Therefore, with the deepest respect, I say to my noble friend Lord Mishcon that he need not worry about this House having given approval to the Bill in principle. His amendment is a modest one because he thinks that that is how the Bill should be amended. But he should not be deterred from even wrecking amendments if he believes them to be necessary, just because the House has given the Bill a Second Reading.
The amendment is at least an improvement on the rather dangerous confrontational precedent which is introduced by the Bill. I therefore hope that the House will support it and that the movers of the first amendments will agree that it is an improvement, particularly on Amendment No. 2.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, it takes a prosecution to bring to an end the false hope that one can punish people for crimes committed over half a
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century ago. We are dealing with the unreality of the present situation in the false hope that if we bring someone to trial, our sense of duty and our conscience will be at rest.
In Canada, the first and only case showed how futile the whole process of prosecution was. The last time I spoke on the subject I asked noble Lords to bear in mind one practical aspect—the position of the jury with whom rests the duty of reaching a verdict. Experience has shown that such trials last month after month, imposing on a jury an almost impossible mental, emotional and physical strain. When we hear the verdict, it may give rise to a feeling of deep resentment, not that there has not been a fair trial, but that the verdict has not been right.
In Canada, after months of reflection on their verdict, the jury came to a unanimous decision—to find the accused not guilty on a large number of charges. There was an immediate reaction among the representatives of the Jewish fraternity in Canada, demanding that the Government should exercise their right under the constitution to order a new trial. It is incredible how far human emotion will drive people along the path of futility and purposeless endeavour. We all feel strongly about what happened, but we were not part of it. We hoped that punishment would come to those guilty long ago. I fear that we shall continue toying with the subject of war crimes indefinitely until there is no one left or there is a disinclination on the part of society to continue that futile course any longer.
I cannot think that noble Lords, with their keen imagination and great experience, could contemplate going into a trial which could last six to nine months. It would take six months to hear the evidence in trials of unprecedented complexity, with problems of language, of bringing witnesses hundreds of miles, of video tapes and all that apparatus, to try to bring to bear upon the jury the idea that the evidence is conclusive.
I support the amendments. I supported the amending Bill, I opposed the original Bill. I felt that it was a great privilege to submit to your Lordships the course of understanding but of sanity. We accepted it but the House of Commons overruled our decision and we had to accept that. But the efflux of time is rendering the proceedings sad and useless. Can we not bring down the curtain on the attempt to bring war criminals to trial? History has its verdict, there is little one can do to ageing people to make them feel the horror and shame of what they did.
I do not know whether we are old enough yet to remember some of the things that we did years and years ago. I have memories of things that I did that I cannot comprehend. I cannot believe that I did them. The person who committed some of the things I did was not me! Fifty, 60 and 70 years go by-96 years go by—and we change in that time and we are not the same people. It is playing about with the emotional make-up of humanity to go on with this.
I am sorry to take that view but I wish that world Jewry would accept the fact that history must now bury its own dead and let us get on with life as it is with thousands of war crimes having been committed in the meantime. It is war which is the crime, and as long as

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there is war, crimes will be committed. There was Bosnia and the Gulf. It is shameful and shocking. There is a catalogue of crimes of recent wars which we shall never be able to tackle. I wish that we could see the sense of this matter and lead world opinion on it. I wish that we could tell the Australians and Canadians that they can bring their responsibilities in this direction to an end with honour and understanding.
I hope that we shall take a decision in the interests of our own integrity. The elected Chamber has not got all the sense in the world. I used to hear that 50 million people cannot be wrong—50 million people can be wrong! They are mostly wrong. It is here, with our sense of reality and common sense and our vast experience of life, that we can express the true verdict on this situation. For heaven's sake, let us do it!
7.30 p.m.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Blatch): My Lords, perhaps I may start by associating myself with the good wishes and the pleasure which we all take in seeing the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, back in his seat and participating in our debates.
The effect of Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 would be that the investigating and prosecuting authorities would have three months—or if we accept the other amendment, 12 months—longer than otherwise to continue with inquiries and bring charges as appropriate in relation to the War Crimes Act 1991.
The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, was absolutely right. Clause 2 is a declaratory clause and that point was made by my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor when he referred to it. However, there is an anomaly, in that Clauses 2 and 3 would apply in relation to applications to quash indictments made three, or 12, months or more after Royal Assent, but not to applications in the immediately preceding three-month or 12-month period. I am sure that that was not the intention of my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway. If that needs putting right I am sure that he will see to it at further stages of the Bill.
I should perhaps emphasise lest there be any doubt whatsoever, that it should not be assumed that war crimes investigations will necessarily be concluded when funding, in the form of police specific grant for the Metropolitan Police War Crimes Unit ends on 31st March 1995. As to whether police officers will be made available beyond that date to finish investigations and support any prosecutions, that would be a matter for the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.
But the Government's position remains that the investigating and prosecuting authorities should not be subject to a time bar on their inquiries or the bringing of charges. These amendments in no way therefore overcome the principled objection which the Government have to Clause 1 of the Bill, which, with or without the amendments to Clause 4, would effectively repeal the War Crimes Act 1991.
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Amendment No. 1 is merely a consequential amendment. It does not affect the principle behind the clause, which is that, with the coming into force of the clause, no proceedings may be instituted in relation to the War Crimes Act 1991.
Therefore, with or without the amendment, the clause is unwelcome to the Government as it stands. My noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway reminded us that I said on 7th December 1994 at col. 1007 of Hansard that the clause would set a most unfortunate precedent. We do not have a time bar on the institution of proceedings in the United Kingdom for murder, manslaughter or culpable homicide nor do we wish to depart from that principle.
The clause, if enacted, would create an exception for people who did not have British nationality at the material time. They would again be immune from prosecutions, thus rendering the War Crimes Act ineffective. Parliament did not intend at the time when the War Crimes Act was enacted that the police and the independent prosecuting authorities should have a prescribed period of time in which to carry out their investigations into war crimes and bring charges as appropriate. The Government's position in relation to the Act is clear. It is that those who committed most terrible crimes in Nazi-occupied Europe during the Second World War cannot be allowed to use the privilege of residence in the United Kingdom to escape justice.
In response to the comments made by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, justice and fairness must be a matter for the Crown Prosecution Service, the work of the police, that of my right honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General and, if appropriate, the courts themselves. This is a Private Member's Bill and, as is consistent with the conventions of this House, I shall not be opposing these amendments.
Lord Wilberforce: My Lords, I am very much indebted to all those who have spoken on these amendments. As between the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, and myself there is no difference whatever. I am very happy to agree with the way in which he put the case, which was far better than I did in opening. On principle we are totally agreed. The only difference is the period and whether it should be three months or 12 months.
As regards other noble Lords who have spoken, we have had the consolation of hearing some of them say that at least these amendments make the Bill better. The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, like many of us, did not like the Bill at all. He said that at least it was a great improvement to take either our amendment or that of the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. On that basis I am content to commend the matter to the House.
With reference to the danger of confrontation which was emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, of course that is a very real consideration. I mentioned it in opening. I suggest that the point I made is a valid one; namely, that our amendments make the Bill less confrontational than it was before. It may be that it is still open to objection and it may be that another place will turn it down. This is an improvement on the Bill and as such we commend it to the House.

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As regards Clauses 2 and 3, it is clear that Clause 2 is not affected in any way by either amendment because it states only the common law anyway. As regards Clause 3 and our three-month amendment, it is very unlikely to cause any difficulty because, for a case to get to the Court of Appeal after a hearing by a judge of first instance, three months is bound to have elapsed anyway. Therefore there is no practical problem. If 12 months were chosen, there might be a difficulty. In that case it would be necessary either for the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, or the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, to produce an adjustment to Clause 3 at Third Reading to take account of that difficulty.
I suggest that your Lordships need not be worried as to the implications of Clauses 2 and 3, but should vote on the simple question whether my amendment or that of the noble Lord, Lord. Mishcon, is or is not an improvement to the Bill. On the basis that it is, although no doubt a modest one and one that leaves difficulties with the Bill, still an improvement, I commend Amendment No. 1 and later Amendment No. 2 to the House.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 4 [Short title and extent]:
Lord Wilberforce Lord Wilberforce moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 2, line 1 at end insert:
("(3) This Act shall come into force three months after Royal Assent.").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, I have already spoken to this amendment. I beg to move.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I shall be guided on this point. I understand that my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway was anxious to speak to Amendment No. 3 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. I am not sure whether he was hinting that 12 months is preferable to three months, but my understanding is that if we accept this amendment, the next amendment may fall—
Noble Lords: No!
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I am advised that it will not, and that it is possible to speak to both amendments.
Lord Campbell of Ahoway: My Lords, with the leave of the House, perhaps I may explain my position. I, so to speak sub silentio, in view of the way in which the debate ranged and the time available, have waived my respectful request and I personally am prepared not to reply to the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. The noble arid learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, has, in effect, dealt with the situation.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Mishcon Lord Mishcon moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 2, line 1, at end insert:
("(3) This Act shall come into force twelve months after Royal Assent.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I certainly do not intend to address your Lordships again on the amendment, but there is something that I feel that I must say and I think that it will meet with the approval of the whole House.
We have been discussing the dreadful effect of the passage of the years. When I heard the speech of my noble friend Lord Houghton of Sowerby, I realised that years mean nothing to some Members of your Lordships' House. Although he spoke in terms which were contrary to the view that I put, I pay him the respect which I believe the House always has for his speeches. We hope that he will go on making them for many more years to come. Having said that, I beg to move.
7.42 p.m.
The Deputy Speaker (Viscount Allenby of Megiddo): My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House if I inform your Lordships that, having agreed Amendment No. 2, the wording of Amendment No. 3 is changed as follows:
Amendment proposed: Page 2, line 1, leave out the words last inserted and insert the new words as printed on the Marshalled List.
The Question is, That Amendment No. 3 be agreed to? As many as are of that opinion will say, "Content"; to the contrary, "Not-Content". I think that the "Not-Contents" have it. Clear the Bar.
Division called.
Tellers for the "Contents" have not been appointed pursuant to Standing Order No. 51. A Division therefore cannot take place, and I declare that the "Not-Contents" have it.
Amendment negatived.

Human Rights Bill [H.L.]
7.46 p.m.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Lester of Herne Hill.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Viscount Allenby of Megiddo) in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Incorporation of European Convention on Human Rights into United Kingdom law]:
Lord Lester of Herne Hill Lord Lester of Herne Hill moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 8, leave out from ("1950") to ("and") in line 9.
The noble Lord said: In moving this amendment, with the leave of the Committee, I should like to speak also to Amendments Nos. 11 and 12. Perhaps I may explain that these are purely technical drafting amendments, which arise as follows: Clause 1(1) (a) in its present form refers to Section I of the European Convention on Human Rights,
"(as amended by the Third, Fifth and Eighth Protocols to that Convention)".
In fact, however, Section I of that Convention, which is set out in Schedule 1, has not been amended by any of those protocols. Other provisions of the Convention have been amended, but not Section I. It is therefore unnecessary to include in the Bill the words in brackets. That is why Amendment No. 1 is necessary.
Amendments Nos. 11 and 12 are consequential. Schedule 1 should begin "Schedule I of the Convention" rather than "The Convention". Again, the words in brackets in line 5 of the schedule are unnecessary for the reasons that I have sought to explain.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: These amendments are entirely acceptable as they do not conflict with Amendment No. 2 which I propose to move in due course.
Baroness Blatch: Am I right in assuming that Amendments Nos. 1, 11 and 12 are being taken together? I understand that they are purely technical amendments. The current references in the Bill are effectively redundant in that the Third, Fifth and Eighth Protocols relate only to articles in Section III of the convention, which is concerned primarily with procedural matters. Although the Government believe that the Bill itself is unnecessary, in the context of the Bill, the amendments are eminently sensible.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: I am grateful to the Minister.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Campbell of Alloway Lord Campbell of Alloway moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 1, leave out lines 13 to 25 and insert:
("(2) The provisions set out in subsection (1) above shall—

(a) serve as an aid to the construction of primary and secondary legislation; and

(b)be taken into account in equity and at common law, so that effect may be given to them in any legal proceedings in the United Kingdom in accordance with the principles established by the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights.

(3) For the purposes of this section the procedure at first instance and on appeal shall be governed by such Rules of Court or Practice Directions as may be made.").
The noble Lord said: I shall speak also to Amendment No. 13 to the Title which is consequential upon Amendment No. 2. The amendments acknowledge the principle of incorporation, as accepted by this place on Second Reading, but propose an entirely different and alternative means of implementation. The amendments are wholly supportive of the steadfast opposition to the Bill, as it stands, shared by many Members on all sides of the Committee and admirably expressed in the detailed exposition of my noble friend Lady Blatch on Second Reading (Hansard, cols. 1163–1170).
With the consent of the Committee, to save time and for clarification, and for the convenience of the Committee, perhaps I may try to clear the yard arm of the cat's cradle of the amendments to Clause 1. It is understood that the noble Lord, Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe, does not propose to move Amendments Nos. 3, 5, 6 and 7 which were tabled before Amendments Nos. 2 and 13 were tabled and that the noble Lord proposes to support my amendments instead of his own.
Amendments Nos. 4 and 8 are subsumed by subsection (2) (a) of Amendment No. 2, but leave in place in Clause 1(2), lines 13 to 15, which Amendment No. 2 deletes. Amendment No. 2 substitutes subsection
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(2) (a), which is subsumed, and subsections (2) (b) and (3), which are not subsumed by the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lester.
Amendments Nos. 1 and 4 are wholly compatible with Amendments Nos. 2 and 13. I hope that we can now get down to substance, having clarified the cat's cradle. I shall be brief. The Committee is much more interested in the noble Lord's contribution to the debate than in my introduction. It is accepted that there should be a domestic forum. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Browne-Wilkinson, said on Second Reading, if we cannot go along with the whole Bill, an amendment such as my Amendment No. 2 would set aright:
"a ludicrous Mad-Hatter's tea party position".—[Official Report, 25/1/95; col. 1149.]
It would be largely effective to avoid the expense and delay of having to exhaust all domestic appellate procedures before taking a case to the Commission or to the European Court of Human Rights. It will tend to alleviate the burden upon the Government of lost cases before that court. It would most assuredly meet the concerns of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, as he expressed them on Second Reading. I am glad to see him in his place.
There is also reason to hope—one can never put anything higher than that when introducing a Bill or an amendment—that the amendment, on objective examination, may commend itself to Members of the Committee who supported the Bill as it stood on Second Reading, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Taylor of Gosforth, who spoke also for the Master of the Rolls, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, whom I think I am relieved—I shall wait and see what he has to say—to see in his place, and the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Mostyn, who is also in his place (which is fortunate) who on behalf of himself and the Labour Party gave warm but, to be fair to the noble Lord, qualified support subject to further scrutiny of the Bill.
In short form—the Committee does not want a long speech —the objections to Clause 1 as it stands are that the Bill derogates from the sovereignty of Parliament. The judiciary would have power to override the legislature; to set aside Acts of Parliament. Parliament would retain no residual power to override the convention, even in exceptional circumstances. In that context, the separation of powers under our unwritten constitution, and safeguarded only by our unwritten constitution, would no longer exist.
The United Kingdom—this point has not yet been taken in discussion—is the only signatory state to the convention which does not have a written constitution. If other states such as Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, France and Sweden have incorporated the convention into domestic law, so be it. Incorporation has failed to afford any effective assurance of remedial action for breach as compared with the excellent record of the United Kingdom in that regard.
There are 89 cases awaiting resolution, of which only three arise in the United Kingdom, two of which relate to judgments. Those figures are as recent as October 1994. Problems of non-compliance with the convention in the United Kingdom could be resolved satisfactorily

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by a domestic forum, as proposed by the amendment, which introduces no constitutional innovation which derogates from the sovereignty of our Parliament.
As to the amendments, a distinction is drawn between our two sources of law which is not readily intelligible to countries which operate a type of Napoleonic code; first, there are laws made by Parliament or under the authority of Parliament (subsection (2) (a)). Secondly, our judge-made law, in equity and at common law, is dealt with in subsection (2) (b) of the amendment. As regards the laws made by Parliament, under this amendment the judiciary would be enjoined to have regard to the provisions of the convention to serve as an aid to primary and secondary legislation so as to ensure whenever possible that the provisions of the convention are not infringed.
I made a submission to such effect some years ago when opposing the Bill brought forward by Lord Broxbourne. I was reminded of that when I read the speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Browne-Wilkinson, on Second Reading on 25th January 1995, col. 1149 of the Official Report. I am indebted to the noble and learned Lord for jogging my memory.
As regards judge-made law, the judiciary when applying or extending aspects of equity or the common law would be enjoined to do so in conformity with the provisions of the convention. As regards both types and sources of law, the judiciary would be enjoined to have regard to the jurisprudence of the Commission and the Court of Human Rights. Implementing procedures would be introduced, which is subsection (3) of the amendment. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Allenby of Megiddo): It may be for the convenience of the Committee if I say that, if Amendment No. 2 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments Nos. 3 to 6 inclusive.
8 p.m.
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe: I rise to support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway—
Lord Campbell of Alloway: I am not learned!
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe: I humbly apologise to the noble Lord. When I spoke on Second Reading I said that my aim would be to table amendments to improve the Bill brought forward by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, in order to bring it more into line with the human rights Bill introduced in the other place by the honourable Member for Nottingham North. It is not easy for a layman such as myself to draft amendments. I looked at the wide range of previous debates which were mentioned by the noble Lord when he introduced this Bill on Second Reading. I noted that few of the speakers were laymen. I give notice to the Committee that by the time we reach the Report stage I hope to have prepared more amendments relating to information and accountability.
I owe the Committee an explanation as to why I have changed my mind and am happy to jettison some of my amendments and to support the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway. Two things happened which
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caused me to change my mind. The first was a report in the Daily Telegraph of 10th February on a decision by the European Court of Human Rights. It decided that Britain had acted unlawfully in trying to confiscate the profits of a crime committed by a drug peddler, a convicted drug trafficker. It states:
"Nine judges at the Strasbourg court ruled unanimously that a British court acted unlawfully in trying to confiscate £59,000 of Peter Welch's drug profits after he was convicted of a plot to smuggle £4 million of cannabis".
Adding insult to injury, it continued:
"Britain has also been ordered to pay £14,000 costs and expenses to Welch".
If we are to carry the nation with us it is necessary that decisions can be explained to the general public of this country. Frankly, it is virtually impossible to try to explain to people in the street that decision of the European Court.
That gave me cause for thought. I turn to the second incident. As the Committee will know, I believe that a great deal of the pressure has been motivated by Charter 88. I read a publication by that body which was published in January 1990. The first part deals with its priorities and objectives. After a section on the long-term objectives the medium-term objectives are set out. Under the heading "External", it states:
"To see enacted into law at least one, if not all of the Charter's priorities, namely: Incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights, electoral reform, a Scottish Assembly, a Freedom of Information Act".
After browsing through the document I saw a photograph printed at the back. It shows Anthony Lester QC holding a placard listing the Charter's demands. The Houses of Parliament are in the background. Glancing down the list I notice a Bill of Rights and Freedom of Information. I understand that the noble Lord was not entirely free with information today, but that is another matter. The list also includes a reformed House of Commons and a democratic Upper House. Of course, he choked back his principles because in 1993 he was elevated to your Lordships' House. I suppose that he managed to swallow his scruples and certainly did not go through the agony involved in his 20 years pondering about whether to stay a member of the Garrick Club.
In winding up the Second Reading debate, the noble Lord, Lord Lester, said that he held no brief for Charter 88. Referring to me he said:
"The noble Lord made it sound like a communist organisation of the most insidious kind. He spoke as though he was Senator Joe McCarthy".—[Official Report, 25/1/95: col. 1170.]
Given the build-up of such a reputation, one feels that one must maintain it. Therefore, I must say that I regard the activities of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, in this House as those of a Trojan Horse for Charter 88. I do not say that it is a communist conspiracy by Charter 88; I say that it is a conspiracy by a number of academics and intellectual elitists, or rather, I do not. say that it is a conspiracy; I say that there is a plan in which sections of the media are colluding.
Members of the Committee will have noticed that last night's Evening Standard contained a substantial article by the noble Lord about his Bill today. It was no coincidence that on the Saturday after Second Reading The Times published an opinion poll about the public's

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attitude towards human rights. I could give other examples but I do not wish to weary the Committee at this time of night.
I am anxious to support the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, because he retains some sovereignty for our Parliament. We must carry people with us on these issues because there is a great deal of talk within my party regarding Sidney and Beatrice Webb. They are being written off as theoreticians because of their construction of parts of the Labour Party constitution. In fact, they were Fabians, and the Fabians were known as gas and water socialists. They were so named because they knew that, if people did not have heating and lighting in their homes and water which they could drink without fear of cholera, typhoid and so forth, there was no point in talking about anything else. They are the basic elements. We must make sure that people understand that we are concerned mainly about the conditions in which they live and that these other issues are more for the intellectuals and academics.
I was heartened by the Second Reading speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson. He was not in a minority of one because he made comments with which I found a great resonance. I do not believe that a written constitution provides any guarantee. The Weimar Republic had a written constitution but that did not prevent the rise of Hitler. That constitution contained a clause about religious freedoms and freedom from persecution. We have recently witnessed the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and there is a hollow ring in the belief that the written constitution gave any protection whatever. We should start a campaign to stop knocking this country. Some of those in Europe who seem to be so critical of us should bear in mind that had we not stood on our own in 1940 and had we not resisted and held out, all those countries which now seem to think that we are so backward as regards ordinary, decent civilities and rights would still be living under one of the worst tyrannies that the world has ever known. I am pleased to support the noble Lord, Lord Campbell.
Earl Russell: I am sure that the Committee will be pleased to hear that I am not going to answer that speech. However, I wish to take up one point made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell. He said that he believes that the Bill threatens parliamentary sovereignty. I do not understand how that can possibly be so. I have always understood that the two key principles of parliamentary sovereignty are that a parliament can do what it likes but may not bind its successors. I cannot see anything in the Bill which remotely purports to bind our successors. Therefore, if this Parliament wishes to pass this legislation, I cannot see how we can possibly infringe our parliamentary sovereignty by doing so. I should have thought that an argument to say that we infringe our parliamentary sovereignty by doing what
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we like would run more risk of contradicting parliamentary sovereignty than anything in my noble friend's Bill.
8.15 p.m.
Lord Browne-Wilkinson: I do not have the command of the broad territory which the noble Lord, Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe, has and I shall confine myself to the very narrow point which, as I understand it, is now common ground between the noble Lord, Lord Lester, and the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway.
As introduced, the Bill would have had the effect that those provisions passed by both Houses of Parliament and receiving Royal Assent which were found to conflict with the European Convention on Human Rights would have had to be struck down by the courts.
There are many different views on the merits or demerits of such a matter but there is no doubt that such a move would have involved a major constitutional shift. When I spoke on Second Reading, I expressed the hope that even if, as I suspected, such a basic proposition was not acceptable, consideration would be given to something more moderate in its scope. To my astonishment, there are now no fewer than two amendments designed to produce roughly the same result.
Amendments Nos. 2 and 4—either of them as far as I can see—produce a major shift in what the Bill will achieve. Perhaps I may explain that. There is no longer any question of a judge or a court being able to strike down any Act of Parliament. Whatever its rights and wrongs, the argument about sovereignty is no longer in the picture because the amendments produce an obligation on the courts, in construing Acts of Parliament or administering the common law, to give effect, so far as possible and subject to Parliament's ability to say, "You cannot do it", to the provisions of the European Convention to which we all, as a country, are party and with which we are bound to conform.
I believe that either of the two amendments will produce a most desirable change. When winding up the debate on Second Reading the statement of the law by the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, accorded broadly with exactly what the amendment is designed to produce; namely, a general provision whereby, in giving effect to the law as passed by Parliament, there should be an approach designed to give effect to Convention obligations.
I am afraid that I have still not unravelled the cat's cradle and I do not know which of the amendments will prevail or how. But the amendments will produce what I suspect is the wish not only of the Members of this place but also of the other place when passing legislation; namely, they are not intended to authorise the Executive or anyone else in this country to do things which conflict with the European Convention. Indeed, it is extremely difficult to see how they would do properly otherwise as we are bound by treaty to enforce that.
This amendment will merely enable the courts of this country, in approaching the powers conferred by Parliament in very wide terms, of necessity, to assume that those powers are limited so as not to authorise infringements of the treaty.

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I can see no reason why that should not be done. It does not involve impugning the sovereignty of Parliament. It would enable the many cases which arise to be adjudicated upon by English judges in England, albeit at considerable expense, in relation to matters which directly affect the citizens of this country. I would welcome either of the amendments and I hope that I shall be given guidance as to which one to vote for when the time comes. I believe that they both achieve a desirable result.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: It is with some trepidation that I venture to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Browne-Wilkinson, particularly because the purport of my intention is to agree with him.
I was not able to be present when your Lordships debated the Second Reading of the Bill. Had I been present, I should have offered the Bill a qualified welcome. That qualification would be in relation to the inclusion of Clause 1(3). Although the noble Earl, Lord Russell, may be right that we cannot bind our successors—to my knowledge that has never been resolved—it is perfectly clear that that was the intention of the subsection.
Perhaps I may share my anxieties with the Committee. I have spent a political lifetime with the non-governmental organisations concerned with human rights. They are not all academics and I am not sure that most of them would claim to be intellectuals. People working for those organisations care about what happens to individuals. I have always believed, with them, that a government should observe certain standards in their dealings with their own citizens. I believe that those standards should embody consensus across a region if not, yet, across the whole globe.
We have that. All the citizens of this country now have the rights set out in the convention. The only question is how they are to be enforced. Is it necessary to go to Strasbourg, with all the delay, expense and inconvenience that that entails? Or is it possible for those rights to be enforced in the courts of this country? Clearly that is in the interest of the citizen and I believe that it is in the interests of the Government because we can then decently dispose of our in-house washing without too great a public performance. Therefore, up to that point, I am totally with the noble Lord, Lord Lester.
But we must reflect what we are doing when we designate a principle as a human right and afford it a special protection. First, we withdraw it from the normal political process. In a representative democracy, the usual way to resolve issues is by the political process. They are debated and, if necessary, the people make a decision on those issues at the polls. I do not suggest that the majority is always right. Sometimes majorities are wrong. Sometimes they are prejudiced and sometimes they are cruel. I stand to be corrected by the noble Earl, but I do not believe that history offers us many examples of where an oligarchy, an elite, a group of Platonic philosophers or even lawyers have proved to be more just, fair or right than the majority. Normally, where there is an issue, I believe that it should be resolved by the electors in a representative democracy.
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Therefore, before we embody a principle as a human right, we have to be very careful that there is a very broad and, probably, a lasting consensus about it.
There may be those who want to challenge it. They will not be able to do so in the courts because the purpose of the Bill is to provide that the courts must apply the principles as we have them. If we prevent them from addressing their arguments to the electorate, we shall have silenced those who may want us to reconsider the received wisdom. There have been occasions when they have been the prophets and the innovators. Often, too, it is those who most need the protection of human rights who most need to challenge the received wisdom of an earlier generation.
I hope that we shall not be too rigid. In view of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, quite clearly he is not proposing to be too rigid. I fully accept what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Browne-Wilkinson, said; namely, that we would not normally, in any event, wish to place ourselves in breach of the convention. It will not be very easy to change the convention, even should the time come when it ought to be changed in accordance with the needs of a changing world. We make the situation very much worse if we withdraw too wide an area from the political process.
Principles which become enshrined in human rights may sometimes be no more than the reactions of a particular generation to the political problems of that generation. I do not propose to embark upon that argument now, but I could offer examples where I believe that we may be fettered by the perfectly genuine concerns of our grandfathers who initially drafted the convention.
Human rights jurisprudence is not a petrified body of dogmatics; it must live, breath and respond to changing needs. I believe that what the noble Lord is seeking to do in the Bill is healthy: it is to give the electorate time to think again when such matters are challenged. It is to ensure that the Government direct their mind to the impact on individuals of their proposed legislation. But there is a danger—certainly if the proposed subsection is included —that the very purpose of the Bill will be defeated. In other words, it will not give people time to think again. It will ensure that they cannot do so. For that reason, I welcome the noble Lord's amendment.
As regards the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, and that of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Browne-Wilkinson, I await and reserve judgment. I shall listen carefully to the debate. I should just like to tell the noble Lord, Lord Campbell—if he will forgive me; and he knows the spirit in which I say this—that I suspect that my reasons for wanting to amend the subsection are slightly different from his. That does not matter. I promise to judge it on its merits.
Lord Donaldson of Lymington: I shall not trespass again into the question of whether I am in a minority of one or whether I am a voice crying in the wilderness, though crying my own cries as opposed to those of other people. I should like to take up the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, when he said that the Bill as originally drafted did not infringe the sovereignty of

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Parliament. I accept what the noble Earl said in the sense that he said it. In a sense, it would always be open to this Parliament—or, I suppose a future Parliament—to repeal the Act. However, in terms of real property, while Parliament retained the freehold, it is quite clear that, as long as the legislation in its original form remained on the statute book, if it ever got there, a leasehold interest was being given to others. I personally regard that as an infringement of sovereignty.
Accordingly, I very much welcome the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, as far as it goes. However, the difficulty is that the convention was drafted in 1950 or thereabouts. As I understand it from such reading as I have been able to carry out, it was intended to put up a series of markers or beacons to point out to those countries which were still totalitarian in their systems of government what were the basic tenets of democracies. Necessarily, therefore, they were expressed in very general terms. Again, I can understand that the United Kingdom was prepared to support a convention which had within it a machinery which would enable the signatories to say to Ruritania, "Look, you are not conforming with the principles of democracy. In some respects, perhaps in many respects, you remain a totalitarian regime". I can understand the need in that context for a commission and a court of human rights.
However, the problem which now arises is that the European Court of Human Rights and the commission seem to be approaching the convention on the footing not that it lays down broad principles, not that it shows in general terms what are the indicia of a democratic system of government, but that it is something in the nature of an international statute, which, when construed, will lay down precise rules which must be observed if we are to claim, first, to be honouring the convention and, secondly—and, perhaps, more broadly and more importantly—to be a democratic nation. I cannot accept that.
I would be quite happy if the convention were incorporated into United Kingdom law to be taken into account when construing statutes. I would have a little more difficulty —but not all that much—with the concept of somehow grafting it on to the common law. That would probably follow automatically if it were incorporated into English law. However, I would regard it as essential that we should be able to develop the meaning of the convention in an English context in our own way. I would not expect the French to develop and apply the convention in the same way in their own country; or, indeed, the Dutch, the Belgians, the Norwegians or anyone else. They have different cultures and different historical backgrounds. No doubt their approach would be the same in broad principle, but in detail it might well be different, and properly so.
My difficulty with the amendment all along has been the words,
"so that effect may be given to them"—
that is, the convention—
"in any legal proceedings in the United Kingdom in accordance with the principles established by the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights".
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That is what sticks in my gullet. I do not believe that that was ever the intention of the founding fathers of the convention. However, it is useless for me to propose any amendments here because, at this stage, that would involve a breach of the treaty by the United Kingdom. All I can do is to express the minority hope—I am sure—that Her Majesty's Government will in due course, having explained the point with care to our partners in the convention, withdraw from the convention, re-enacting it in English law while explaining that we support it completely but we must be allowed to apply it into our own nation in our own way, in our own context and in the light of our own history. As pointed out by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer, we must let the people have a say and not 27 judges in Strasbourg, only one of whom is English.
Lord Woolf: I hesitate to add to the learning which has already been displayed on the subject by many noble Lords. However, I do so for two reasons. First, I believe that it is most important for us to appreciate the nature and effect of the proposed amendments. As I see it, both the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, and that tabled in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, achieve the same result. There is indeed a difficulty in making the selection as to which is preferable. That is a matter to which I shall return in a moment.
Secondly, the advantage of these amendments is that they retain the freehold of parliamentary sovereignty, albeit all that would have been dispensed with otherwise would have been the leasehold, as indicated by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson. But that is, as he indicated, an important distinction. I welcome these amendments because they avoid the consequences which follow from Parliament inadvertently infringing the Convention on Human Rights where there was no intention to do so because, as often happens with legislation, the exact consequences of that legislation are not foreseen.
The result of having these amendments is that Parliament will retain the right to make it clear that in respect of specific legislation it intends that legislation to prevail over the convention. If it does not do so, when it comes to the courts to construe that legislation, as the amendments make clear, it is the courts' task to try to construe that legislation so far as possible consistently with the convention. It seems to me that that is a happy result. It complies with our treaty obligations and it follows a precedent which has been taken in other parts of the world, in particular in New Zealand and at one stage in Canada, where the very same device was used, not surprisingly in countries which had a similar constitutional tradition to our own.
I therefore have no hesitation in supporting both amendments. When it comes to choosing between the amendments I will merely say this. It seems to me that the solution devised by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, is the one to be preferred because it makes most clear the task of the courts when it comes to construing enactments whenever passed in the light of the convention. It also has the advantage that it is shorter, and that is always something to be desired in a situation of this sort. I merely add this, that whereas the noble

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and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice did not have the opportunity of considering the precise language of these two amendments when he spoke on the Second Reading of this Bill he expressed two reservations. One of the reservations is met by either of these amendments and he has authorised me to say on this occasion that he would endorse the spirit of these amendments.
8.30 p.m.
Lord Williams of Mostyn: I am grateful for the illumination which the noble and learned Lords, Lord Browne-Wilkinson and Lord Woolf, have shed upon this. I have not myself seen a perfect alternative as between Amendment No. 2 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, and Amendment No. 4 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill. I still, respectfully, am of the view that they are not perfect alternatives. If they were to be alternatives, I for my part would strongly, for the reasons given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, support Amendment No. 4 rather than Amendment No. 2.
Baroness Blatch: I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway and indeed to the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, and also to the noble Lord, Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe, who has given his explanation as to why he will withdraw his own amendments. At the outset I refer to the Welch judgment, which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Cocks. The Government are considering carefully the implications of the judgment delivered by the European Court of Human Rights in respect of Peter Welch. The Welch case turned on the narrow point of whether a confiscation order under the Drug Trafficking Offences Act 1986 was a penalty and could not therefore be applied where offences were committed before the Act came into force.
I can assure the Committee that the Government had no intention of creating a retrospective penalty. It may be tempting to say with hindsight that the outcome of the case was obvious but we certainly cannot say with any certainty that the domestic courts would have found for Mr. Welch in this case if they had been able to apply the convention.
It is interesting to note that the European Commission on Human Rights was evenly divided on the issue of whether a confiscation order was indeed a penalty. Had the domestic courts found against Mr. Welch, he would of course in any event have been able to take his case to the Strasbourg courts.
I believe the amendments betoken a recognition of the force of the Government's arguments in respect of the effects of incorporation upon the carefully balanced relationship between Parliament and the courts which lies at the heart of our tradition of parliamentary supremacy. But these amendments, although preferable in many respects to the original proposals in this Bill, do not allay the Government's anxieties on this point.
The Government's concern is that, in construing parliamentary enactments, the courts should look at the words of those enactments first, and only in the case of ambiguity should they look to see which of the possible meanings is consistent with the UK's international
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obligations. The amendments to Clause 1 under discussion would each (albeit in slightly different ways) increase the number of occasions in which the courts would be entitled, and indeed obliged, to look at the convention before deciding how the words of an enactment should be interpreted, even if those words are clear and unambiguous. In the Government's view, where the words of Parliament are clear, they should be given effect to by our courts.
As far as subordinate legislation is concerned—a matter to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Browne-Wilkinson, paid particular attention at Second Reading—the courts already give the most careful scrutiny to whether such delegated legislation is within the powers given by an Act of Parliament. They can, and indeed do, strike it down if it goes beyond what Parliament intended. Should the courts be permitted to go further than this and strike down subordinate legislation because, in their view, it offends against the principles of the convention even though it is within the powers given by Parliament and even though it has in all probability been approved by Parliament under either the negative or affirmative resolution procedure? In the Government's view, the courts should not have such powers.
There is a further danger in interpreting domestic legislation, old or new, by reference to the convention. The interpretation of the rights and freedoms set out in the convention and the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and the commission is by its nature an evolving process. It is well recognised, not least by the Strasbourg court, that the interpretation of the convention will alter over time as social and political attitudes change. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer of Sandwell, made reference to the difficulty of making changes where the social and political attitudes change over time. In the Government's view, it is for Parliament to decide how best to respond to those changes, not for the judges to decide that domestic enactments, whenever passed, must now be interpreted so as to accord with developments in current European social policy.
In short, the Government consider that, even with one or other of these amendments, the Bill would amount to a significant change in the current position in providing for the convention to be litigated in the courts where now it may not be. For the reasons set out in my speech at Second Reading, the Government do not consider that such a change is necessary in order to secure the rights and freedoms protected under the European Convention on Human Rights. Nor do we believe that it would enhance the enjoyment of those rights and freedoms in this country.
As I said at col. 1166 of Hansard of 25th January at Second Reading, the arithmetic is interesting when one compares the UK's record with that of those countries which have incorporated the ECHR. We compare favourably with others in that respect. It is true that there is no diminution of the protection of our citizens both as regards the national law and indeed the European

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Convention on Human Rights. Accordingly, the Government could not possibly support either of these amendments.
Earl Russell: Before the noble Baroness sits down, could she confirm that, since Parliament is sovereign, Parliament has the right to pass this Bill if it wishes?
Baroness Blatch: I confirm that absolutely. This Parliament is entirely free to pass this law, as many other countries have incorporated the ECHR into their own national law. It is entirely a matter for this Chamber and another place to do the same.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: If no other Member of the Committee wishes to speak—
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: Perhaps I may explain to the Committee some of the background to these two amendments.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: Order! Surely at this stage I should respond. I apologise, we are in Committee.
8.45 p.m.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: As I understand it, it is appropriate for me to speak to the amendment which has been tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, and at the same time to indicate how it differs from Amendment No. 4, to which I should also like to speak at this stage.
The Committee will know that the purpose of the Bill, as its title indicates, is to incorporate Section 1 of the European convention into the law of the land—that is the central purpose of the Bill—and to put our courts into the position of being able to give decisions locally with recourse being had to the European Court of Human Rights only in the last resort and not at first recourse.
Paragraph (b) of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, dealing with the common law is already covered by the existing Clause 1(1) and (2) of the Bill. I remind the Committee that Clause 1(1) incorporates into the law of the United Kingdom the schedule provisions and gives them full legal effect in accordance with this Act. Clause 1(2) provides that the schedule provisions shall have effect notwithstanding any rule of law to the contrary.
Pausing there, the intention—and I hope the effect—of Clause 1 is to ensure that the convention becomes part of the common law and is taken into account. That applies to law and equity.
Clause 1(3) in its unamended form is similar in its object to Section 2(1) and (4) of the European Communities Act 1972. It is a very strong provision. It commands the courts to construe all existing and future legislation in accordance with the convention and to set aside any inconsistent provisions. Therefore, Clause 1(3) in its present form is a lion rather than a mouse. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Browne-Wilkinson, indicated, it would have the effect of empowering the
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courts to strike down or set aside inconsistent legislation, as they already do in the case of statutes which conflict with European Community law.
I listened very carefully to the much more learned and wiser voices at Second Reading. I also listened carefully to the speech in reply made by the noble Baroness the Minister. It seemed to me on reflection that the wise course was to seek the widest possible consensus across the Chamber for the Bill and to remove any conceivable rational objection to the Bill in the form in which it would leave this Chamber. It is for that reason that I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, and all Members of the Committee who have spoken that it would be right to delete Clause 1(3) and to substitute a weaker provision.
The question then is: what is the most appropriate weaker provision? The gap which Clause 1(3) in its unamended or amended form seeks to fill is the gap created by the decision of the House of Lords in the Brind case. In that case, the House of Lords decided that where broad ministerial powers are conferred by Parliament it would be usurping the role of Parliament if the courts were to interpret those powers subject to and in accordance with the convention rights and freedoms. In effect, the Law Lords decided that only an ambiguity in legislation would authorise judges to apply the convention.
That is the gap which a weaker form of Clause 1(3) seeks to fill. It would authorise the courts to interpret all legislation in accordance with the convention unless the context requires otherwise. It would fill the Brind gap. The gap that would not be filled by the weakening of the Bill would be the gap exposed, for example, by the Welch case concerning the retrospective confiscation of profits from drugs. In that case the problem is that the statute itself requires the courts to exercise their powers in a retrospective way. Therefore, if either of the candidates for amendment is accepted by the Committee it will follow that in the Welch case and similar cases where the statute cannot be read subject to the convention the only remedy will continue to be recourse to the European Commission and the Court of Human Rights.
I believe that we should accept that limitation. We would not achieve perfect incorporation but something less. We would be leaving it to Parliament to pass inconsistent legislation and the only remedy would be a European remedy thereafter.
I come to the question of which of the amendments might better achieve the object which I believe the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, and I and all other Members of the Committee who have spoken except the Minister have in mind; that is, to seek so far as we can to authorise our courts to give effect to the convention locally and make it unnecessary to do so on the international plane.
I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, will forgive me if I say that I do not believe that subsection (3) of his amendment is a necessary part of the amendment. That would follow as a matter of course in any event. I believe that subsection (b) is already

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covered by the earlier provisions of the Bill as they stand. Paragraph (a) of the amendment is ambiguous. It merely states that the provisions in the Schedule shall:
"serve as an aid to the construction of primary and secondary legislation".
It does not say how. It leaves that utterly ambiguous. As noble Lords who are judicial or legal in their learning will know, the courts already use the convention as an aid to the construction of primary and secondary legislation where there is an ambiguity, but not otherwise. I believe that in Scotland they do not use it as an aid to ambiguity, either. So the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, would amend the position in Scotland. I do not believe that by itself it would overrule the decision in Brind or make clearer what the interpretation rules should be.
Amendment No. 4 is based upon what is already to be found in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. It is expressed more precisely than the New Zealand provision, but it makes clear that the sovereignty of Parliament is preserved in the sense that, where the context does not permit, the courts must give effect to the legislation and not to the convention. In that rather special use of the word "sovereignty" the sovereignty of Parliament is preserved.
However, the effect of Amendment No. 4 is, I hope, to make quite clear that, except where there is a clear inconsistency, the courts will construe existing or future legislation consistently with the rights which we have defined in Schedule 1. Given that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, and I have exactly the same objectives, as I understand it, I very much hope that he will feel able to withdraw his amendment in order that we may make common cause on this important part of the Bill.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: Perhaps I may—
Baroness Blatch: I was about to wind up briefly on that point. If my noble friend wishes to speak before I do so, I give way.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: I was coming to the decision on what I would do with my amendment. Perhaps my noble friend wishes to speak first.
Baroness Blatch: I am grateful to my noble friend. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lester, for pointing out the distinction between the two amendments. That is important, as noble Lords may take a view about which amendment they wish to support.
The difficulties which we envisage in relation to my noble friend's amendment would apply with even more force to the amendments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, which place a positive obligation—the noble Lord made that clear—upon the courts to construe legislation consistently with the convention wherever possible. That provision still represents a very significant constitutional change. Therefore the Government could not support the amendment.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: No other Member of the Committee wishes to speak. I am obliged to the
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Minister. I assure the Committee that at this hour it would usurp the whole concept of the way in which we conduct our affairs to seek to emulate the noble Lord, Lord Lester, by going into the technical case of Brind and others, and heaven knows what. I have not the slightest intention of doing so. The reason is this. It is more or less common ground that there is nothing to choose between the amendments. They virtually achieve the same objective. As my noble friend says, the Government apparently prefer my amendment to the amendment put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Lester.
My amendment removes something that the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, does not. I refer to Clause 1(2), which states:
"The provisions set out in Schedule 1 shall have effect notwithstanding any rule of law to the contrary".
That provision remains in the Bill under the noble Lord's amendment. Also under his amendment there is no provision whatever for paragraph (b) of my amendment or the rules of court or practice directions procedure.
At this hour on this important subject I propose to take the opinion of the Committee. Some resolution ought to be made. We do not wish to go on arguing as to whether this amendment is better than another amendment. I shall take the opinion of the Committee.
8.53 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 2) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 24; Not-Contents, 25.

Division No. 1

CONTENTS

Annaly, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Lane of Horsell, L.

Balfour, E.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Marlesford, L.

Burnham, L.

Palmer, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L. [Teller.]

Rankeillour, L.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L. [Teller]

Rodney, L.

Denham, L.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Elton, L.

Seccombe, B.

Halsbury, E.

Skelmersdale, L.

HolmPatrick, L.

Tornington, V.

NOT-CONTENTS

Ackner, L.

Lloyd of Berwick, L.

Addington, L.

Macaulay of Bragar, L.

Archer of Sandwell, L.

McNair, L.

Browne-Wilkinson, L.

Mishcon, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L

Russell, E

Dubs, L. [Teller.]

Seear, B.

Eatwell, L.

Sefton of Garston, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Thomas of Walliswood, B

Gregson, L.

Tope, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Tordoff, L.

Hylton, L.

Williams of Mostyn, L.

Lester of Herne Hill, L. [Teller.]

Woolf, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
9.2 p.m.
[Amendment No. 3 not moved.]
Lord Lester of Herne Hill Lord Lester of Herne Hill moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 1, line 15, leave out subsection (3) and insert:
("(3) So far as the context permits, enactments (whenever passed or made) shall be construed consistently with the rights and freedoms defined in Schedule 1.").
The noble Lord said: I have already spoken to this amendment, I fear at great length. I therefore beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 5 to 7 not moved.]
Lord Lester of Herne Hill Lord Lester of Herne Hill moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 2, line 10, at end insert:
(""enactment" includes an Order in Council, any Northern Ireland legislation and any instrument made under an Act or any Northern Ireland legislation.").
The noble Lord said: Again, this amendment presents a purely technical definition. It seeks to define the meaning of "enactment" to include,
"an Order in Council, any Northern Ireland legislation and any instrument made under an Act or any Northern Ireland legislation".
I do not think it is a matter of controversy. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 2 and 3 agreed to.
Clause 4 [Remedies for violations of the Convention]:
Lord Campbell of Alloway Lord Campbell of Alloway had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 9:
Page 2, line 29, leave out subsection (1).
The noble Lord said: I understand that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, will move that the clause do not stand part of the Bill. In the circumstances, it would be otiose and a waste of time for the Committee were I to move Amendment No. 9. Therefore I do not propose to move it.
[Amendment No. 9 not moved.]
[Amendment No. 10 not moved.]
On Question, Whether Clause 4 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Sefton of Garston: I listened with interest to the two debates tonight. In the earlier debate some difference of opinion seemed to arise as to what constitutes Charter 88. I do not know whether it consists of intellectuals or professional men. But I do know one thing: they are so far removed from the ordinary people of this country that Charter 88 will never go down very well.
That brings me to the purpose of my intervention. It is not to debate anything at this moment. It is merely to ask the sponsor of the Bill a question. Clause 4 states:
"For the avoidance of doubt it is hereby declared that nothing in this Act shall be taken to prejudice the right of any person to petition the European Commission of Human Rights claiming to be a victim of a violation of the rights set out in the Convention".
I do not want to argue that point, except to point out that there is nothing in this Bill that would enable an ordinary working-class lay person in this country to go
780
to the appropriate court to defend his right under the convention. The legal system in this country is framed in such a way, and the exorbitant cost of the QCs and other lawyers in this country is so high, that to suggest that working-class folk could have recourse to this subsection means nothing. If we are to break away from this cycle of intellectuals and professionals removing themselves so far from the ordinary people of the country, something has to be done about the cost.
I had it in mind to put down an amendment to this Bill. It is a long time since I first read the convention. I thought then that it was a good thing. When the Bill came up for debate, I read the convention again. I still see it as an excellent thing. I still believe that there is something in it which contradicts the attitude of the Government in certain fields of public relations and public discussion and it should be challenged. I could not afford to have representation—to pay for the solicitors, the banisters and all the other extraneous matters that they bring in. The earlier debate and this one have confirmed that for me.
The only time that I ever became involved in a court case was when somebody made a remark about me that I thought was libellous, and I therefore went to court. In the due process of law, I employed a barrister. The person who had offended me was also a barrister. Believe it or not, the case went on for seven days. I was completely cleared by everybody in the case, including the person who had offended me. Then the court decided to do what it thought necessary to settle the case. My barrister and the opposing barrister went into Chambers. That terrified me. In my absence, without my having to say anything at all, they settled the case. It cost me thousands of pounds. It cost the other party nothing because she had been conducting her own case.
That gave me an important lesson about British law and its availability to ordinary people. The people who are behind Charter 88 ought to keep their feet on the ground. Those who propose the Bill had better not suggest something like, "for the avoidance of doubt you have the right to do this that or the other". I make a proposal that the Minister should consider an amendment before Report stage; namely, that the Bill should empower or compel the Government to set up an organisation or commission (whatever it may be called) that will guarantee to the people of this land the rights and wherewithal to go to the European Court in order to claim their rights under the convention.
If such an amendment is not brought forward, I feel that we would be in a situation similar to that with Charter 88 and talk of sovereignty. Sovereignty over what, I ask? If the sovereignty of Parliament means anything, it means control over our economic affairs. But our economic affairs can no longer be controlled by the Government. We have lost the sovereignty of this country. Intellectuals talk about the preservation of our sovereignty, but nobody has asked whether we still have it. We do not have it. This country has transferred its sovereignty over economic affairs to the board rooms of private companies and PLCs. It is time that we woke up to that fact. Then perhaps, we can translate the principle that we have the ability to control our affairs into this Bill.

781
Unless people are provided with the means to go to the European Court, this Bill means nothing. I ask the Minister to give the matter some consideration. When that has been done, perhaps the Minister would consider bringing forward an amendment to Clause 4 in order to provide the wherewithal for ordinary people to claim their rights under the law.
Lord Woolf: I oppose the Question that Clause 4 stand part of the Bill. I suggest that it is an unnecessary and undesirable provision, particularly having regard to the amendments which have been made to earlier parts of the Bill. At Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Lester, was good enough to indicate that he thought that some consideration should be given to the terms of Clause 4 because of its width. It is my suggestion that the best course now is to drop Clause 4 as unnecessary.
Baroness Blatch: The Government too are unhappy about Clause 4, along with one or two other people in this Chamber. While the provisions of Clause 1 lie at the heart of the Government's objections to the Bill, the provisions of Clause 4 also cause considerable concern, particularly in terms of their creation of an automatic right of action for breach of statutory duty, whereby almost any actions by individual Ministers or public servants could be deemed open to challenge, irrespective of the fact that the provisions of the convention were intended to be binding upon governments and not upon individuals.
The Government retain very strong concerns about the provisions in Clause 4 and could not support the inclusion of the clause, although we shall not oppose it on this occasion.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: I hope that Mr. Tony Blair has the same ease in dropping Clause 4 from the constitution of his party as this Chamber has in persuading noble Lords to drop this Clause 4.
Perhaps I may briefly say something about the interesting speech of the noble Lord, Lord Sefton. Oddly enough, I have great sympathy with much of what he said. I have little sympathy with his attack on Charter 88. I am sure that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Searman, who chairs Charter 88, will be surprised to know that he is leading an out of touch body of that kind. I should like to remind the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, that a MORI poll, with which I and my colleagues had nothing whatever to do, was published in The Times a couple of weeks ago. It showed that the only measure of constitutional reform that has real popularity across the country is incorporation of the convention; 73 per cent. of the people want it. I do not know their class and I am not interested; but more than seven out of 10 want a Bill of this kind. It is therefore not some kind of ivory tower, intellectual, elitist, professorial measure. It is something that people want.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, that access to justice is extremely important, and if this were a government Bill and any government were crazy enough to ask me to be a member of it, for my part I should like to see a human rights commission in the Bill, able to take up cases of merit and fund them. I should like to see legal aid targeted in that way so that people of
782
limited means could have their cases taken up. I should like to see a director of civil proceedings able to take on public interest cases.
But this is a Private Member's Bill and, as the Committee is aware, there are inhibitions on what can be done. Even if it were not a Private Member's Bill, there are still limitations as to what can be done in relation to finance in a measure of this kind.
As I say, I have sympathy with the need to ensure access to justice, not only here but also in Strasbourg. However, that is not possible in the Bill. I can reassure the noble Lord that many working class people—they may not be people of whom the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, would approve—found remedies under the convention. For example, prisoners of various kinds; people seeking legal aid in Scotland who are denied it; a battered wife unable to obtain legal aid for a judicial separation in Ireland; a working-class man in Liverpool unable to obtain records about himself from Liverpool City Council. It is therefore not true that it is a charter for the rich, though I agree that at the moment the rich are more likely to be able to take advantage of it.
The problem with Clause 4 is that it purports to create a general constitutional tort. I recognise that the circumstances in which a Minister or public officer should be liable in tort will vary tremendously from case to case. In some cases one needs a mental element—misfeasance in public office; in some cases no mental element is present —an unlawful search and seizure, a trespass. The great defect in Clause 4 is that it fails to specify with enough particularity the circumstances in which public officers will be liable. I am comforted by the fact that by incorporating Article 13 of the convention into the law of the land, we shall be incorporating a requirement for the courts to fashion effective domestic remedies for violations of the convention. Speaking for myself I am content to leave it to the courts, using their discretionary powers in fashioning relief in judicial review cases, to fashion on a case by case basis appropriate discretionary remedies to give effect to Article 13. For those reasons I support everything which has been said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, in regard to the objections to Clause 4.
9.15 p.m.
Lord Hylton: Before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps he will consider at a later stage whether there should still be a reference to the right of individual petition, which should not be entirely lost sight of.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: The United Kingdom is committed on the international plane to ensuring the right of individual petition for everyone within its jurisdiction. I am glad to say that the Government recently ratified Protocol 11 to the convention, which will create a permanent right of access to a permanent court of human rights. That is one of the great steps forward that the Government have taken in the European protection of human rights. Now that we have ratified Protocol 11, which I anticipate will come into force within the next two years, it will no longer be possible for a future Parliament to take away that precious right

783
unless it delegates from the convention itself. If the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson of Lymington, will forgive me for saying so, that is something that no member state of the Council of Europe—none of the 34 from Turkey to Ireland —would wish to do. Indeed, they are queuing up to join.
Baroness Blatch: Before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I can say that from my own experience there is a great misconception among many people who believe that unless we have incorporation of the ECHR, somehow or other they do not enjoy its protection. I am not absolutely certain, nor am I convinced, that that point was properly understood when people on market squares and streets throughout the country were posed the question whether they agreed it was a good thing. Does not the noble Lord agree with me that the incorporation of the convention does not increase the protection of United Kingdom citizens; nor does it guarantee fewer referrals to the ECHR; nor does it minimise the cost and nor does it minimise waste of time or effort, as evidenced by the record of the countries where the ECHR has been incorporated in their law.
I hope that the noble Lord will agree that the Bill transfers power and influence from Parliament to the judiciary, in all its forms, making sometimes good decisions, sometimes bad decisions and sometimes decisions of indifference.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: The Minister asked a number of questions which I should like to answer briefly. First, on the issue of the transfer of power, the Bill transfers sovereignty back from Strasbourg to Westminster. By that, I mean that in 1966 when the Government allowed the right of petition and accepted the jurisdiction of the European Court over Parliament, as they did, they transferred sovereignty to Strasbourg. This Bill transfers sovereignty back to Parliament to enact a Bill to empower our judges on limited terms to provide local remedies. That is an affirmation of parliamentary sovereignty, not a denial of it. The Bill also gives effect to subsidiarity. It places our local institutions in the first line.
Secondly, the noble Baroness asked whether the Bill would improve the effective protection of human rights in this country. The answer is that it would, for this reason. It would mean that, where Ministers are given
784
broad powers in a parliament dominated by the Executive and they then violate the convention by disregarding its provisions in the exercise of those powers, the citizen will be able to get a speedy and effective local remedy. Advocates like me will no longer eat in Strasbourg and drink the delicious Alsatian wine, going to the European Court, because our clients will be able to get speedy, effective local remedies from British judges.
Therefore, I believe that this strengthens the protection. I have little doubt that ordinary men and women in this country are quite astonished that a modest mouse of a Bill —which is what it has become—can still be a Bill which the Government feel unable to support.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: The discussion goes far wide of Clause 4 and we are wasting time on incorporation. My noble friend Lady Blatch is absolutely right. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, is, in my view, absolutely wrong for the reasons that I have already given. We are talking about Clause 4 and not Alsatian wine.
Clause 4 negatived.
Clauses 5 and 6 agreed to.
Schedule 1 [The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms agreed by the Council of Europe at Rome on 4th November 1950 (as amended by the Third, Fifth and Eighth Protocols).]:
Lord Lester of Herne Hill Lord Lester of Herne Hill moved Amendment No. 11:
page 3, line 3, at beginning insert ("SECTION 1 OF").
The noble Lord said: I have already spoken to these technical amendments and have nothing to add. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill Lord Lester of Herne Hill moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 3, leave out line 5.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule 1, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 2 agreed to.
In the Title:
[Amendment No. 13 not moved.]
House resumed: Bill reported with amendments.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes past nine o'clock.

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  Crown Agents
  Road Fuel: Effect of Duty Increases on Demand
  Road Fuel: Effect of Duty Increases on Demand
  Churches: VAT on Repairs
  Churches: VAT on Repairs
  Works of Art: VAT on Sales
  Works of Art: VAT on Sales
  Domestic Fuel and Power: VAT Rate
  Domestic Fuel and Power: VAT Rate
  Anti-dazzle Road Barriers
  Anti-dazzle Road Barriers
  Secretary of State for Transport: Powers of Direction
  Secretary of State for Transport: Powers of Direction
  Churches: Repair and Maintenance
  Churches: Repair and Maintenance
  Pension Age Equalisation
  Pension Age Equalisation
  Net and Coble Fishing for Salmon
  Net and Coble Fishing for Salmon
  Waterways: Review of Navigation Functions
  Waterways: Review of Navigation Functions
  Docklands Light Railway: Extension to Lewisham
  Docklands Light Railway: Extension to Lewisham